Well I've got a couple of posts swirling around in the back of my mind waiting to be written, or half written, or with photos waiting for text to go along with them, but it has been a bit of a whirlwind start to 2013!
That kind of happens when a car engine emergency drains your emergency fund down to within a few dollars of empty, and then as soon as you pull the extra out of your normal 'extra-to-principle' mortgage payment to get the emergency fund back up to a thousand bucks your debit credit card number gets stolen and used to rack up charges totaling almost a thousand dollars....
Now, we've got our fingers crossed that the fraudulent charges will be returned to us, and after talking to the bank it looks like that will happen without any issues, and really, because we had a large enough emergency fund to cover first the car engine, and then to cover these fraudulent charges if need be, neither of them are financial emergencies, which we are so, so grateful for. We didn't need to dip into the sinking funds we keep for other good things, like upcoming childbirth costs or vehicle insurance, to pay for these emergencies.
But boy, what good reminders to have an emergency fund! Also a good reminder to keep tabs on our account. And perhaps a hint to get identity theft insurance... And perhaps also a nudge to be better about not keeping too much money in our daily account and manage the daily account vs. savings account a bit more in-depth so as to keep the daily account as low as can be to keep the rest of our money safer in the savings account...
Sigh... Lessons learned folks, lessons learned! :)
Showing posts with label budgeting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label budgeting. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Buying Groceries with Cash
We attended Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at our good friend's church over the summer, and while watching the videos and doing the class homework definitely provoked changes in some of our opinions about money, the really great thing about taking the class was the group discussions. We took the class with just a small group of people (not surprising given the remote location where we live, and the church where we are taking the class is 45 minutes away even for us). Attending were us, our friends, another couple, and the couple that run the church (who are our friends parents/in-laws). Apart from the couple that run the church who are obviously older, us and the other 2 couples each have kids that are around two and a half years old - 2 girls and one boy. So we were about in the same life-stage, although one couple is a bit older than us and one couple is a bit younger than us.
We've been keeping track of our spending since before we married, and have been using a zero-based budget loosely based on Dave Ramsey teachings since shortly after we married, so we've slowly learned a lot about money and about behavior around money, so we didn't have huge steps to take during the class since we already had an emergency fund and were already using a zero based budget, but we still let ourselves get as much new information from the class as possible.
The group discussions were likely the part that I got the most from, not the strict class materials. It made me glad that we didn't do the class online like I had been thinking of, since we live so far out. During the group discussions we would often get off topic from the lesson questions, and talk about things like ideas for saving money, living simply, and cooking healthy food. As a result of some of these discussions, last month and this month my husband and I made the switch to using cash for our groceries. Our friends have been doing this now since the class started, and I've seen people blog about doing so numerous other times, so you'd think I would have tried it by now.
But for us, it seemed like grocery shopping was under control - and it was. We had a very small grocery budget, and if we went over, it was near the end of the month, so it just came early out of next month. And by going over, I mean like 20 bucks. After all, with a $280 grocery budget, it's easy to go that little bit over.
(Here is where I need to explain that there are a lot of things not in our grocery budget - dog food, we have a separate line item for it, to the cost of 2 bags a month for our 3 medium/large dogs. Toilettries or basically anything not edible, again, separate line item for those things. In addition, we raise our own eggs, we're currently raising a pig, we grow a larger-than-normal garden augmented by a separate deep freezer, and we hunt and fish (or trade) for a lot of our meat. The money for the feed that we give to our laying hens and butcher pig doesn't come from our grocery budget - we have a separate line item for that food. And the money for hunting licenses & gas for hunting also doesn't come from our grocery budget. So you see, there is a lot that we eat that really is outside of that $280/month (just trying for transparency here!).)
Anyway, back to our actual grocery budget. I read lots of posts about how people were amazed at the change when they switched, but I didn't really think it would be like that for us. After all, we use essenitally cash on our debit card, and know how much we have when we go in to the store, and generally stay within our allocated money each month for groceries.
But the reality was a bit different. I hadn't thought about the effort I put into making sure we stay within our grocery budget. Looking at our receipts, entering debit transactions into our budget envelope spreadsheet, keeping an eye on the grocery amount remaining in the spreadsheet before I go to the store. Having all the available cash right in front of my eyes when I was in the grocery store was just way way easier.
And come the end of the first month, I had only one trip left to get a few things to tide us over into the next month, and I realized that I still had $50 in the envelope! Obviously my spending habits, even with a monthly meal plan that I don't remember being different from previous months, were different using just cold hard cash than with a debit card. So we again took out grocery cash for this month. And I expect we'll do it again next month. Because it's a nice feeling at the end of the month to realize we can stock up on sale items that we'll use next month!
So, long story short, if you haven't tried cash for groceries, and I mean real hard cash people, not a debit card, you really need to give it a try. Say you're going to do it just for one month. Like I did. And then say you'll go back to your old ways, cause they aren't so bad, after the month. Again, like I did. And if you find yourself converted, like I am, then I welcome you to this side of the tracks :) (not that I think there is anything wrong with the other side of the track, I've just realized that at this point in our lives, I like this side better).
So now, we've paid cash for our late honeymoon in Hawaii, and I mean we used cold hard cash while we were there, we've been using primarily cash for our blow money (apart from when we order things online, when we deposit the money back into our account or don't take it out in the first place if we know we're going to order something) and now we're doing cash for groceries.... what next?
What about you? Do you have a zero based budget? Have you ever tried using strictly cash for groceries? Do you have other things you pay for in cash?
We've been keeping track of our spending since before we married, and have been using a zero-based budget loosely based on Dave Ramsey teachings since shortly after we married, so we've slowly learned a lot about money and about behavior around money, so we didn't have huge steps to take during the class since we already had an emergency fund and were already using a zero based budget, but we still let ourselves get as much new information from the class as possible.
The group discussions were likely the part that I got the most from, not the strict class materials. It made me glad that we didn't do the class online like I had been thinking of, since we live so far out. During the group discussions we would often get off topic from the lesson questions, and talk about things like ideas for saving money, living simply, and cooking healthy food. As a result of some of these discussions, last month and this month my husband and I made the switch to using cash for our groceries. Our friends have been doing this now since the class started, and I've seen people blog about doing so numerous other times, so you'd think I would have tried it by now.
But for us, it seemed like grocery shopping was under control - and it was. We had a very small grocery budget, and if we went over, it was near the end of the month, so it just came early out of next month. And by going over, I mean like 20 bucks. After all, with a $280 grocery budget, it's easy to go that little bit over.
(Here is where I need to explain that there are a lot of things not in our grocery budget - dog food, we have a separate line item for it, to the cost of 2 bags a month for our 3 medium/large dogs. Toilettries or basically anything not edible, again, separate line item for those things. In addition, we raise our own eggs, we're currently raising a pig, we grow a larger-than-normal garden augmented by a separate deep freezer, and we hunt and fish (or trade) for a lot of our meat. The money for the feed that we give to our laying hens and butcher pig doesn't come from our grocery budget - we have a separate line item for that food. And the money for hunting licenses & gas for hunting also doesn't come from our grocery budget. So you see, there is a lot that we eat that really is outside of that $280/month (just trying for transparency here!).)
Anyway, back to our actual grocery budget. I read lots of posts about how people were amazed at the change when they switched, but I didn't really think it would be like that for us. After all, we use essenitally cash on our debit card, and know how much we have when we go in to the store, and generally stay within our allocated money each month for groceries.
But the reality was a bit different. I hadn't thought about the effort I put into making sure we stay within our grocery budget. Looking at our receipts, entering debit transactions into our budget envelope spreadsheet, keeping an eye on the grocery amount remaining in the spreadsheet before I go to the store. Having all the available cash right in front of my eyes when I was in the grocery store was just way way easier.
And come the end of the first month, I had only one trip left to get a few things to tide us over into the next month, and I realized that I still had $50 in the envelope! Obviously my spending habits, even with a monthly meal plan that I don't remember being different from previous months, were different using just cold hard cash than with a debit card. So we again took out grocery cash for this month. And I expect we'll do it again next month. Because it's a nice feeling at the end of the month to realize we can stock up on sale items that we'll use next month!
So, long story short, if you haven't tried cash for groceries, and I mean real hard cash people, not a debit card, you really need to give it a try. Say you're going to do it just for one month. Like I did. And then say you'll go back to your old ways, cause they aren't so bad, after the month. Again, like I did. And if you find yourself converted, like I am, then I welcome you to this side of the tracks :) (not that I think there is anything wrong with the other side of the track, I've just realized that at this point in our lives, I like this side better).
So now, we've paid cash for our late honeymoon in Hawaii, and I mean we used cold hard cash while we were there, we've been using primarily cash for our blow money (apart from when we order things online, when we deposit the money back into our account or don't take it out in the first place if we know we're going to order something) and now we're doing cash for groceries.... what next?
What about you? Do you have a zero based budget? Have you ever tried using strictly cash for groceries? Do you have other things you pay for in cash?
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Being a working mama - finding balance
I'm a working mama. I'm very lucky in that my current job doesn't have set hours, and there is never any obligation (other than meetings or field days that are scheduled in advance for the most part) to go in any certain time or any certain day. However, we do have this crazy goal to pay our house off in the next 5 years, so I try to work a certain number of hours a month so that my paycheck is a certain amount so that we can meet this crazy goal, which basically means I work full time, although we aren't talking 40+ hours a week in the office, its more like 30-35!
But it's a balancing act. I don't want my daughter (Little M) to be in daycare every day. I am the main homemaker in our family, although I don't make supper every night (my husband makes supper on the 3 nights a week when he doesn't work), and my husband helps me out by helping put away clean clothes, care for the dogs, keep the lawn mowed and watered. I still end up doing the majority of work around the house, taking Little M to daycare 2-3 days a week, keeping the fridge & pantry stocked, and all those other little cleaning & organizing tasks that keep a home running.
Back when Little M was born, she came with me to work every day, and I worked much shorter days (more like 20-25 hours a week). But we didn't have our budget as nicely set as we do now, and while we wanted to pay the house off within the 7 year window from when we bought it that our seller contract allowed, we didn't have a plan set up to do that. As she got older, more active, and awake more during the day she started staying home with my husband during the week during his off days (at that point his work shifts were Fri - Mon so he was home with her Tues - Thurs). And at about 6-8 months she started going 2 days a week to a wonderful in-home daycare just minutes down the road.
As she got older and her afternoon naps got more defined, her daycare days ended up being my longest work days, as we got there around 9 (sometimes 8, sometimes 10 depending on my morning work obligations and goals), but she would nap until just after 4! That makes for a long day for this mama! While Little M is doing much better during the night, on her best nights she wakes up once to nurse, and on her worst it is every two hours. For me, I find it very challenging to be a good, present mom when I get home with her at about 5, have to cook and serve dinner, let the dogs out, and deal with a missing-her-mama little girl until bedtime around 7:30.
More recently, my husband's job situation has shifted around, and his days off seem to keep changing. This has made it challenging to arrange daycare while not making our great daycare provider constantly shift her days around (we have certain days of the week that are ours, and when we need different days, unless the other parents can switch their requirements, we are out of luck). Luckily we were able to switch our Friday to Thursday, although it likely will be the only time until Little M turns 2 that we will be able to switch days. That meant that I stayed home with her, first on Tuesdays, and then when my husbands shifts switched again, I stayed home with her on Wednesdays.
At first, it was great staying home with her one day a week, but then we realized that in order for me to get enough hours in each week (and not have 4 too-long days), I needed to work a couple hours from home on the weekend, and a couple hours while she napped during our day at home during the week. And then it all sort of fell apart. I didn't have down time then while she napped to get the other things done that I needed and wanted to do. I constantly felt overworked and stressed and behind on things, and it was a struggle to find things that I could bring home with me to work on.
But I really enjoyed having that day off with her, to focus on her, and get a bit ahead on housekeeping and meal planning. And sometimes we would go into town and meet with other moms, and that was really great. And just about when I was deciding that we needed to revisit the budget and revise our payoff schedule with the house so that I could get away with working a few hours a week less, our daycare provider mentioned that we could come on Wednesdays as she now had them free.
Huh. Well it was a hard decision. I ended up, for the sake of continuing to meet our financial goals, to decide to send her an additional day, so 3 days a week. That would mean I would have to work more hours to pay for the additional daycare costs, and have 3 days of the week where I had to get home from work & picking her up later that I would like, scramble to get supper on the table & dogs fed & exercised, and find energy to play with her before bedtime.
I'm still trying to find the balance in this new schedule. I'm not sure that I will find it; next month we may revisit things and decide to change our goals, or hope that in the next 5 years we start bringing in more money each month to let us catch up from me staying with her one day a week. And who knows what the future will bring to each of our current jobs. Its been hard to balance our goals of having our daughter grow up with (mostly) us around, with our goals of paying the house off so soon. But we both realize that paying the house off a bit later is worth it to enjoy these moments when she is so young. We just have to decide what the right balance is for us :) And the great thing about all of this is it means that my husband and I are continually checking in on our conversation about what is best for us as a family and her as our child, and making sure we are headed in the right direction and making the right choices for us.
But it's a balancing act. I don't want my daughter (Little M) to be in daycare every day. I am the main homemaker in our family, although I don't make supper every night (my husband makes supper on the 3 nights a week when he doesn't work), and my husband helps me out by helping put away clean clothes, care for the dogs, keep the lawn mowed and watered. I still end up doing the majority of work around the house, taking Little M to daycare 2-3 days a week, keeping the fridge & pantry stocked, and all those other little cleaning & organizing tasks that keep a home running.
Back when Little M was born, she came with me to work every day, and I worked much shorter days (more like 20-25 hours a week). But we didn't have our budget as nicely set as we do now, and while we wanted to pay the house off within the 7 year window from when we bought it that our seller contract allowed, we didn't have a plan set up to do that. As she got older, more active, and awake more during the day she started staying home with my husband during the week during his off days (at that point his work shifts were Fri - Mon so he was home with her Tues - Thurs). And at about 6-8 months she started going 2 days a week to a wonderful in-home daycare just minutes down the road.
As she got older and her afternoon naps got more defined, her daycare days ended up being my longest work days, as we got there around 9 (sometimes 8, sometimes 10 depending on my morning work obligations and goals), but she would nap until just after 4! That makes for a long day for this mama! While Little M is doing much better during the night, on her best nights she wakes up once to nurse, and on her worst it is every two hours. For me, I find it very challenging to be a good, present mom when I get home with her at about 5, have to cook and serve dinner, let the dogs out, and deal with a missing-her-mama little girl until bedtime around 7:30.
More recently, my husband's job situation has shifted around, and his days off seem to keep changing. This has made it challenging to arrange daycare while not making our great daycare provider constantly shift her days around (we have certain days of the week that are ours, and when we need different days, unless the other parents can switch their requirements, we are out of luck). Luckily we were able to switch our Friday to Thursday, although it likely will be the only time until Little M turns 2 that we will be able to switch days. That meant that I stayed home with her, first on Tuesdays, and then when my husbands shifts switched again, I stayed home with her on Wednesdays.
At first, it was great staying home with her one day a week, but then we realized that in order for me to get enough hours in each week (and not have 4 too-long days), I needed to work a couple hours from home on the weekend, and a couple hours while she napped during our day at home during the week. And then it all sort of fell apart. I didn't have down time then while she napped to get the other things done that I needed and wanted to do. I constantly felt overworked and stressed and behind on things, and it was a struggle to find things that I could bring home with me to work on.
But I really enjoyed having that day off with her, to focus on her, and get a bit ahead on housekeeping and meal planning. And sometimes we would go into town and meet with other moms, and that was really great. And just about when I was deciding that we needed to revisit the budget and revise our payoff schedule with the house so that I could get away with working a few hours a week less, our daycare provider mentioned that we could come on Wednesdays as she now had them free.
Huh. Well it was a hard decision. I ended up, for the sake of continuing to meet our financial goals, to decide to send her an additional day, so 3 days a week. That would mean I would have to work more hours to pay for the additional daycare costs, and have 3 days of the week where I had to get home from work & picking her up later that I would like, scramble to get supper on the table & dogs fed & exercised, and find energy to play with her before bedtime.
I'm still trying to find the balance in this new schedule. I'm not sure that I will find it; next month we may revisit things and decide to change our goals, or hope that in the next 5 years we start bringing in more money each month to let us catch up from me staying with her one day a week. And who knows what the future will bring to each of our current jobs. Its been hard to balance our goals of having our daughter grow up with (mostly) us around, with our goals of paying the house off so soon. But we both realize that paying the house off a bit later is worth it to enjoy these moments when she is so young. We just have to decide what the right balance is for us :) And the great thing about all of this is it means that my husband and I are continually checking in on our conversation about what is best for us as a family and her as our child, and making sure we are headed in the right direction and making the right choices for us.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Preparedness Challenge
For several weeks now Amy over at Homestead Revival has been holding a Preparedness Challenge on Saturdays. I've been meaning to join in, but haven't been doing very good at fitting preparedness into my weekly routine. This week my husband and I decided that over the weekend we would start working on our Bug Out Bags (BOBs), so I was thrilled to wake up this morning and read that Amy was working on hers as well!
This week I am working on our 'take everywhere' bug out bags. For me that means a backpack that will go in my car with me to work, or when I am out with Little M. So my BOB has to carry things for me and potentially for a one year old. My husband's BOB needs to hold slightly different things. Since he is in law enforcement and is into hunting, his bag will hold guns and ammo, and more woodsy things - firestarters, rope for making shelters, etc. Of course, my bag will hold some of that stuff, but as I will be limited by having Little M, I need to have things that are easier to use & make (lighters instead of firestarters, emergency blankets instead of rope to make a stick shelter). Longer term we will need a larger 3 person kit at the house, including items for our three dogs.
For now I am focusing on the basics - food, water, & shelter. I've ordered several stainless steel water bottles (to avoid plastics, and in theory they could be used to boil water in if we needed), some energy bars, and some paracord (thin strong lightweight rope). We already have a couple of emergency blankets and iodine tablets. I'm thinking about also getting one or two headlamps & a couple of whistles depending on how far I can make our money stretch. We already have things like knives & extra clothes, but we still need to work on our first aid kits.
We set aside money from our tax return this month to pay for these items, but for the future we need to think about whether we want to have a budget line for preparedness items so that every month we can beef up our preparedness kits a bit more, or whether we want to get preparedness items when we have extra money come in one month.
This week I am working on our 'take everywhere' bug out bags. For me that means a backpack that will go in my car with me to work, or when I am out with Little M. So my BOB has to carry things for me and potentially for a one year old. My husband's BOB needs to hold slightly different things. Since he is in law enforcement and is into hunting, his bag will hold guns and ammo, and more woodsy things - firestarters, rope for making shelters, etc. Of course, my bag will hold some of that stuff, but as I will be limited by having Little M, I need to have things that are easier to use & make (lighters instead of firestarters, emergency blankets instead of rope to make a stick shelter). Longer term we will need a larger 3 person kit at the house, including items for our three dogs.
For now I am focusing on the basics - food, water, & shelter. I've ordered several stainless steel water bottles (to avoid plastics, and in theory they could be used to boil water in if we needed), some energy bars, and some paracord (thin strong lightweight rope). We already have a couple of emergency blankets and iodine tablets. I'm thinking about also getting one or two headlamps & a couple of whistles depending on how far I can make our money stretch. We already have things like knives & extra clothes, but we still need to work on our first aid kits.
We set aside money from our tax return this month to pay for these items, but for the future we need to think about whether we want to have a budget line for preparedness items so that every month we can beef up our preparedness kits a bit more, or whether we want to get preparedness items when we have extra money come in one month.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Digital Cash Envelopes
We started getting serious about our budgeting near the end of last year. I started reading Money Saving Mom and then Dave Ramsey, and the rest is history. I don't get into politics or religion on here, but in terms of finance, Dave Ramsey has been awesome. Our budget doesn't completely follow how he suggests - we have it tailored more to our goals and situation.
I've budgeted my entire adult life, but until now I never had a zero based budget. And definitely since my husband and I got married and I started budgeting for both of us, my 'budgeting' was really more record keeping. We weren't going into any debt, but we weren't really saving any money, and definitely not like we are now that we have our strict categories. Yay for saving money!
I have played a lot with tracking each envelope month to month, and currently have a system that really works well for us. Since I get paid monthly and my husband gets paid twice a month, we do our budget monthly. I have a column for expenses, a column for income, and 3 columns for the envelopes: one has the remainder from last month, one has the additional new money for this month, and one shows how much we have total in each 'envelope'.
Every time we spend money, I put the entry into the expenses column, and subtract that from whichever envelope it belongs to. Similarly, every time we bring money in, I put it into the income column, and if it is extra on top of our paychecks, then I add it into the new money column. It works quite well for how I think, and I love how in excel when I make a mistake, I have cells set up to show me that my overall totals don't match, so I can go back and fix my mistakes!
I love how this budgeting system means I am no longer the nagging wife - 'shouldn't we save that money instead of spending it on X'. Now we just have to look at our excel spreadsheet to see if we have money to eat out, or buy clothes when we find a really great deal online. I print the totals about once a month and hang it on our fridge so that even if I'm at work with the most current version of the budget, my husband can look to see approximately what we have in any given 'envelope'.
I've budgeted my entire adult life, but until now I never had a zero based budget. And definitely since my husband and I got married and I started budgeting for both of us, my 'budgeting' was really more record keeping. We weren't going into any debt, but we weren't really saving any money, and definitely not like we are now that we have our strict categories. Yay for saving money!
I have played a lot with tracking each envelope month to month, and currently have a system that really works well for us. Since I get paid monthly and my husband gets paid twice a month, we do our budget monthly. I have a column for expenses, a column for income, and 3 columns for the envelopes: one has the remainder from last month, one has the additional new money for this month, and one shows how much we have total in each 'envelope'.
Every time we spend money, I put the entry into the expenses column, and subtract that from whichever envelope it belongs to. Similarly, every time we bring money in, I put it into the income column, and if it is extra on top of our paychecks, then I add it into the new money column. It works quite well for how I think, and I love how in excel when I make a mistake, I have cells set up to show me that my overall totals don't match, so I can go back and fix my mistakes!
I love how this budgeting system means I am no longer the nagging wife - 'shouldn't we save that money instead of spending it on X'. Now we just have to look at our excel spreadsheet to see if we have money to eat out, or buy clothes when we find a really great deal online. I print the totals about once a month and hang it on our fridge so that even if I'm at work with the most current version of the budget, my husband can look to see approximately what we have in any given 'envelope'.
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