Let Me Close a Few Browser Windows
Me: What did you do today?
Zac: Played.
Me: What else?
Zac: (Blank stare)
Sell Yo Stuff
I'm not saying be a minimalist, but seriously, we had so much stuff.
This past summer we decided to do a major de-cluttering of our house, and I was astonished at how much crap we had stored in places we forgot existed. I had an entire Rubbermaid bin full of purses stashed in the far corner of the crawl space. Upon opening this bin I was immediately reminded that I absolutely cannot live without these purses! (Even though I had been for two whole years... amazing how that happens.)
Sometimes Going to Work Feels Like a Vacation
Today I "worked from home," which is not an accurate statement at all. I love my work from home days, but I was spending 16 hours trying to get 5 hours worth of work done. The solution? I've been working 12-hour days at the office on Monday and Tuesday and we've hired a sitter to come to the house from 6am-10am on Wednesdays. That way, in the not-so-rare instance that nothing more happens in terms of actual work after 10am, it's not the end of the world. I finish out the week working 8am-4:30pm on Thursdays and working from home on Fridays, meaning I monitor emails as I am able while Finn is awake and I work while he is asleep.
The Sinking Fund
There always seems to be one expense that doesn't fit in any of our envelopes. At first we decided if it didn't fit in one of the envelope categories (Home, Auto, Entertainment, Personal Upkeep, Mika or Gifts) then it wasn't something we should be spending money on. That lasted about three days. There will always be expenses that don't fit in those categories, you just can't let them deter you from the ultimate goal of being debt free.
To Finn, on your first birthday
One year ago today, Finn slowly crashed his way into our world. It's a good thing I didn't have a birth plan, because he wasn't going to follow it anyway. This isn't a popular thing to say about your child, but Finn broke me. Both physically and emotionally, he has brought me to my knees. This child was God's way of forcing me to trust and surrender everything to Him, because for all the control freaks out there, you know what I mean when I say there is no controlling a newborn. The uncertainty of every single moment is enough to make your head swim. It doesn't matter how many ways you played the scenario out in your head, a newborn will find the one scenario you didn't prepare for (I never would have imagined needing 6 outfits in a diaper bag!).
Well that wasn't in the budget...
Less than 24 hours after I posted Using a Budget: Cutting Costs a suspiciously important looking envelope showed up in our mailbox. A recent article stated it will cost upwards of $400,000 to raise a child (before college!) and I had wondered how that was possible. Sure we have to buy diapers, bottles, baby food and some other items, but all in all we've only added about $200 per month to the budget since Finn arrived, which equals $43,200 over the course of 18 years. I knew that would increase as he started school, sports, and other activities, but how could it possibly creep up to $400,000?!
Using a Budget: Cutting Costs
In my last post, Using a Budget to Get Out of Debt, I shared how we built our budget. However, I didn't share specifics on the amounts we spend because it is different for every family and if I shared those amounts right away you would have said, "there's no way we can live with an $80/week grocery budget" and quit reading. For this post I want to share the ways that we save money on everyday expenses like fuel, groceries, and insurance so we can keep our budget at a minimum and put the maximum amount of money possible toward debt.
Using a Budget to get out of Debt
Since I posted What does debt have to do with it? I've gotten a lot of questions on how we were able to pay off $16,094 worth of debt in six months. The short answer: a lot of long hours, cheap dates, and no vacations or splurge spending. The long answer: we budget every week, use cash, cut expenses, and find ways to save on EVERYTHING.