Beginning the Next Chapter

We did it!  We survived wedding planning and we got hitched!  And we did it all without adding to our debt!  It was incredibly stressful at times, but mostly we had a lot of fun creating a day that was purely "us."  We threw convention out the window and wrote a ceremony that was meaningful for our family and created a reception that was relaxed and fun.  It couldn't have gone better.

Now that our nuptials have been completed, we're working toward combining our finances.  I'm finally leaving my big chain bank and moving everything to Perry's credit union.  We've worked through our monthly budget expectations and September is the first month that we're using a joint budget.  We planned not only for all of our living expenses, bills, and debts, but also for Christmas gifts, Perry's annual month of unemployment, and a small family trip next summer.  We underestimated our income (we didn't count overtime) and overestimated the things we need to pay.  We both have additional income from overtime and freelance projects, so we feel like we've set ourselves up to be successful.

Perry works at the local high school, but is not technically a teacher (more like an assistant teacher and AV tech).  He has been financially strapped every July/August because his contract includes 11 months of employment.  Unlike regular teachers, he cannot distribute his pay over 12 months.  Every July, he is off work without pay.  While he has always gotten by, his month off from work has required spending less money on fun than he normally would rather than taking full advantage of the time off.  Next year will be different.  We'll have enough saved to replace his income and we're taking the kids camping.

We've prioritized our saving and spending and have decided that it makes the most sense for us to save not only our $1,000 emergency fund, but also enough to replace his July income before we delve back into debt repayment.  We'll aim to have $3,500 in our savings account at all times.  We'll have to dip into it every July, but we'll continue to contribute to it monthly so that by the following July, it is replenished.

I'm really excited to dig into our finances and work toward long-term financial stability.  Perry isn't excited quite yet, but he's not unwilling.  Seeing some progress is what got me excited, but he hasn't yet been a part of those exciting moments when the final payment is made on a debt that has been a part of the family for years.  I'm sure that he'll love seeing the numbers drop and the bills dwindle despite not a big nerd about math and spreadsheets like me.

I'll update soon with our combined debt load.  Eek!

To the future!

Apologies for my lengthy absence.  Debt repayment has been taking small steps forward and large steps backward in the last year and it has frustrated me to the point that I haven't wanted to blog about it.  I should blog about it though, because this is how debt repayment goes.  You think you're making great progress climbing out of the hole and some unforeseen circumstance knocks you back down into the chasm. It has happened before and it will very likely happen again.  I need to prepare as best I can and handle these things as they come.

Kindergarten expenses took a huge toll.  The initial plan was to split the girls' $8,000 worth of kindergarten tuition expenses 50/50 with their dad (he would pay for one child and I would pay for the other), but I found out with just a few weeks left of the school year that he hadn't made any payments.  I scraped together enough debt to cover her $4,000 tuition and promptly filed the child support modification request that I had intended to hold onto until after the wedding.  We'll see how that turns out.  I read through it a dozen times making sure I was being objective and fair in asking for a modification.  Ugh... I hate drama.

So, on to happier things!

We've got less than six weeks to the wedding!  We've managed to cash-flow everything.  We've shopped around and found deals on things we love.  We've asked to borrow things rather than buy them.  We've DIYed a LOT.  We've recruited a team of friends and family to help us make our wedding happen.  Will our wedding be featured on a wedding blog for other couples to fawn over?  Probably not.  But we're going to get married and celebrate and we're going to start our marriage without any wedding-related financial stress. I'll give up all the short-term fuss in exchange for meeting some long-term goals, thankyouverymuch.  We're not fancy people and I'd rather not fake it on such an important day.


All three of the kids have finished kindergarten and are excited about the wedding.  They've had a great summer so far.  It is now clear that putting the girls in separate classrooms has been good for them because they're getting really tired of each other already and can't wait for school to start again so they can get some time apart.

It's sometimes strange living in our little sociology project.  Reagan was diagnosed with ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder partway through kindergarten.  We suspected the ADHD long before, but put off having her screened by a professional.  We've learned a lot about how her brain functions differently than our other two kids (and our own) and she's doing just fine most of the time.  All three kids have their own bedrooms now and I think having her own space where is free to be alone if she so chooses has helped her immensely.  She is also responsible for that space and takes a lot of pride in organizing her new desk to make room for drawing.

Cow in a Thunderstorm - by Reagan

We have issued a reading challenge for the kids this summer.  We've asked them to read at least two hours per week.  Every week that they meet their goal, they each get to choose a new book to buy for their personal library.  At the end of the summer, provided they have met their challenge consistently, we are going to go to a theme park as a family.  They've really taken to it.  Those weekly trips to the bookstore are a lot of fun.  Kieran picked out Mercy Watson to the Rescue when we went book shopping on Sunday and she has already read it twice!

Half-Way Goal Met!!

We've met our half-way goal of $7,500 paid off at the six-month mark!  To be more specific, In the last six months, I have paid off...

$7,753.61

I've pretty well settled into my budget now and it's not much of a struggle to stick to it.  An interesting thing has begun to happen since I have started to really think about my purchases; I have a newfound desire to purge the junk from my apartment.  There is just so much stuff everywhere.  I have had a few friends hold garage sales over the last month and I have donated some items and sold a few things.  It has been nice to make a little bit of money, but even better to just have literally truckloads of things removed from my living space.  I'm hoping for a few more garage sale opportunities throughout the summer.

I sold most of the CDs and DVDs that I didn't want anymore to SecondSpin a few years ago.  I like that they tell me exactly what they'll give me for each disc so I can decide if it's worth shipping to them or not.

I've taken tons of kids' stuff to Once Upon a Child once the girls have outgrown them.  They can be a little picky about brands and how worn things can be because they want to be a retail store, not a thrift store.  Check out what they're currently accepting on their website.

My local Once Upon a Child is next to Half-Price Books, so I drop off a load of books to sell and browse while I'm waiting to hear about the kids' stuff.  Half-Price will recycle books if you are looking to get rid of them and they choose not to buy them, but more often, I'll take whatever doesn't sell along with the items that Once Upon a Child doesn't want and swing by Goodwill on my way home.  I love that the store near my place does drive-thru donations.  I just pop the trunk and it all disappears.  I don't even have to get out of the car!

These little snowflakes add up fast and have kept the debt snowball rolling along at a pretty good pace.  I'm on track to pay off another credit card in August!  Woohoo!

KID PIC: Here's a picture of me riding a motorcycle inside a whale.  Kids think their parents can do anything. :)

With a pair of bottomless pits to feed, what is a single mom on a budget to do?? Welcome to FarmVille.

My kids are weird. Yes, it's true that the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree, but even so, there are things about the girls that baffle me. For instance, they love vegetables. They only want the spinach from their spinach and cheese quesadillas. They bypass cookies and crackers in favor of carrots and cherry tomatoes. Weird, right?

I came across a New York Times article that cited a study that found "energy-dense munchies cost on average $1.76 per 1,000 calories, compared with $18.16 per 1,000 calories for low-energy but nutritious foods." (Parker-Pope) The article is from 2007, so you can probably imagine what has happened to those prices since then with the increase in fuel prices. The whole article is a pretty interesting read.

Because produce and other healthy foods can be so expensive, I have been brainstorming some ways to make a healthy diet more affordable for my family. Our first step has been to start a garden on our apartment deck. We're growing blueberries, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, and a variety of bell peppers. There may be more later in the season. We'll be trading any extras with friends that are growing abundant gardens. I'll add some pictures of our garden as soon as it's all planted and off my kitchen table.

I thought about purchasing a share in a local CSA Farm (Community Supported Agriculture) in exchange for weekly or bi-weekly produce delivery, but they all delivered a lot more than I would know what to do with in that amount of time. Rather than risk anything going to waste, we'll be making regular trips to the local farmers markets this summer to pick out fresh, local produce to supplement our garden spoils. We've always come home with a lot of amazing fruits and vegetables and found really great deals.

• Click here to find your local Farmers Markets
• Click here to find a CSA Farm near you

Do you make and can your own pasta sauce? Do you swap unused pantry items with friends? Do you have a dairy cow for a pet? If there are things that you are doing to help keep your food budget under control, I'd love to hear it!

Food Budget Tip for New Parents: Make your own baby food!! It's cheap, it's healthy, and you know exactly what's in it. Super Baby Food was an awesome resource when the girls were teensy. It lets you know at what age you can introduce just about anything and tells you how to prepare it. All it takes is a food processor and some ice cube trays and you're set. Prepare your produce (wash, cook/mash, etc.), throw it in the food processor, then pour it into ice cube trays and freeze. Once it's frozen, pop out the cubes and put them into zip-loc bags and keep them in the freezer until you need them. Then you just have to grab a cube or two and reheat. I made a big batch of a different flavor every weekend so I always had a variety of flavors on hand and only had to do about 30 minutes of work per week.

Planning ahead for spontaneity (but only a little)

One envelope that I have found to be essential to my budget is my Use-It-For-Anything-I-Darn-Well-Please Envelope (Dave Ramsey refers to this as "Blow Money"). In my first few bi-weekly budgets, this envelope served as Mistake Money. If one of my envelopes for essentials like groceries or gas was short, I had a little extra to supplement those needs. It also allowed me a little bit of wiggle room as I was learning to cut back on non-essentials like dining out and impulse purchases at my budget's retail nemesis: Target.

Over the past few months, I've gotten better at sticking to my budget and can now easily manage with a quarter of the Blow Money that I used to budget. Fairly often, I have money leftover at the end of the budget period that I carry over into the next period.

Why is it important to have a little money without a specific destination? For me, if I don't plan for a little fun, the this-debt-is-impossible-and-I'm-never-going-to-beat-it anxiety and depression can begin to take hold. Having even a small amount of cash that can be used for anything allows a small amount of freedom and flexibility within an otherwise strict budget.

How is your budget? The link below will take you to a simplified version of DR's budgeting software. It gives recommended percentages for spending each category that were really helpful when I first started budgeting. It made it obvious to me where I needed to make major adjustments.

Dear Target, It's not you, it's me. Well, mostly it's you...

This is how trips to Target nearly always go for me: With kids in tow, grab a cart and aim for the things on my list.  On the way to those things, I remember (or am distracted by) other things that I want to look for/at.  Gradually, my cart fills with things that aren't on my list. By the time I've located and picked up everything on my list, I've at least doubled the number of items I intended to purchase.  It is laid out so the necessities that are frequently on your list (toilet paper, milk, pet food, etc.) are in areas that require that you to walk through the entire store to get them.  I hate to admit it, but it works.

Because I always get a cart at these stores I don't see the number of items that are piling up because they're several feet away from me behind children and a pile of grocery totes and a giant bag of who-knows-what-the-girls-put-in-my-purse-this-time.  I've discovered that when I carry a basket, not only do the girls get more exercise and burn a little more of their preschooler energy, but I also see the items piling up and I feel the physical burden of the items I'm about to purchase.

However (and perhaps this goes without saying), the best solution for me has been to avoid Target as much as possible.  I buy groceries at the grocery store.  I buy toiletries at Costco if I can since they last forever.  If I do "need" to go to a department store, I make a list and do my best to stick to it. I take very little cash along to nix the impulse buys and get out of there as fast as I can.  I treat Target like a bad part of town where I could get mugged if I turn down the wrong aisle.  If I can stick to my list, I leave the store without feeling beat up or losing my money.

stoked!

Looking at my budget for February, I think I'll have my baby emergency fund fully funded plus pay off two credit cards and make a pretty good dent in a third by the end of the month!!  Wooooohoo!  What an awesome start!

I'm so happy I decided to get working on this just as I was getting my 2009 taxes ready.  My tax returns will play a major role in the jump start I'm getting.

Working overtime is also playing a pretty big role.  I've missed having time and energy for the girls over the last few weeks, but my manager is looking into getting access to allow me to work from home.  That will be a big help and allow me to spend more time with the girlies rather than having to shuffle them to their dad or to babysitters when I need to work.  I really hope that works out as there looks to be quite a few more opportunities to work OT in the near future and OT is far easier to work out than trying to find a part-time job to supplement my income while I'm on this journey.

I had a bit of a reality check the other day.  I was talking to Gabe about the possibility of taking another east coast vacation this year.  We had talked about (and Gabe's aunt Sue had insisted) taking the girls with this time.  I thought it sounded like a great idea and was thinking my tax return would allow us to do that, but upon reflection I realized that taking our vacation last year landed me further in the hole and if I want to pay this debt off, I need to be making smart decisions about money all the time, not just when it feels good.  I called Gabe back and suggested that we consider going camping someplace relatively nearby instead.  He thought that sounded like a decent plan.  As much as I would love to take the girls to the beach this year, I know that they won't care if we wait a few years and they'll probably appreciate it more and have loads more fun when they're a little older.

Gabe is one reason that I've decided that now is the time to get rid of this debt.  We've been together for 10+ months, but we're both divorced and in no hurry to tie the knot again.  In the meantime, I want to put myself in a position to be be less of a financial burden if/when the time comes.  I already come with two extra mouths to feed so upkeep on this package deal isn't cheap.  I'd love to be in a position where I'm living, not just getting by.  My goal is $15k this year, but I would love to surpass that goal.  I'm making an effort to make sacrifices now so I can live better later.  My income would allow for a comfortable life if a third of it wasn't going toward debt payments.  I'm going to get there!

the approach

How do I keep it going?
I'm taking a few approaches to keep myself excited about paying off debt.  I want to stay focused so I'm trying to spend some time every day working on my finances in one way or another.  I look at my budget every time I recieve a bill to determine when it will be paid.  Because I'm in my first few months of using a budget, it is going to require some regular tweaking before I get it just right.  I am also listening to financially-focused podcasts on a daily basis to learn more and hear about the experiences that others are having paying off their debt.  Right now, I listen to The Dave Ramsey Show and Rebound.  I have also subscribed to MyTotalMoneyMakeover.com and am using the money tools there to help me in this process.  I'll blog more about that soon.

Why do I want to pay off my debt?
At this point, I spend about a third of my take-home pay on debt repayment.  That's ridiculous!  If I was able to save that money every month, I'd have the girls' college funds fully funded well before they were in high school.  I could afford to have them in preschool.  I could spend money on piano lessons.  And for me, I could contribute to a retirement fund and purchase stock at the company I work for.  I could buy new clothes when I lose weight.  I wouldn't be stressed out about how I'm going to pay for car repairs when they're needed.  And there is the fact that I hated going into my first marriage with debt.  I do intend to marry again someday and I don't want to bring financial baggage into the relationship.  I am currently dating an absolutely amazing man that has the desire and ability to be an entrepreneur.  Business ventures require capital.  I'd love to be a help rather than a hinderence in those ventures if we should end up marrying someday (and I hope we do <3).