Blogging Away Debt

by Jim

So I see this past week everyone was getting down to business on the blog. I don’t want to post anything up just quite yet. I have been tracking every penny and will be posting that up hopefully on Tuesday. I wanted a good idea of where my money is going for three straight months (without a budget) so I can make a realistic budget and know exactly where I need to cut down at. I know for a fact the eating out category needs to cut down (but by how much we will see), what I do know is that we only eat out if we are gone all day for either work related stuff or medical stuff. What I do want to post up today is that my son turned two on Wednesday. The time has really flown by, it is just crazy. And as I stated in my video post, I wanted to do things differently, so I wanted to do a picture post today. I won’t post up too many, even though I have millions of pictures!

This is my boy’s hospital picture.

Here he is at one month old! Already looking to the stars!

3 months! My little Biker Guy!

6 months! As you can tell he is very photogenic.

Which hurt the bank account the first year, with all the pictures we had done.

But these are the memories and they are priceless.

Now we are at 1!!! I love food smeared pictures!

And that brings us to Wednesday and his 2nd birthday! Look at this pictures! I couldn’t choose which one of these to choose from, so I just threw them all up. My wife says he could be a kid model. But she is bias don’tcha think?

So there you have it. My boy is getting so big, and believe me he is a handful. He has a sparkling, unique personality that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

So back to the financial part, this is where my wife and I disagree. Although I do tend to lean more toward her side, and I sure do see her point. Are pictures worth paying for when you are fighting debt? That first year I think we bought 6 sets of pictures for him, a school picture set for Gianna, her daycare picture set, her daycare graduation set, and two sports sets. Oh and our family Christmas set. This year this is the first set, but who knows what else.

So what do you think?!?

How I Justify Music Lessons

by Hope

As I look at my budget with an eye on cutting back more to get out of debt more quickly, the thing that consistently leaps out at me are the music lessons. My younger two have taken lessons for almost four years now and the two oldest for a couple of years. Last fall, when I lost a long term client and almost a third of my steady income, I had to cut back…first thing I looked at was music.

Now many would ask, why do you do music? Surely the kids wouldn’t mind not having to practice regularly and taking it out of your budget altogether would certainly speed up the get out of debt process?

My answer: Multitudes of studies have shown that music opens up the brain in ways no traditional learning can, and having two children with some learning issues this is a huge factor. In addition, music speaks to the soul and temperament as nothing else does and I want, and my children need to have that outlet and release with everything else going on in their lives. Lastly, I have two children who have shown a significant aptitude for music, not concert piano type aptitude but enough that I want it to be available to them.

That is my current justification for continuing with music lessons so how have I made it work in my budget? Well, I think I’m found a good middle ground…at least for now.

First, we only do music lessons from mid-September through April. This is when we do our heaviest schooling (homeschool) and we are pretty consistent with lessons and practice.

Second, and this was a change last fall when my budget was cut significantly, each child only takes one instrument and only goes every other week. So each child gets two lessons a month. (I worked out with the teachers to only do 4 weeks a month to 1) save money and 2) be more consistent with my budget.)

Third, we find most all lessons, music, etc. supplements online and either use an iPad or print them so we don’t incur music book/printing charges.

Lastly, and logically to me, all the kids share the musical instruments. We have 1-folk guitar, 1-full size keyboard and 1-full size set of drums, and these are their only musical options. (My daughter is longing to play the violin; however, I have pushed that off a couple of years telling her that I had to see consistency in her practice and dedication to existing instruments before I invested in another one.)

My son's first exposure to drums on a trip in 2010. — My son’s first exposure to drums on a trip in 2010.

So what do you think? Do you agree that continuing music is a good idea? Or should I eliminate it to speed up my debt pay off?

We will do evaluations in a month for end of school year term, so if advised to cease and desist, it would really not affect us til next fall when music started back up.

I had already written this when I stumbled upon this video from TED Talks…again backing up how important music lessons are, but I also consider that putting them off a year or two to get out of debt probably wouldn’t by pass our window. I’m anxious to get your thoughts on this.

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.

My Boy is 2!!!

How I Justify Music Lessons