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Oct 25, 2014    |       16 comments

The Year of Becoming an Adult

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Hubs and I have been talking a lot about different life things lately.

This year has been a big turning point for our family. We’ve really committed to the decision to get rid of our debt and we’ve made huge improvements in this area (yes, we still have an enormous amount of student loan/medical debt, but we’ve eradicated all credit card debt and drastically slashed our license fee debt, while also lowering our interest rate and making big progress on our car loan debt).

And as the end of 2014 draws near, we’ve been discussing big goals for next year. After some  discussions, we have decided to declare 2015 The Year of Becoming Adults!!!

Now, this may sound strange. Yes, husband is 32 and I will be turning 31 soon (my birthday is on New Years Eve!), so if you look at age you would certainly think of us as “adults.”

But you guys know all our dirty little secrets. You know we’re not full-fledged adults yet….at least not from a financial perspective.

In 2015 we’re hoping to change that!

Right now (and through March 2015 – one full year of blogging), I am going to stay steadfast in putting every extra dollar toward debt. I’ve talked before about how at that time I might reassess things and move at a bit slower pace. We have decided that with at least some of our “extra” money (currently put toward debt), we are going to make some big strides toward becoming more adult.

  1. First, we’re going to make a will. This is not going to be fun and I am not looking forward to it. Part of the reason we decided to make 2015 the year-of-adulthood is because I don’t want to deal with this type of paperwork as the holidays approach (maybe not an adult way to handle the situation but, hey, I’m working on it).
  2. Second, husband will get life insurance (hopefully!). I have my life insurance all in place, but we have had a LOT of struggles with getting him insured. After some talking, we’ve decided to put it on hold right now. Hubs’ medical mystery illness (discussed here) occurred at the end of 2013 so we want to get past the 1-year mark, hoping that this will make a difference and improve our chances of getting him covered. We’re also probably going to go with a different company than the one we’ve been dealing with, but we’re still looking into options.
  3. Third, we’re going to open retirement accounts. You may recall that after we paid off our last credit card I created a new savings category called “savings for Roth IRA.” So I already semi-started this by at least setting money aside on a monthly basis. In 2015 we’ll actually open an account and get this all started on an official basis.
  4. Finally, we’re going to open college savings accounts for our girls. We haven’t talked exact numbers yet (regarding #3 and #4), but at least some money will be set aside monthly (probably in a 529) as a college fund for each of our children (we have 2).

I know this all flies in the face of a Dave Ramsey-eque model of debt eradication.

For any who are unfamiliar, Dave suggests having only a $1,000 emergency fund while working on eradicating debt. He also advocates stopping contributions to retirement and kids’ college accounts while in debt reduction-mode.

Honestly, though, the idea of not doing these things (i.e., saving for retirement especially, and putting at least some money aside for college) scares me. We just came up with our grand 2015 vision and haven’t talked numbers yet. Plus, its difficult to talk numbers when our income is so variable and I’m on the job market and could potentially have a big change in income in the coming year. This is something we’ll have to sit down and discuss at length in the coming months.

But numbers aside, I just wanted to let you guys know about our plans. I know these thoughts and ideas are going to ruffle some feathers because the goal of this blog is debt-eradication and switching gears from full steam ahead to a lower gear of debt-reduction is not necessarily a popular decision.

I haven’t decided what I’ll do come March 2015 in terms of blogging. I love the support and advice I get from you all and if readers are interested in me continuing at that point (with the knowledge that debt reduction would be done at a slower pace) then I may continue to write and contribute. But I don’t want to upset readers and/or cheapen the mission of this site in any way by taking sole focus off of debt-reduction.

We’re not at that point today so it’s not as if any big decisions need to be made right now. I just feel like I want to be honest and open with you all, as you have been so supportive of me on this journey. I want you to know where it and I, as a person, are headed.

Do you have any big goals or resolutions for 2015? What financial goals are you currently striving toward?

Oct 24, 2014    |       9 comments

Halloween Costumes for Cheap/Free

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This is NOT a “how to” because I am probably one of the least crafty people in the world so I am unlikely to do a pinterest-worthy make-your-own tutorial. Instead, I just wanted to give my experience and share how I’m handling the Halloween costume issue this year.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Halloween this year. And by “thinking” I mean dreading.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the holiday and, especially after having kids, it has taken on so much more meaning and become so much more fun! I have incredible memories of last year’s Halloween! We invited friends over, had the kids dress up (just at home – they were only 16 months old at the time so we didn’t go trick-or-treating since they didn’t eat candy) and spent the night handing out candy and hanging out with our buddies. A good, low-key night!

This year is different.

First, I’m on this big debt-reduction mission.

I’ve been feeling a lot of anxiety and stress over the extra money being spent this month (for my friend’s wedding) coupled with the upcoming holiday expenses and the fact that our monthly income went from nearly $10,000 way back down to only just above $6,000 (side note….not looking great to break that figure for this month either). We’re used to living on about $5500 so its not an issue in terms of survival, but its definitely changing my projected debt pay-off dates and just feels a little “meh” after coming off the “high” of those few months where we were able to put $4,000 and $5,000 toward debt. Not so much anymore.

Plus there are some other financial concerns. It looks like I’m going to need to buy a couple of business outfits for an upcoming interview so I’ll need to set money aside for that, and – I never mentioned this – but remember my friend whose getting married? Her wedding is on Halloween (nontraditional, yes, but the venue was much cheaper that way).

So, all in all, I am just feeling a bit lackluster about this year’s Halloween. I still want to celebrate to the extent that I am able (given that I’ll be at a wedding on Halloween night instead of with my kiddos), but I definitely do NOT want to spend $50 on costumes for the girls to wear for a single night (costumes are crazy over-priced!!!).

I’ve been stewing over this issue for weeks and had not come to any sort of solution that I was happy with.

Then, totally unrelated to Halloween, I started cleaning out our closets. I’ve been inspired by Hope’s recent purge and have decided that we need to get rid of a LOT of stuff. I’d done a mini-purge a few months ago (remember when I wrote about selling stuff in facebook groups?), but I had underestimated the amount of JUNK that we still have lying around.

In my efforts to purge I came across a box of old toddler clothes and I started going through it to sort into piles for resale shop and donate. Guess what I come across – their ladybug costumes from last year!

Remember, last year they were 16 months old and the costumes were size 18 months. Even though the girls are now 28 months old I’m looking at the costumes and thinking, “these are basically shapeless bags…they’ll still fit, right???” I call the girls over and zip on the outer part of the ladybug costume. They zip right up and fit like a champ. What’s better is the girls now KNOW what a ladybug is so they are all excited, running around and shrieking, “LADYBUG! LADYBUG! LADYBUG!”

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It’s settled. We’ll be ladybugs again!

In the box of clothes I even found the tights that came with the costume (black tights with red built-in footies), so the only thing missing is a solid black long-sleeve undershirt.

I threw the girls in the car (took them out of the costumes first), put the rest of the old toddler clothes in the car, and headed to the thrift shop. I found 2 long sleeve black shirts there and, after buying some of my clothes, I was able to purchase the 2 shirts using trade-in credit and not spending a dime out of pocket (plus I still have a couple bucks credit).

I’d call that a win any day!

I’m still a little bummed I’ll be missing Halloween this year. It would be their first year to actually go door-to-door. But we’ll have plenty of years ahead. Plus, our neighborhood is doing a free Harvest Festival this weekend and have advertised that they’ll be doing costume prizes! I think we may dress the girls up for the festival so I have a chance to get some pictures with them and spend some time together while they’re in costume. We’ll still have fun and they’ll never know it’s not Halloween.

What are you doing this year for Halloween? How do you keep the cost down for costumes?

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