MONEY

Today I watched the final episode of Oprah's Debt Diet.  After each of the first 4 episodes, it ended with me getting sort-of excited about getting out of debt.  Today, I am a GAZELLE (read Dave Ramsey's book, Total Money Makeover).  Even though it feels so daunting to look at the spreadsheet I have of our debt because of the extent of it, I know that one day we'll be done with it all!  I have completed our first zero-based budget, where I have assigned every dollar we have coming in this coming month to how it is going to be spent. I've always known that we live paycheck-to-paycheck, something we'll be done doing eventually, and that our budget is very tight, but without this specific budget, I was always just HOPING that at the end of the month we'd still have enough money.  Now I know that for July we should have approximately $130 extra.  Before this new budgeting technique, I never would have imagine we'd have that amount left-over.  What a huge snowball that will go far, very fast!

I'm also trying to add to our income a little bit at a time.  For example, I just recently sold a few books on cash4books.net.  Not much $ there, but today they bought a book that they didn't buy yesterday. Always trying to get rid of more of our stuff.  I've been completing surveys online at opinionoutpost.com.  Just today I requested my check of $12. I received a $10 rebate check from Kraft Foods.  I will receive a $5 rebate and $15 in giftcards to Rite-Aid.  Now to make craigslist my friend and get rid of everything we don't need. 

Slowly but surely this will all add up.

I am also going to re-read

to further intensify my heart for getting out of debt!

Stretching A Buck

I have gotten on the couponing bandwagon. I get super excited to get the paper from outside on Sunday morning to start the clipping :) Just like getting the mail I actually enjoy doing it everyday but on the other 6 days of the week, I just like the paper for the sudoku; I need something to keep my brain from rotting!

I check a handful of coupon websites a handful of times each day trying to decide what store has the best place to use each coupon to get the best deal! Haven't gone on too many major coupon shopping trips, but this week was really good.

Wednesday I took Hannah with me to Albertson's for the AMAZING fruit snack deal. I'm so glad I did since it was my first experience at feeling like a full-fledged couponer. We came home with 20 boxes of fruit snacks, 10 boxes of mac & cheese, 8 frozen juice concentrates and 2 frozen pizzas. Should have cost $98.99 but I saved 91.4% of that price! I wish I would have taken a picture of that shopping trip but it didn't cross my mind.

Thursday, I went for more juice and fruit snacks ALL ALONE! I managed to do just fine except they were out of the juice and I have yet to remember to get a rain check. This is what I did manage to get:

after I displayed the purchase, my real camera battery died, so I used my phone
15 boxes of fruit snacks (Scooby Doo & Fruit Gushers)
1 tub of frosting (to go along with the cake mix I got for $0.25 for the next time Marcel has to bring treats to school)
1 Olay lotion (to complete the $15 mail in rebate)
1 Snuggle dryer sheets (because we NEEDED them--learning that you should never need anything!)
2 sour creams
2 Vitamin Waters
2 bags of Rhodes warm-n-serve rolls.

The percentage of savings wasn't nearly as big this time, only 81.4% from original price of about $74 (I don't have the receipts right in front of me). I do know that my savings were $60.60! Plus I still have $7 in catalinas to spend on my next shopping trip!

I've been telling Hannah this week, that of course Marcel and I could definitely use to save money on groceries. The money I get for food stamps (recall from a facebook status that Marcel doesn't qualify since when I applied he was not working 20 hours/week which is required for college students to be eligible) isn't quite enough each month so it is nice to stretch it even further. But it has been really fun to see how cheap I can get laundry detergent and dish soap (have enough to get to Christmas I guarantee it, plus that supply cost less than I would have paid for 1 bottle of detergent before!) and other non-food household items. On top of stretching a buck or two, though, it is really nice that it does give me a few more websites to add to my list of ones I check regularly. I can only blog-stalk and be on facebook so much in 1 day :)

Hope this was interesting to someone else. While blog-stalking I always feel myself getting upset at people who haven't blogged in a really long time and then just tonight I looked at my own blog and it had been way too long for me and couponing is about the only thing going on lately in our life that I haven't blogged about :)

In case you are new to couponing, I LOVE:
thekrazycouponlady.com
athrifymom.com
fabulesslyfrugal.com
idahodealdivas.com
hip2save.com
I read plenty of other sites occasionally but these are the ones I check a few times each day!

Baby Step 1

Yesterday, Marcel called me and told me that he got a revised financial aid letter from school. His financial aid had already paid for the entire semester, but they "found" (I don't know the right word, but found works for me!) more grant money and he was awarded an additional $1,338! Because his account is already paid in full, the school will issue it to us as a check, usable however we see fit.


At first we were not quite agreeing on how to use the huge surprise. I wanted to pay off one of my smaller school loans; Marcel wanted to use it to buy the computer he has had his eye on: a Mac. It is something he will need but since school is no longer in the immediate future, I thought it was a want and not practical since our bonus wouldn't have even bought the whole thing. Where were we going to get that extra money?? I got to work at the gym and had an epiphany: if we are moving to Idaho to get ahead of our finances and are currently reading Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Makeover as our guide then we needed to follow the steps he sets out for us, so I realized we needed to start with Baby Step 1: Save $1,000 FAST!!


Marcel was able to pick me up from work after being at worship practice and said, "So...that money needs to be our emergency fund. We can't spend it!" Remember that I am super emotional, but I almost cried. I asked how he came to that realization. At worship practice they have a prayer time and his request was once again for finances. He explained that we are moving to Idaho for financial reasons and that set off a light bulb for him! So our plan is to tithe our 10% like we are called to do and then put away the money and forget about it until we encounter an emergency.


Just the other day I was telling Marcel how I was in the stage of knowing we have to tithe because we have seen the blessings but still always worrying how it was coming to be when I had to sit down and pay bills. I think this newest surprise was just what I needed. Previously we've seen it in a few extra dollars here and there but to receive such a huge amount at one time reassured me that everything goes according plan, not our plan, but His. We are loved by a very awesome God!


Now on to Baby Step 2: Debt Snowball!