Moving Mountains

If you are going through debt repayment, following Dave Ramsey 's program and trying to live below your means. Paying off old debt, not incurring new debt, doing your best to live on cash and have gone a year and 3 months without using a single credit card and you start to feel tired. Tired of scrimping, saving, not "going out", feeling like it's never going to end. Wishing you could buy this or do that, and just really missing that feeling of freedom that came with all that debt (that you are now paying back). Go back on your budget spread sheets (that you all keep, just like me) and really look at HOW FAR YOU'VE COME! I really gives you that extra push to keep going and NOT GIVE UP! I just did that...wow...we have really made a HUGE dent...even though it seems as though we are going nowhere. We are actually moving mountains!

Caution: Bumpy Road Ahead!

I've been putting off writing for months now so, after some encouragement from a friend (Thanks Gayle!) I decided I best come back, pick up the pieces, especially since the journey is anything but complete and admit our mistakes, triumph over our wins and continue down the road.

Long, long, long story short...not LONG <must be a key word> after my last entry in May we started going through money like it was water.  We were following FPU on our own and had made it to lesson 3 or 4 (can't really remember) when all hell broke loose.  Our little kitten was having a lot of health issues that were leading to surgeries, we also had a pending two week trip (driving to Florida and back) that we could not cancel.  We had CONsolidated (notice the emphasis on "con"...we have since learned this) some credit cards to give us one payment instead of 3, each week the cat kept costing money and it was time to leave for Florida.  There was nothing we could do, we boarded the dog at "puppy camp" and the cats went to our vet, they were going to keep an eye on Sheldon daily, we were to call every day and they had Sheldon's surgeons phone number incase things went poorly.

Well, one week in things went poorly.  I stressed 2,000 miles away, I cried, we spent and finally we let go and fell off our wagon. 

End result: Trip was a success, was wonderful to see family, credit was used (unfortunately), cat lived and ended up costing $6,000.00.  Yes...six THOUSAND dollars.  At no point did anyone say in the beginning "your cat has this problem and it will cost $6,000 dollars to get him better.  I think had that happened decisions might have been made that led down maybe a different path.  No, what happened was one procedure led to another, $200 dollars here, $400 dollars there and by the time you are $4,000 dollars in you think what do I have to lose at this point?  Save him.

When we got home we tallied up the damage and began to construct our plan of attack.

We kept meaning to get back to our Financial Peace University studies on our own but we always found a reason why we couldn't that day.  Always something going on.  Then one Sunday morning at church we were reading the bulletin waiting for service to start when we saw that our church would be hosting FPU's 9 week course starting in October.  Being life time members we signed up and now every Sunday night we drive to West St. Paul to church and attend FPU with a lot of other people and I love it.  The accountability and support is wonderful. 

We've finally caught back up with our wagon, brushed ourselves off and climbed back up and are heading in the right direction once again.  We have even made a lot of good progress!

We have 3 classes left and here is where we are:

• We have completed Baby Step 1 which is keep a $1,000 dollar cash emergency fund.  We have this and we have actually USED it!  It was such a strange feeling to have my computer break and take it to get fixed and pay $200.00 cash to fix it!  no stress, no worries of "omg where are we going to get this money" and even better, there was no "oh well, we can't afford to fix it".  We fixed it, we paid for it and we replaced that $200.00.  BOOYAH!
• We have our envelope system in full swing!!  On pay day we withdrawal cash for the following envelopes
• Groceries (2 weeks)
• Matt's Lunch (2 weeks)
• Church Tithe (2 weeks)
• Auto repair fund
• Our pocket money (this is way small but it's necessary)
• Thanksgiving/Christmas
• We then pay our bills - after that we don't use the account.  Period.
• We have been doing our Debt Snowball for a couple of months now and we finally paid off our FIRST credit card!  YES what a feeling!  We will have another credit card paid off in just a few weeks and I am so excited!
• We have our bi-weekly budget committee meetings
• We do our homework and best yet we TALK about things like plans and dreams and how we each are feeling as the days tick by
• We work TOGETHER

I feel so lucky to have Mr. P as my partner as we fight our way through this but I know we are going to be a success story and I've already told him that we WILL make that drive to Tennessee to the Dave Ramsey show to make our "DEBT FREE SCREAM" ! 

Now that we are in our wagon again I KNOW we are on the right road to success!

The Nerd, The Free Spirit and The Fight

Mr. P and I don’t argue very often at all and we fight even less.  At least not over anything important that is.  When we have argued, in the end, it’s always been for the same cause, but we see things in such different ways and we solve problems by different equations it takes a little while to realize we’re fighting for the same team.  On the rare occasion that the fight is for opposing forces, a few hours of silence and apartness and we always talk our way back together.  This weekend was just such an instance, however, the weekend didn’t start with the argument, it actually started rather nicely on Friday with Pay day!  Saturday morning we watched lesson 2 of FPU “Relating with Money” and learned that our differences have names.  In our relationship I am the “Nerd” and Mr. P is the “Free Spirit”.  The entire hour long lesson was full of eye opening moments but the quiz was the best.  Nerds aren’t always the savers and Free Spirits aren’t always the spenders, in our case, it is the opposite.

After our lesson and discussion we paid the bills and worked the budget, we created a shopping list and then we stopped at the ATM (the one we chose is free for us to use, aka, no bank fees) and took out our grocery money for the next 2 weeks, our church tithe money and our individual “pocket money” and filled up our budding envelope system for the first time.  Our first stop was the co-op for,  yep you guessed it, dried beans.  Then on to Costco where on our list were fresh veggies and coffee beans (what wasn’t on the list was the impending argument).  As we entered the store, goofing around with each other and him thinking he’s funnier than he really is we took our cart and headed down the aisle.  First stop (for HIS agenda) was the cell phone counter.  This was unexpected for me.   Thing 2’s phone stopped working earlier this week and we didn’t want to buy a new one or sign a new contract so we dug through the house for one of our older models.  Found one and I THOUGHT we had planned to stop at the cell phone store itself to see what they could do for us.  NOT Costco.  However, Mr. P had other plans that he chose not to tell me about.  This not sharing is what started the argument.  I felt left out.  I felt he didn’t trust me with whatever was going through his head and it hurt.  I lashed out, he lashed back all right there for all of the public to see.  This didn't help him "understand" why I was upset.  He didn’t get that at all.

 

 We finished up at  Costco in silence, out of anger he never finished talking to the cell phone people at the kiosk.  We left in silence and drove to Target.  He decided to stop at the cell phone store this time but I knew I wasn’t ready to talk to him without bursting into tears and ending in an emotional puddle so I took the remainder of our grocery list and walked to Target to finish.

(Spending cash at Target was hard because we were giving up an additional 5% savings from using our Target Check card…but is it really a savings if you impulse buy 100 dollars over budget just to save that additional 5% ?  Pretty sure DR would be proud of the 5% sacrifice we made.)

After we got home the following 4 hours were spent apart.  I stayed upstairs, eventually falling asleep in my reading chair with my kitties (apparently Mr. P came up to check on my periodically, he can be so sweet).  After my nap I felt able to talk and we talked…for quite a while and I think he finally SORT of understands why I felt so bad and I totally get why he made that decision without including me.  We don’t agree with each other 100%...but more importantly we understand “why” a little better.

 What I learned this weekend is this.  In our relationship I am the “Nerd”.  I love the numbers, I love budgeting, and it’s fun for me.  I get excited looking ahead to see what’s coming up in our lessons and I look forward to our new, upcoming budget committee meeting in the next few days (one of our home work assignments this week)…however, I am also the spender.  Spending makes me feel better sometimes.  I hate (fear) going “without” so I over buy quite often.  Buying groceries for a week turns into “Hurricane preparedness training” at times. 

Mr. P is our “Free Spirit”.  To him recipes are just suggestions; he’d rather just use a dash of this and a pinch of that and see what happens.  He would rather balance a spoon on his nose than balance the check book…and he is our saver.  He can stick to a list like glue and not deviate one iota from it.  He can totally walk into a store, buy exactly what he needs and leave with only that.  This is why we work well together.  He needs me to create our map and I need him to use that map and lead the way to safety.  It is our differences that make us whole, they make us work as a couple, they create friction and hard feelings at times and sometimes they even give us a reason to laugh.

So, what were my take aways this weekend?  I like being a “Nerd” and Mr. P is the perfect “Free Spirit”.  I hate when we argue but hate it even more when it’s in public.  Spending cash isn’t as fun as I thought it would be but it definitely leaves you feeling secure and safe.  That one I can’t explain but I am going to keep my eyes (and my mind) open in the coming weeks to see if I can figure out why.

Tough Choices

We are one week into our new life and I thought the plastectomy was going to be THE hardest choice to make.  I was wrong.  I have another choice that I am facing and I just don’t know what to do.  I’ve even thought about calling in to the Dave Ramsey show to ask HIS advice, even though I KNOW what he’d say already.  One of the key parts that DR says you should do is to “find money”…find ways to get more income flowing so that you can pay off bills faster.  Have cable TV?  Cut it out.  Have a garage sale…give blood…you get the point.  Well we don’t have any real “extras” and we don’t have cable TV, however, we do have a gym bill and locker rental that comes to just over $100.00 a month.  Here is my dilemma, do I suspend my gym membership for now and use that money towards debt repayment and then reinstate my membership after the weather turns bad again?  Or do I keep the gym because I am afraid that I will get lazy and not workout on my own at home?  Make a list Jen...pros and cons.

Pro to going it on my own for the summer:

I own the complete selection of Richard Simmons "Sweatin to the Oldies" dvds, several Yoga dvds, plus multiple kettle bells, dumbbells and jump ropes and undless access to the internet for any workout plan I can find or think of.  Not to mention a heart rate monitor and tons of hills and roads around my neighborhood to walk/run

Con to going it on my own for the summer:

I've already paid for personal training sessions and I still have 6 sessions left.  Will I have the motivation and self discipline to make myself workout at home? 

This is a tough, tough choice.  A “head scratcher” for sure and I am just not sure which is the “Right” choice…My head tells me one thing, my heart tells me another and that little scared voice in my head tells me something else. 

One Gold Star and One GIANT Raspberry!

Last night was our first big “cash purchase”.  Car repairs, to the tune of $1,038.00 (and change), the exact figure eludes me at 4:30 in the morning but the exact amount isn’t the success…it’s the “We didn’t put it on a credit card” that is the success.  Driving out of the shop and halfway down 35W heading home I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around the simple fact that the car works…and it’s paid for.  Yes it was a pretty hefty bill but we knew it was coming and planned for it.  Yes, that money is now gone (I mourn it’s loss and worry at the empty hole where it once was, what if I have an emergency RIGHT NOW?) and we have to start building up again (because there are a few other repairs that still need to be taken care of over the next few months…maintenance on a 7 year old Impala with 137,000 miles seems to come in chunks).  But it’s fixed, I don’t OWE and that fact alone seems to make the car run even smoother.

For this success, I will proudly accept the GOLD STAR!



Now…last night also marked our first ever attempt at an actual ”Beans and Rice” addition to dinner.  Not quite as big a success as the cash car repairs.  It became very apparent that I need to really find some kick ass new recipes because all we had in the house last night to create a “Beans and Rice” dish was long grain white rice and one can of Dark Red Kidney Beans (there was also 1 can of butter beans, bought by MISTAKE a year ago but frankly I hate butter beans so they are still in there). 

For this attempt, I will humbly accept one giant raspberry and a hearty “better luck next time!”



So, in the spirit of “if at first you don’t succeed…” this weekend will be spent researching new recipes and taking a trip, cash in hand, to the co-op.  If anyone has any vegetarian friendly “Beans and Rice” recipes please, send them my way!!

Keepin’ it real…where “Debt is dumb, cash is king and the paid off home mortgage is the status symbol of choice”…in good ole’ Burnsville Minnesota!

TTFN

Baby Steps

My first full day without my “plastic” actually went pretty uneventfully yesterday.  I was pleasantly surprised to find myself “emergency free” by end of day.  Not really sure WHY I was so surprised, after almost 10 years downtown, sans emergency, it’s a wonder I still worry that the sky will fall at any moment.  But, it didn’t and I actually didn’t even miss my cards.   I did spend cash though and I added a tiny extra baby step for myself, just for the sake of personal accountability.  I have a tiny notebook I keep in my wallet that I wrote down my spending cash in.  Every time I spent some cash I wrote it in my book and I keep a running tally.  Even the $5.00 donated to a co-workers bridal shower gift after lunch and the $ .75 I spent on a cold can of tea is in there.  DR (Dave Ramsey) doesn’t actually say you have to do this but I really want to know where my money is going as I get used to this whole spending cash life.  This way when I start to feel like my money is just pouring from my pockets like water from a leaky bucket at least I will know where it’s gone.  Maybe think twice the next time I reach in there for a dollar.

Today’s new baby step experience?  Car repairs...WITHOUT plastic.  Stay tuned.

Plastectomy

Plastectomy [plas-tek-toe-me] (n);  The removal of all plastic forms of payment from one’s wallet or purse; Typical replacement – cold hard cash

Preface: I have been working downtown for nearly 10 years now and I have always justified the carrying of plastic in my wallet for “just in case of emergencies”.  This way I can pay for a cab ride home if anything happens, etc.  I felt safer…just knowing they were there.  In nearly 10 years working downtown, I have never had to call a cab to take me home due to an emergency.

Before leaving the house this morning for work I performed a plastectomy on my own wallet.  Talk about harder than I expected.  When all was said and done I removed 2 credit cards, 1 bank debit card, 1 Target check card and 2 savings account ATM cards.  Replacement value was one, well hidden, $50 dollar bill for those “emergencies” and a few dollars for whatever.   Sure makes a girl think twice about whether or not that Medium Northern Light Caramel Soy Latte you are craving from Caribou is really worth the $5.15 plus downtown tax.