Blogging Away Debt

I loved when Adam and Emily did the “he says, she says” post. So fun to see their different personalities and spending-styles emerge. And like most couples, my husband and I don’t always agree on where to put our money (which currently is being thrown toward debt hand-over-fist).

Now, don’t get me wrong – husband is 100% committed to eliminating our debt. Most of it is mine and he agrees that it has to go (and he’s been involved in creating our budget and debt-reduction goals, so even though I’m primarily the one who writes out the checks and pays the bills, he’s totally involved in the process). However…..sometimes I find that even though he wants to be debt-free, he would perhaps prefer to do so at a slower pace that allows us more “free” money for spending, or adding money to our savings instead of putting so much directly toward debt each month (we put nearly $1700 per month toward debt when our bring-home is about $5,000 per month; so about 34% of our income goes straight to debt).

Side Note: You can see our full budget here, and our debts here.

Although I typed this up (husband isn’t much into blogging), this is almost verbatim transcript of a conversation we had the other day, so I think I’m representing him and his thoughts fairly:

Our Thoughts On Spending…

He Says:

Imagine going to the gym for months and months. You’re killing yourself by waking up early to hit the gym, eating clean, and passing by lots of opportunities for “fun” that could side-track your health and fitness goals. But then you step on the scale (or have your BMI checked) and you’re still in the exact same position you were in before starting your exercise regiment. Would you continue it? No way! You need to see results in order to be motivated.

It’s the same thing with money and paying down debt. Especially since my job is a very physical one. I go to work everyday and kill my body. I do it to provide for my family and improve our quality of life. If our quality of life isn’t going to improve for 5-10 years, then what’s the motivation? I need to see something that shows me my work is getting me somewhere. Be it a nice home, a new shirt, or a little family vacation. Those are the rewards that make killing myself at work worthwhile.

She Says:

I definitely see the analogy, but at the same time – the only way to true wealth is through being debt-free. Rewards aren’t on the short-term; they’re on the long-term. I never should have accrued so much debt, but it’s done now. And I think our focus should be on paying it back as opposed to continuing to spend money elsewhere.

So, what to do? The conversation had no real resolution. Just him stating his feelings, which I think is fair to do. He works very hard and his job truly is a physically exhausting one. It can be difficult to do that type of work and not see the fruits of one’s labor, since we continue to cut back more and more instead of gaining…I don’t know…wealth???

I listen to the Dave Ramsey radio show and LOVE the segments with REAL PEOPLE telling their debt stories and doing their “debt-free screams.” Dave always asks the same questions (what made you start this journey? what was the hardest? what was the secret to getting out of debt?) One thing I hear over and over is people say that it was absolutely crucial to be on the same page with their spouse.

I wouldn’t say my husband and I aren’t on the same page (at the end of the day, we both want to be debt-free), but maybe I’m one chapter ahead? Or I’m just reading the book at a faster pace???

What’s your money-relationship like with your spouse? Are you on the same page? What do you do to help motivate and encourage your partner?

Cutting Costs and Saving Money

by Ashley

I’ve been diligently working at trying to cut some costs around here, with some mixed-results to share.

First, let me share another of my money saving tricks (see more here and here). This one really isn’t a “trick,” but still fun to share.

Remember how I mentioned that one of my friends was gifting me a hand-me-down dehydrator when she upgraded to a newer one? Well, I inherited the new-to-me dehydrator last week and I have been a FRUIT-LEATHER MAKING MACHINE since then!!!

To be fair, right now the prices on strawberries are at their once-a-year low. For the past 3 weeks I’ve been stocking up every time I go to the store. I’ve been able to get pints for as little as 89 cents, and I’ve bought about 2 pints per week the past 3 weeks. Some of them we’ve eaten (lots of smoothies and strawberries as snacks), some of them we’ve frozen for later (my goal is to really stock up now at the all-time low so we have strawberries still on-hand once prices go back up), and some of them we’ve used to make fruit leather!

It couldn’t be easier! You heat up strawberries on the stove-top with a little water (about 1/2 cup water per 4 cups fruit), then mash with a potato masher (or throw in a food processor or blender), then add sugar to your desired sweetness, a little lemon juice, and that’s it! You can do it with all kinds of fruit, too. So far I’ve done plain strawberries, strawberry-banana, and strawberry-orange-pineapple. Loved them all!

When it’s done dehydrating, I put the sheets of fruit leather on parchment paper, roll up, and store in the fridge. I did a calculation to see how much it costs to make my own versus buying fruit roll-ups from the store. I haven’t bought fruit roll-ups (ever), but I found a price for buying bulk online.

You can buy a 3 pack (10 roll-ups per pack) for 9.25 = .31 cents per roll.
I can make 1 sheet (4 roll-ups) out of 1 pint of strawberries ($1 or less) = .25 cents per roll.

Not a huge savings, but it’s 100% natural. It’s probably even more of a savings compared to the fancy fruit leather that’s sold in individual packages at stores nowadays. In all, probably not something we’ll be doing year-round, but its a fun little Spring treat when strawberries are in season and on sale for cheap!

Now, onto cutting costs….

I’ve been looking at every area of our monthly budget to try to cut costs and one thing I had zeroed in on was our phone bill.

I have a success to share – I managed to lower our phone bill (wahoo!), but perhaps not as much as I could have if we’d switched providers.

In the interest of full transparency, I <3 my phone! For real! I had pined over the iphone for years and finally bit the bullet and bought one when they came out with the 5c, since it was so much cheaper than the regular iphone (I switched from TMobile to Sprint in order to get it). So this is still really new to me. I’ve only had my “baby” for about 6 months at this point and I lurve it! I really do!

When talking about trying to reduce my wireless bill (it was a whopping $150/month!!!) many of you suggested that I switch providers. I looked into a couple of different providers – Ting and Republic Wireless, for example – but no one would let me keep my beloved iphone.

So I called Sprint and told them I need my bill to be lowered. The guy let me know we weren’t using nearly as much data as I had believed, and that we could get rid of our unlimited data and downgrade to 1 GB per line and still have data to spare. This was moving to their “Framily” plan that’s being heavily advertised now. And although we didn’t save $100/month, as we might have if we’d switched providers, I did manage to get our bill reduced by approximately $50/month (down to $100 from $150). The new plan didn’t go into effect until the 25^th of this month so I won’t see the savings until the next month’s billing cycle ends but every little bit helps!

But….I did mention “mixed results” at the beginning of this post.

So, where have we done *ahem* not so well?

Well, you’ll have to wait for a full budget update from the month (coming next Monday), but I definitely went over my limit in a couple of categories. Nothing too terrible, but still not what I’d hoped. The only thing I can say in my defense, is that the overspending came from one specific category that I had tried to slash by over 30%. Our spending wasn’t outrageous, but it was pretty much in-line with the “old” (pre-slashed) budget. So I’m hoping this was just a growing pain that takes a month or two to figure out and hopefully we can work harder to spend less in future months.

In the meantime, I’m trying to finish the month strong. No spending of any kind until the 1st of May!

What have YOU have done lately to cut household costs and/or save money??

Blogging Away Debt Blogging Away Debt follows real people on their journey to debt freedom — with tips on the debt snowball, budgeting, cutting expenses, and staying motivated.

He says, She says

Cutting Costs and Saving Money