Archive results for “May 2008f 2008”

On this page you will find the search results for the search term that you queried.

April – Here’s How Much We Made, and Here’s Where it Went

After an absence, I have decided to bring back our monthly spending reports. I am still trying to find our January – March receipts so I can post those reports. I’ve checked every known “receipt stash” in our house and they are no where to be found. I probably put them somewhere safe, but forgot where I put them.

Anyways, here’s how much we made and here’s where it went. Before you go too much further, you may want to check out a little FAQ that I did about these reports since I switched things up a bit.

First things first. It was an awesome income month for April (note – this is net income). I received a new advertiser on here and my husband sold a $900 piece of equipment. I also worked some overtime. That’s why we were able to pay off $2,300 of our credit card debt last month.

Now onto the spending…

Our automobile costs are pretty steady. During the summer I expect our gas spending go to up since we will be going out more for drives and such. Our insurance cost should go down because I plan on removing the full insurance coverage from our car sometime soon.

Cigarettes. There isn’t much I can say here except that it is higher than normal this month (which seems to be the case when I work overtime). But the spending should be zero!

Entertainment was high for April. It includes a trip to a gaming place with my son as well as the purchase of a video game and a few DVD rentals. I did splurge here.

April was a horrible month for groceries. When our fridge broke, we ended up using the freezer filled with ice and then a cooler for things that needed to be kept cold. You can only fit so much in there. We ended up making way too many trips to the grocery store. We also spent a bit with going out to eat.

There was a bit of spending in our household category. Here’s the breakdown:

I bought a little cycler for using under my desk while working. I have been having horrible knee problems from sitting most of the day and I thought it might help. My desk doesn’t have enough clearance to use it which is a bummer. I sometimes use it while watching TV.

Our office spending included a new chair for my husband’s desk. After a few Walmart cheap versions that broke, I finally talked my husband into getting a new chair (he was using a broken chair for a few months). We headed out to Office Max and bought a nice chair on clearance. Don’t buy office chairs from Walmart.

The interest paid category includes the interest for our non-credit card debt (mortgage and student loans). I don’t like that number, but there isn’t much we can do about it at this point. I’ve tried refinancing our home mortgage through our current mortgage holder but my request was denied.

Our internet bill recently went up. It was at $25/month but AT&T decided to raise it. I have to have high speed and that’s the lowest price available. The same thing goes for telephone. I have to have a certain plan for work so I have to live with the price. On a personal level, we rarely ever use the phone. I checked, and we made less than 10 local calls. Long distance is a different story since our families live far away. I’m a chatty Cathy when I get on the phone with my mom. If we ever don’t need our current plan, I will definitely check out something like Skype.

I am looking forward to summer utilities. That gas bill will go way down and so will our electric. We have also been talking about canceling cable, but I’m not sure if I can do that yet. Without cable, we do not get any channels. I would miss the local news and the major networks.

Overall, April was an awesome month. There is definitely some fat that can be cut so it’s a good thing I’m back to posting these. It forces me to take a look. For a while there, as long as we were paying extra toward debt, we were doing fine. The numbers don’t lie. We need to slash some of our spending.

Posted by Tricia on May 29, 2008 at 11:06 PM in Monthly Spending | 22 Comments »
You can leave a response or trackback from your site. |

Survivalists and Living “Off the Grid”

As our debt has been shrinking, my husband and I have been discussing what we hope to have in our future home. One thing for sure – we would like to be more self-sufficient and have land to have a decent-sized garden and a small orchard. I think to my childhood for inspiration here. We had a large garden, blackberries, wild asparagus and pear trees. Just down the road, we had apples. Us country kids would go out on picking trips and then take our stash to our forts. We’d munch on our healthy treats for days.

It’s funny how sometimes you end up trying to recreate some aspects of your youth. Anyways, back to the story on hand.

I wasn’t aware that there was a movement going on where individuals are learning to live off their land. This particular movement is mostly driven by fear of uncertain times ahead.

Convinced the planet’s oil supply is dwindling and the world’s economies are heading for a crash, some people around the country are moving onto homesteads, learning to live off their land, conserving fuel and, in some cases, stocking up on guns they expect to use to defend themselves and their supplies from desperate crowds of people who didn’t prepare.The exact number of people taking such steps is impossible to determine, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the movement has been gaining momentum in the last few years.

[Via Yahoo.com]

For my husband and I, our desire to live a more sustainable life boils down to family and finances. You can save a lot of money by doing what these survivalists are doing (except for stocking up on guns – that could probably get pretty expensive). We can also have more quality family time since less time needs to be spent pursuing more money.

My husband has met a family that is trying to live “off the grid.” They purchased something from us that we basically thought was junk but they are going to reuse it to meet their needs. From what my husband told me, they are trying to do it just to see if they could do it and to save money. I wish I was there for that part of the conversation because I would have asked a few questions. I arrived a little late for it. I do have their contact info so I may ask them for an interview if I can muster up the courage.

While we won’t go as far as some of the survivalists in the Yahoo story, we will try to incorporate sustainability as much as we can, when we can. First step? Planting an awesome garden this year!

Posted by Tricia on May 29, 2008 at 4:41 PM in Saving Money | 7 Comments »
You can leave a response or trackback from your site. |

Credit Card Debt Update = $8,864

I wasn’t planning on paying more towards our debt this month. I was going to beef up our savings. Thank goodness I reviewed everything online or I might have missed a minimum payment due!

All of our credit card debt is at 0% right now, and one missed payment would have been a disaster. Who knows how high our interest rate would have shot up. The payment wasn’t due until early June, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. I sent out a payment for $134 and our credit card debt now stands at $8,864.

What a difference a few years can make. I was able to find our minimum credit card payment from May of 2006…$743. Wow. No wonder we can breathe easier now!

Posted by Tricia on May 27, 2008 at 10:25 PM in Debt Updates | 20 Comments »
You can leave a response or trackback from your site. |

What a Wonderful Weekend

On Saturday, we packed up our fishing poles and headed to a secluded lake for a few hours of fishing.

The sun was shining, temps were in the low 60s, you could hear herons, ducks and frogs singing, we caught some deer frolicking at the lake edge, the wind was blowing enough to keep the bugs at bay, and the fish were biting.

Sigh. It doesn’t get much better than that. Wait, we have to add in my son’s screams of joy when he caught his first fish of the season. It was a four-inch sunfish, but I think it delighted him as much as if he caught a 25-inch walleye.

I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day. Thank you mother nature. We needed that. It did cost some money because we needed two new reels for our fishing poles and we didn’t have any worms ready so we had to buy some. We also had to buy fishing licenses for the year. Of course, there’s the cost for the gas to drive out to the lake…

In all it probably cost about $50 to be set to fish for the year (except for future gas costs). It is our goal to go out fishing more this summer, and eating our catch since we normally catch and release.

Will we catch $50 worth of fish to eat this summer? It’s hard to tell. I sure hope we do because I love perch dinners! Even if we don’t, the family time together is priceless.

Posted by Tricia on May 27, 2008 at 8:14 AM in Life Experiences | 7 Comments »
You can leave a response or trackback from your site. |

A Wrecked Car, Constant Reminders and a Popper

I am excited for the three-day weekend. It’s a bit cold here in Michigan but at least the sun is shining. I have been very anxious to get out my fishing pole this year and I think a family picnic/fishing outing is in our future for this weekend.

Here are a few links I found interesting this week:

Jesse is dealing with a wrecked car. He gives some tips that I sure could have used when I had a car accident.

Glblguy talks about using constant reminders to help you keep focused. I have a few of them. My desk is surrounded by pictures of my family and I have a excerpt from a book that I always have in my wallet.

Lastly, this has absolutely nothing to do with personal finance. But it sure made me smile last night when I saw it on TV so I thought I would share: YouTube Video of Robert Muraine. A-ma-zing.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Posted by Tricia on May 23, 2008 at 10:51 AM in General Personal Finance, Misc | 4 Comments »
You can leave a response or trackback from your site. |

Bringing Back Some Details

About a month ago, Mark B. asked a question in the comments:

…Also, you used to post your monthly Quicken spending and income reports, did you stop posting those? I found those to be very interesting and revealing for a person trying to escape debt myself.

Ever since my mention in the New York Times, I started shying away from revealing specifics on here and I phased out those monthly spending reports. They took me a while to do and do I want my boss (or future employers) to read how I spend my money? Seems a bit too personal and I was worried it could affect my employment. While I don’t readily attach my name to this blog, people who know me could put two and two together. My brother did, and I pleaded the fifth

I’ve been thinking about Mark’s comment for over a month now. I need to bring those reports back. They prompted some great discussions in the comments and they kept me very focused. I was able to find all of the receipts for April and May. I’m still looking for some receipts for Jan – Mar and if I can’t find them all I may skip those months or perhaps create a miscellaneous category for them so I can still post them. I already revised my Quicken file so my reports would be easier for me to do.

Expect to see some reports shortly!

Posted by Tricia on May 22, 2008 at 11:47 PM in Monthly Spending | 4 Comments »
You can leave a response or trackback from your site. |

What Role Does My Husband Have?

There have been some comments lately about the role my husband plays in our relationship. I thought I have mentioned our roles before, but I could be wrong. Maybe it was in a comment or something. So this post is going to reply to some comments and explain why our situation is the way it is.

I just keep thinking that all of your amazing efforts would move TWICE as fast (think how quickly that credit AND student loan debt would be gone) if your husband could motivate his ass to go get some normal, hourly work of any variety.

There is no doubt that if my husband got a job flipping burgers he would be bringing more money into the house. He could have a schedule and be making minimum wage. Instead of doing that, though, he has worked temp jobs that make more than twice minimum wage. No, it’s not steady work (in fact, he hasn’t had any work for a while now – but it will kick up again). But it’s flexible work.

We’ve done the work opposite shifts thing before. That was so rough on us as a family. I do not want to do that again. The temp jobs were awesome because he could work them while my son was in school, yet, if my son was sick there was no scrambling to try to figure out who could watch my son. Although I work at home, it is not a job where I can watch my son while doing it.

Not only does he [husband] not have a job, this guy apparently does not participate in the financial decision making process in this family. With Tricia itâ€™s always â€œIâ€ did this or â€œIâ€ decided that, never â€œwe.â€

I do have a difficult time with the pronouns. That is because I am in charge of the finances. With my personality, I’m not sure I could ever give them up. That works well for us because my husband has no interest in it. I’m analytical…he’s creative.

Don’t get me wrong – we do discuss some financial decisions. We don’t for the little ones, but we do for the big ones. More often than not, we are on the same page and a decision is reached quickly.

He also comes across as someone who is immature about work – going into debt to buy expensive toys to start a business, not being willing to do enough other work while he was looking for a career-type job, not being a true partner in terms of this get out of debt plan, etc.

The whole business thing was a disaster back then. Every purchase was made by me, and not my husband, because I controlled the money. I’m not sure how many times he said, “We don’t need that,” but I thought otherwise. It ended up being a very expensive lesson. As for getting out of debt, he is my partner. He provides the support that makes it possible for me to bring in additional income.

I think that we would make an awesome family for that wife swap show. Not only do we live a very simple life, the “traditional” role of husband and wife are reversed in our relationship. I make the majority of the money and manage the money. My husband does all of the housework and cooking. I couldn’t tell you the last time I did laundry or washed the dishes. He also takes care of our son. He gets our son ready for school and takes him to the doctors when he is sick. While I try my best to get off work for my son’s school events during the day, if we both can’t be there at least my husband is there for our son.

For our family, this arrangement works. For our finances, this arrangement works. Is there an even better arrangement out there? Yes. That’s why we still are working behind the scenes to try to improve things. More about that will be coming in the next few weeks.

Posted by Tricia on May 21, 2008 at 12:27 AM in Money & Relationships | 45 Comments »
You can leave a response or trackback from your site. |

Older Archives »