Trying to live like no one else sucks!

Updates

2011-04-29T06:56:00.002-04:00

Last Friday my baby shower went so well. My very good friend and I spent all day making Martha Stewart Cupcakes for the party. We were up to our elbows in batter and dirty dishes.
The shower was beautiful and the games were fun. We played a sherrades game that made us crack up laughing the entire time. I ended up getting the crib yay!! I didn't take too many pictures because my cell phone camera isn't very good quality. I regret selling our digital camera it probably would have been super better. I got a lot of clothes, wipies and newborn size diapers.

Updates on the condo flood. There are no worries because everything is getting taken care of by our insurance company with a $500.00 deductible. The super upside is that last year we canceled our "appliance insurance" ($430.00 x year) we began paying that to ourselves so we have enough saved to cover the deductible, the plumbing bill, and some leftover. We are so glad we learned from Dave Ramsey about what kinds of insurances are stupid and which ones are necessary. This appliance insurance was a hoax! First of all our appliances did not break down enough to get our money's worth and second we had to pay a $50.00 deductible more when we needed the service. What a JOKE! Can you imagine paying these people so that your appliances never break down and they keep your money? Or you can pay yourself and put the money in a mututal fund so you can reap the interest and by the time your dishwasher breaks down there will be enough funds to buy a new one and with cash you have the power to talk the price down.
So far everything has been going smoothly and the pergo flooring is going to be entirely replaced so now we can having matching floors in every single room, yay!

Last wonderful news is we got our car sold! In one of my first blog posts I have a picture of the 1998 Hyundai Accent we purchased used and in cash. This area of Virginia doesn't have a strong transportation system so we needed an extra car when we moved here. We had the car listed for about a month on craigslist and ebay and last week someone bought it! We purchased it at $1600.00 with a couple of problems like a broken strut and cv axels. We got the strut and the brakes fixed then re-listed it for $1600.00. Our first offers were $1100.00, then $1350.00, and this buyer offered us $1500.00 almost all our money back!

This coming Tuesday the packing and moving company is coming to pick up our stuff. Little by little we're getting rid of more items. I found a couple more text books that I sold and in total we got $45.00, then Shane sold a car model toy for $17.00. We're making a couple bucks here and there.

We Got Screwed Over Big Time

2011-04-18T18:15:00.001-04:00

I had spoken too soon. We were hit with a huge emergency two weeks ago. There was a flood in our condo due to a clogged toilet and the tank was continuously running. The flood was so major it leaked into the car garage below. We were not very happy with how casual our property manager was handling everything. We were notified first by the HOA manager when you would think the tenants would have called our property manager straight away to get a plumber to stop the leak. How could they have let this leak go on so long that it flooded into the garage downstairs??? We were pretty frustrated that we didn't get any information on this catastrophe for another two days. When we finally got an answer from our property manager she didn't have any definite answers she still didn't know why or how the leak started, she didn't stop by to inspect what was damaged, she told us not to worry that the floors are wood anyway. YEAH, FAKE wood! Ugh we were so upset that this lady was taking everything so lightly, we didn't get our insurance adjuster out there until the weekend and by that time every square inch of the living room and hallway were damaged including the walls. Some of the bedrooms and kitchen were damaged. The company that needs to dry out the apartment is barely coming today, a whole two weeks later from the date of the flood. All in all the entire cost of the damages came out to $5,700.00. We do have insurance but it is still not good news because they will only cover up to $5,000.00.

We're going to have to pull from our emergency fund for the $700.00 and I am trying to figure out if the tenants are responsible for this flood because according to the plumber's report it is unknown why the toilet was clogged but it did say that the toilet water was running, so does that make it their fault? We don't have a buddy-buddy relationship with our P.M. and since the liability is blurred I fear she will side with the tenants and tell us it is our responsibility.
We are also not clear if the $5,700.00 estimate covers to replace the damages. Wow, I'm starting to get anxiety over the idea of how many thousands of dollars more we are unaware of.

On top of this financial crisis we are so super stressed about our move to San Diego that is coming up. Everything is happening the first week of May. I have finals, it's Shane's birthday, the mover's are scheduled to come, we've got to clean the apartment for inspection, pack our personal things, and that weekend is my flight home. I'll be glad when its all over.
On the bright side we did score a free crib, the Coast Guard is handling our move by packing everything for us while we watch and delegate. This weekend is "party" weekend ;) starting Thursday night we're going to a farewell for a kid at church who's going on a mission, Friday night is my baby shower, and on Saturday is our friend's kids birthday so I am definitely looking forward to hanging out, laughing, and eating some junk food.

Tuesday April 19th 2011
Yesterday after I wrote this post I came home and my husband had spoken with our insurance adjuster about how we were trying to comprehend our policy. From what we understand our policy covers up to $5,000.00 of flood damages and since our total estimate is $5,700.00 we told her we were really worried if that covered replacement and labor. Then she told him not to worry, everything is being covered, Everything. I was so relieved when Shane told me but he still didn't get a clear answer as to why our policy says they will only cover up to 5 grand if they are covering a bit more? So once again I am a super happy camper, although I wish I could be there to pick out new wall colors and floor pergo.

Setting Goals

2011-04-12T16:39:00.005-04:00

I enjoyed reading the Get Rich Slowly website about setting goals and what they had to say of course made some sense. This week I finally accomplished my goal to sign up for the WIC program and saving on groceries is a small help to my bigger goal which is to save for Baby Step 3 (3-6 months of savings). One key step I'm missing is setting a time frame. I need to sit down with Shane and talk about how much money we should put away every month in order to accomplish our goal. As of right now there is no particular amount we designate for it. I kind of make it a last priority because I really want to add most of the $ to the Condo Improvement fund but now I've been thinking my priorities are probably not in order. It's just so difficult because if I choose to make Baby Step 3 a top priority over my goal to remodel my kitchen then I won't be able to enjoy a functional beautiful kitchen while we're living in our condo over the next three years. Another pro to getting the kitchen remodeled is it will increase the net worth of the condo. What to do?

I've been following the Organizational Wizard's 30 day challenge and on Day 9 it said to organize your garage but since I don't have a garage I have a storage and we spent all day cleaning that closet out! The piles of boxes were about 7 feet tall when we started and by the time we finished our stack of boxes minimized to about 4 feet. We got rid of a bunch of books, painting supplies, and other stuff that we never used. Thanks to another blog that I read called My Life of Spending Less and Living More she introduced me to an application on Turbo Tax that records everything you donate and if you file on Turbo Tax all your information automatically transfers over. So far she has recorded $1,028.00 that she will get to deduct on her income taxes next year. I found 5 more text books that I will try to sell online this weekend and hopefully get $20.00 bucks for each.
Today's challenge is to clean out your glove box but since I'm trying to sell my car (because Shane and I are thinking we can survive with one car in San Diego) the glove box AND my car are currently clean. We had a potential buyer come look at it on Saturday but no luck.

This week I finally signed up for WIC, can you believe that? Learning about the WIC stereotypes growing up, I never thought I'd ever be a participant of WIC. Learning more about WIC and knowing some friends who use it I have signed up and will be going to my first meeting on Thursday. The two of us definitely go through milk as if it were water, cheese is a definite staple in our diet like grilled cheese sandwhiches, bean and cheese burritos, apples with cheese, pizza bread (slice of cheese and tomato sauce on toast). So I guess WIC will be a good help. Right now we average about $350.00 for groceries a month, we'll see how much my costs will go down.

The latest event is my Baby Shower!! I am super grateful that my friends from church insisted on throwing me a baby shower before I leave to my homeland (CA). They are so sweet. One of them took me to the fabric store to pick out some patterns for crib bedding as a gift. I was shopping online to get ideas on what I wanted and they averaged out to $150.00-$500.00. Super expensive. I got to choose three different patterns and last night I went over to see her work in progress. It looked amazingly super cute!! I really love the way its coming out. The colors compliment each other so well. I had chosen a modern rainbow and tree pattern as the main component then I picked out yellow, blue and green fabrics so that it would be unisex and so it will save money by using it for all my kids. Then I am getting a breast pump and car seat from my sister, a PEG-PEREGO stroller (HEEEYY!) from my very good friend who is also throwing my shower, another friend had an extra crib that I might have scored but I'll post updates. I am so excited and feel super loved.

Here I am 27 weeks and this Thursday April 14th I'll be 28. 7 months down 3 more to go

We Need College Degrees

2011-04-06T18:14:00.097-04:00

If you hadn't noticed Shane is pretty much the master keeper of all our budgets and the savings accounts. I just help spend it. Just kidding, since I'm a member of the budget committee I get to vote on how the money should be distributed. Shane's salary and my meager part-time job wages are not enough to get to our 3-6 month savings goal as quick as we'd like.
In order to start investing and making real money we need to kick-start this fund. Shane's friend told him about this guy name Scott Alexander who is now a millionaire. He's a motivational speaker, and he talks about how he made lots of money and is super rich but never would had taken the risks of investing if he didn't have two years of income saved up.

We now have come to the point where we really need to get school done to reach our goal quicker. If for the rest of our lives we made the average annual income which is currently $40,000.00 we wouldn't be millionaires until we retired. Which seems like such a bummer because we want to "live it up" as soon as possible, you know? We researched military salaries and to earn under $90,000 salary in the military Shane would need to put in 38 freakin years in the service if he remained enlisted. If he had a degree and applied to be an officer it would take less time to make an $80,000 salary. We discussed the topic and our goal is to work toward careers that start off at $70,000 a year hopefully even higher.

We decided we're not going to stay in the military, we feel that there are way more options to get a higher salary faster with a college degree than trying to climb the ladder in the Coast Guard. We do love the Coast Guard and we are so grateful for Shane's job and the fact that it has helped us map out our life and delivered us into the hands of the almighty financial guru Dave Ramsey.

Shane has decided to pursue a career in accounting or as a financial advisor because he fell in love with this new financial journey we are on and plugging in numbers and calculating savings. He definitely would like to help others who are struggling to get their finances in order. As for me I wanted to get my bachelors in architecture but I didn't do outstanding in highschool. I was accepted into Cal Poly Pomona but I wasn't accepted into the Architecture program so I tried out a year at a private architecture school in San Diego. After taking Dave Ramsey's Financial class I realized that I would have dragged my poor husband $130,000 into debt with no ideas on how I would pay it back. In order to afford a college tuition my plans changed and I have been accepted to the interior design program at San Diego State University (80% funded by financial aid). My ultimate goal is to do a great job at SDSU so that I can get into a master's program for architecture and help speed up our goal to "Live like no one else"

Savings Here and There

2011-04-06T16:58:00.004-04:00

We have been purchasing a lot from on-line. Our rear drivers side window has a broken regulator (which looks like a cheap plastic $5.00 barrel for a skate board) and it isn't sold seperately from the entire motor which is $150.00 retail price. For months we have tried to find the regulator on-line. The junk yard would only sell me the entire motor for $75.00. Finally last night on Amazon we accepted that we had to buy the whole motor so we looked for the cheapest price. We found it for $48.00 and the best part is that we had $25.00 of Amazon credit from selling them a textbook. In the end we only had to spend $26.00 from our "Car Repair" fund. Yay!
Next we bought Microsoft office 2008 for MAC at an e-bay auction for $52.00. The savings comes from choosing an older version which works just as well as 2011.

Back in July Shane bought a laptop and with the computer came a promotion which was to purchase an H.P. printer for a full rebate. The printer was $100.00 and the rebate was for $100.00, "FREE PRINTER" was flashing through Sweetheart's mind. I was thinking why the heck did he fall for that scam when we already have a printer. What are we going to do with two printers? We don't even have one office. Sure buying things that offer a rebate is fine if you really want the item but we didn't need another printer. It urks me because if they are going to return us the full amount anyway, why don't they just do it right then and there? I am guessing since nothing is free, they probably are making some kind of profit for themselves first before they return the money. Basically we gave Apple a free loan without charging them interest.
Last month, I ate my words because our initial printer had broken down after 2 years. That was one less thing to spend money on.

Right now I'm looking for tools and furniture from Craigslist because we are getting closer to the time when we move back into our condo. The military movers are packing up our stuff in Virginia on May 3rd and shipping it out. Meanwhile I've been planning how to set up our condo so that we can accomodate a new baby. I'm deciding on what furniture to keep and what we should get to make our condo more functional with our new addition.

I have accumulated a list like; I want a day bed with a trundle for the guest/baby room. I'm storing away our home-made office desk. The nook in our living room Shane installed shelves for needs to be re-adjusted from housing our entertainment to an office nook. I so badly want to replace our kitchen counter top so that we have an up-graded, leveled, eye-appealing kitchen. I want to replace the corner base cabinet with one that has a lazy susan so that its a functional cabinet. I want new summer curtains for every room, a new bedding and pillows, a living room chair or two. In order to get this goal accomplish I gotta make a wish list prioritize from most important to least and keep saving money to purchase this stuff in cash.

With a list like mine Shane has given me a "Condo Improvement" Fund and we have to decide how to make every dollar stretch by doing the remodeling ourselves or buying used.

Saving for Family Visits

2011-04-06T16:17:00.002-04:00

Back in September (I think) Shane's sister Azure said she was planning on coming to visit us in April to go to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C.
We got to preparing for her visit straight away. We set a goal to save at least $500.00 to spend on a hotel, transportation, and food. Every month we put away some money to the Cherry Blossom Fund. When the time got closer to April, we hadn't really heard from Azure about her decision to come so we called her and it just so happened that lucky girl is going to Hawaii instead. (Shooot, I'd take a trip to Hawaii instead of D.C. anytime.)
So in March we saw that we had saved $546.00 cash!! and our next step was to decide what to do with it.
What would you do if you had an extra $546.00 cash laying around?

Since I applied to San Diego State University and was accepted :) I now have a $400.00 admission fee to pay. Instead of pulling from our $1,000.00 emergency fund we are using the Cherry Blossom Fund to pay for my fee. Whoopie!

My Mom's Visit:
Since October we had known my mom was coming to visit us in March but for some reason we didn't put 2 and 2 together until January when we realized we need some money in order to be proper hosts for my mom. Well we put little money to the "mammasita" fund and I believe we saved up $340.00 for her visit.
I took her to Jamestown where the ships of Captain John Smith landed and colonized. There they had tours of replica's of the English settlement, the ships and the Indian villages. Volunteers were dressed up in clothing of the era. We went to Williamsburg, there they have a preserved historic 1800's downtown. We both took her to Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's Estate) in Charlottesville, VA. We went shopping and out to eat, but the lady would not let us pay for anything (I love you mom). We spent one day sewing seat cushions.
Out of the $340.00 we spent about half because my mom would not let us pay. We had to be sneaky and give the waiter our credit card when she wasn't looking in order to pay for the bill.
Cash leftover: $146.00

Where We Stand Today

2011-04-06T15:39:00.005-04:00

Dear Financial Journal,

Lately Life hasn't been a whirlwind of events that are getting us closer to

"Living like no one else so later we CAN live like no one else."

Since paying off our debt all we've been doing with our money is saving it and deciding where it should be spent. In other words putting a name on every dollar so that we never question "where did we spend all our money?" Shane has been really excited to see how much our savings has grown. The other day he looked at his retirement fund that he started back in Septmeber (I believe but not exactly sure) and it has reached the $1,000.00 mark. We have our Baby Step 1, $1,000.00 emergency fund in place and we are blessed that it hasn't been touched in a while (Thank you Heavenly Father for blessing us with no emergencies). Aside from our Baby Step 1, and our 3-6 month savings, we have an extra $1,500.00 as a cushion to back up our checkings, thanks to the "pesky old lady" Sallie May. Here's why:

Shane tried to pay his student loan in November and the stinkin loan company withdrew the money TWICE! Causing us overdraft fees and a headache of trying to sort through the problem with our bank and them. Because of them we keep that money in the savings account that checkings will withdraw from without fees if this ever were to happen again.

Anyway, so I have given you the picture of how much money we have accrued since paying off our debt. Our current focus is to get Baby Step 3 done which is our 3-6 month cash savings.

When we got our tax money we split it 3 ways (I believe). I know that we fulfilled 1 of the 6 month savings. In order to accomplish this goal and not feel like it's going to take forever to reach, we split the 6 months in 2 so our mindset right now is that we knocked 1 month down and have 2 more months to go.

Then a portion of our taxes went to the "Condo Improvement fund" and the last of it went to "Baby Prep Fund". It felt really good to be able to designate this money to our hearts desire and not because we needed to pay someone. I'm looking forward to replacing the kitchen countertop.

Another thing that has been blurring my focus is my friend's new car. My co-worker has just bought a new car and there's been all this talk about new cars, new cars, and searching on craigslist for cars we can potentially afford, but I have to STOP and not get sucked into the mindset of wanting a newer car. Some people would say our car is old and that we need a newer car for the new baby but there is no way we are going to pull from other funds to buy a newer car.

Latest update: We are in the process of opening mutual funds with American Funds. One for a new car and another Mutual fund for a house. According to http://www.associatedcontent.com/ the average household car payment a month is $400.00 which is how much we will be paying ourselves (NOT the car dealer) beginning in May. Who knows, our income tax next year might get us faster to a newer car.

Turned in the Garage

2011-03-11T16:44:00.000-05:00

This month in our attempts to live a frugal life we turned in the gargae we were renting. For $125.00 a month we rented a garage from the apt. complex where we stored our outdoor equipment like bikes, snowboards, surfboards, car stuff, and kept our cars safe from the summer heat and the icy winter. We got rid of it for the extra cash because the renters in our San Diego property moved out and we had to quickly find new tennants but at a lower rent rate.
I guess it was a luxury that we didn't really need, but it was nice to not have a frozen car in the mornings, and a designated parking spot close to our apartment in case all the public parking spots were taken. We also liked that our home wasn't cluttered with our outdoor equipment. Now we have a random bike in our bedroom that serves as a clothes rack, a tasteful decor of snowboards above our kitchen cubboards that don't look tacky at all (sarcasm), and a couple of cardboard boxes sprinkled here and there.

Selling Some of the Clutter

2011-02-21T10:45:00.001-05:00

See this pile of text books that do not have a home and just clutter my drawing table? These are the books that the stinkin school bookstore didn't want to buy back for whatever screwed up reason (if you can't tell I'm really mad about it).
So then we get stuck with these dumb general ed books and I tried to sell them to students on campus but I've had no success.

So I've been putting it off but finally I've sat down and searched through many websites that buy back books and I had to sell my books to different websites in order to find the best prices like when your searching for the better deals at different grocery stores.
First I used www.bookbyte.com because it offered the most money for my english text but then I realized that it didn't offer the most for my other texts. So I went to amazon but they only give you store credit. www.bigwords.com is like a search engine and they'll find the websites for you instead of searching one by one. From there it led me to www.betterworldbooks.com for the best price for another book.

While Shane finished making pancakes for breakfast :) I sold 3 books for a total of $45.50 cash and 25.58 in amazon credit.

Our Electric Bill Went Down

2010-10-21T20:50:00.000-04:00

"You have received an eBill from Dominion Electric for account 0000000000 in the amount of $45.35. This bill is due on 11/09/2010. The due date stated is for your current charges only. If the amount due includes a previous balance, those charges may now be past due. If you pay by automatic bank draft, your payment will be made on your scheduled draft date. Please use the link below to sign in to view your bill for additional information."

Can you believe it???!!! Our electric bill was at $135.00 in August of 2010, then $119.00 in September, and now it is $45.35!!! I am so excited. We didn't suffer too much. We would bump the A.C. lower than 78 degrees when we had guests over. Beside that, we kept the A.C. at a constant 77/78 degrees Fahrenheit, I had the fan following me everywhere. We never turned on the lights in the day. We stuck to the natural sunlight that flowed through my windows. I had stopped using the dishwasher. period! I quit using the dryer except for drying blankets. I somehow found time to hang up the laundry and wash the dishes.
I unplugged everything in the household especially every kitchen appliance. I unplugged our phone chargers every single minute they weren't charging our phones.

I put a power strip in our entertainment center.

Every single cord from the T.V., the X-box, to the radio was plugged into the power strip. Every time we finished using the entertainment center we turned off the power strip. Yes it re-set our clock on the radio and what not but we didn't care.

As well as the office, every single cord was plugged into the power strip and once we finished printing or using the computer, we turned off the power strip and every time we need to use it we dive under the desk to turn it on. Hey, a $90.00 savings does not make this ritual a hassle to me.

You Have a Right to Splurge... (NOT)

2010-10-20T11:01:00.002-04:00

U

I love love love Desperate housewives. Marc Cherry wrote this episode especially for me. It's episode 3 of this new season called Truly Content. Teri Thatcher plays Susan, and last season ended with her finding out that her husband was $50,000 into debt. As a team they made the decision to rent out their house and move into a crummy apartment and live off of scraps in order to pay back his debt. At their apartment complex Susan's neighbor runs a cleaning business, but not the average kind. The maids in her business wear lingerie while they clean their own apartment as they are streamed live through a web cam. When Susan got a job offer she turned it down, but once she learned how much money it pays she was on board. As time goes by she is making a lot of money and getting really good at the job. Later on she wins a bonus for having the highest ratings out of all the girls. The Madam (business owner) tells her how hardworking she is and that she should treat herself to something nice, after all, she has the extra cash.
Coincidentally Susan and Mike's anniversary is that weekend and she asks him to take her to that really fancy place to celebrate and she assures him they have enough to pay for it.
Then in the laundry room she meets one of the other girls who works for the Madam. This competitive girl threatens Susan for winning the bonus and accuses her of stealing her signature move. Susan breaks into the woman's house to toy with her vacuum cleaner so that it will blow up in her face the next time she uses it. They get into a fight and the Madam makes them apologize. Once they apologize the competitive girl tells her she wanted the bonus so badly because she's trying to save up enough money to move back home to Virginia, (where I currently live) and she feels like she barely makes enough to get by. Then Susan said, "When I broke into your house I saw that you had a really nice things like a new flat screen t.v., a closet full of new clothes, it doesn't look like you're barely scraping by" the competitive girl replies, "I know, I just like to splurge every once in a while" and Susan says, "Yeah I get that" thinking of the plans she made to go to the fancy restaurant. Then they talked about their determination to save up enough for their goals by the end of the year and be finished with the lingerie cleaning business.
So then Susan asks the competition girl "How long have you been doing this" the girl thinks about it, and says she's going on 6 years and she didn't even realize. That's when it clicked for Susan. She doesn't want six years to go by and still be stuck in that scandalous cleaning business and not out of debt all because it's nice to splurge every once in a while.
When she gets home she tells her husband Mike that she prefers to order in Chinese for their anniversary rather than going out to the expensive French Restaurant.
Lately I've lost my focus on our goals to save and getting to baby step #7 which is building wealth. I have to remember that once I reach Baby Step #7 then I can splurge every once in a while. I really liked this comment my most beautiful sister left that summed up my blog.
"We truly live in an entitled society when it is engrained in us that splurging every now and again is not only our reward but our RIGHT for working so hard. And what does it get us? It just puts us another step back into debt." -Irene Pacheco

We Broke into the Emergency Fund

2010-10-18T21:26:00.000-04:00

This is a picture of our Baby Step 1 the $1000.00 dollar emergency fund. The stack on the right is going to pay the mechanic and the other stack is the remaining total.
It all started with our friend Jack who borrowed our car to go to D.C. for the last time.
We got a call when he was about 50 miles away when something happened to the car and it began to slow down on its own. We called our road side assistance had the car towed back to our apartment. We don't blame Jack because the car would have broken down eventually since it's 14 years old. We're just glad that we weren't the ones stranded in the middle of a trip. For example we had plans to go to D.C. this past weekend and if Jack hadn't taken the car it would have happened to us on our way there which would have been a stressful experience.
Monday came and Shane took it to a shop one of our friends recommended. They diagnosed the car and said that the spark plugs were out which caused the ignition coil to blow up. We were thinking that it sounded like an expensive job to replace an ignition coil. Total cost of everything was $342.00. According to my sister she said that was cheap. According to me who hasn't had much experience with car repair, I thought it was expensive. It killed us to have to turn in 17 Andrew Jacksons ($20 dollar bills) of hard cold cash, but we're thankful that we had an emergency fund for cases like this.

There's Something About Millionaires

2010-10-18T09:12:00.005-04:00

We've made more friends!! This particular friend of Shane's has a bachelors in economy and he sent us a cool version of a budget system he made up plus some millionaire facts. He and his wife haven't heard of Dave Ramsey but they are on the road to repaying debt.

A couple of lesser known facts I think you'll find interesting: (answers down below)

1-The type of car the average millionaire drives?

2-How much does the average millionaire make a year?

3-How do rich people get rich?

Answers:

1- a used car

2- $50,000/year (remember, being a millionaire means someone has $1 million dollars)

3- rich people pay themselves first, meaning they put money aside for their savings, retirement, Roth IRA's, etc, as soon as they get paid, instead of paying bills first then putting whatever little left into savings as most people do. Often times what is left is not much if anything at all, and people will spend that amount., never building wealth for their future.

It's so Aweful to be the Flake

2010-10-11T00:02:00.000-04:00

I feel absolutely terrible for letting some people down because I had made all kinds of plans for the month without realizing "hello!! You kind of have a budget to take into account"
First of all in the month of September we gave ourselves $150.00 for entertainment but only spent about $100.00. For October we lowered our fund to $100.00.
The local amusement park hosts a halloween fest just like Knotts Scary Farm in southern CA which is an anual tradition I love to do with friends. We decided to go to the fest for home-sick sake and we were so lucky to be friends with someone who works there who gave us a major discount on our tickets about $17.00 cheaper, plus she took work off to be able to go so those plans were set in stone totaling up to $92.00, leaving $8.00 leftover in the entertainment envelope.
Next on the list was a pumpkin party we had already planned for about 2 weeks in advance with our close friends the Dayrits.
At school I joined the Ballroom dance club and we're always encouraged to go to the Mambo Room a dance studio/club on Friday nights which is $10.00 per person. I began getting a group together and planning for us all to meet at my house and carpool together. But then I went home and calculated that our $100.00 dollars in our entertainment envelope was not going to cover our halloween fest tickets $92.00, our pumpkins for the party $5.00 and $10.00 cover charge for the Mambo Room multiplied by 2 is $20.00. Man! Why didn't we keep the same budget from last month $150.00?
In order to stay under our budget I had to cancel on the Mambo Room because it wasn't a pre-planned event and what made it worse was because I was the coordinator the one organizing the function. Oh well, i texted the 3 girls and said that I was really really sorry for being a flake and I told them the truth which was I didn't have enough money to afford it. Luckily 2 out of the 3 girls said they weren't going to make it anyway.
Shane was really happy I canceled because it had been a while since we stayed home on a Friday night and watched movies. Yup, we rented from redbox and used our coupon we recieved on account of being new Virginia residents to order a free medium pizza. Friday night = $2.12
Saturday night: $5.00

Sunday=$0.00
Invited friends from church over to play games
Total for the Entertainment Envelope:
$100.00
- 92.00 - halloween fest
- 5.00- pumpkins
- 2.12-redbox
__
$0.88 leftover

Our Second Budget meeting

2010-10-09T09:33:00.000-04:00

For some reason our first budget meeting was quicker than the last. We started Saturday morning at 10:30am then I went to work and left Shane continuing the budget. When I got back at around 4:30 he was still there and we finished up the budget together at 5:30. It took us 7 hours, but now that we made up rules about our budget and figured out some confusing details, this will save us some time next month.
In our picture we are at the business office of our apartment complex using its free wi-fi internet.

What also made our budget take forever was calculating how much money was leftover from the month of September which is the first month we started our envelope system and Dave Ramsey's Zero Balance budget. Don't let the "Zero" scare you. The "Zero" doesn't mean that the budget is like one of those diets where you just have to starve yourself till you're crippled. It doesn't mean that you don't have to buy milk because water is good enough. NO! The "Zero" means that at the end of the budget you know exactly where all your money is supposed to go. "Every dollar has a name." as Dave Ramsey suggests. The point is to have a spot for each dollar so they don't get lost in the "black hole of spending". (See the link at the end of the post to get the budget sheet).

I am pleased to report our left over amount was about $220.00 dollars. Our budget is organized in 3 columns over three pages, so while we were punching in the numbers into the calculator from the different pages it seemed to give us a different answer every time making us re-calculate over and over again. It was pretty frustrating because it was all on human error. But now we have an excel spreadsheet that we will begin using next month which will calculate the math for us. In the picture the book in front of me is our Dave Ramsey work book that has the budget worksheets we use to make our budget. The book between Shane and I is a calender book my sister-in-law Debbie gave me for free. We use that calender to keep track of the bills that come in. Every single bill we get in the mail we immediately record it in the book in red. On the correct date that it's due we write in the name of the company and how much is due.With a blue or black ink pen we write notes or our account numbers and passwords we have for each company like Sprint, Electricity, etc. As we pay our bills we use a highlighter to highlight the ones payed so that we keep track of what has been payed and what has not. This calendar book has also helped keep a record of how much our bills average out to so that we can keep track of anyone ripping us off and calculate our 3-6 month emergency savings. The orange box is a file book where we file all off our receipts by month.

Since we payed off our debt last month we now get to put the $300.00 dollars that were assigned to the debt columns in September toward our baby step #3 which is making a 3-6 month emergency fund in case we were to be out of work. But wait..... since we decided to take a trip to D.C. in April we re-directed some of the $300.00 dollars to save up money for that, and we also had to use some of that money for our other envelopes. In the end we are putting $200.00 dollars away for Baby Step 3.

Click here to get the Zero Balance Budget spreadsheet

2010-10-07T22:01:00.001-04:00

We're too cheap to buy text books. Shane checks out his math book from the library and sneaks pictures of his homework assignments.

Fun Weekend = $0.00

2010-10-07T18:54:00.002-04:00

This last weekend was wonderful. We've found that being involved in clubs and sports and making friends has given us things to do on weekends that cost less compared to our boring expensive weekends in the past.

Well this past Friday we went out to dinner with our friends at TGI Fridays then we had a fun game night playing Famous People (thank you Laura for teaching us that game). Shane and I scored on a free dinner at TGI Friday's because we had let our friend Jack use our car the past weekends and he wanted to pay for our dinner in return.
After dinner we played a couple of rounds of a game called Famous People at our friends' house. Famous People is a really fun charades type of game that Shane's sister in law Laura taught us. We had so much fun. We spent a total of $0.00 dollars last Friday.

Saturday we decided to buckle down and make our budget for the month of October.
Saturday night the girls got together and gamed it up totaling $0.00 dollars again.
On Sunday we had an amazing conference. I got up early to prep for our dinner that evening because we were having the missionaries and our neighbors over. Then, since we don't have internet at our place, we watched the first session of conference at the church building. We went from there to have lunch with a family from church who'd invited us over for food and the last session of conference. We had a whole Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, mash potatoes, stuffing, rolls. Very delicious food and amazing company. There were two families, another couple our age with no kids, and us. We had so much fun chit chatting, making jokes, hanging out, it was really awesome getting to know our new friends. We watched the 2nd session of conference and we were off to our house to get ready for our dinner. When our guests came over we ate and played games afterward.
Over all our weekend didn't cost very much. We played a lot of the same games and the environment was someone's home, but what made it so much fun is that we got to hang out with different groups of people every time and had good conversations. I always think about the conversation in "Eat Pray Love" when some Italian is explaining to the main character Elizabeth how Americans pass time always looking or wanting entertainment. We as Americans can't sit still. Apparently the Italian lifestyle is to sit and do nothing, just talk, eat, and stay local. This has helped me to realize that if I'm not spending my weekends traveling, site seeing, going to shows, eating out at restaurants, doing something different to identify that it's a weekend, well, it's OK because I can relax and enjoy life with simple activities, good company, and of course my husband.

Way to Go Mom!

2010-09-28T21:02:00.002-04:00

In a previous post called "The Crazy Ideas You Get When You're Penny Pinching"

I talked about thinking creatively for times when there isn't enough funds to buy what you need. For example in my situation I ran out of conditioner and the conditioner in Costco's coupon book was out of stock. So instead of buying a different brand at regular price I went home and looked through my travel bag and found a bottle filled with a good amount of conditioner to get us by until Costco got a new shipment.
SO.....when I got this e-mail from Mom this week I was so excited I wanted to share it on my blog.

"I tried to post this on your blog but it wouldn't post. I just wanted to thank you guys sooo much for your inspiration. I ran out of contact lens solution and I remembered your blog about being out of shampoo. I went straight to my travel bag... problem solved. I don't have to use money I don't have for this month and I'll get by for the next few days. (Plus I won't buy the extra things I might have also picked up while purchasing my solution.. I have a long way to go). Keep it up guys!!!

xoxo

Mom

Yay! So proud of you Mom. On this note, Shane and I are still newly married. We don't have every house hold item. I wanted a soap dish and a spoon thing where you rest your spoons while you're cooking. I could have gone to the Goodwill but I took a look around at what I had and I found my old Tea Set. I took this little boat that holds the sugar and the cream to use as a soap dish and I took the cookie plate to use as a spoon dish. I loved to play with that Tea Set as a little girl so everyday when I look at my items, it brings back good memories of my Tea Set.
here are some of our updates:
Our electricity bill last month was a shocking $135.00, this month it went down to $119.00, we're hoping it will continue to go down to under $100.00
I haven't made fresh squeezed orange juice since that last post, I bought $ Simply Orange Juice from the Bottom Dollar.
We've decided to sell the MacMini which is an apple computer the size of a C.D. with the thickness of five stacked on top of each other. We bought it for about $700.00 in January and we're hoping to receive enough money from the sale to buy one of those professional cameras with the lens. Or road bikes.

There Will Be Disputes about the Envelopes

2010-09-28T21:02:00.001-04:00

This week I wanted so bad to eat at Panera. I was really sick last Tuesday and I was talking to Shane about whether or not it was ok to use money from the Entertainment Envelope to eat at Panera because we were at ZERO dollars in our restaurant envelope. He said NO. I was like, “but I’m really sick and it would make me feel better.” He said NO. I tried again, “But there’s only one more weekend left in the month and we’re not doing anything expensive so I know there will be money leftover in the envelope.” He said NO. Then I do what my 4 year old niece did when she was 2. I put on a face of painful desperation and whined “PLEASE” When Shane said No again I said please right after that and again and again. I lost that battle but I understand why Shane was holding his ground and I knew he was right. We had spent all that there was in the restaurant envelope, and we’re not going to be successful if we give into any temptation we have. This little tantrum took place Tuesday and Shane knew that I was going to Panera on Saturday with the women from church so that’s another reason why he didn’t cave in.
I didn't do very well with the envelopes toward the end of the month. We went $17.71 dollars negative in the Groceries, and 6.33 dollars negative in the Blow Money Envelope. We had $41.84 dollars to spare in the Gas Envelope, and $56.02 in the Entertainment Envelope. Last night when we looked over all our envelopes we decided for the next month that we are going to have to add more to Restaurants and Groceries, less in Entertainment, less in toiletries, less in Gas, and add a new envelope called Personal Envelopes.
Now this new idea is Shane's. He wants for each of us to have our own $20.00 to spend on anything guilt free. He is going to use that to save up for his video games, occasionally buy lunch at Subway or I could use it to get my nails done. As he was explaining this new concept I said..."But that's what the blow envelope is for, and that's what the restaurant envelope is for, or Entertainment." Then his logic was, our envelopes are for our family and video games are not entertainment for the whole family nor is going to the nail salon. We're going to try it. If this new envelope works out we will keep it. I still think it's considered Blow Money and maybe we can just say that the Blow Envelope should be split in half for each of us to do as we please with our own half of the money.
Dave guarantees that there's going to be fights when you first do the budget together and create your envelope system. When we didn't agree on certain details we began to bicker, and started speaking forcefully trying to push the words out through clenched teeth. One would say, "you're not on the same page as me," while the other would get frustrated because their logic was misunderstood. Getting this envelope system straight was pretty tough on us. Luckily,our meeting didn't turn into a serious fight when we didn't see eye to eye because we're not stubborn with each other or too proud to say sorry. We had to be patient and realize that after one is done giving their suggestions then the other can layout ideas too. In the end we got every one of our concerns taken care of and we ended our heated discussion on a good note because we went to bed cuddling.

About My Blog in a Nutshell

2010-09-25T01:20:00.004-04:00

Dave Ramsey is our man! He doesn't believe in debt. He was super wealthy at 26 years old,

net worth 4 million but he had loans, credit cards, everything that led him to bankruptcy.

He and his wife struggled so hard to get back on their feet they decided to never be at the

mercy of these debt providers, and loan suppliers. He says that credit scores should be called debt scores. It doesn't matter how much money you make, your FICO score and credit card report are all about how well you can manage debt. These credit card companies have gotten so good at brainwashing you to think that it's normal to have debt making you want their debt cards. Everyone thinks it's normal to take out student loans, loans for cars, but it's not true. YOU MUST BE IN DEBT IN ORDER TO BE APPROVED in this world. We say, NO THANK-YOU!! Shane and Ericka will not PLAY THEIR GAME!! It's a major scam and we are so grateful to be taught by Dave Ramsey not to owe these people money because when you do, you are a SLAVE TO THE LENDER. We are practicing to buy absolutely everything in cash, how to save up money to make it grow through investments and mutual funds in order to purchase everything we could ever want in CASH!

Our goal is not anything extravagant or charitable, we just want to be rich and take vacations, live in a nice house, drive nice cars, take care of our parents, retire early, and just live a comfortable life in San Diego, CA. THE END

Spendy Sally vs. Savey Susie

2010-09-25T01:18:00.005-04:00

This week was pretty hard, I had difficult battles with my spending and saving angels. Spendy Sally was like, “just buy it, who cares if the envelope is empty borrow from the entertainment envelope.” Or she’ll say “Don’t worry about it, you’ll make it up next time you get paid.” It’s just so hard to ignore her and listen to Savey Susie because she says, “Don’t buy it, yes the item can be handy to have, but you don’t need it today.” Or she’ll say, “If you don’t listen to me you’ll never be able to learn how to save and get rid of your bad habit to buy on impulse, which leads to debt.”

Dave’s Five Keys to Gaining Power Over Your Purchases is:

1. Waiting OVERNIGHT before making a purchase

2. Carefully considering your buying MOTIVES. No amount of STUFF equals contentment or fulfillment.

3. Never buying anything you do not UNDERSTAND

4. Considering the “OPPORTUNITY COST” of your money

5. Seeking the COUNSEL of your spouse. (If you’re single ask someone to hold you accountable for your expenses)

Today I decided to run errands again. On my list I had to pick up dry cleaning, mosquito repellent burners, and I thought I’ll just get some bread from the grocery store but that’s it. That is all I’m buying I shouldn’t spend more then $10.00. I head over to the dollar tree and that store is AWESOME!!! Now that I’m thinking cheap there’s all kinds of good stuff in there. As I’m looking for the mosquito things I pass by the Halloween decoration and grab this, this, and that. Then I go down every single isle and I grab a fruit cutting board which is on my list. Chips, cookies, 3 gifts for my dog, a napkin holder (also on my list), I manage to get everything else except what I came there for. So my Spending Angel, Spendy Sally is telling me to get all this stuff but Savey Susie says, “STOP, Take a look at what you have and how much is left in the envelopes. You have things that can wait to be purchased when you re-fill the envelopes on pay-day.” “So take half of the 15 items in your cart, put them back and I will only allow you to get what you need for the party tonight which can be purchased from the entertainment envelope since it is a weekend entertainment.” I ended up spending $4.63 for everything rather than $15.00 and Savey Susie wins that round! Ding Ding Ding Ding Dingggg. Next I needed to buy 1 loaf of bread. When I go into the grocery store on my way to the bread I pass by cans of sloppy Joe, I pass by the chips, and the ice cream, I see the hamburger buns I need for sloppy Joes, I also buy Mexican cookies, orange juice, eggs, until finally at the very back of the store where they hide the bread on purpose, I got the bread I wanted and went to pay. This time Savey Susie lost. I didn’t need the sloppy Joe because I had hamburger helper at home, I didn’t need hamburger buns I could have used loaf bread, I didn’t need Mexican cookies, and looking back on what I bought, I really regret not thinking it through this time like I did at the dollar store. Advice for next time: Do not shop when you’re rushed and go straight to the item you’re looking for.

Answer to Questions

2010-09-25T00:50:00.006-04:00

Our beautiful sister Azure had some really good questions

1. How do you budget for the items on the right? Do You just carry over the envelope amounts from the previous months?

a. Yes, we do carry over the envelopes amount. For example clothes. When we sat down to think about how much money we were going to give each envelope we looked at clothes and tried to remember how often we shop for clothes and we also took into account our budget to see how much money we had leftover after paying tithing, savings, rent, utilities. Lets say we had $1,000.00 leftover so we divided that up into Entertainment, Gas, Groceries, clothes, housewares, gifts, cosmetics, haircuts. Ok, after we got that divided up, we gave ourselves $77.00 dollars for clothes, each getting about $38.00 a month. The list on the right under CLOTHES/SHOES has more items then $38.00 worth, so if I want to buy my $89.99 Steve Madden shoes I’ll have to save my share of the clothes envelope for 3 months in order to afford them. Which is pretty ridiculous because I need other things and I can’t wait a whole year to buy all that stuff if I took that route. My purpose of listing the expensive Steve Madden Shoes is so I can find them cheaper on-line or at Marshalls, Ross, T.J. Max and post the cheaper price compared to the $89.99 price.

b. Another example, we need free-on and a new window motor for our civic but we only budget $58.00 a month for Car Repair/Tires. So the motor costs $75.00 dollars at a junk yard (note: we’re buying it used) and we have to add in the labor costs so we’re thinking $150.00 total max. We’ll have to save 3 months worth to pay for the total.

c. With the digital camera we'll have to take whatever is left from the blow envelop every month until we've saved up the correct amount.

2. What is the title of the Dave Ramsey CD/book? Are you still attending a class or
just doing the workbook and listening to the c.d.'s

a. The books and c.d. titles are located on the right, along with his website link. We are still attending class, at the local Christian church down the street. It’s a 13 week course and we are on the 6^th week going onto the 7^th and the course will end some time in November. We meet at the church and they own the teaching kit which comes with DVDs of the seminars he gives live. We watch one seminar every Wednesday and it’s always a different lesson. This past Wednesday he gave a lesson on Insurance. He told us which kinds of Insurance are a bunch of bull and which kinds are smart to have and he explained that life insurance is not permanent like we all think it is. I do listen to the c.d.’s in the car so I can a very good comprehension of what he's talking about, and if anyone wants to borrow them and burn them, you’re welcomed to anytime.

3. Are you guys vegetarian? (from Blog "Penny Pinching in the food dept.")

a. No, I picked out the meat from the soup so I could put it in the rice to have a meat with rice meal, because we didn’t want soup for dinner and we didn’t want rice by itself, and we didn’t want to go grocery shopping because of insufficient funds so we just picked out the meat to mix in with the rice to attempt to make a dish.

4. The Cherry Blossom Festival:
That will be awesome if you come for the cherry blossom festival, and we’ll be able to budget that in somehow. I’m thinking we’re going to have to add a separate envelope for this and calculate how much we might spend on food, hotel, transportation, and souvenirs. Oh, and how can we forget? Tickets to see the different historical sites. So we’ll have to research prices for the attractions, and call Dave Keithly and ask if we can crash at his place for free! :) Hehe.

5. Christmas budget: is a combined budget with gifts for all year round which means we’ve estimated how many gifts we give including: baby showers, bridal showers, weddings, Christmas gifts. Along with gifts we put Christmas in the same budget so we can budget for food, decorations, traveling, gifts, a Christmas tree, whatever. This year since we started to budget for Christmas in September we wont have enough to get us to CA or have spending money while we’re there. If we had budgeted for a Christmas trip since January then it would have been more of a possibility. SO you don’t have to plan your trip around us.

Goodwill Hunting

2010-09-21T17:00:00.008-04:00

I'm not talking about the movie, I'm talking about selectively looking for useful things at the Goodwill thrift store.
Today after work I ran some errands like going to the cleaners, grocery store, sewing store (to replace a piece on my machine), and I decided to stop at the Goodwill to see if I could find the items in my list of short term stuff (located in the column I have over on the right). I was looking for loaf pans, pie slicer, or a fruit cutting board. TWO HOURS later....... I'm still at the store in the kitchen Isle talking myself out of buying things I know are not critically neccessary. I was thinking......."We need these little plates because ours are too big therefore not ideal to use for dessert". Although I bought all kinds of interesting stuff, I managed to find ONE item on my list which was the loaf pan.
Don't forget, I use the envelope system and I pulled out money that I had in my envelopes in order to purchase these items. Click Here to learn about the envelope system
Envelope Houseware: I bought my loaf glass $2.25 and a magazine holder $2.25 (I'm really up-tight about having a place for everything, and now that Shane is recieving Surf magazines, they're everywhere making the house look unorganized. So I found a cute little basket to be their new home.)

Envelope Gifts (including Christmas): Oh yeah, we have an envelope for Christmas so it doesn't sneak up on us and wipe out our checking account. We estimated about $1,080.00 for gifts and christmas so about $90.00 a month. Plus how can we afford Christmas when around that same time of year the city wants their Property tax money? I say we should all move to Florida because I heard they don't pay city taxes. In the picture I have stocking hooks @ $.87 each, Christmas and Halloween wreaths at $2.25 each, snowmen candle holders @ $2.25

Envelope Blow Money: This envelope is for miscellaneous items that you don't prepare for in your budget. For some parents it could be soccor pictures. In our case it could be books for leisure or Softball team fees. Today I just bought miscellaneous items for the house. Here I purchased a beautiful ceramic cream leaf vase @ $8.25 It wasn't something I needed but I wanted to replace this ugly green vase I was using before.

I bought this cute serving platter $4.25 to replace my cheap yellow plastic one.

I also bought this gold picture frame because most of the ones we have are the same style and colors. I plan to regift one of those picture frames.

Last I got this gift $2.25 for my friend Becky becuase she shops at Wal-mart and I thought it was really cute. Now if you're wondering why I didn't place this in the Gift Envelope it's because it's not for her birthday, or christmas gift it was a "being goofy" gift. It would be a great white elephant gift too.

Finally, The Baby Steps!

2010-09-20T13:51:00.009-04:00

Click HERE to see the baby steps
In an earlier entry where I blog about the junker car we purchased instead of a brand new Honda, Pilot I also said that we had about $6,000.00 in savings, and a $10,000.00 bonus on the way. Is anybody wondering what we did with that money? Well guess what?
I will be giving you an insider's exclusive. We ended up only receiving $6,848.23 from the bonus because of government taxes (go figure! apparently we'll receive the rest of the bonus at the end of the year) SO, we now have roughly $12,848.23. Imagine that? What kinds of things would you have done with $12,848.23? We were thinking...... Ireland in July and New York City for New Years Eve. Yeah, that's what we WERE thinking before the Dave Ramsey class.
Here's the after math. Dave has 7 financial Baby steps to set you for life! We took that money and put it into

Baby Step 1: $1,000.00 (has to be easily accessible) emergency fund.

                        -The reason why you'll want this emergency fund is to prevent you from putting it on the credit card if an emergency were ever to occur. It makes complete sense, if you're already in debt and do not have the money to pay for this surprise emergency whether the car broke down again, or your refrigerator leaks and floods your house, then you're sinking yourself into more debt by having to put that expense on the credit card. SO, make sure the cash is easily accessible but not a temptation to grab for non-emergencies. Shane and I have ours in cash, not in the bank (in case we were to have any problems withdrawing it). Don't think you're getting the insider's exclusive as to where we hide it.
Baby Step 2: Pay off all your debt with the debt snow ball
     -This is what we mean by snow ball.
This was our debt: Master card 1: $343.00     @ 16% interest
                             Master card 2: $1,600.00   @8% interest
                             Student loan 1: $2,600.00   @34% interest
                             Student loan 2: $6,660.00   @0% (til 2012)
                                                     Visa 1: $100.00
    Visa 2: $300.00
Many people would approach this by paying off the the bill with the most interest. Well that's wrong! (in the snowball method). You want to pay the lowest bill no matter what the interest is. If you can pay more than the minimum payment that is excellent too.

Visa 2: $100.00 minimum of $15.00 a month
Visa 1: $300.00 $15.00 a month

Master card 1: $343.00 @ 16% interest $15.00 a month

Master card 2: $1,600.00 @8% interest $25.00 a month

Student loan 1: $2,600.00 @34% interest $232.00 a month

Student loan 2: $6,660.00 @0% (til 2012) no payment until 2012

In the snowball, you pay the minimum (or more) for each bill until the lowest bill Visa 2 $100.00 is paid off. We actually payed $50.00 a month for the Visa 2 bill. We carry that $50.00 over to Visa 1 $300.00 so our payment to that Visa 1 is $50.00 + $15.00 (min payment) = $65.00. Remember, you're still making the min payments to all the other bills too.

Then when Visa 1 was payed off next is Master card 1 $343.00 and we take the $65.00 we were paying on Visa 1 and put it toward Master card's min payment of $15.00 to = $80.00. Then we take out that bill faster. Then we take the $80.00 to Master Card 2's min payment of $25.00 a month and we have $105.00 to pay off the $1,600.00. Does it make sense? the reason why you want to pay off the bills from least to greatest is because it boosts your hopes that it will be possible to pay off all your debt.

That was a long explanation. Lucky for us we just payed off all those bills using the money we saved up. Now we've completed Baby step 2 we took the rest of our money and applied it to

Baby Step 3: 3-6 Months Expenses in Savings -If Shane and I were to be un-employed for anywhere from 3-6 months we do not want to rely on credit cards to bury us in more debt. We would need cash to hold us up through this tragedy if it ever were to happen. Looking at all our expenses, our rent, utilities, cell phone bill, clothes, groceries, transportation, we need about $23,000.00 to survive if we ever were to be un-employed for that long. After paying off our debt a total of $11,603.00 we were left with $1,245.23. We put that into Baby step 3, $23,000.00 - $1,245.23 = $21,754.77 more to save up in order to have our 6 month expenses in savings! And that is where we are right now. If we were to put away $500.00 every month it would take us 3 1/2 years to get the full $23,000.00. Listen, this process is not a get rich quick. You need to be patient!
Baby Step 4: Invest 15% Of Income Into Roth IRAs And Pre-Tax Retirement Plans
-When I get to that class I'll tell you about it.
Baby Step 5: College Funding

Baby Step 6: Pay Off Your Home Early
Baby Step 7: Build Wealth And Give!

Filtered Water Facets/Pitchers vs. Bottled water/Water delivery

2010-09-17T16:19:00.055-04:00

According to our own personal calculations we bought the generic brand of about < 3-4 boxes > of bottled water a month estimating at around < $4.65 > a box.
Math: 3 (boxes) x $4.65 (per box) = $13.95 or 4(boxes) x $4.65 (per box) = $18.60 per month THEN $18.60 (per month) x 12 months = $223.20 a year

If you pay for delivery water for $35.00 a month the math is $35.00 x 12 months = $420.00 a year

But if you replaced this water for filtered facet or pitchers by PUR or Brita or whoever
Here's how much you can WIN!!
I bought my PUR water filter at Costco with a coupon for $28.99. Now, it's not a one time payment to own and maintain these water filters. Every 2-3 months depending on the # of people in your household you must change the filters on these things. At Costco your device comes with 2 filters for free. Then a regular package comes with 2 replaceable filters at $28.99.
The filters are to be replaced every three months. Since the device comes with 2 filters you're covered for 6 months. $28.99 = 6 months
Then you'll need to buy the replaceable filters (2 per box) which cost $28.99 at Costco and that will take care of another 6 months (3 months per filter).

So here's the MATH:

$28.99(every 6 months) x 2(x's per year) = $57.98 a year

Bottled Water Example:
So then I take $223.20 - $57.98 = $165.22 a year in savings!

Now if we take the Delivery water example at $420.00 a year
$420.00 - $57.98 = $362.02

That's an extra $362.02 you didn't know you had that you can put to something else!! YAY!
Switch to Water filters!! Now!