How to Throw a Party on a Budget

My daughter recently graduated high school and I couldn't not throw her a graduation party.  Our apartment is too small so I decided to rent a lodge.  This rental cost $75 and it was a really nice and big place.  Her father said he would take care of the food and cake, so that left me with decorations, drinks, plates, eating utensils, and napkins.  I budgeted $100 for this and I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to find almost everything at the Dollar Tree, where everything in the store is $1.  I purchased the rest of the items at the grocery store and a party supply store and I only spent a grand total of around $60, well under my $100 budget!  The Dollar Tree had a ton of party supplies and graduation decorations and I even got a little carried away with the decorations.  Throwing her this party that she so greatly deserved only cost me $135.  Granted, I was lucky that I didn't have to provide the food, but if I had, I would have made it all myself and not had it catered.

Now I could have probably spent less had I made my own decorations, but from my past experience with DIY projects, I usually end up spending more money because I buy so many things to make the projects.  I never have the right things at home and I'm not always creative enough to make other things work.  I spend so much time looking at different stores for the right supplies it just isn't worth it to me.  I had enough going on anyway that I really didn't have the time for all this.  I love saving money and I am known to go out of my way to do so, but I limit myself to how much time I spend just to save a couple bucks.    It seems everyone is on these DIY Pinterest project kicks nowadays, but I value my time too much to be wasting on something that is only going to be used for a few hours.


photo credit: personalized glass mason treat jar and foil wrapped chocolate peanut butter cup snack treats via photopin (license)

Clothes Shopping for the Plus Size Girl

My daughter starts her summer job in a few days working in an office setting and needed business casual attire to wear to work.  She had virtually nothing in her closet that would be appropriate and fit.  Since she does not yet have her own money and I want her to succeed in making her own money this summer, I took her to buy her some clothes.  Since she wears a plus size, this makes it difficult to find a good selection of clothing anywhere.

We of course started with the thrift store.  We were able to find her a few shirts and a dress there, but no pants.  Our thrift store is huge, but does not have dressing rooms and does not allow returns so we didn't want to waste money on pants that we weren't even sure would fit right and they didn't have anything appealing in her size anyway.  We spent $32 total at the thrift store.

We then went to Plato's Closet (a junior size consignment shop), which just recently started selling plus sizes.  Unfortunately, the dress pants & khaki's section in her size consisted of about 5 pairs of pants total.  All but one were hideous.  The one she tried on did not fit well.  She was able to find two dresses here and a shirt.  Total spent at Plato's Closet was $26.

We had to find her some pants because she doesn't want to wear dresses every day and we had already bought her some shirts.  I decided to take her to Lane Bryant since it was nearby and I thought they would have a large selection of dress pants since the whole store is for plus sized women.  We were highly disappointed to only find a few options, all of which were $60.  They were buy one get one free, so we could have got two pairs for $60, but it was still more than we wanted to spend.  So we walked out of there empty handed and off to Kohl's we went.

We ended up getting her two pairs of pants and skirt for $58 out of pocket at Kohl's after using $15 from a gift card I still had from Christmas and applying for a Kohl's card to get a 30% discount.  That alone saved me $29.  I knew I wouldn't be approved anyway and wasn't worried about the inquiry affecting my credit score right now so why not spend a few minutes answering questions on the computer screen and save $29?

Then we had to get her shoes.  I refuse to buy second hand shoes unless they are ones that I know I will always wear socks with.  Since I knew she needed dress shoes and would probably want flats, she obviously isn't going to wear socks with those during the summer, so we hit up Payless.  Two pairs of shoes there cost us $45.

So the total spent to get her started on some work clothes was $161.  I was hoping to get away with only spending $100, but unfortunately that didn't work out.  I don't think we did too awful though considering everything she got.

Do you have any tips for shopping for clothes to save more money?  Please feel free to share in the comments below!

Getting Back on Track

As I have mentioned in a previous post, my husband was out of work for over a year after losing his job early last year.  He was able to collect unemployment for six months, which helped us to at least pay the necessities, After that ran out, we really struggled to keep up with the rent, electric bill, cell phone bill, internet, and food on just my income and two growing teenagers in the house.  We did luck out when we won a trip to the super bowl and were able to sell the tickets to the game.  That helped us catch up on our rent and other bills that had fallen behind, but didn't last as long as we had hoped.

My husband finally started a new job about a month ago, but are still trying to catch up on our electric bill and get back to being able to pay our rent on time since he has only received two paychecks so far.  His job is commission only so it's driving me crazy not being able to plan ahead and figure out how long it will take us to get back on track and start paying down our debt again.  In his line of work, he has always been paid commission and not a regular salary so that is not new to me, but at a time like this it makes me crazy because I love to plan for the future!  To make matters worse, my paycheck is now being garnished for an old debt since I have not been able to pay it during this past year.  This eats up about 20% of my paycheck.  On the bright side, that debt should be done after three more checks and that is one less debt and $1800 to remove from our total debt.

During this difficult time, we have really cut back on a lot of things!  Most of these things I tried to do before, but my husband wouldn't have it.  His philosophy on money was always "I can't take it with me".  Money is one of few things we disagree on.  It took me a while to convince my husband these changes were necessary, even after he lost his job.  But he eventually came to his senses and realized he was being selfish and unrealistic.

We have cut expenses on many things during this last year.  We never eat out, with the exception of my husband eating fast food for lunch on occasion (I'm still working on that one).  We completely cancelled cable.  We use my mother-in-law's Netflix account and we pay for Hulu Premium for $7.99 per month.  Cancelling cable really took some convincing for my husband.  I had to tell him we had no other options and it was a luxury that if we continued to keep, would cause us to become homeless.  The funny part about it is after we cancelled it and subscribed to Hulu premium he said he doesn't even miss it anymore.  The only thing he misses out on is some sports, but he is able to catch most things online somewhere or on basic channels.  But then, as soon as he found out he got his job, the first thing he mentioned was getting cable back!  No!!!!  I told him "why would we add another $150 monthly bill for something you didn't even miss and won't get to enjoy much of now that you're working anyway?"  He hasn't brought it up since.

I've been rolling my own cigarettes for quite a while now, which saves me $124 a month.  We very rarely drink alcohol anymore, not that we drank a lot before, but we did used to go out probably at least once a month and that no longer happens at all.  If we do drink, it's something we make at home and is so rare that it costs us virtually nothing.  I've been making our own bread in our bread machine and we bought a Soda Stream, which saves us a little.  I'm working on putting together some numbers for future posts on those although I fear we aren't saving as much as I thought we would when we bought the Soda Stream because now my son has an endless supply of soda.  We never buy clothes unless absolutely necessary.  If it is necessary, we try the thrift stores.  My daughter starts a summer job next week that requires business casual attire and she really has nothing to wear so we will have to hit up some thrift shops this weekend to at least get her a few outfits for work.

The next thing I'm working on is switching our cell phone carrier from AT&T to Cricket.  My husband is really against this too.  I'm still trying to figure out his reasoning on this one.  It makes zero sense to me to stay with AT&T when we can switch to Cricket and lower our bill from $255 per month to $100 per month (4 phones).  He actually got AT&T on the phone and talked to them for over an hour trying to convince them to lower our bill to keep us with them and the best they would do is shave off $20 a month.  I'll take it for now, but we're still switching!  He did, however, convince them to send a new phone for my daughter without insurance and without putting it under a contract (hers broke).  So right now we have two of the four phones completely out of contract so the plan is to switch those over to Cricket within the next week.  That leaves us with two phones under contract with AT&T and since we don't have the extra money right now to pay the early termination fees, we will have to wait until we can come up with it.  This will be first priority once our rent and electric and caught up.  I've done all the research and math and we can bring all of our current phones over to Cricket and will only need to pay $25 activation fees for each one plus 1 penny for each new sim card.  To start with, switching just the two of them over to Cricket will only save us about $8.44 a month.  This is because of the way AT&T prices two phones verses four and Cricket offers additional discounts for each additional phone.  But it's still savings.  If we were able to switch all four phones now it would be worth it even with paying the early cancellation fees.  If we could switch them all now, we would save $1000 in our first year with Cricket, including the early termination fees and activation fees.  Every year after that, we will save $1,860.

I have to say the only things we have splurged on at all is the soda and cigarettes.  I know we could save more money by cutting those out altogether, but I'm just not ready to quit smoking.  I do, however, want to start drinking less soda and more water.  This time of year I tend to drink more water anyway so my goal is to quit soda completely and stick to water, not only for the cost savings, but for my health too.

Does anyone else have any great saving techniques, ideas, or want to share what your weaknesses are when it comes to splurging?

Careless Spending at the Grocery Store

If you read yesterday’s post about me trying to teach my kids a lesson, I did break down and go to the store today, mainly because we were out of meat and fresh fruits and vegetables and I’m not mean enough to deprive them of those items.  So while I was at my local grocery store today I noticed the lady in line ahead of me had a gallon of milk on the belt.  This shocked me because the half gallons of milk were on sale for $1.00 each, while the gallons of milk were on sale for $2.69 each.  Why in the world would she want to spend an extra $0.69 on the same exact quantity of milk?  My guess is she just didn’t pay attention to the prices, which makes me wonder how much more money she was wasting on other things. 

She then asked the cashier for some cigarettes.  Now I’m not going to knock her for smoking since I am a smoker myself, but she is really spending way more money buying these at the grocery store than if she were to roll her own or even buy them somewhere else.  As I stated in my post “How to Save 65% on Cigarettes”, I roll my own cigarettes at a local smoke shop using their machine that does all the work for you for only $22.18 per carton.  This same smoke shop is located almost directly across the street from the grocery store she was buying these cigarettes at.  On top of that, even before I discovered rolling my own cigarettes, I would never purchase my cigarettes at the grocery store because they are always more expensive at grocery stores than they are at gas stations or convenience stores.  This is one of the few items that are cheaper at gas stations, but it is cheaper nonetheless. 

I had to wonder what kind of person is so careless with their money.  I have a few theories.

1. She is one of those people, like my husband was before I proved him otherwise, who thinks “oh it’s only 69 cents” or “what’s a little bit more for convenience” and doesn't realize how much all of those add up. 
2. Her husband handles all the finances and she has no clue what her spending habits are doing to their finances. 
3. She just doesn't care enough to pay attention to prices when buying anything at the grocery store.  She just buys what she wants and doesn't care what it costs, at least to an extent. 
4. She has an endless supply of money, which is highly doubtful, but good for her if that is the case.

Her case could be any combination of those above, but unless she falls into that 4^th scenario, she is hurting her family’s finances by not buying more responsibly.

So what did I buy at the grocery store today?  Four half gallons of milk at $1.00 each, eggs on sale for $0.99, sugar, bananas, five pounds of ground beef, deli meat and cheese for lunches, deli potato salad on sale for $1.25, pickles, Soda Stream cola for our Soda Stream (more on this to come in a future post), two boxes of cereal on sale for $1.88 each, hamburger buns, two packages of bacon on sale for $2.69 each (great deal!), some Cheez-It crackers, and chips and dip because I splurged a little.  Since my wonderful stepson works at this grocery store, we do get a small discount and I only spent $61.87 total.  The total discount was $4.39.  I then came home like I always do and opened my Ibotta app on my phone and got $1.10 back for some of the items I purchased (bananas, bacon, and cereal).  If you do not have this app already, you need to download it.  It is free and takes a few minutes of work, but you get free money just for buying things you already buy.  The best part about Ibotta is that not all items are brand-specific.  They give you money back on any brands of milk, bread, produce, etc.  

photo credit: Day 3/365 - Ride in the Shopping Cart.. (Explored) via photopin (license)

Why I Chose to Starve My Children

Ok, ok.  I’m not really starving my children, but they tried to tell me I am.  I’m sure most parents have been there.  I just decided I was going to quit feeding into their guilt trips when it comes to food.  Food is a necessity, but does not have to be a luxury.  We are having a rough month financially and I was tired of my teenagers wanting me to buy so much fast food, frozen premade food and snacks, and soda.  I had had enough and it was costing us a fortune.  They have also become extremely lazy and I’m trying to make them more responsible young adults. 

So what did I do?  When they said they were hungry, I told them to find something in the house to eat.  “But mom, we don’t have any food”.  “Really?” I said.  I knew we had food.  They just didn’t feel like cooking and there wasn't anything they wanted that was quick and easy.  At that moment, I could have come up with at least 4 meals they could have made themselves.  I just ignored them.  I knew if they were hungry enough they would find something.  They were old enough to cook for themselves at the ages of 14 and 18.  I work long days and I’m not coming home after working 10-11 hours to cook for them anymore. 

A few days later, I get home from work one evening.  I look at my daughter sitting on the couch with a goofy look on her face.  I asked her what was wrong.  She said “I’m hungry”.  “You are?” I replied.  She says “we have officially run out of food”.  Hmmm.  I knew this was still not the case.  She then says “please send me somewhere to pick up dinner.  I’m so hungry I just ate a bowl of cream of wheat and I hate cream of wheat!”.  “Well if you just ate cream of wheat you shouldn't be hungry then” I replied.  Nope.  I’m still not giving in. 

It’s about three days later and the only thing I have purchased from the grocery store is paper towels (my son has sent me 3 text messages within the last week reminding me we need paper towels, like that is something we can’t live without) and cheese and pizza sauce to make our own pizza. 

But I’m not just doing this to save myself money.  I’m also trying to prove a point.  The point being they are old enough and capable enough to start cooking for themselves and that there are people out there much worse off than we are.  I’m also trying to force all of us (myself included) to get more creative in the kitchen and use what we have rather than run out to buy food that we want when we already have plenty of food that can be prepared in the house. 

I take full blame for them becoming this way since I have usually given in to the guilt trips in the past.  Unfortunately, this is the only way to break this bad habit of eating out and buying them food when it isn't needed.  The kids went to their dad’s house for the weekend and I’m wondering if I will receive a text or call from him any minute now asking why I’m starving his children.  If I do, I will gladly ask him to come on over and have a look in our cabinets to see that they are not bare. 

I would love to hear if anyone else has “starved” their children.  Please share in the comments below!

photo credit: Dinner for One via photopin (license)

How Spending Less Money Can Make Your Life More Enjoyable

Most people (whether they admit it or not) spend money on needless things  It’s just become habit to buy the things you are used to buying, whether it’s food, beverages, or household items that you don’t realize there are other less expensive options for.  I had a habit for many years of stopping at a local fast food restaurant for a bagel and cream cheese every morning on my way to work.  When I first started this habit, it only cost $1.25 a day.  At the time of this writing, that same bagel and cream cheese costs $2.79.  This may not seem like much, but back in the day that $1.25 bagel cost me about $25/month.  At the current price, it would cost me $55.80/month.  If I buy my own bagels and cream cheese from the store and make my own, it would cost me roughly $26/month.  That is more than half the cost of what I would be spending at the drive thru. 

And that is just one example.  Just changing this one habit alone would save me $29.80/month.  Some of you might be thinking “that’s only $30.  What’s the big deal?”  Well first of all, that is just one item.  We have saved a lot more by making other changes.  We have dropped our cable altogether and use Hulu and Netflix instead.  We don’t even miss our cable.  We have cut out nearly all eating out and enjoy more time together at home being creative in the kitchen and saving money while we are at it.  We don’t buy many disposable items and instead use reusable replacements, such as cloth napkins or washcloths instead of napkins, rags instead of paper towels, real plates and silverware instead of paper and plastic.  I’ve even heard of people using rags instead of toilet paper.  We won’t be going that extreme, but hey if it works for you….  All of these changes add up to a lot of money saved.

Now let’s take this a step further and add up all of the savings we have made and see how much we could make in interest by investing this money we have saved.  Let’s use the $29.80/month I am saving by not buying that bagel and cream cheese every morning.  If I invest that into my 401k averaging a modest 6% interest rate, we would invest $16,272 in 20 years and earn $15,452.47 in interest for a total savings of $31,724.47.  That’s pretty incredible if you ask me!  I certainly don’t want to lose out on almost $32,000 just for a bagel.  If we manage to cut out $100/month in spending and invest that into a 401k averaging the same modest 6% interest rate, we would have invested $33,120 in 20 years and would have racked up $31,451.94 in interest for a total of $64,571.94. 

Here is a table of more examples: 

Monthly Savings	20 Years @ 6% Interest	25 Years @ 6% Interest	30 Years @ 6% Interest
$100	$64,571.94	$96,306.95	$138,775.55
$250	$134,758.87	$200,988.48	$289,618.63
$500	$251,737.04	$375,457.60	$541,023.63
$1,000	$485,693.41	$724,395.90	$1,043,833.69

The more and longer you can save, the more you can invest into your future.  Ask yourself these questions every time you are about to spend any money:

1. Is this a necessary purchase or do I have alternative options?

2. Is this a purchase that can wait?

3. Can I find a better price (either through another retailer, coupons, thrift shop, garage sale, or Craigslist)? 

Most of the time, I don’t make it past that first question. The grocery store is no exception. There are too many overpriced premade foods sold at grocery stores that you can easily spend a fortune on.  I am not a creative person at all and I have surprised myself how many times I have gotten creative and found other uses for things I already have to avoid buying something else.  My husband recently forgot to buy tartar sauce for the fish he made for dinner one night.  Instead of going back out to get some, he made his own using mayonnaise and horse radish.  This saved us the cost of the tartar sauce and the gas used to get to the store. Plus it was quicker to make it than to go back to the store anyway.  I have also been known to make my own laundry detergent, glass cleaner, and dish detergent.  Sometimes making your own cleaners does cost more up front, but saves you money in the long run.  Sometimes the cheaper option isn’t always the best option either.  For instance, I will buy Dawn dish detergent before buying the cheaper stuff because I can use much less of it to get the job done so it lasts longer. 

Being creative and weighing all of your options is key to making the best financial decisions.  Remember too that everyone’s priorities are different.  Keep what is most important to you in mind when making decisions regarding your time and money.  Saving money doesn’t have to make you miserable.  If you cut out spending in areas that truly aren’t that important to you, this leaves you more money to spend on the things that are important to you.  I love to travel so I would be willing to live a very simplistic lifestyle at home to have the money to travel and see the world.  Not everyone has the time to apply all money saving tactics out there either.  I know the power of couponing, but to save the most can be a full time job.  I did have fun during my couponing phase and learned a lot from it, but I choose now not to spend that much time on couponing because that was pretty much all I did outside of work and I didn’t have time to enjoy with my family and relax.  I still use some coupons, digital coupons, and stock up on items when the price is good.  I just don’t put nearly as much time into it as I used to because it didn’t seem that I was saving enough to be worth the time I was spending and we ended up with a  lot of stuff we wouldn’t normally buy or use just because it was really cheap.

If you need motivation, check out my post all about how I stay motivated.  

photo credit: About Stuff via photopin (license)

How Spending Less Money Can Make Your Life More Enjoyable

Most people (whether they admit it or not) spend money on needless things  It’s just become habit to buy the things you are used to buying, whether it’s food, beverages, or household items that you don’t realize there are other less expensive options for.  I had a habit for many years of stopping at a local fast food restaurant for a bagel and cream cheese every morning on my way to work.  When I first started this habit, it only cost $1.25 a day.  At the time of this writing, that same bagel and cream cheese costs $2.79.  This may not seem like much, but back in the day that $1.25 bagel cost me about $25/month.  At the current price, it would cost me $55.80/month.  If I buy my own bagels and cream cheese from the store and make my own, it would cost me roughly $26/month.  That is more than half the cost of what I would be spending at the drive thru. 

And that is just one example.  Just changing this one habit alone would save me $29.80/month.  Some of you might be thinking “that’s only $30.  What’s the big deal?”  Well first of all, that is just one item.  We have saved a lot more by making other changes.  We have dropped our cable altogether and use Hulu and Netflix instead.  We don’t even miss our cable.  We have cut out nearly all eating out and enjoy more time together at home being creative in the kitchen and saving money while we are at it.  We don’t buy many disposable items and instead use reusable replacements, such as cloth napkins or washcloths instead of napkins, rags instead of paper towels, real plates and silverware instead of paper and plastic.  We do still purchase toilet paper.  We draw the line at that one, but I won’t say I haven’t thought about it.  All of these changes add up to a lot of money saved.

Now let’s take this a step further and add up all of the savings we have made and see how much we could make in interest by investing this money we have saved.  Let’s use the $29.80/month I am saving by not buying that bagel and cream cheese every morning.  If I invest that into my 401k averaging a modest 6% interest rate, we would invest $16,272 in 20 years and earn $15,452.47 in interest for a total savings of $31,724.47.  That’s pretty incredible if you ask me!  I certainly don’t want to lose out on almost $32,000 just for a bagel.  If we manage to cut out $100/month in spending and invest that into a 401k averaging the same modest 6% interest rate, we would have invested $33,120 in 20 years and would have racked up $31,451.94 in interest for a total of $64,571.94. 

Here is a table of more examples: 

Monthly Savings	20 Years @ 6% Interest	25 Years @ 6% Interest	30 Years @ 6% Interest
$100	$64,571.94	$96,306.95	$138,775.55
$250	$134,758.87	$200,988.48	$289,618.63
$500	$251,737.04	$375,457.60	$541,023.63
$1,000	$485,693.41	$724,395.90	$1,043,833.69

The more and longer you can save, the more you can invest into your future.  Ask yourself these questions every time you are about to spend any money:

1. Is this a necessary purchase or do I have alternative options?

2. Is this a purchase that can wait?

3. Can I find a better price (either through another retailer, coupons, thrift shop, garage sale, or Craigslist)? 

Most of the time, I don’t make it past that first question. The grocery store is no exception. There are too many overpriced premade or individually packaged foods sold at grocery stores that you can easily spend a fortune on.  I am not a creative person at all and I have surprised myself how many times I have gotten creative and found other uses for things I already have to avoid buying something else.  My husband recently forgot to buy tartar sauce for the fish he made for dinner one night.  Instead of going back out to get some, he made his own using mayonnaise and horse radish.  This saved us the cost of the tartar sauce and the gas used to get to the store. Plus it was quicker to make it than to go back to the store anyway.  I have also been known to make my own laundry detergent, glass cleaner, and dish detergent.  Sometimes making your own cleaners does cost more up front, but saves you money in the long run.  Sometimes the cheaper option isn't always the best option either.  For instance, I will buy Dawn dish detergent before buying the cheaper stuff because I can use much less of it to get the job done so it lasts longer. 

Being creative and weighing all of your options is key to making the best financial decisions.  Remember too that everyone’s priorities are different.  Keep what is most important to you in mind when making decisions regarding your time and money.  Saving money doesn't have to make you miserable.  If you cut out spending in areas that truly aren't that important to you, this leaves you more money to spend on the things that are important to you.  I love to travel so I would be willing to live a very simplistic lifestyle at home to have the money to travel and see the world.  Not everyone has the time to apply all money saving tactics out there either.  I know the power of couponing, but to save the most can be a full time job.  I did have fun during my couponing phase and learned a lot from it, but I choose now not to spend that much time on couponing because that was pretty much all I did outside of work and I didn't have time to enjoy with my family and relax.

photo credit: shopping via photopin (license)

Staying Motivated

It seems about once a month something does not go as planned in our budget.  Either something unexpected comes up or we just spend more than we should in a particular category causing us to make less progress than anticipated.  When this happens I can’t help but feel a little defeated and sometimes even feel like giving up. So how do I stay motivated to stay on track? 

Review Progress Already Made

I know that just by keeping track of our spending alone goes a long way to help us financially.  I can honestly say that since I found the perfect budgeting software for me, I have been keeping track of every penny and this really helps me to know where we stand at all times and also keeps us from spending uncontrollably.  I always remind myself that we have already made great progress since rebooting our effort with the new software just two months ago.  While our debt has not decreased drastically just yet, this is mostly due to the fact that we found a couple old debts we had forgotten about when we made our original list.  We have drastically reduced our spending and are currently paying $800 a month towards debt. On top of that, we have starting saving monthly for things like gifts, Christmas, car maintenance and repairs, and our Amazon Prime membership to avoid having these expenses creep up on us.  When our Amazon Prime membership comes due again, we will already have the money set aside for it. In fact, when something unexpected comes up, we think about whether that is something that we should also be setting money aside for each month to avoid the same thing happening again in the future.  I think that if we keep adjusting our budget as we go, we will have less and less unexpected situations arise.

Remember Goals

I remind myself what our goals are and I know that if we give up, we will never reach these goals and we will be right back where we started. I remind myself of our goals every day and every time I consider making a purchase of any kind. I even have motivational pictures saved on my phone and my laptop to view whenever I need to remind myself of what we are working towards. This is not because I am depriving myself and hating life at that moment.  It is more to keep myself on track and remember why it is silly to spend on items that are not meaningful to me.  If you do not already have your goals written down somewhere, you need to do this now!  Simply writing down your goals and reviewing them periodically is a great motivator.  Be sure to break large goals down into smaller ones so that you can feel progress being made.  Set goal dates as well so you will be pushing yourself to meet those deadlines. 

 Seek Support

This is a great time to post a little rant on your favorite forum to seek motivational support and guidance from others who are either in the same situation as you or, better yet, have previously been in your position and have already made great progress.  I also find this to be a good time to read success stories on my favorite personal finance blogs and forums.  There are always others out there who have started out in worse situations and worked their way out of it.  I know if they can do it, so can we. 

Prove Others Wrong and/or Make Others Proud

This might seem strange to some, but I want to prove to certain people in my life that we are strong enough to fight through this and come out on top.  If you have any judgmental people in your life, you know where I’m coming from here.  I try not to be around judgmental people, but sometimes it is unavoidable, especially when they are family.  There are also certain people in our lives who I know will be very proud of us if we can accomplish this.  I can’t wait for the day that we can tell everyone we know that we are retiring from our full time jobs to live our dream.  

Set an Example

If we are able to retire at an early age, our kids will be young enough to learn from that and start saving much earlier than we did and retire at a very young age.  I also want them to understand that living a normal lifestyle is not a smart lifestyle to live.  Wasting money on eating out, fast food, soda from the gas station, coffee, etc. all adds up very quickly and takes away from things they would value much more.  I want them to live a life full of wonderful experiences and memories that will last a lifetime.  Whether that means traveling the world, skydiving (yikes!), mountain climbing, whatever their hearts desire is all that matters.  The important thing is they will not be able to do any of this if they are wasting all of their money on meaningless things.  It is hard to preach something like this if you are not living it yourself. 

Accept Mistakes and Move On

So when I find myself feeling down because we aren't progressing quickly enough, I will do one or more of these things until I feel better again and understand there are going to be bumps in the road.  At the end of the day, I just have to accept that and keep moving forward.  We may not reach our goals in the perfect amount of time, but as long as we keep working at it, we will get there.  If we give up, not only will we end up right back where we started, but our situation will likely get progressively worse.  I have also found writing this blog has been a great source of therapy and helps me to stay on track.  I should also mention that if you have a spouse, you should be on the same page and help motivate each other as well.  

The Cost of Forgetting to Pay Your Bills on Time

Recently, I somehow forgot to pay my rent before the due date and ended up paying a $50 late fee for being one day late.  It’s not that I didn’t have the money or I didn’t want to pay it.  I just simply forgot and it cost me $50. That was $50 that could have gone towards our debt and stupid mistakes like this really drive me crazy.  I have been notorious for this in the past also.  I don’t know how many times I forgot to pay the cell phone bill until they shut off our phones.  Somehow I wasn’t receiving the bills or being notified that we were past due and instead of looking into why that was happening I just kept paying the $45 reconnect fee each month.  I finally realized how ridiculous this was and figured out what the issue was and I now get notified when my bill is due and I have it set as a reminder on my phone so I am not wasting money on all of these late fees.  I have now set reminders for all of my bills so I will never pay another late fee again.  Once we have a good buffer saved up in our account, I will probably set these bills on auto-pay, but until then I needed something to remind me to pay them before they are due.  If I forgot to pay both of these bills every month, I would pay an additional $95 a month in late fees. That is only for two bills. Can you imagine what would happen if you paid all of your bills late?  The $95 a month alone adds up to $1140 a year!  If you think you can’t afford to pay your bills on time, you need a budget and you need to cut some wasteful spending out of your life.  

Is Couponing Really Worth the Trouble?

Coupons have been around for years and people have been taking advantage of them more than ever over the last few years with the rising cost of food and the troubling economy. So are you throwing away money by not using them? This really depends on a lot of factors. First, how much time do you have to devote to saving money on your grocery bill? To save the ultimate amount of money requires a lot of time. I’ve heard of people spending upwards of 40 hours a week couponing. This is, of course, very extreme.

I have tried couponing in the past and did get a lot of free and extremely cheap items in the process. I had a coupon binder, bought 2-4 newspapers every Sunday, spent countless hours cutting and organizing coupons, scouring the web for good deals, and then go to the store, coupons in hand, only to find that some of the items I couldn’t even get because other couponers beat me to it and cleared the shelves. It was kind of fun while it lasted, but I found that I really didn’t save enough money for it to be worth the 5-10 hours a week I was spending on it. Why you ask? A lot of the coupons out there are for expensive brands of processed foods, premade snacks, and junk food. I found that when I was couponing I was buying foods I wouldn’t normally buy and loading my family up with junk food that we didn’t need. On top of that, I was paying for these items! Even though I was getting them cheap, I still had to buy meat, dairy, and other essentials that there are never coupons for. I would get so caught up in getting such a great deal that I didn’t realize I was buying things we would never eat or that we didn’t need to eat.

 Then there are all the rules. Every store has different coupon policies. Drug stores, Target and Wal-Mart all have the same policy at all of their national stores, but the same grocery store chain can have a different policy at each location. You have to know which stores double, how much they will double, how many of the same coupon you can use in each transaction, and the list goes on.

 Now that I have told you about all the cons of couponing, I will give you some pros. If you have a little time to spend, I do still like to take advantage of some of the Walgreens and CVS deals once in a while. Occasionally you can get free items by paying up front and getting a coupon at the register for the same amount off of a future purchase. As long as you know you will remember to use these coupons in the future before they expire, this is a good deal for items you would normally use in your household. Sometimes you can even make money on these items if you have a coupon for the item itself. I will also say that I had quite the stock pile of toothpaste, toothbrushes, dental floss, razors, shampoo, conditioner, laundry detergent, paper towels, dish soap, and other items that don’t expire and will get used up eventually. I think my daughter will have enough panty liners to last her a lifetime (all free)! These are things I can’t really complain about because they will always be used and these are deals I would never pass up. I have also donated things I got for free that we will never use so that’s certainly a good thing.

 With all this being said, I will tell you that I don’t coupon much anymore. I just haven’t had the time to devote to it. I do try to load digital coupons and use the free Kroger coupons that come in the mail. I will also stock up a little on items that are at a good sale price so that we don’t have to overpay for these items in the future. We also don’t buy much premade foods and cook mostly from scratch. We really try to limit how often we eat out. It amazes me how expensive that can get!

Couponing can be worthwhile if done right. Find the system that works best for your family’s needs, stick to only buying things that you really need, don’t get carried away with all the great deals to be had, stock up only when an item is the cheapest you know you will ever get it for and you know it will get used before the expiration date.

 Some of my favorite couponing resources:

CouponMom.com
DealSeekingMom.com 
WeUseCoupons.com

Introduction to a Personal Finance Addict

I have always had an obsession with money. I have probably read every personal finance book out there and scoured blogs and websites looking for answers to many questions. If you are here looking for an easy answer to all of your problems, you're not going to find it. In fact, you won't find it anywhere. Believe me, I've tried. There is no easy answer to making lots of money or how to manage your finances. Every person is different and has to figure out what works for them. I think that all of my research will help others learn how to save money, find useful tools, earn extra money, etc. That's what this blog is all about. In the near future, you will find book reviews, useful tools, and lots of tips that I have learned over the years. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you find something useful here!

What Are Your Biggest Dreams?

I recently watched a documentary on Netflix called TINY: A Story About Living Small.  It was a story about a couple who built their own tiny house on wheels.  Watching this made me think about how much housing really costs and how much space and stuff we truly need.  We currently live in a three bedroom, two and a half bath, 1,334 square foot town home with a one car garage and no basement. We have two adults and two teenagers living here. With two teenagers, I can’t imagine having less space than we currently do.  But when they grow up and move out, I don’t see a need for a bunch of empty space.  I also started to think about how much money we could save by downsizing to the bare minimum and how that savings could fund things that we really enjoy.

What are your dreams?

One of my biggest dreams is to travel the country and I am fortunate enough to have a husband who also shares this dream with me.  We would love to actually live in an RV and travel until we either get tired of it or find a place that we just can’t leave.  My youngest child will leave for college in four years. This means we need to knock out $60,000 in debt and save a lot of money in the next four years. We also need to find other income streams so that we can afford to quit our full time jobs when the time comes. We’ve come up with some goals to help accomplish this.

Goals for Reaching our Dream of Traveling

• Pay off all debt in the next year. This is going to be a major challenge that will require us cutting out all wasteful spending and applying every dime we can towards debt. We know this may not be entirely possible, but we will keep at it even if it takes longer. The key is to not give up when things take longer than you hope. If you give up, you will never get there.  
•  Develop other income streams that can be done from anywhere. I’m hoping this blog will be one of those income streams, especially since I love helping other people save money and accomplish their dreams. We may start other blogs and possibly even try to write a book. I love photography and am thinking we will probably add a travel blog once we are on the road.  I think the most important part of this goal is to actually enjoy what we do.
• After paying off all debt, we will apply every possible dime into savings for our RV, travel, and living expenses. We also need to research where to store this money where it will earn the most interest, but not charge a penalty for withdrawing before a certain age.  I’m sure Mr. Money Mustache has some good articles on this subject on his blog.
• Find a lower cost home between now and then. We currently rent and our rent isn’t outrageously high. In fact, it is the lowest rent for 3 bedroom apartments (or homes) in our school district (except for the low income housing, which we do not qualify for).  However, I still think we could probably find something cheaper if we keep looking. 
• Don’t fall into the eating out trap. We have been doing pretty well at not eating out lately, but it takes discipline and planning ahead to stick with it. We have to keep it up if we want to accomplish our goals in a reasonable amount of time.  The good news is I have a small garden this summer so that is motivation to try to use up those vegetables.
• Cut out more unnecessary wasteful spending. We have already cut back a lot in the last few months, but I know we still have a ways to go. I still smoke cigarettes (although I figured out how to reduce this cost by 65%) and we still drink a lot of soda. I think I’m going to start cutting out my soda by drinking from the free water cooler at work instead of hitting up the vending machine. I also will try to start exercising, which will cause me to drink more water, even if it just means doing some sit-ups or going for a walk each day. This is something I need to be doing anyway and I think it will help my water intake as well.
• We need to start decluttering. We have a lot of junk in boxes in the garage that we don’t ever use. I will be taking a week off of work in a few weeks and that will be my goal for that week. We need to sell what we can and donate the rest. We can’t take all this crap on the road with us when we go and we could apply the money we make towards our debt.

This will be a post that I will refer back to often as we try to accomplish each of these goals. Think about what your ultimate dreams are and discuss them with your spouse. If you can find common goals, you will find a way to work together to accomplish those goals. It took my husband and I several years to find a common goal to work towards and that was mainly because we weren't looking at the big picture and communicating about it. I kept trying to say I needed to go back to school so that I could earn more money, but going back to school would put us even deeper into debt and I wasn't thinking about what would really make me happy. Making more money isn't always the answer. The answer can simply be to only spend your money on things you truly value. Stop thinking about what normal society spends money on and think only about what you want out of life and you will be much happier. If my husband and I want to accomplish our dream of living on the road, going back to school is pointless and wasteful spending.  If you have been dreaming of owning a large home, why do you want to own a large home? Is it just the idea of having it or is that what you truly want? Sure I would like a large house, but I wouldn't want to do all the upkeep myself and I definitely don’t want to pay someone else to do it. If I really want to travel and I don’t want to be home much anyway, what is the point of having a large house? I would just spend more money trying to fill it up with things I don’t really need and I would probably have to work the rest of my life to pay for it. That does not sound like fun to me!

Follow These Steps to Accomplish Your Dreams

• Think about your ultimate life goals and discuss them with your significant other if you have one.
• Make a plan and stick with it. Put it in writing in a place you can refer to often as a constant reminder.
• Break your big goals down into smaller goals.  When you set smaller goals, you can accomplish them one at a time in a reasonable amount of time and each one of these you accomplish is a step closer to meeting your larger goals.  Celebrate every goal you accomplish (in a cheap way of course).
• Remind yourself of your biggest goals every time you consider purchasing something that isn’t a necessity. You would be surprised how often you will put things back when you do this and you will feel good about it!
• Track your spending and use a budget. This is probably the most important task of all. If you don’t track your spending, it becomes hard to reduce your spending and keep track of your goals efficiently.  See my post about my favorite budgeting software, YNAB.

Below are some pictures of places we have traveled to in years past. 

Las Vegas Strip

Niagara Falls

St. Augustine, FL

Washington D.C.

How to Save 65% on Cigarettes

Let me start off with the disclaimer that I do not promote smoking at all.  I wish I had never started and if you are not currently a smoker please do not start!  If you are a smoker, please keep reading.

That picture to the right used to be my brand of choice.  I was 16 when I first started smoking.  I started out on Marlboro Lights and switched to Camel lights.  Then at about the age of 19 I switched to Basic Lights because they were cheaper.  I smoked Basics for years, even when they became more expensive than Marlboro and Camels because I was hooked on that brand.  

After several failed attempts at quitting, I decided to at least find a way to reduce my cost on cigarettes until I am ready to quit.  I am not proud to be a smoker and I do wish I had never started.  However, I know that I really have to want to quit before I can really do it and I guess I’m just not there yet.  A friend at work was rolling her own cigarettes for a while and I thought they were OK, but I just never tried it myself.  I didn't think they were as good as my brand and I didn't realize just how much money she was saving.  She said it was also a pain to roll all the cigarettes.  She used a little machine to do it, but had to do one at a time.

The other day, I thought I would at least give it a try because I was tired of spending $190 a month on cigarettes and with all the debt we have to pay off I had to try something.  I stopped into my local tobacco store on my way home from work and learned that there is a machine that rolls a whole carton of cigarettes in about 8 minutes for you.  You have to join a club to use it and it was located right next door to the tobacco shop.  I believe they can’t legally keep it in a tobacco shop.  It costs $5 each time you use it.  I spent a total of $22 and about 20 minutes of my time to get a carton of cigarettes.  This was exciting enough, but I was afraid of what it would taste like and worried that I just wasted my money and would go back to buying my Basics.  I was wrong!  I actually enjoyed them just as well as my Basics (if not more).  I can’t believe I didn't try this sooner.  I just went from spending $190 a month to $66 a month for a savings of $124 (65%) per month!  That will equate to $1,488 a year and $5,952 savings in the next four years (if I don’t quit before then),  

Ask around at your local tobacco stores and at least give it a shot.  I live in Ohio so I am not familiar with the laws in other states and countries, but if it is an option, you will most certainly save money.  And I do believe the laws regarding the roll your own cigarettes are the same countrywide.  If you do try it, let me know how it works out for you in the comments below.  Did the quality of the cigarettes meet your expectations?  How much did you save?

Budgeting Without Stress

Not everyone loves to budget like I do. I have always liked playing with numbers, figuring out ways to save money, looking for the best deals, etc. However, I always struggled to find a budgeting system that I can really stick with. I recently ran across YNAB (You Need a Budget). I tried this once before and I’m not sure what happened, but it didn't stick. This time is different. Maybe they made some changes since the last time that I really like or maybe it just wasn't what I was looking for at the time. I decided to give it another shot because they offer a free 34 day trial, which does not require a credit card. It only took one day for me to be hooked.

First of all, it is very easy to use. They have great free tutorials, classes, and forums filled with YNAB users who are very passionate about this program. What else I love about YNAB is that you only budget the money you currently have and if something comes up that causes you to go over budget in one category, simply adjust other categories. They call this “rolling with the punches”. Whenever you get paid or get money from anywhere, think about what you will need to pay before you get paid again. If you cover your necessities and have money left over, you can start paying off debt or putting towards rainy day funds, or build a buffer. A buffer is where you save enough money in that category to pay for one month's worth of expenses.  Once you have that saved up, you will always be a month ahead on your budgeting and bills.  You can pay your bills at the beginning of the month or whenever you want to instead of waiting until you have enough money to cover it.  Better yet, set up automatic payments so you don't have to forget to pay them and since you have a buffer, you don't have to worry about the money not being there.  There are many advantages to doing this, the biggest being you don't have to worry about paying any of your bills late again and avoiding late fees and negative credit reporting.  When you see the possibilities it helps you make better spending decisions and you actually try to stay within budget. I really only check my bank account daily to be sure there are no fraudulent charges or anything that I may have forgotten about. I simply check my budget categories each morning to see how much I have remaining in whatever categories I may spend in that day.

The other thing I love about this (which I’m certain they didn't have before) is their smart phone app for Android (they also have one for the iPhone and are working on a Windows phone version). Whatever transactions I add on the go sync up with my desktop version and I can view the balances of all my categories on the app as well.

For anyone that does not currently budget or is not happy with their current budgeting system, I urge you to just try the free trial. You have nothing to lose since it does not require a credit card up front. If you don’t purchase the program, you just won’t be able to use it anymore after the 34 days are up. If you decide to purchase it, the cost is a one-time fee of $60; however, if you use my referral link, you will only pay $54. I have to say I am the last one to pay for things when there are free options, but this is completely worth the money. You won't find anything free that will work as well as this does. I know it has already saved me more than that just by keeping me attentive to my spending.

Bonus:  If you are a college student, you can get YNAB for free!  Instructions here.