Guest Post: Entertaining on a Budget

In case you don't know, my parents and grandma have been visiting us for the past week. My grandma lives in another country, so we rarely get to see her - this was the first time that she met my husband and our daughter. This evening, my uncle and his family will be driving in from New York, and they will stay the weekend. Although they're not expecting to be entertained, they are still company and guests in my home, and to a certain degree I feel a moral undeniable obligation to play hostess, no matter how much they protest. And playing hostess is taxing - not only on your mind but also on your wallet!

When Beeb, the Super Coupon Girl, offered to scribe a guest post on how to entertain on a budget, it was just too good to be true. So, without further ado, here is the awesome budget-saving post. Take it away, Beeb!

Entertaining On a Budget

With the holidays quickly approaching, many of us are starting to plan parties and family get-togethers. If you're playing host this year, you may be concerned about the impact this will have on your budget. Perhaps you're making the family dinner on Christmas Eve, or maybe you've been nominated to cook for the annual holiday party at work. Whatever the event, if you're cooking for a crowd, it can get expensive. Sure, you're utilizing your coupon skills and shopping the sales, but it might not be enough. Here's some tips to help you stretch your dollar to the max.

Meal Plan Around Your Stockpile
Open your cupboards, and take a good look at what you've got. If you can plan some of your menu around what you already have, you'll save big. When I hosted my annual Halloween party this year, one of the things I served was “Jack 'O Lantern Toast”. I have several loaves of Sara Lee bread in my freezer that I got over the summer, thanks to a free coupon that came out in the newspaper. I defrosted one of those, and topped them with Kraft Cheese slices that had little “faces” cut into them. The cheese was also free, from yet another great coupon that appeared in the newspaper. I made a big batch, and grilled them in the oven. Not only was it a free way to make a bunch of appetizers, it was a hit with the guests!

Stuck for ideas as to what you can make with your stockpile? Check out Recipe Matcher. You can type in a list of what ingredients you have on hand, and it will show you recipes that can be made using them!

Use Inexpensive Ingredients
If you haven't built up much of a stockpile yet – or if it mostly consists of Windex – then you'll still need to purchase quite a bit of food. Think of what items you can buy in large quantities for fairly little. For example, a bag of potatoes doesn't cost much, but it can feed a lot of people. Mashed potatoes are a traditional favorite for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and baked potatoes make a great side dish for almost any meal.

Making your own soup is another great way to make a large amount of food in a cost effective way. I made a simple, delicious soup using pumpkin and potatoes for my Halloween party – have I mentioned yet how much I love potatoes?

Pasta has always been a favorite of mine to serve guests, even before I used coupons. It's easy to make in large quantities, delicious – and cost effective! This year, I got a bunch of pasta and pasta sauce for free using coupons. But even if there's no fantastic sales in your area, it's still a low cost staple that goes a long way.

Make It From Scratch
Baking your own desserts, breakfasts, or breads is another fantastic way to save. If you bought a pie at the grocery store, it would probably cost about four or five dollars. For that amount, you could buy some flour and sugar and make several pies of your own. To save even further, substitute more expensive ingredients with lower priced alternatives. Got applesauce in your stockpile? Use that in place of oil in cakes and brownies. Out of butter or shortening? Opt for margarine. Check out this great list of other ingredient substitutions.

I make a lot of pies during the holiday season, and I often get feedback on how light and fluffy my crusts are. When I tell people that I make my crust out of oil, not butter, they're always shocked. Not only is an oil crust inexpensive, it's also easier to make than a butter crust. Interested in giving it a try? Here's the recipe:

Oil Pastry
Recipe from Betty Crocker's Cook Book - makes an 8 or 9 inch one-crust pie

Ingredients:
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt (I always omit this)
1/3 cup salad oil
2 to 3 tablespoons cold water

Measure flour and salt into bowl. Add oil; mix until particles are the size of small peas. Sprinkle in water, 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing until flour is moistened and dough almost cleans side of bowl. (If dough seems dry, 1 to 2 tablespoons oil can be added. Do not add water.) Gather dough together; press firmly into ball. Shape dough into flattened round and roll out.

Budget The Bird
The turkey is probably your biggest expense. Watch your store's sales fliers and see what kind of deals they're running. Some grocers offer special promotions where you can get your turkey for free with a certain purchase amount. Obviously, it makes no sense to spend $100 just to get a free turkey, but if you have to buy those items anyway, or if they allow coupons to sweeten the deal, it may be worthwhile for you.

Hold A Potluck
Finally, you may want to consider making your event a potluck. This could be especially helpful for family gatherings – instead of burdening one person with the planning and expense, everyone can pitch in a small amount and bring one dish.

This is also a big time saver, so it can help reduce the workload for everybody, and leave more time for what's really important during the holidays: spending time with each other.

Mid Month Budget Round-up

So far so good this month, except for our eat-out bill.  We're not going broke eating out, but we're also going above our budgeted $20.  To be fair, $20 doesn't really buy much, but eating out is something that we really want to stir ourselves away from.  Not only is the food not as healthy, it's also extremely expensive. 

However, everywhere else we're doing very good.  So far, we've only spent 35% of our total monthly income.  We're still putting away AT LEAST a third of our monthly income towards our savings.  The amounts are automatically transferred from our checking to our savings account on three different days of the month, and at the end of the month if we have any money left over it goes into our savings also.

The month is only half over, but so far I've made $70 in extra income: $5 from a craigslist sale, my $39.01 Inbox Dollars check, $20 from SurveySpot, $3.99 from Zout rebate, and most recently $2.78 from the Arm & Hammer rebate.  It's important to realize that every little bit helps - with very minimal work I've made enough to extra income cover the little princess' Gymboree membership fee for the month.

Thanks to the continually dropping gas prices, we've only spent $40 of our $100 gas budget this month.  I will probably revamp the budget next month to account for the lower gas prices.  As far as groceries go, I've been able to stay under my $50/week commissary budget, so right now I'm sitting at $75.  This is great because Thanksgiving is coming up, and we will most likely go over the weekly $50.  I know I can try to make a budget-friendly Thanksgiving meal, but Thanksgiving comes around once a year, and it is VERY rare that we get to spend it with family.  My parents are flying over, and they're bringing my grandma from overseas with them.  She's never celebrated Thanksgiving before, and while I'm sure she won't "get it", it will still be nice to share a huge Thanksgiving dinner with her. Besides, there's nothing better than leftover turkey.

Before I wrap this up, I want to share with you some rather abnormal large purchases we've made and how we can afford them.  I splurged and got a BabbaCover for the baby's car seat.  My husband also needed some new uniforms, so he went and spent a hundred or so dollars on those. 

We're not rolling in the big bucks.  We're an one income family living off a military wage.  Your paycheck grows with your rank, but since hubby's only been in for a bit more than 2 years he's obviously not rolling in the big bucks, not that the "big bucks" exist in the military.  However, we do not live pay check to pay check.  We're able to steadily put away a third of our income, and we're even able to afford occasional splurges like that car seat cover.

There is no secret to this.  I do not have some secret job that I'm not sharing with you.  The only secret is our mindset.  It's not an option for us to save - it's a requirement and a priority.  I WILL NOT buy anything that we cannot afford up front.  I WILL NOT dip into savings.  We have also revamped our idea of "needs" and "wants".  Our needs consist of very basic things - food, clothing, gas...etc.  Then there are our wants.  Certain wants take priority over others - we'll deal with not having cable so the baby can go to Gymboree.  We can definitely afford cable, but honestly we don't need it and that money can be better spent elsewhere.  Actually, we don't need Gymboree either, but that is one of the things that we are able to enjoy by careful budgeting.  Since my husband did Gymboree with his dad when he was a baby, it was a big thing for him to be able to do Gymboree with our daughter.  So, we make it work.

If you're having trouble with your budget and find that you're overspending, take a step back and analyze your life.  What do you TRULY need to survive, and what is a perk?  Which perks are more important than others?  Find out what's keeping you from reaching your savings goal, and actively do something about it.

Note: If you're stuck and you just need someone to bounce budgeting ideas off, feel free to email me.  I am more than happy to help anyone attain their savings goal.  I'm not an expert, but we can share ideas and figure out what will work for you.  It's not fun to have to worry about money day and night, and I would never wish that on anyone.

Budgeting for Christmas

When do you start Christmas shopping? How do you budget for Christmas? Do you stick to your budget?

I'm just going to come out and say it: I have no Christmas budget. I like to get each person something they will truly enjoy, so I try not to set a limit. Obviously, I'm going to be reasonable and not go broke because of Christmas presents, but I'm also not going to cap myself off at $20 if there's something for $30 or even $50 that I know the person will absolutely love.

However, since we're a military family and more often than not we're away from family for Christmas, my Christmas shopping depends mainly on the item's ease of shipping. Last year we skipped on the Christmas presents - people understood. Shipping presents across the country is no laughing matter. You can easily spend a hundred on shipping alone, especially when you have a HUGE family like us. We sent them lots of pictures and did elaborate photo Christmas cards instead.

This year, we're actually going home for Christmas, but we're not doing the whole present thing. Everyone would rather see the baby all of us than get presents, so it was agreed upon that we spend the money to go home for Christmas instead of buying stuff. We're still going to do a little something for everyone though - I'm thinking about getting a bunch of clay and making ornaments of the baby's hand/foot prints. It's cheap, simple, and will be adored by all.  If I get too busy though, my back-up plan is to grab a huge gift bow from the Dollar Tree and stick it on the baby's head. Granted, they'll have to share their "Christmas present" and they can't keep her, but I'm sure they'll love their present all the same.

We can't wait to go home for Christmas and see everyone, and I'm so happy not to have that burden of Christmas shopping on my shoulders. Christmas is about family anyway, not about stuff. It's important to remember what really matters. No matter how awesome the gift is, a decade later you probably won't have it anymore, and the memory that often stays with you is not what present you got, but the time that you spent with your family. Christmas presents is a nice gesture and a fun part of the holidays, but it's important not to go overboard. Get back to the basics and what Christmas is all about - family...!

Day 3 of the Christmas of Dreams Blog Party at MomDot is sponsored by Appledonia, Hippos Toes , and My Bag.

October Monthly Budget Roundup

I cannot BELIEVE it is the end of October already.  I just don't know where all of the time is flying...! 

We didn't do too great this month, but in a way I expected that.  Our anniversary was earlier this month, and my husband went ALL OUT and sent me to the spa, and then cooked a gourmet dinner at home.  That cost a pretty penny, or two.  Then last week I got into major hibernation mode and didn't want to do much but sleep through the week.  As a result we barely had dinners, much less leftovers...so we ended up eating McDonald's for most of the weekend when my husband had duty. Not only is it unhealthy, it's also expensive.

As horrible as our spending habits sound, we still managed to put away $450 in addition to our monthly savings commitment of $600.  That commitment is actually factored into our budget, so our total cost figure is actually misleading because we didn't spend it all. 

All of this was thanks to the extra income that we had this month.  I purposefully aim low when it comes to my husband's paycheck - total difference is only about $50, but I like to budget for wiggle room.  Then we got his uniform bonus that was actually worth something for a change.  I also had around $50 in rebates this month.  That's not exactly "income" since I had to purchase something to get the rebate, but they were all deals or money-makers.  Besides, from a math standpoint, they were already counted into last month's spending already.

We didn't exactly stick to budget this month, but I almost have a breakdown when I think about the last two months of the year.  My grandmother is flying in from overseas for a visit, and she's going to fly over to our house along with my parents for Thanksgiving.  And because my aunt and uncle and cousins haven't seen her in probably a decade, they're going to come too.  In other words, I have a small family reunion on my hands for Thanksgiving.  My family isn't expecting some elaborate feast and 900 count Egyptian cotton, but the inevitable extra outings will surely put a dent in our budget.

Then in December, we've been told that we have no choice but to fly home to California for Christmas.  People want to see my adorable baby.  Family members have graciously offered to chip in for our plane tickets, and they'll provide a place to stay and food to eat, but either way we can expect to go way over budget.  The dogs will have to be boarded, and that won't be cheap.  The phone calls I'm going to make to make sure they're doing okay every 3 hours probably won't come cheap either =P.  We've been given a pass on buying presents on everyone (just stick a bow on the baby's head), but I'm not so sure about that.  I'd feel bad receiving a thousand presents and giving nothing.

Oh, and my husband thinks he'll be transferred sometime in January.  Which means another round of crazy moving costs, and waiting some 9 weeks for our moving money.  Hopefully the moving company will be nice this time and NOT break $3000 of our stuff. 

Life will be very insane for the next 3 months, but it will all be worth it.  I can't wait to see my family again, and it'll be nice to be home for Christmas.  And depending on where my husband transfers, life will get very good (think Hawaii...or San Diego).  That is, if I remain sane enough to enjoy it.

Works for Me Wednesday: Taking it easy, budget wise

This weekend, my husband and I had a very interesting and involved conversation regarding our spending.  I have been working very hard to keep us on a necessities-only budget for the past couple of months, and his argument has always been that since we're not broke, in-debt, or have trouble keeping food on the table...I should lighten up a bit.  Then I come back with "we need to save for the future!  For the baby!  For retirement!".  I also pull up some number about how much we're spending and how we can't live beyond our means.  At this point, he gives up for the day and we move onto something else.

Well, we had another showing of this very regular conversation, but the only change is that this time I completely agreed with him.  I've decided to lighten up on our budget.  My budgeted projected cost for each month is 86% of our projected monthly income, but to be honest that's not exactly accurate.  Our projected monthly income is about $100 lower than what it actually is, and we always have some type of extra income for the month.  I also include our savings commitment into our budget, which accounts for the majority of our high percentage.  If I take out the savings from the projected spending for the month, our projected cost comes to around 50% instead. 

That being said, I've decided to lighten up on my budgeting.  That's not saying that I'm tossing my necessities-only budget out the window - I'm just not going to fret if we go over-budget.  I'm still going to keep my projected figures at the necessities-only level, but I'm not going to go on a "stomping out all non-necessities spending" crusade like I have been.

My husband had a very good point.  We're not in debt.  We have a workable amount of money in savings.  We're careful with our money.  It's okay to just take it easy and enjoy life a bit.  He works very hard every single day, and I work hard too finding deals and stretching our pennies...it's okay if we want to treat ourselves to a restaurant meal once a week.

It's true that our savings account would be a better place for that $50 than the restaurant's bank account, but it's nice to be able to enjoy some time out together.  It takes stress off our shoulders, and it lets us just enjoy something together, which we rarely get to do with my husband's new crazy hectic schedule and the baby's growing demands.  We're together while we're running our errands, but we're running around and our attention is getting our errand list done, not on each other.  I'm starting to look at all of this "non-necessities" spending as an investment in our marriage and happiness.

That's not saying that in order to be happy and have a good marriage you need to go out and spend non-necessity money.  There are PLENTY of families out there who do without those extra things and they're perfectly happy.  I envy them, and maybe one day when we're both older we'll be able to do that too, but we're still young and there is plenty of time for us to learn and grow. 

October Mid-month Budget Roundup

I can't believe half of October is gone already!  Where did it go?!   Last I checked we were still in September!  We're not doing too great for October, but I actually expected that.  Our anniversary was earlier this month, so there was a lot of unexpected over-budget spending, mostly on my husband's part.  You do not even want to know how much my spa trip cost - let's just say it was enough for 2 months of groceries, and then some.

I'm not advocating over-spending on anniversaries, but I'm not beating myself up too much over this one.  It's once-a-year thing, and most likely he'll be at sea for our next anniversary.  It is a special day, and it's important that we celebrate it.  Besides, it's really really REALLY hard to yell at someone for sending you to the spa all day.

I made a couple of changes to our budget this month - most notably adding on $70 in my daughter's category to account for the Gymboree membership.  It's money well spent.  I also added a new category to the doggie category - that being a "training" fund.  Chloe's class will be over in 2 weeks, but we've made the decision to start Chip on a basic obedience class.  He won't go as far as Chloe since a 12lb guard dog is a joke, but we feel that it's important for him to have at least the basics.  Chip also has a lot of issues (he's been attacked by a coyote, and that's just the tip of the iceberg), but after working with this trainer, we feel comfortable enough to trust her with our precious little Chippy boy.

We also had some unexpected income - which includes my husband's yearly clothing bonus.  It's bigger than we expected, which is nice.  He'll be able to replace some old shirts now.  As far as rebates go, so far I've received $17.10 ($11.10 from ebates, and $6 from the Caregivers Marketplace).  I also made $45 selling some old furniture on craigslist.  When I first started budgeting, I never expected to have that much bonus income.  But in just half the month I've made $62 - that's nearly enough to pay for Gymboree!

So, long story short...we went WAY overbudget so far because of our annivesary, but it's something that I'm not stressing about.  It's important to let go of the reins every once in a while and just ENJOY the Precious Pennies we've been working so hard to save.

Commissary savings of $8.90 (21%)

UPDATE: You can view my Wednesday shopping trip review here.  Since I only made two trips out this week (Wednesday and today), there will not be a "week-in-review" post.

I apologize for my lack of commissary post last week, but things got a bit hectic towards the end of the week as we headed into our anniversary celebration. However, I do have to confess that I went over-budget by $12.88. This is mainly due to my OCD stocking up on sale items such as pasta and brownies. It's not a big deal though, because I was under budget by a total of $59.51 as of last month. But then my husband had to go shopping for ingredients for our anniversary dinner, and he spent a total of $70.84. See why he's not in charge of grocery shopping? Granted, $36.25 of that were wines that he used to cook with, but still...!

I'm not pleased about the crazy over-budgetting, but it's already been done and it was a special occasion, so I'm just going to stop fretting about it and save that much more in the future. Today my savings rang in at $8.90, or 21% of my total. Here is my shopping list:

Menu Items
1 can (10¾ oz) cream of mushroom soup: $0.50
1 lime: $0.39
1lb mozzarella cheese: $3.00
1½ lb beef stew cubes: $5.25
1½ lb pork tenderloin: $2.80
3 3oz pkg chicken flavor ramen noodle soup ($0.20 each): $0.60
1 pkg chicken breasts: $3.17
Total cost for week's menu: $15.71

Sale Items
1 Glade Wisp Flameless Refill: $2.00
3 Chex Cereal Bar ($1.75 each): $5.25
2 Gain detergent powder ($4.79 each): $9.58
1 Pillsbury cinnamon roll: $1.39
1 Ronzoni Smart Taste: $0.99
4 Giorgio Sliced mushrooms 4oz ($0.49 each): $1.96
3 VIP frozen veggies ($0.79 each): $2.37
3 Cream of Mushroom ($0.50 each): $1.50
Total stockpiling/misc. cost: $25.04
After coupons: $16.14

Coupons
Use 1 Glade $1/1 mfg (-$1.00)
Use 3 Chex $1.50/1 mfg (-$4.50)
Use 2 Gain $1/1 mfg (-$2.00)
Use 1 Pillsbury $0.40/1 mfg (-$0.40)
Use 1 Ronzoni Smart Taste $1/1 mfg (-$1.00)
Total coupon savings: $8.90

It wasn't too shabby of a trip, and I'll definitely be hitting up the same sales next week since these sale prices are good until 10/22. I was looking forward to getting some College Inn Beef/Chicken broth for $0.25 but unfortunately they didn't have any. I wanted to get 10 of the Chex Cereal bars, but they only had 3 on the shelf and I hope that they restock so I can get them for a mere $0.25 each!

I didn't save too much at the commissary, so my Charity Pot increased only $0.89 to a grand total of $5.76. I'm starting to think about upping my percentage to 15% just because it's filling up so slowly!

September budget roundup

September was a crazy month for us with some good news and some bad news.  I always like to do bad news first so the good news will cheer me up later, so here's the bad news.  We spent $166.25 on fast food this month.  To put that in comparison, I only spent $137.26 at the commissary in the entire month.  This is not good.  I have to admit that I contributed to our horrific total, but before yesterday I thought our fast food spendings were at $67.34.  Apparently my husband has been going to McDonald's without even telling me.  And on top of that, he's spent a total of $85 at the NEX this month on stuff he can't even remember, and thus I can only conclude that he didn't even need. 

We've worked out that his total "debt" from his month-long spending spree is $150.  The resolution that we've come to is that he's going to do without any money except for $20 emergency cash until I save $150 on my deal-seeking, so he can see just how hard it is to save money.  The better solution would be to make him clip coupons, pull up the scenarios, and go to the stores...but that's just a bit too much.  It seems silly and even downright mean that I'm taking away an adult's spending power, but he himself has admitted to having absolutely no sense of money.  The point that I'm hoping he'll learn is that there are very few impulse "needs".  I'm not taking away his entire access to money, I'm just making him wait a couple of hours until he gets home and identify his need.

Now the good news is that even with his spending spree and our fast-food fiasco, we're able to put away 43% of our total income this month.  This is on top of the $600 that is already factored into our budget as a monthly "expense".  We're able to put so much extra away this month due to the fact that we finally got our travel reimbursement - it's only been 9 weeks!  I also earned $95 in extra "income" from rebates and such.

There were a couple of areas were we managed to stay under budget.  We only spent $65 out of our budgeted $125 for gas, which is a complete surprise to me.  I double and triple checked my receipts and credit card bill for gas station trips that I missed, but I just couldn't find any.  This is a very pleasant surprise, and I can only attribute it to the awesome gas mileage that our little Honda Fit gets.  I love that car.  If my husband keeps up his spending spree, I think I'm going to have to leave him for the car.  Or the commissary.

I'm $60 under in our commissary budget - I only spent $140 out of our allotted $200.  You can catch up on the details on each of my four trips this month here.  It comes out to an average of $35/week, and we have meat around half the week.  You can see my menu plans here.  The commissary budget encompasses anything that I buy at the commissary, so a lot of times non-food items make it on there.  I have also been able to keep a good food stockpile going while still staying under-budget...actually, my last trip to the commissary was mainly stuff for our stockpile. 

This month, I spent $7.23 OOP at CVS, which is definitely not too shabby considering I've probably gotten hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise from them.  I spent $57.96 at Walgreens though, and once I got over the initial shock I realized this isn't too bad since I have a $80 gift card headed my way from the EasySaver rebates, and a $20 gift card from customer service from my run-in with the Walgreens from hell.

As far as unexpected expenses go, the only one that's within our budget is Chloe's training class.   We also had two rather huge unexpected expenses - the first being our rent from August that was supposed to be taken care of automatically.  The second was an old student loan of my husband's that has been in deferment due to his active duty status.  Except now they changed their policies and you are only eligible for a deferment if you're in a hostile combat zone.  In the past, that would have gotten your loan completely canceled, but now it's only deferred.  I guess if you're just doing worthless stupid old active duty, they don't care about you.  Jerks.

I didn't factor these two bigger expenses into our budget because they came out of our savings account.  We didn't have to break the piggy bank or dip into our emergency fund, so it's rather comforting to know our budgeting and saving strategy is working.  We're not rich because I definately miss those two large sums of money, but at least we're no longer sitting on the very cliff edge of being flat broke.

The next couple of months promises a lot of action and fun.  I just found out this past week that we'll be hosting a small family reunion at our house for Thanksgiving.  It began with my parents using their frequent flyer miles to visit and see the baby, which is not a biggie considering they make their own bed and even wash the bedsheets before they leave.  Then it expanded to my 80 year old grandmother flying in from overseas to visit.  And of course, if she's going to make the trip, she'll want to see my uncle and his family in New York.  And to minimize airplane trips for her, they're going to come to her instead.  At my house.  So next month we'll probably be purchasing a new table, considering 10 people gathered for Thanksgiving around my little 35" diameter table is probably impossible.  Not that I'm not crazily excited to see my family, but my head is hurting just thinking about it, and my wallet already feels lighter.

Oh, and did I mention that my husband's family wants us to fly to California for Christmas as well...?  Plane tickets for the three of us should only cost an arm, a leg, and maybe our first-born...in which case I guess it'll only be two tickets...

Mid-month budget checkup

UPDATE: don't forget that you can get a copy of my budget spreadsheet by email.  I'm still offering a personalized template for anyone who's interested - all you have to do is place my button on your blog or email 10 friends about My Precious Pennies. 

September is just flying away...I can't believe it's time for a mid-month budget checkup again!  I'm very happy to report that we've managed to stay way under budget on everything except for our dine-out bill.  This is a CONSTANT struggle for us, and it's a family weakness that we have to fight pretty much everyday.  I budget $20/month for dining out, and unfortunately we're at $48.08 already.  
I have nothing against fast food or restaurants, but it is so easy to spiral out of control that I've just had to set a cap of $20.  Once we're better at resisting temptation, I will rise that up so we can have a fine-dining experience once a month.  If I were to budget for a restuarant meal now, we would instead spend it all on unnecessary fast food.  

Everything else is looking good though.  We've only spent $50.74 of our monthly $200 grocery budget.  It comes out to $50/week, and we've only spent $15.32 and $35.42 at the commissary the past two weeks.  I'm so proud of the fact that we've been able to stay way under budget but still manage to have plenty of meaty-meals.  Menu-planning has really helped us with staying under our budget and also eating healthy meals. 

We've had some "abnormal" larger purchases this month - those being my daughter's stationery entertainment center and Chloe's obedience class fee.  They're not huge purchases, but they're also not in our bare-bones budget.  That's alright though, because my budget bank will take care of the difference.  I haven't spent money on the dogs for a while, so Chloe's obedience class fee doesn't really make a big dent.  

Also along the lines of "abnormal" expenses, it turns out that we will have to pay off my husband's student loan.  It has been in deferment for 2 years now because of his active duty status, but yesterday I found that they changed their policies.  In order to be eligible for a deferment, he now has to be in a hostile combat zone.  It used to be that if you were in a hostile combat zone you could get the loan completely CANCELED.  I was so disappointed to hear about this - it just seems like they're shorting our military out.  If they're in immediate danger and have a huge chance of coming back with severe injuries (or not coming back at all), the least you could do was to cancel their loan instead of just deferring it. 

It was never the plan to keep the loan in deferment until my husband retired, but I wanted to wait another year so that we were more stable in our finances.  This time last year we would not have had the money to pay off the loan.  We can afford to pay it off now, but at the same time I would rather have the money for a rainy day.  At the same time though, I'm not so desperate for rainy-day money that I'll put up with paying interest. 

Fortunately, we've also had some unexpected income.  We finally got our travel reimbursement, even though it's been 9 weeks since we did the actual traveling.  My husband's last two paychecks were larger than predicted, simply because it's still going through the changes that come with a new duty station.  I've also received some rebates in the mail, and made some money from selling things on craigslist. 

My husband's also up for a raise, and we should be getting his yearly uniform bonus soon.  Granted, that teeny tiny bonus does nothing against his actual uniform expenses and it's a joke to even think he can replace anything with that money, but it's better than nothing.  Yesterday he told me that he's going to need a new jacket that costs $80.  Bye bye bonus, and so much for replacing some old shirts.  They're also going through a complete uniform switch, so sometime in the near future my husband is going to have to buy a whole new wardrobe.  And you can bet your bottom dollar that it's not going to come cheap. 

Come to think of it...those stupid uniforms cost just as much as designer clothes.  Now I don't know about you, but I personally would pick Calvin Klein as a designer over the military any day! 

Our weekend in review

I've had better weekends. We had nonstop pouring rain for pretty much the entire weekend, and it must be the different weather system here because I had a nonstop mind-splitting migraine for...you guessed it...pretty much the entire weekend. I really hate it when it just rains nonstop for days on end, because it just makes your whole life that much more harder. First off, the dogs had to go out, and these are spoiled mutts that do NOT want to go out in the rain. The entire weekend my husband had to pick Chloe up and put her down outside after I closed the door. She just didn't want to go out - she would dig her paws into the carpet and just REFUSE to be moved. And of course, after they went out we had to dry them because they were soaked through...I should have just given my husband some shampoo and told him to give them a bath while they were all out there.

We also had to go to the commissary this weekend. The down-side of menu planning is since I only buy for a week out, we HAVE to go to the commissary or else have no food. We had planned to go on Saturday, except that it was closed due ALL DAY due to a power outage, and we ended up going on Sunday afternoon. Sunday afternoon is a bad day to be at the commissary, because you seriously risk being run over by the sheer amount of carts and people. Of course, it didn't help my head that the baby wanted to scream the entire time we were in there. It wasn't one of my best weeks, but we stayed under budget nonetheless.

Just to get out of the house to do something, we went to a local mall, and quickly regretted it. It was so crowded and definately did not help my headache. On our way home though, we stopped by Walmart and Office Max to get supplies for my coupon binder, and since I ended up doing something completely different, I'll have to go back this week to make returns.

Although we were completely rained in this weekend and I spent most of it hiding under the covers, in review it turned out to be a pretty productive weekend. I really wasn't up to doing anything but sitting under a mountain of blankets, but the perfect thing is that you can clip coupons and organize them under a mountain of blankets! It gave me something to do instead of staring at the wall, and I also got a big thorn out of my side now that I have a new system.

Budget-wise, it wasn't one of our best weeks. We had McDonald's Thursday for lunch because I just couldn't help myself, and I really wasn't feeling up to cooking dinner on Friday, so we had Taco Bell instead. We managed to stay under our grocery budget, but then again the mall brought on a bit of unnecessary spending. However, I'm not stressing it. I've come to terms with the fact that we're not perfect and we'll slip up every once in a while...not to mention that sometimes we just need a break from counting every single penny and "splurge". And since we're normally so careful with our money, realistically we can afford to splurge on fast food or ice cream now and then. It's definately not a good habit to get into, but it's also important to remember to take a break so we don't get burned out!

My not-so-frugal decision

This blog is all about how to live your life frugally and enjoy it all at the same time, but sometimes, a not-so-frugal decision could be the best one for your family, as we recently found out.

This is one of our two bratty dogs. We've had her since she was 8 weeks old, and this December Chloe will be the ripe old age of 3. When we got her, we just wanted a pet. Nothing special - just a furry cute animal to love. But then again, when we got her, my husband wasn't in the Navy and we didn't have kids. This past Tuesday, I took Chloe to a local training facility that also trains police dogs. I took her in to be evaluated to see if she has it in her personality to be a protection dog.

For a good year now, I've been interested in having a formally trained guard dog. Not just a dog who barks when the mailman comes, but a professionally trained protection dog who has the capability to bite your arm off if given the command...and when given the release would love to play fetch with you all the same. And the reason isn't because I want to scare off all the neighborhood kids, but because for about the next two decades, my husband will be away from home for months at a time.

I don't want guns in my house, and even if we had guns, it requires a knowledge of how to shoot them, and an opportunity to reach them should trouble arise. And don't even get me started on the inherent kid danger factor. Alarm systems can fail, and they can be tampered with. Or you could just forget to turn it on. You can't forget to turn a dog on. There's nothing out there that has a mind of its own and can alert you to dangers that you don't even see. Except for a dog.

Protection training does not come cheap. Before you even begin protection training your dog has to have 120% foolproof obedience training in place. And obedience training doesn't come cheap either. Just to give you an idea...the first set of obedience classes are $150. There's probably about 3 sets of obedience classes to go through. When we finally get around to protection training, just one tease is $25. We're not talking about teaching Fido how to dance or sit pretty, we're talking about serious stuff that requires you and your dog to work as a team to pull off some controlled aggression.

When everything is said and done, we're probably looking at around $1000 involved in all of the training. Not exactly what you call a "frugal" decision to be spending $1000 on a dog. But I don't see it as spending $1000 on Chloe...I see it as an investment in our family and our safety. It just so happens Chloe fits the mold and we don't have to get a new dog.

To afford all of this, we'll have to give up other luxuries in our lives and cut corners elsewhere. And it'll take time. And at first, I had doubts about spending $1000 on Chloe when we have needs everywhere, but then I took a look at my daughter and knew that it was going to be worth every penny to have that peace of mind.

August budget roundup

UPDATE: I have found a flaw in the sample spreadsheets that I have sending out. In the "new balance" column of the budget bank spreadsheet, the formula is currently x - x...it should instead be x + x. Sorry for that, and you can email me for a corrected version, or if you want you can just go through and replace the "-" sign with a "+" to fix it yourself.

August was a really crazy month for us because of a lot of abnormal stuff happening. My husband's paycheck was still going through changes due to our move, and we finally received compensation from the moving company for the damage they did and were able to replace our furniture. Technically, we went over way budget, but once you break it down, we actually did very well this month. This was truly a test of our budget spreadsheet, because although our final expense for this month came out to around $3900, thanks to the spending log and the different categories in my spreadsheet I was able to determine that $2800 of that were abnormal one-time expenses (read: replacing furniture, new TV, and xbox 360). That means that we only spent $1100 on day-to-day normal expenses, which is well under my projected cost of $1380.

But don't go thinking we went on a spending spree just because the moving company cut us a check! We still managed to put an extra $3000 in savings this month, and this is on top of our regular monthly commitment of $615 that's actually factored into the budget.

One of the highlights of this month's budget was the fact that we only went $2.83 over our grocery budget of $200. I am so proud of this, especially since I made 5 grocery trips this month. Last Friday's commissary run was included in this month's budget, although all of the food was for next month's meals.

Now for the bad news. We went WAAAAY over our "dining out" budget of $20. If I had it my way, there would be no allotment at all for fast food, but I'm realistic. Although I would love to blame my husband for all of the $90 overage, I have to admit some of it was my fault. Especially the days that we were out until 10pm doing replacement shopping and I just didn't have the energy to go home and cook. Next month this should definately not happen since we won't be out so late making huge purchases, but just to be sure I've taken to keeping a few instant pizzas in the house. I'll rather spend an extra $3 at the commissary than spend $20 at Pizza Hut.

Another area where we went over budget was our gas...by $50. Not that it can really be helped, since it's not like we just take joyrides around town, but the only way I can explain it is that we made 2 trips to Ikea - an extra 150 miles that we otherwise would not have driven. Nonetheless, I decided to up our gas budget from $80 to $125 for September, which should be far cover our gas expenses. If we end up way under-budget, I'll adjust it again for October.

Technically, I went over budget in a lot of areas, but that is to be expected and the problem will actually correct itself with my budget bank. I love my budget bank spreadsheet because it allows me to take advantage of sales and such without going over budget. I allot $15 a month for clothing, but that doesn't mean we go out to buy clothes every month. In fact, we like to make maybe one trip every 6 months or so during sale season. And when we do, we spend more than $15, but that's okay because my budget bank will tell me how much I've saved up in that part of my budget. It sounds complicated, but it just works wonders for me.

If you're interested in seeing the spreadsheet, send me an email and I would be glad to email you a template. However, I must warn you that you probably won't be able to just use the spreadsheet in its current form because my categories of spending probably doesn't match yours. For example, I have absolutely nothing alloted for our housing expense because our rent amount is determined by my husband's paycheck, and then taken out automatically. We also don't pay utilities, so there is no category for that either.

For a limited time, for anyone who is interested in giving out my budget spreadsheet a test run for a month, I would be glad to personalize a template for you if you provide me with the categories that you need. I won't need dollar amounts from you since you can just enter them yourself and the formulas will take care of it, but I can personalize the budget to include the categories of spending that suits your family. The only things that I ask in return is you either place my button on your blog, or if you don't have one to email 10 friends about my blog. And I would also appreciate your feedback during and after your test trial to find out how it works out for you.

Commissary savings of 26% ($16.60) & August recap

You know you're spoiled when you're disappointed to see that you only saved $16.60 or 26% on your commissary bill. Here's a recap on my savings for the week of August:

• Week 1: 30% ($21.95)
  
• Week 2: 34% ($12.20)
  
• Week 3: 42% ($19.90)
  
• Week 4: 23% ($7.03)
  
• Week 5: 26% ($16.60)

August was the first full month that we formed our grocery list solely
from the menu plan. Once in a while I would add an item on the list
that was on sale or that I had a high-value coupon for, but for the
most part we stuck to what we needed. And the result was a savings of $77.68 with coupons, on top of the savings from just shopping at the commissary versus somewhere else.

Our total grocery bill for August comes out to $203.83, which is only $3.83 over our budget. But this is technically inaccurate because everything that I bought today goes towards September's meals. That's alright though, because the "Budget bank" in my budget spreadsheet will take care of that.

Today I ended up spending $49.37 for everything you see in the picture PLUS 1.5lbs of ground beef, pork chops, and round tip steaks. I partially blame our large bill on the meat, and I know we could save money by having meatless meals, but this family is a family of carnivores and we have long agreed that we would rather save elsewhere and be able to eat meat all the time.

Another factor for this higher than usual bill is that $11.68 were dog treats that I had coupons for. In my budget, I put $11.68 under the dog category, and then just put the $37.69 under our grocery budget. Everything that we buy, with the exception of diapers/wipes and dog food/treats, goes under the grocery budget. $11.68 seems to be a huge amount of treats, but after coupons they came out to less than $1 each, so I was stockpiling.

Speaking of stockpiling, the case lot sale is set for next week, and I will NOT be attending. I'm going to steer clear of the commissary on those days. You must think I'm nuts because everyone LOVES the case lot sale, but we've found that it actually hurts us to buy stuff then. We're a small family, and we've been eating like royalty for $200 this past month thanks to menu planning. Most of the meals that I made were from scratch, and as a result tasted better and were healthier for our family. We don't need to be stocking up on instant foods. I have a hard enough time getting the motivation to go cook every night...I don't need the temptation of 12 boxes of hamburger helpers or 24 packs of ramen sitting around.

Besides, where in the world am I going to put all it? We buy only what we need and we STILL have a hard time fitting things into our tiny kitchen. And I still have things from the case lot sale that I went to LAST year. I'm not kidding. They were vienna sausages that were ridiculously cheap, but never got eaten. Nothing on the case lot sale list are staples in our family, and when it comes time to move again we'll either have to pack a box of food or throw it all out.

As for the non-food items, I just don't see the point of spending money to buy 6 bottles of shampoo even if they're 53% off, because I can get paid to buy them by CVS and Walgreens. They are having a 11% discount off Huggies, but only starting at size 3, so it'll be no good to us. And since we're not going to be here for years on end, I really don't want to have 6 bottles of dish soap or 4 boxes of laundry detergent lying around.

Back in Charleston, their case lot sales are in May and I was really disappointed that I missed it. The little princess decided it was time to make her big debut, and by the time the hospital cut us loose the case lot sale was over and I was so bummed about it. But this was BEFORE I started menu-planning and making smart decisions. I'm sure the commissary case sale works for bigger families permanently
stationed here, but for us it's just plain stupid and a waste of money
to do it.

Works for me Wednesday: Puppy Pads!

For a long time, our changing table area was a huge dilemma for us. What happens when the little princess relieves herself while being changed...???? You know it's going to happen too, so there's no use in pretending that there's no possibility of it happening. I know they offer absorbing washable pads at the baby store, and my mother-in-law suggested a cloth diaper, but let's be honest. Those absorbing washable pads are like $5 each! Yes, cloth diapers are cheaper, but the underlying problem with both of these is that they need to be washed. Immediately. And dropping everything that I'm doing to start a load of laundry is not an appealing solution (if you can even call it that).

What finally give me my "EUREKA!" moment was seeing the disposable blue pads they had at the pediatrician's office to cover the scale. They looked like smaller versions of the puppy pads we used for Chloe when she was a puppy and we were 4 stories up in an apartment! So that afternoon I went out to Walmart and got myself a pack of puppy pads. It was some ridiculously low price - $5 for 100 or something like that. Babies r Us sells exact replicas of the ones at the pediatrician's office, but it's at a crazily inflated price...comes out to being like $1 per pad.

I love these puppy pads because they are disposable! When the little princess decides to go while we're changing her, I just pick her up, toss the puppy pad in the trash, and slap on a new one. And those pads hold an incredible amount of liquid. She had an accident once at the pediatrician office, and it went everywhere because their pad couldn't soak it all up. Not these puppy pads. And it makes sense, because they design these pads for use when owners are out of the house and they expect puppies to go multiple times. And as a bonus the pads smell great too, because they have a deodorizing component in them.

We now use puppy pads everywhere, and they are cheap enough for us to do that too. I use them at home to cover our changing tables, and I also keep some in the car. I don't even bother with those silly diaper changing pads anymore...I just prop down a puppy pad on the seat of my car and change her there. People think I'm nuts because the puppy pad is so thin and whimsy, but I'm telling you...you could drop a small soda on there and that pad will soak it up. And the best part of it is I can fold and squish that pad down to fit anywhere instead of having to lug around a huge diaper bag.

Thank you Chloe and Chip for introducing me to the world of puppy pads!

Another BRU $5/$25 coupon!

There's another printable $5/$25 BRU coupon for this weekend! It comes on a sheet of other coupons:

• $20 off every car seat $99.99 or more
• $10 off every car seat $39.99 or more
• Save 15% on all crib bedding sets $100 or more
• Save $10 on every high chair $59.99 or more
• Save $10 on every play yard or bassinet $59.99 or more
• Save $10 on every infant swing
• Save $5 on every walker, stationary entertainer, or activity jumper
• Save $20 on every stroller or travel system $99.99 or more
• Save $10 on every stroller or travel system $39.99 or more
• Save $10 on all carriers or slings

We ended up not getting a replacement bouncer last week with the $5/$25 coupon since they didn't carry the one we had, but we'll have to go this weekend to get some sort of entertainment device for our little princess. She sleeps through the night (always has), but the downside to that is she doesn't really take naps during the day...which means mommy can't do anything without upsetting her and sending her off on a screaming rampage. And she's getting to the age where staring off into thin air isn't entertaining anymore.

Now if only she had enough hand-eye coordination and strength to grab a tennis ball...then I can kill 2 birds with one stone! The baby will be entertained, and the most annoying Chip dog who constantly drops balls at my feet will also be entertained! Oh how I wait for that day to come....!

Budget Update

We're on a very tight budget, and I like to know exactly where every single penny of our my husband's hard-earned money is going, so I've developed a budget spreadsheet in excel with a spending log. I also recently edited it as part of the declutter challenge with categories that fit our expenses better.

This month's budget has been blown completely off track due to our abnormal income and abnormal spending. This is due to the fact that we received our settlement check from the moving company and have begun replacing our damaged furniture. However, thanks to my handy dandy budget spreadsheet, I can see exactly how much of this abnormal spending is actually due to furniture replacement, and it does not completely account for the fact that we're $330 over budget and we still have 11 more days in August.

I have identified three trouble areas for us this month. The first is our eat-out expense...we're $80 over in this department, and this has got to stop. The major reason was that we had a lot of busy days unpacking the house, but that really is no excuse. I should have been better prepared and had more instant food or frozen pizzas on hand.

The second is our gas money fund. I'm starting to think that I had set an unrealistic goal in my budget. I allotted $80 for gas each much, and I reached this figure by figuring that we'll go 500 miles in a month, get 25 miles to the gallon, and have to buy gas at $4. Well, we get around 29 miles to the gallon, and gas has been $3.79, so I think the problem lies in the fact that I did not set a realistic mileage goal. When I first created the spreadsheet, my husband wasn't around and I had the car all to myself. I only left the house maybe twice a week to run errands, whereas now my husband drives to work everyday. I will go back to the drawing board on this one and come up with a more realistic figure for next month.

The last trouble area that we have is my "Steals & Deals" fund. This is money for my CVS and Walgreens trip - basically any purchase that I just can't pass up because it's such a great deal would come out of this fund. I also count my PaperBack Swap postage expenses in here. Well, this month I've spent close to $100. Granted, I expect to be getting $30 back in rebates, but $70 is still way too high of a figure. $20 of that came from the fact that I forgot my ECBs expired during the move, and went ahead with my original deals anyway. I got back $39.27 in ECBs/coupons from that $20 OOP, but that is still too high. We've spent $30 sending out books via PaperBack Swap, and while it's true that we've received triple the value in books, we really need to watch our spending there. I just have to start being really careful with spending money on "steals & deals". It's not much of a steal or a deal if it's sucking up $100 of our budget.

There is one area that we're doing really well on though...and that is my grocery/commissary budget. Our allotment is $50/week, and that covers any and all things we get at the commissary, excluding the bi-monthly bag of dog food and any diapers we get. We still have $77 left in the budget, and only one grocery trip left in August. I am SO proud of ourselves for being able to keep to this budget, because it has been a serious problem for us in the past. We've managed to do so well in this category by shopping with a menu plan and a strict shopping list. There are NO impulse purchases at the commissary anymore. I also take full advantage of the commissary website to see all of the sale information and match them up to my coupons before we hit the store. Not only has it saved us a lot of time, it has also saved us a lot of money. We used to spend $150 every 2 weeks for 2 adults, and each trip took us 2 hours. Now, we spend less than an hour and $50 shopping for 2 adults and a baby.

Our first priority is our fast-food spending, because there really is no excuse for that. The other two problem areas are somewhat minor, considering a lot of the "Steals and Deals" money is from rebates and a one-time CVS expense, and the gas was due to a miscalculation on my part. It is very encouraging to see that we're doing so well with our grocery budget, and it gives me hope that we will be able to cut our spendings in our problem areas.

Declutter Challenge Day 16: Our budget spreadsheet

Since I decluttered our savings account yesterday, today I decided to reformat our budgeting spreadsheet. I originally shared this back in June, and I have decided to reformat this so I can tell where exactly we're spending our money. Not much has changed in this new version, I have just added new categories to account for my rebates and CVS spending. Before, this was just going into the very broad "household supplies" category, and it's more my deal seeking than actual household supplies. Also, when I filed these expenses under a random category, it was hard for me to track how much my deal-seeking was costing us each month.

With this new spreadsheet, I'm able to pinpoint more accurately where we are spending our money. For example, this month alone I've spent $84.52 in my deal-seeking activities. Now, $20 of this is from my CVS mess-up earlier this month, and another $20 I should get back from Walgreens. I've also spent $30 sending out books over Paperback Swap, so this is something that definately needs to be addressed.

Tomorrow I have a HUGE declutter day planned. Last weekend we tackled the master bedroom - this weekend we will tackle the living room and the rest of the baby's room.

Declutter Challenge Day 15: Our Savings Account!

UPDATE: I just received word that hubby's mom and brother are going to be visiting sometime this weekend. They're driving him back to college, and he goes to school only 2 hours from here, so they're going to take advantage of that and come see the baby all of us. So, I've got to declutter like a possessed woman to make my house look presentable. It's not like they'll strike me down if my house is a mess, but there's just something innate in me that would rather die than receive people in a messy house.

In my opinion, there are immaterial things that can clutter up our lives just as much as material objects. The mess that is our savings account has actually bothered me as much as the boxes around my house lately, so today I will be tackling our financial mess instead. On Sunday, I shared our Financial Fitness Plan and our main financial goals. One of my top priorities was to properly maintain our one online savings account.

Basically we have two accounts - a checking account that we use for direct deposit and to pay bills with, and a savings account. Since I haven't started IRAs for our retirement or for our daughter's college fund yet, all of our savings are currently going into this one online account along with our goal-getting money. I needed a way to properly track what the money was going into the account for. I needed to declutter our money, and create an organized way to look at our savings account.

I decided to start our savings account chart on June 1st, since before then I really didn't have a rigid budget like I do now. After organizing our money into their separate categories, here are our goals and our progress on them:

• Emergency Fund ($1000): DONE!
• Car Payment ($17,875 at $400/month): $16,525 to go! At the current rate, it'll be 3.5 years before we're done. But since we're only paying ourselves back and it's not a real debt, I'm not too concerned.
• Retirement Savings: $2000 - I don't think we'll be contributing more at this point since I still haven't figured out the IRA accounts.
  
• Washer & Dryer ($532 by 12/08): $386.52 to go! $100/month should do it.
• HD LCD TV ($900 by 11/08): $619.35 to go! We'll have to do $200/month.
• Interest (3% rate): $18.95 from 2 months. Not great, but better than nothing.
  

Now that I've decluttered the savings account, I can see at a glance what we need to work on. Thankfully we will be receiving some money from the moving company that we can put towards the washer & dryer and TV funds, because I think I might have a heart attack if I have to adjust our budget so we can put away a total of $775 a month until Thanksgiving.

I also see that Hailey's college fund is more than half of our total retirement fund. That's not really a big deal, because we're not planning to retire for a couple of decades, but that just alerts me to the fact that I should be putting away just as much if not more towards our retirement every month. After all, we can get a loan for college - we can't get a loan for retirement. So starting next month, I think we will begin putting away $75 towards our retirement fund. Technically the car payments are going into our retirement also, but the point is that money should have been invested and not spent, so we need to build that back up ASAP.

Although today's declutter wasn't your traditional getting-rid-of-material clutter, I feel that today was just as productive as the rest of my decluttering days. Kind of defeats the purpose of a clutter-free house if our checkbook is a mess...

And wow, it's Friday again! This week has sure flown by at the speed of light. I don't feel like I've done a lot at all, but looking back, I guess I have:

Declutter Challenge Day 14: Coupon system
Declutter Challenge Day 13: Living room Curio display cabinet
Declutter Challenge Day 12: Supply Closet
Declutter Challenge Day 11: Downstairs guest bathroom
Declutter challenge day 10: Master bedroom DONE!!!
Declutter challenge day 9: bill paying!

I can't believe I've done this for two weeks already - and there's STILL so much clutter in my house!!! At this rate, I'm going to have to extend this to a Declutter rest-of-the-year....

Our Financial Fitness Plan

A while back, I shared our budgeting spreadsheet and ideas. I had just created it back in late May/early June, but only managed to complete it for one month due to our chaotic hell of a move that occupied pretty much all of July. Well, now that things have calmed down considerably, we're back on top of the budgeting and we're hitting it harder than ever.

So far, we are still technically debt free. By technically, I mean we are not indebted to any institution, just to ourselves and to my mother. My mom paid off my college loan in full to spare me from having to pay the interest rates, so now I am paying her back every month into an IRA account that she set up for my daughter. It's kind of funny how my college loan is actually funding my daughter's college fund.

The other "debt" we have is with our car. We purchased a used 2007 Honda Fit in April - we had enough money to write them a check from an accident settlement, but by doing so we completely depleted our emergency fund/savings. It was previously agreed that the settlement money was going to be invested instead of spent, but the car purchase was a necessity and I am definately not a fan of getting a loan when you don't have to, so now we are paying ourselves back each month so we can invest that money again.

I was extremely worried that all the expenses of moving was going to our debt-free position, but thankfully it did not. We are still sticking to using one credit card - this does not work for everyone, but for us it's a godsend. With this credit card, we get cashback, and if I wait until I have enough to request a $200, they will send me $250 instead. Or, if I want my money sooner, I can request $50 checks. The credit card also helps me keep track of our expenses to input into my budget worksheet. Yes, it's easy to overspend when you're not dealing with cash, but we've worked very hard at our self-control, and can now reap the rewards of free cash!

To become financially fit, however, we have to accomplish the following:

1. Maintaining our monthly budget
2. Establishing funds/accounts correctly
3. Determining how many goal-getter funds we need
   
4. Starting a ROTH IRA for college savings and funding retirement plans

So far, we're doing very well on point number 1. I know the month is not half over yet, but so far we are doing extremely well in keeping under our budget (knock on wood).

My next priority is properly establishing our funds/accounts. Right now, all of our unspent money is sent into one online (ING) savings account. I'm not really keeping track of what the money is in there for. That has got to change. So this week, my main focus will be making another spreadsheet that will track the purpose with which the money is going into the account. I certainly do not want to get caught up in how much is in there and forget what it's for. I don't want to say "OooO! Look honey! We have $5000 in there now! Let's go and get that HD TV!" because that $5000 could be mainly comprised of college fund, car payment, and emergency money and only $50 is actual goal-getting money.

Speaking of goal-getter money, we need to determine exactly how many goal-getter funds we need. So far, this is what we have:

1. Washer & Dryer: $532 (due December 2008)
   
2. 40" HD LCD TV: ~$900 (due November 2008)
   

We have already spent the $532 - right now it is on a credit card with no-interest no-payment for 6 months. We have the money right now, but I like to hang onto my money if it's of no negative consequence, and by paying it later rather than sooner we will have a better handle and organization of our finances. I am not a fan of spending money before we have it, but our washer and dryer was broken in the move and it's impossible to survive without a washer and dryer with a 3 month old baby.

Our TV was broken in the move, so it's a perfect chance for an upgrade...It was a 21" traditional tube set, and we want to upgrade to a 40" HD LCD TV. The average price for this is $900. I'm looking to save the $900 in time for Thanksgiving sales - we should be getting about $200 back from the moving company for the old TV, so that leaves us with $700 in 3 months. It's going to be tough with our many financial obligations right now, but we can make it work.

The last thing on my to-do list to make our family financial fit is to set up a ROTH IRA for Hailey's college fund and start our retirement plans. This is not high on the priority list - the baby's only 3 months old, and we're both only 21 years old - we're not retiring anytime soon. Also, we're only going to be in the area for another 4 months, so I do not want to find a bank/agent that I like and have to switch over to someone else. But I do want to start researching into what types of mutual funds work for us.

And that is what our financial fitness plan is for the rest of this year. We are not in trouble financially, but with our extremely limited income it is very easy to get into trouble, so we just have to be that much more vigilant about our money.

New month = new budget time!

This is a template budget, that I made to keep track of our monthly spending. It calculates -everything- for me, down to the percentages. At a single glance, I can see which category is taking up a large percentage of our income, and can adjust that accordingly.

The first sheet is a daily spending log. It is a hassle to keep up with, but it is a good hassle. I've found myself skipping non-essential purchases simply because I didn't want to record it. The middle sheet is our family budget - projected versus actual income and expenses. And the last sheet is my "budget bank". Basically, whatever we didn't use up a certain category gets carried over to the next month. For example - we buy a 40lb bag of food for our two dogs every 3 months or so. Obviously it doesn't cost a mere $10, but we didn't spend anything towards their food the past 3 months, and therefore we would have enough "saved" in the budget to buy the $30 bag of food.

I've found that keeping track of my budget in this manner has helped us with large infrequent purchases (like dog food). Before we had the budget bank, we used these infrequent purchases as an excuse whenever our one credit card bill was extraordinarily high. But in reality, that large infrequent purchase had little to do with it and was just an excuse.

If anyone would like me to email the excel template file, please leave a comment with how to get in touch with you and I would love to do so. How do you keep a track of your budget? In a spreadsheet, or just in your mind? How do you adjust your budget for life's surprises?