Rich stay at home mom

Well it's better than a monthly payment I guess

2008-07-28T21:19:00.002-04:00

Had the explorer inspected today and in order for it to pass we needed 4 new tires on it. And then at the garage we needed new brakes and rotors on the front. Double oy. So $700 later here we are! Oh well it's better than spending $400 a month right?

We rented a Toyota Sienna for vacation last week and man was that a nice car and it of course made me want to go out and buy one especially when my car needed all that stuff to get inspected but I know now is not the time. Patience, some money down and a few months we'll get something new or at the very least new to us :)

It's just hard to imagine having a car payment again after all this time of not having one, it's been a very nice feeling to have that extra money every month!

Can you feed a family of 4 on $100 a week?

2008-07-27T18:37:00.003-04:00

What an interesting article on MSN about one writers challenge to feed her family on $100 a week, http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/RaiseKids/CanAFamilyEatOn100AWeek.aspx?page=1

This woman clearly has never had the need or desire to shop "on sale" before. Just by the way she talks about coupons, oh those disgusting things! I mean really they are just for things that are too expensive or unhealthy anyways right? RIGHT? Wrong.

That must be why I can get anything from whole grain pasta to organic milk on sale for cheap or even free with coupons every week *insert eye roll here* LOL! The fruit and vegetables we buy are the ones that are on sale during that week. We have 2 grocery stores and a Super Wal-Mart to choose from so in that aspect we're lucky I guess. We also have a garden that's exploded and will hopefully provide us with a bounty of harvest soon!

You do need to sit down though every week and either plan it out for yourself or do something like the grocery game(www.thegrocerygame.com) where they do the work for you! Yes it takes a little bit of time to get a nice stockpile going and yes you might spend a little bit more each week to get that stockpile going but it's worth it.

While I was working on getting my stockpile set up I did our "needs" shopping at Aldi's and Wal-Mart which helped a lot. Now that we've doing the stockpiling for this long we were able to save up and purchase a half of an organic cow. This meat will last us a year easily and we're eating the best possible meat we can too.

I think this woman needs to shop with a hard core couponer/sale shopper and then maybe she'd be able to spend $100 a week on her family:)

Why yes I am still alive!

2008-07-27T18:35:00.002-04:00

I know, I know, I know. But seriously you know how life gets:) I have lots of stuff to write about, especially since the economy is doing so wonderfully right now:) I've got an interesting MSN article I'd loooovvveee to email them about and I think I just might! That is soon to follow!

Boy you could hear a pin drop!

2008-03-30T16:19:00.002-04:00

Ahh yes the proverbial busy, busy, busy :)

Every year the time between Christmas and the little guys b-day at the beginning of February brings nothing but craziness! This year was no exception. And then the sickness began. Uggh did it ever! The little guy has been sick every week but one since his birthday. This week he had a doctors appointment where he had to get antibiotics, poor guy. He's finally feeling better and I'm trying to get him to eat some dirt to build his immune system up.

I kid, I kid;)

I do have lots to talk about though! The big guy and I are both driving debt free now! Woo-hoo!!! I paid off my car last week and what a feeling! We've tried to not saying anything to loud around it so that it doesn't think that it can die now :)

I also want to talk about our big, BIG plans for the garden this year as well the plans to get a half a cow.

We're also chipping away at the debt and it should be done and gone by May!

So that's where we are for now and I'll be sure to write more soon!

Living paycheck to paycheck has a different meaning now

2008-01-02T14:35:00.000-05:00

This time last year the big guy and I were virtually living paycheck to paycheck. I often would have a small panic attack when I would log into our online checking account because I was afraid of what I would see. There was more than one time too where I would send out something a day or so late hoping it wouldn't clear before the other things. Gosh it's giving me anxiety just thinking about it now!

But now, now we have no trouble paying our bills and knowing that there's more than enough money in our account to allow for an overage if one would happen. But I'm still in paycheck to paycheck mode, only now for a different reason.

We actually get paid every Friday because of the way that mine and the big guy's pays are done. This makes it really nice BUT I find myself constantly looking forward to Friday so I can see how much money we'll have to put towards paying something off next.

I'm finding myself sitting down at the computer constantly during the week to look at our account, running numbers, wondering what I should pay next. It's actually giving me a small amount of anxiety! Lol:)

I guess I'm just anxious to get this stuff gone but I feel like I'm actually losing time by constantly looking forward to payday. I know that once we get this stuff paid off that it won't be such an issue but for now, well I think it calls for a glass of wine before bed :)

Happy, Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T14:21:00.000-05:00

2007 was a whirlwind of year financially for the big guy and I. This time last year I was searching for something, anything that was going to bring in a few extra hundred dollars a month so that we could stop feeling so stretched every week. I was very lucky to get hired in February for the job I have now and that helped to put us on the right track.

But by far our most significant impact was when the big guy did the job craziness this past summer and ended up with a $10k raise. What a HUGE difference in our monthly net income. We've been slowly paying stuff off every month and we'll soon in the next 3 or 4 weeks be knocking something else off the list.

We're still on track to be able to pay off everything except the car loan and big credit card by the time our tax return comes. We still don't know if the big guy will get a bonus or not this year as it was just something that was talked about not written in stone. But even if he doesn't once that tax return comes the only debt we'll have left is our mortgage and the big guy's student loan. Aahhhhhh, what a relief that will be!

I also would really like to be more active blogging here. I'm not sure that anyone reads this but me but I want to change that:) I also have a TON of stuff that I'd like to get rid of on ebay and maybe we'll another yard sale this year as well. We've accumulated a lot of "stuff" in 8 years and I think it's time we part with some of it!

Here's to a happy, healthy and debt free 2008!

Great minds think alike

2008-01-01T13:58:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to make this post for 3 days now! Technical difficulties on behalf of blogger and myself have made it less than fun :)

Anyways, one of the ladies on my "baby board" started a PF blog and she's what gave me the idea to start one myself. Well she wrote a great post last week in regards to the "green eyed monster" http://runningoutofmoney.blogspot.com/2007/12/green-eyed-monster.html

The friend she speaks of in her post is eerily similar to friends that we have. No one can seem to understand how we can be happy not buying something new that costs a lot of money! We did pretty ok for Christmas gift wise for each other and considering we didn't put anything on credit cards we did GREAT!

My best friend has the hardest time in understanding how I can't want new things all the time. She recently had her 3rd child and because of that she and her husband felt compelled to purchase a brand new minivan. Now the vehicle she did have was a 2 year old mid-sized SUV that would have in reality fit the 3 kids just fine. But it was an opportunity to spend money so that's just what they did.

The SUV basically had 2 previous car loans rolled into it because this is the 4th car she's had in 5 years. Yeah. They think they got a deal on the minivan because it was under the sticker price and they paid off the other loan for them. Oh did I mention they took out a 6 year loan on it?! The chances of them keeping this car for 2 years let alone 6 years are less than me seeing snow outside my window in July.

The husband also has a brand new car that he doesn't even drive because he has a company provided car. They make approximately $40k more a year than the big guy and I do and yet they wonder why they have no money. Hmm, I wonder? The husband is also working a 2nd job because of the amount of bills they have every month.

Now I'll be the first to admit that when said best friend told me she was getting a brand new minivan there was a tiny twinge of jealousy that went through me. Once I heard about the 6 year loan though I wasn't so envious any longer.

They are the types of people who put a lot of value on what other people think of them by how they look. Since the minivan purchase at the end of November they've also purchased a platinum and diamond necklace for her, with 2 chains because the first one didn't fit, and a 42 in LCD TV. Both I'm sure on credit.

She tells me of their money woes and I've actually even gotten an ear full from him before regarding their $5k plus a month bills but yet neither feels they need to change their ways. They put a lot of effort into looking like they have money that they're going to end broker than broke in the end. I've tried to say something but it's all fallen on deaf ears.

When we're almost debt free come April and putting loads of money in our savings every month I'm going to think back to that twinge of jealousy moment I had in November and gladly push it aside knowing that the big guy and I can sleep easy at night not worrying about who we owe what.

Christmas has come and gone for another year

2007-12-27T20:42:00.000-05:00

It's sad isn't it? All the hype leading up to one day and then *poof* it's just, just gone.

I worked really hard this year to get some great deals on things without us going into debt. I'm really proud of myself that I was able to get some really cool things for a lot less than what a lot of other people paid, lol.

Part of my plan for next Christmas is to set aside $20 a week into a Christmas fund. This will help us eliminate having to use the big guys extra pay in November or December, whichever it falls in next year. That extra $1800 sure would have been nice to put towards debt this year. Ah well, at least we have a plan:)

Onward and upward to next year!

I need to invite the UPS man in for a cup of coffee

2007-12-15T17:51:00.000-05:00

If you have yet to check out Amazon this holiday season, GO NOW! Lol:) They are having some super unbelievable prices on things and I am having a hard time keeping the debit card in my purse.

They usually offer super saver shipping for free on orders over $25 but I realized Thursday that Amazon was offering a free trial of Amazon prime for 1 month. This meant that I didn't have to spend the $25 and I got free 2 day shipping. Oh my. So I got my dad 2 of the books he wanted for Christmas and also ordered some cute zoo blocks for our Godsons for their birthday, they'll be here Monday!

Then today I thought I would look again because we wanted to get my dad a new deep fryer because his went kaput a few months ago. We go over there every Sunday for dinner so something like that gets a lot of use. I looked and found a great one with 2 baskets for $59.98, normally $99.98 and you got a free one year subscription to one of three magazines! Bonus! I ordered that and a lego advent calender set for next year for the little guy for $12.xx and got free 2 day shipping again! They'll be here Wednesday. Loving Amazon, loving them.

And even better if you find that the price goes down within 30 days of purchase they'll refund you the difference. I already saw that one of the things I bought was $2 less so I need to give them a call.

I still need to get my brother something but I have a $10 off of $10 coupon for JC Penney if you use your mastercard and my paypal debit card is a MC and I have I think $6 or $7 in there so I'll try to find something there for him and get him a gift card for the one gas station we have here.

I have to get a few packs of diapers for some little babies that we have here this year. I already got some really cute one piece things on sale through Lands End for them. Free shipping of course:) Then I need to get one more grab bag gift for our Christmas Eve get together that's $20. I'm going to go get a $25 gift card for the little guys preschool to go with the couple of reams of paper and other things I bought with the after back to school sales.

I was really frugal this year for Christmas and we didn't charge anything which makes it even better. I can't believe everything we bought this year and for such great prices! Now go check out Amazon, quick!

Posting has been light

2007-12-12T13:20:00.001-05:00

I don't know that there's actually anyone out there that reads this blog but I thought I'd send out an FYI anyhow:)

I got transferred to another team for my job and while the job itself isn't much different it just takes more of my focus and I can't quite surf the internet or blog like I could before. Thank goodness this isn't a long term move because I really don't care for what I'm doing at all. Like I said it's not much different from what I was doing but it's different enough that I can't wait to go back to what I was doing before!

They're in the process of hiring people to beef up this team and once that's complete if I choose I can go back to my old team but was told if I liked this I could stay on it. Really this is the best stay at home mom job in the world! I get paid well, don't have anyone harassing me to do stuff, and I can sit on my couch while my almost 4 year old (yikes!) plays on the floor. Good stuff.

Hopefully I'll be writing more soon, till then....:)

Playing the balance transfer game

2007-12-12T13:02:00.000-05:00

This is my least favorite game to play. Really. Our "big" card the one with about $7000 on was transferred to a 0% card last year in February. Well the introductory interest rate is due up here soon so I thought I would call to see if they would extend it, no they don't do that. So I got one of those offers in the mail and applied and they only gave me $1000 credit limit which I didn't know when applying or I wouldn't have at all. That means that only $850 got transferred to that card. Ugghh.

I decided instead of opening yet ANOTHER credit card I would see what my Capital One card had for a balance transfer offer. 3.99% and $50 fee, not 0% but better than getting hit with 9.99% back interest on seven grand come February. I went ahead and transferred $5500 because with my other balance on the Capital One card I didn't want it to go over the limit with the transfer fee, I shouldn't I just wanted to be cautious.

That will leave $475 on the other card which I will pay off when the big guy gets paid on the 28th of this month. Then next month we'll either pay off the $850 or the big guy has a card that is just under $1000. Then February we'll pay off the other, since their both 0% one isn't more important than the other to get paid.

By March that should leave us with the big credit card and my car loan which I'm estimating to be about $1600. Our tax return should cover the credit card and pay it off (we claim single plus 0 on our tax return so we should, no we hope we get this much back;)) If the big guy were to get a bonus, which we're not counting on it's just been mentioned then as long as it wasn't like a hundred dollars we should be able to put that towards the car and if anything is left we'll just finish paying it off in March.

That will leave us with about $6800 in student loans and $117,000 mortgage. Our goal is to beef up our savings account and get both of us started on our workplace 401k's. We'd like to have 6 months worth of living expenses saved by the end of next year not including our $1000 in house emergency fund. We'd also like to get a new car for me by the end of next year(let's hope there's a new baby to put in it!) and we want to save a substantial down payment for that too.

It seems like a lot but we'll have approximately $2000 additional every month after our bills and gas, groceries, and misc. are taken care of. Hopefully the big guy gets another decent raise in that time as well which will help significantly too.

We're so close I can taste it now if I can just stop shopping for Christmas we'd be good to go lol:)

Do you have an emergency fund?

2007-12-05T15:36:00.000-05:00

If the answer to that question is no I'm going to give you 2 very good reasons here why you NEED one. It never fails that something happens and you need cash right? And it's always $200, $500, or even $1000, right? And if you don't have an emergency fund where does that money come from?

Well if you're lucky you can borrow from a friend or family member at a low cost or 0% interest but most likely it's going to go on a credit card, right? Which is just going to push you further into the hole every month. I'm so glad we've finally been able to have an emergency fund because we will have used it twice this month now.

This past Monday was the day that would.not.end. Our power went out in the morning and stayed off for about 8 hours and then flickered on and off throughout the day. There was a lot of wind that day and apparently it blew some branches down into the lines. The little guy and I decided to head over to my parents because they had power.

When we out to the garage to get into the car I realized that the garage door wouldn't come open because, duh no electricity. Now I had NO idea that there was a way to disable the door opener and so you could open the door manually. So I tried to get out the other side of the garage. With my explorer. By the time I made it out I was missing my passenger side mirror along with the molding that goes around the base of the door and the back tire. Oops.

The garage door frame was also pretty well demolished. So our deductible is $250 to get it fixed. Ouch. 3 weeks before Christmas. Luckily though we have the emergency fund so this has zero effect on that at all. Thank you!

The same day I noticed one our cats limping, of course. I took her to the vet last night and almost $200 later I walked out with 2 prescriptions and found out she has arthritis in her elbow that probably got aggravated from the 3 cats playing. At least it wasn't more serious. Merry Christmas to her lol:)

2 very good reasons to have an emergency fund. Now go look at your budget and see where you can start cutting back so you can fund your emergency fund, it's more important than eating out I promise!

Well double fudge

2007-12-01T16:51:00.001-05:00

So the big guy went ahead and pulled his credit reports today to see what the issue was. It appears that one of the banks we had a loan through that was then subsequently included in our bankruptcy 6 years ago was acquired by another bank recently. For whatever reason 2 of the accounts that we had through them were re-opened(?!) and it showed that we were making payments all this time(again ?!) until recently!

So it shows that we've defaulted on both of these loans and that they were written off in November. This makes no sense whatsoever! The big guy called said bank and of course the person we need to speak with is not there on the weekends, of course. Which means they'll have to speak to me on Monday, that's not good for whoever I get on the phone. I kill with kindness but at the same time can be a major bitch.

These accounts were all due to come off our credit reports December 2008 per terms of the bankruptcy, now it says 2014. I don't think so. We've worked our behinds off to overcome that bad financial time in our life and we've done great for the last almost 6 years, this is not going to ruin that.

The big guy is concerned that they're not going to be able to remove it and it'll get stuck. I assured him that whoever put it on has the ability to take it off and I'll go as high as I have to to get them removed. Wish me luck.

Just when you try to breathe a sigh of relief...

2007-11-30T16:33:00.001-05:00

Well first of all I paid off the Disney card today, $637.52. Gosh that felt good, so glad that we've been able to knock another thing off of the monthly re-payment list. On to the next item which is a credit card that has 0% interest right now and is at just over $1000. I'm not sure that we'll get it paid off by the end of December but we should be able to pay at least half and then finish it off in January.

About 5 minutes after I paid the Disney card off the big guy called from work. He decided to call our mortgage company today to see if we could get a lower interest rate since the Fed is lowering rates again. Our current rate is 7.25% and if we could lose a half to a whole percentage point we're talking tens of thousands of dollars in savings.

Well the guy he spoke with asked to pull our credit to see what he could offer us. He then asked the big guy if the 2 items that have just been turned into collections this month been resolved! Uh we don't have anything that would have been put into collections! We're trying to get out of debt by paying it off not just not paying!

Well the 2, we assume credit cards total about $8000! We've never had anything through this particular bank and we've also never received any type of collections calls on any items either. So if we hadn't called about this we might not have otherwise known this was on our credit.

After the little guy goes to bed tonight we'll pull both of our credit reports for all 3 places and see what's up with it. Hopefully it's something easily resolved, hopefully. Needless to say until this gets taken care of we won't be refinancing our mortgage, uggh.

Last weekend I had received one of those many credit card offers in the mail for 0% interest on a transferred balance. The big credit card is currently on a 0% card but it is up in February and we're surely not going to get our tax return until March at the earliest probably so we needed to move it so as to not get hit with all that extra interest.

Well I got the card and information in the mail today. Obviously the whole amount isn't going to get transferred because they only gave me a $1000 limit! So I have no idea now if they'll just transfer the thousand or what, uggh. The big guy is going to contact one of the credit cards that we currently have that's in his name that has a zero balance to see if they'll give us 0% to transfer the balance.

I really don't want to apply for ANOTHER card if I can't transfer the whole balance over. So hopefully the big guy can call the current credit card company and get the rest of the balance transferred so we don't have to pay any interest and get it paid off when we get our tax return.

We're on the right path just need to get past a few hurdles, hopefully painlessly:)

Busy, busy, busy

2007-11-29T10:48:00.000-05:00

How is it that a week can go by just like that? It's been non-stop since Thanksgiving I hope the Christmas holiday is not quite as busy. The big guy has a decent amount of time off this year so he'll have short weeks the last 2 weeks in December and the first week of January, that will be so nice:)

I did ok at the grocery store this week. I went on Tuesday instead of Sunday because we had stuff going on and I wasn't feeling great on Sunday. I spent $86, while still under my $100 budgeted amount it was more than I would have liked to have spent. I had to buy cat litter and soft cat food(they don't eat treats which I can get for FREE!) and those 2 things for 3 cats adds up. But they're cute so whatever, lol.

The plan is for tomorrow to pay off the Disney card, finally! I did some shopping last week on Black Friday and spent more than what was planned but nothing was charged and it just delayed the paying of this card off for a week so really not a big deal.

I need to sit down and figure out what's going on with the next few pays after bills etc. come out. Christmas is inching closer and closer and we still have a list of people to buy for as well as Birthday gifts. My best friend is having her baby on the 21st of December(Boy #3, eek!) and our little twin Godsons have their first birthday on the 30th!

This is the first year that we're not going to have to worry about what we're spending and possibly have to put something on a credit card, but just because you have it doesn't mean you have to spend it all! We still need to keep budgeting and frugality in mind, hard thing to do this time of the year.

I've got lots of things I want to write about here and since things have slowed down some here now I'll be able to start cracking on them:)

Sunday Savings

2007-11-20T13:54:00.000-05:00

Yes it's Tuesday but the last few days have been a little crazy:) I did pretty good at the store this Sunday. I LOVE to shop at the "expensive" grocery store in town, the people are so nice,lol. No one stands in the aisles chit-chatting, they say excuse me and thank you. Ahhhh such a different experience than shopping at our local Wal-Mart.

Anyways, here's what I bought this week:

1 loaf bread
1 coffee creamer
6 yogurts(q)
2 frozen veggies(q)
3 boxes kleenex(q)
1 box crackers(q)
1 box cake mix(q)
1 container frosting(q)
3 boxes of cereal(q)
1 cereal bar
4 bottles salad dressing(q)
2 boxes cereal straws(q)
1 box scalloped potatoes(q)
2 cans pears
2 cans mandarin oranges
1 can pineapple
Yellow apples
Red apples
Bananas
1 bottle Mrs. Dash seasoning(q)
1 jar peanut butter(q)

The only thing store brand I bought were the mandarin oranges and pears, everything else was name brand.

Total after q's and sale, $58.51, well under my $100 a week budget!

There was a woman there handing out Maxwell House coupons so I took 2 and an older woman beside me said it was on sale at K-Mart for $4.99. So I went yesterday and got 2 containers for $7.98 after the coupons:) The big guy has enough coffee for about 6 months now I think,lol.

These tires are driving me nuts!

2007-11-20T13:48:00.001-05:00

Well the big guy went to Sears on Saturday to see what he could find out about the tires in the BF ad. Of course they had noooooo idea what he was talking about so he did his own research. They don't stock the size we need and it was $180 a piece, for a tire! Obviously they're not going to be $89 a piece.

So we're just going to pay the Disney card off as planned this Friday. We owe $637.72, after the $300 payment from last week. Then on to the next card. The next lowest balance card we have is $1048 and some cents. I'm not going to push to have it paid off at the end of next month with Christmas but it should be paid off by the second week in January at the latest.

Hopefully winter won't be so bad and these tires won't be a $800 need until next year, hopefully.

And lead us not into tempation

2007-11-19T19:34:00.000-05:00

No I'm not going back to Catholic grade school in this post but I do need to pray so I can stay out of the stores this Friday!

You can't help but look at those Black Friday ads, they're all over the internet. There wasn't anything the big guy and I were going to be looking for in particular but really who does? Black Friday is all about impulse buying and purchasing things you don't "need" and wouldn't normally buy but, "It's SUCH a good deal!".

The Wal-Mart ad is finally up on their site so of course I looked at it, along with a few others. One of the items for sale is a dvd camcorder for $198, a smokin' price. The big guy had mentioned that we "needed" one of these while on our vacation in Disney. We have a DV tape camcorder already that we've had since the little guys first Christmas. It works fine and we've really had no problems with it at all.

But of course it's always nice to get something new, right? Well sort of.

I think that if this had been last Christmas we probably wouldn't have had a problem putting it on the credit card, like we did with many other things last Christmas, but this year things are just, different. The big guy says that he's happy that we paid his car off this year and getting out of debt is the best Christmas gift ever, he's a good guy. Little does he know though how frugal his wife has been and still been able to get him some great stuff for this year;)

I don't think we'll get the camcorder. No I know we won't get it. We don't have a need for it and as much as we want it, it just can't be justified. This would put us $200 behind in our payoff schedule for something that is just a desire not a need.

I think we're finally realizing what's important and what we need to be so concentrated on, our future.

The tricks retailers play on us

2007-11-16T17:37:00.000-05:00

And we need to be well aware of and checking and double checking often.

My dad often sends me MSN money articles that he feels I could get something out of or is just really useful information. He's partially responsible for my frugal ways as well as my mother who we joke can pinch a penny so hard you can hear it squeak. Lol:) One of the recent articles he sent me here http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/TheEconomicsOfToiletPaper.aspx

talks about the cost of toilet paper among other things that are going to be going up in price. Kimberly-Clark says that they are going to raise prices on their Cottonelle and Scott toilet papers by 4-7%. To me that's a lot for toilet paper, especially like the article says you're just flushing it away.

This article came on the heels of my dad asking me to stop at K-Mart this past Sunday because they were having a sale on Scott toilet paper. I was just joking with the big guy on Saturday how we were down to our last 48 rolls and it was making me slightly nervous:) My parents and the guys and I (well at least the big guy and I) use this toilet paper I thought it was worth driving out of my way to pick it up.

What dad didn't realize is that it was only the Extra soft that was on sale not the regular, this I did not know until I got there. I thought, well I'm already here I might as well just get it. Now the sale was 2-24 roll packs or 2-12 double roll packs for $10. I picked up the 24 roll pack and realized the rolls were awfully small. Actually they were only 172 sheets! That is not what I'm used to buying. I purchase the regular Scott which is 1000 sheets per roll! Quite a difference.

That means there would have only been 4,128 sheets in the whole package for $5. The regular Scott was not on sale but a 12 pack was only $6.79. So for $1.79 more I could have had 7,872 more sheets of toilet paper! Sure your tush might not feel like it's sitting on a cloud of angel feathers BUT you'll be spending less time in the car sitting anyways because you won't need to buy tp that often;)

I've actually been able to get the regular Scott tp as cheap as $2.99 during special sales at CVS, with a coupon of course. $2.99 for 12,000 sheets or $5 for 4,128 sheets, it's not hard for me to do the math and see that this was no bargain at all. So I walked out of there knowing that I'm a smart shopper who was not going to be fooled by their "sale" and I still have my 48 rolls at home to last me to the next real deal.

Need extra money for the holidays?

2007-11-15T13:08:00.000-05:00

Sell some stuff on ebay! Ebay is such a great way to make some extra money in a short period of time. I did a lot of selling on ebay shortly after I became a stay at home mom. It was so nice having that extra money in the paypal account to go to dinner, buy stuff for the house, whatever.

I started out with selling stuff that we had sitting around the house, clothes, purses, shoes, some collectible things. Soon though I was buying things to resell. I was going to yard sales or the Goodwill to see if I could find that hidden gem. What a tiring task that was! I belonged to an ebay selling group www.herecomesthestork.com which was great. I got a lot of information on what kinds of things to search for that might sell.

The best and most exciting though was about this time of the year the toys start selling! New toys that is. Toys are hot one minute and not the next. Once the market gets saturated the price goes down, way down. The stork website had a forum specifically for selling toys so you got information firsthand. You need to be fast though.

If someone mentions a hot toy you need to be prepared to drive to every store in town looking for it right then and there and get it listed FAST. There's money to be made you just need to be prepared to shell some out first for the hot toys before you get it back.

Always make sure you keep your receipts too. Most places have a 90 day return policy so I would tape the receipt onto the package so it was easy to find in case I had to take it back.

For shipping you can order items from the US Post Office website to pack your items up in. Then you can have your mail person pick it up at your door! Obviously you need to have a scale to weigh your packages but those are cheaply found on ebay as well or your local Wal-Mart.

Setting up an ebay and paypal account is easy and you've got about 5 good weeks of selling and money earning that could be had for the Holiday season.

A change of plans for this week

2007-11-15T12:49:00.001-05:00

My plan was to pay the Disney card off tomorrow when the big guy got paid. The balance is a little less than I thought at $937.72, so about $30 less. Well this past week I had a birthday gift to purchase for a friend and I paid a little extra on 2 of the other credit cards, plus the cat food. So right now we have $139.01 in our checking account. Not what I was hoping to have for this week.

The little guy is enrolled in Kindermuik and the next sessions down payment is due here and he loves it so much, that's $50. He has school pictures next week and we'll probably get the biggest package because we'll have to have enough wallets etc to go to everyone, $42. The biggest thing though is that the big guy was looking at the Black Friday ads online and saw that Sears is going to have the tires we wanted to get for the explorer on sale for $89 a piece. That's such a HUGE difference from the "cheap" tire place in town. When we called there it was going to be over $800 for 4 tires and getting them mounted!

We need them though and at that price you just can't beat it. Winter around here is unpredictable and I want to be as safe as possible with the little guy in the car. The tires barely passed inspection this summer so they need replaced eventually anyhow. Might as well get them at a great price! And even better, we'll be able to pay for them in cash. Nice feeling. I just need to call a few places and see what it's going to cost to get them mounted, even if it's not for a few weeks.

So that means tomorrow when the big guy gets paid we'll have $1816+139=$1955. I'll take out $400 for gas, groceries and misc for 2 weeks like I always do, $300 for the explorer payment(an extra $73 towards the principal), $73 for the electric bill, and $350 towards Decembers mortgage payment. That will leave us with $832. If we take out about $400 for the tires(I'm overestimating for taxes etc.) that leaves $432.

I probably can squeeze the $92 out of our misc expenses but if not that leaves us with $340 to put towards the Disney card. Not as much as I wanted but we can't pass up the tire price. I get paid next Friday so that will give us another $370 or so to put towards it. That would leave me with having to take $270 out of the big guys paycheck on the 30th to pay it off. It might be two weeks later BUT we'll be paying for new tires with cash and not really stressing about not paying other bills. That makes up for it, really it does;)

Crisis averted!.....at Petsmart:)

2007-11-13T14:52:00.000-05:00

We have 3 cats, 2 of them are siamese and we've had them for 8 years. The other is a good ol' mutt of a cat that we acquired from my parents house. She was a stray living in their garage and I felt bad so I got her spayed and the plan was to keep her in the basement until it got warm again. That was 2 years and many a nights in bed ago. You wouldn't have known it then but she's a good eater:) The siamese could go 6 months on a 33 pound bag of food. HA! Not with Miss Fatcat in the house.

I'm not sure what we go through now, probably about 20 pounds in a 4 month period. Not bad but we don't buy Kitties Choice either. They get Iams multi-cat, which not everyone sells. Well a few months ago Petsmart had a promotion going where you bought an 8 pound bag or larger and then got a $5 giftcard in the mail. I bought 2 bags with coupons of course and got 2 gift cards in the mail. I also got 2 $2 off coupons as well.

Well we just ran out of the 20 pound bag I had bought at Target at about the same time. It was a really good price plus the coupon and I knew we were going to use it. So the big guy works close to the Petsmart and stopped after work last evening. I sent him with the 2 gift cards and coupons, explained the color of the bag in detail and the flavor.....you know the drill;)

What though did I forget to give him? The petperks card!! Luckily the cashier asked him for it and he said he didn't have one(DOH!) but she asked for the phone number to look it up just in case. Thank goodness she did! The bags were regular priced at $14.49 but with the petperks card the sale price was $11.49! Then with the $7 off per bag it made the grand total with tax $9.52 for 16 pounds of food! Very, very good. Thank you Miss Cashier:)

Moral of the story is, don't forget your store rewards cards, ever!

Weekly Menu

2007-11-12T14:57:00.000-05:00

I'm going to start posting my weekly menus too along with some recipes for some things.

Monday-Chicken tacos, taco rice and refried beans(for the big guy)
I bought the rice yesterday, everything else was in my stockpile.

Tuesday-Roast, mashed potatoes, veggies
All from my stockpile

Wednesday-Spaghetti and garlic bread
Stockpile, including the ground meat for in the sauce

Thursday-Chicken Stroganoff and Noodles
Stockpile

Friday-Taco Soup and Cornbread
This was a new recipe and so I had to purchase a few things for this last week, I had the cornbread in the stockpile

Saturday-Homemade pizza and salad
I'll go to the Farmers Market on Friday or Saturday to get stuff for a salad but the pizza crust and cheese were the only things I needed to buy at the store this week and they were on sale!

I can not express how detrimental it is to your money to go into the grocery store or Wal-Mart every week and not have a list of what you're going to buy or make for the week. It seems so simple but really will save in the long run. Imagine what I would have spent at the grocery store this week had I not decided before I went what I was making for dinner? A LOT more than $64 that's for sure!

Chicken Stroganoff-actually a weight watchers recipe!

1 pound chicken breast
1 container lowfat sour cream
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 package onion soup mix
Put the chicken on the bottom of the crock pot, mix everything else together and pour on top. Put on low for 6-8 hours(depending on your crock pot and whether you use frozen vs.fresh chicken) and serve with egg noodles. Yummy! This is one of the little guys favorite meals:) And when purchased on sale the ingredients are cheap, cheap, cheap!

Sunday Savings

2007-11-12T14:43:00.001-05:00

Yes I know it's Monday:) I usually do my grocery shopping on Sundays though and my plan is to post what I got, how much I saved etc. My grocery list wasn't that large this week because I had the majority of the items in the house already for the dinners I was going to cook this week so I did get a lot of stockpile things. Ok my receipt:

1-Bread

1-Greeting Card

1-Bisquick pankcake mix(q)

1-Butter Spray

1-Gallon Skim Milk

1-Package of margarine

1-Coffee Creamer(q)

2-Pilsbury pizza crust(q)

3-Pilsbury crescent rolls(q)

2-Pilsbury sweet rolls(q)

6-Cans Del Monte veggies(q)

10-Beef and Chicken broth(q)

4-Campbells Cream of Mushroom soup(q)

4-cans mandarin oranges

1-condensed milk(q)

2-frozen Green Giant potatoes(q)

1-frozen Green Giant peas(free!)(q)

1-package fancy schmancy Sargento cheese to use on my pizza this week:)(q)

1-Reynolds quick release foil(q)

2-Saran wraps(q)

2-Lipton Knorr rice

1-12 pack cat food

Bananas

2 different kinds of apples

Cookies and Gobbs for dessert at the folks

I used coupons(q's) on some things. My total was $63.98 for a savings of 37%. Not great but still under $100! I also earned 10 cents in fuelperks to make my grand total to 30 cents off each gallon of gas right now. I got gas the week before last and probably won't need it again until next week at some point so I imagine that I'll have at least 40 cents off by then. With the cost of gas going up like it is any cent saved is great!

I also spent $3.99 on a container of coffee at another grocery store in town that was having a 2 day sale on it. What I didn't know was that they were only allowing a limit of 1. Bummer. I would have went on Saturday if I had known that and sent the big guy in as well. He's the one who drinks it and it probably will last close to a month but it's another expense that you try to get as cheap as possible. He's got 4 containers in the basement right now and 1 in the fridge so he should be good for a little while, at least I hope;)

You're giving me $2 more an hour to do what?

2007-11-10T11:27:00.000-05:00

Well yesterday I got an email from the company I work for that I was getting a raise! I haven't talked about what I do just yet because well, it's sort of touchy. I can't really say *who* I work for or even really *exactly* what I do in such a public place so lets just say I do quality control for a large internet company ;)

I found out about the job on www.wahm.com and I applied about 5 months before I was actually contacted. When I was contacted I was told that the position was part time, so 20 hours a week and I would be making $12 an hour. I was also told that said company accepted you as an employee so they take out taxes etc., but after you worked so many hours you basically were let go and may be hired back at a later date. Well with the 20 hour work week it would have meant that I had a position for about 4 years. Sounds good to me because I'll probably want something different by then anyhow.

Well in this email not only did I find out that starting December 1st will I be making $14 an hour but we are now considered regular employees and as long as we are happy for said company and they are happy with our performance we have a job! I'm also eligible for PTO time and paid holidays! I told the big guy that I actually closed and opened the email a few times because I couldn't believe what I was reading!

I worked at the vet office for 8 years when I quit and at that time I was making just over $10 an hour, after 8 years! Now I'm sitting on my couch, watching my kid play, getting up when he needs me AND making more than I did working full time away from him. I'm so blessed and lucky that I was able to find this opportunity.

The big guy got good news yesterday as well. His company which is on the smaller side is really starting to grow and do some serious business. Last month was their highest ever in sales and they're developing more and more relationships with some other companies. He's a software engineer and he's excited about some of the new projects coming up that he might be working on. I'm so proud of him, he works so hard to provide for us. If it weren't for all of his hard work we wouldn't be in the position we are right now to be able to knock out all of this debt:)

I plan on paying off the Disney card next Friday when the big guy gets paid. I'll take what's left over from my check from yesterday and put that towards it too and bam it will be gone! In my figuring we should be able to pay off at least one of the other credit cards by the end of next month if not both the other small ones. Then we will work on my car loan and hopefully whatever our tax return is will finish that off and pay off the big credit card. The big guy thinks that he might be getting a bonus this year or another increase in pay which will be really awesome because then we will just have cash leftover to fund the emergency fund:) Woo-hoo!

My first step in becoming a more frugal stay at home mom Pt.2

2007-11-10T11:05:00.000-05:00

In my last post I started talking about The Grocery Game. Now I'm going to explain more of what the purpose of it is. You are purchasing a list compiled by someone that has the same grocery store(s) or drugstores as you. They make the list up to coordinate with the sales and coupons to get you the cheapest price of the product for that store. Your goal is to purchase as much of said product to get you through 12 weeks because that is how often stores run their sales cycles.

Now I can't say that I've actually
A.) paid attention to the 12 week rule, but I would say that generally it is that far apart
and
B.) that I've only ever bought 12 weeks of something,lol.

I probably have about a 1 year + stockpile of laundry detergent in my basement and toilet paper, oh my. Let's just say that I'm down to about my last 60 rolls and I'm getting nervous:) Do you know how good it feels to not have to buy those things weekly or monthly? TP and detergent were two of those things that I dreaded purchasing along with toothpaste. And the toothpaste we won't even discuss ;)

By stockpiling these items along with others this is how I'm able to get our weekly budget so low. And I don't have to decide between the $5 detergent or the $1.50 stuff, I've got the good stuff for way less than I ever thought possible! Even if I were to stop right now and only buy milk and bread every week we could easily go at least a month if not more and eat very, very well. I'm talking full breakfast, lunch and dinner well. Now tell me that wouldn't be a great feeling to have? To know that if something happened, an emergency that you needed money, the hubby's hours got cut, whatever, that you could spend $5 a week and survive and NOT starve. It makes me feel incredibly lucky and RICH!

Now I have heard of another service that's free it's called The coupon mom, www.couponmom.com . Now I can't say what the service is like because I've never used it but I may sign up for it and see how it compares to the grocery game list. I mean it's free so why not. I'll do that for a month and report back. In the mean time, Happy Grocery Shopping!

My first step in becoming a more frugal stay at home mom Pt.1

2007-11-08T16:08:00.000-05:00

My first step toward becoming a more stay at home mom was joining the grocery game, www.thegrocerygame.com . I had used coupons before but not religiously, it was more of a "Hey I had a coupon for that at home" thought when I went to the grocery store and saw something I needed to buy. I bought it anyway, without the coupon.

But I realized that we needed to cut that weekly expense down, way down. We would go to Wal-Mart on the weekend and spend $130 and then I would go once or twice again during the week because I "needed" something for dinners or whatever. I couldn't get out of there under $50. I knew we needed to do something. So I googled "how to be more frugal" and The Grocery Game came up.

It was $1 to sign up (and still is) for a trial month and you got all the lists that they offered. I thought for a buck, why not? My parents told me that the Sunday paper was half off the list price at the grocery store that I would be shopping at, cool. So I signed up in October 2006 and haven't looked back. Soon enough I got my mom and my best friend involved and they started saving tons of money too.

I was still spending around $100+ every week for a little while because I would go to Aldi's and Wal-Mart still for my "needs" shopping then to my grocery store for all the deals with the coupons. Soon though I was going to Wal-Mart less and less and I was also spending less money. It wasn't hard for me to leave Wal-Mart, they rarely had anything in stock, the people were rude and I was getting things for cheaper now at the "expensive" grocery store.

I started out buying a lot of papers, sometimes 10 at a time! I had coupon inserts out the wazoo! Soon though I got so stocked up on stuff that I've cut my paper buying down to 2 a week. If there's a particularly good coupon that I know I could use I order them from a coupon clipping service like www.thecouponclippers.com or www.thecouponmaster.com . It's a cheap way to get some great coupons that might not be in your local paper.

My average now at the grocery store I would put at around $50-$60 a week for 3 people and 3 cats. Some weeks have been considerably less others up around that $100 mark again. Those high weeks are usually when I'm buying meat though and I'm walking out with 24 chicken breasts and 4 roasts plus all my other groceries!

In my next post I'll explain what The Grocery Game is and is there someplace like it that's free?

Getting personal

2007-11-06T15:41:00.000-05:00

One of the things I've noticed while reading some finance blogs is that people aren't afraid to put out there the debt they have or how they spend their money. I suppose I'll be no exception. I think it not only helps people bond with you in a way that they know they're not alone but it also helps people realize that, hey we're all human, we make mistakes!

The big guy and I would like to be debt free except for our mortgage (approx. $117,000) and his student loan(approx. $7000) by early spring next year. Now the reason we picked early spring is because we should have received our tax return by that point and can evaluate how much we have left on my car to pay. In that time we have 4 credit cards and a car loan to get paid off. Uggh.

Last month we paid off the big guys car, $1052 in 3 weeks! This month is the smallest of all the credit cards at $967 and then so on for each month until we get the tax return. We're hoping that the tax return is enough to pay off our largest card and maybe have a little extra to put towards my car loan. So we're looking at paying off over the next 4-5 months to pay off approx. $11,000 in debt! If it weren't for the tax return that wouldn't be happening.

We feel confident that we can do this we've just had to curb our spending and it helps that the big guy got a really nice raise a few months ago:) We're staying at or under our budgeted amount every week for gas and groceries(I've been able to go about 3 weeks on the same tank of gas) and we're trying to watch our eating out. We're luckily getting a 3rd pay this month so that helps with the Christmas shopping. I hate that we have to rely on that every year but so thankful that yet again it's going to bail us out.

I'll keep it updated as I pay things off and what I'm putting toward it. I'll also show our monthly budget as well here soon.

So you want to be a stay at home mom?

2007-11-05T12:41:00.000-05:00

Some women make the choice to become a stay at home mom, others the choice is made for them. A lot of times the conversation is held before the baby comes, well at least hopefully. In my case I assumed I would go back to work. I worked full time in a veterinary office and while I was pregnant I was a receptionist, before that a technician. When I quit I had been there for 8 years.

After I had my son my plan was to come back after 6 weeks, then 8 and finally I didn't come back for 12 weeks. It broke my heart to leave my sweet little new baby. I was going to miss out on so much and it made me so terribly sad. My mom had stayed home with my siblings and I (until my sister was a little older) and I just assumed this was something I would always do.

Well I went back to work after 12 weeks and luckily for me my mom was able to watch the little guy for me. It was a pain in the rear to have to get him up and moving in the morning and for that matter myself but I knew I was really lucky to have this situation. My husband and I knew we didn't want him in a daycare setting so this worked out perfect for us.

I started out working 4 days, soon enough that went to 3 days and before I knew it I was working 2 shifts a week of about 4 or 5 hours at a time. It got to a point where we weren't sure that couple of hundred dollars I was bringing in every month was worth it. Most of the time I was working in the evening or on a Saturday and that really cut into our family time, and as our son was getting older that was something we were all craving more and more of.

It just so happened that last summer my dad was also going to be working a new shift at his job and my sister was a senior in high school and very involved with the band. So basically there wasn't going to be anyone home at my parents house if I needed to be at work at 4 and since my husband doesn't get home most nights till 6, well that presented a problem. Sure I could have probably worked it out somehow but it really happened at a good time.

So really in a way the choice was made for me, but it was a choice I had been hoping for over 2 years to happen. It is a tough job but is more worth it than any amount of money I could make outside the house. My journey as a stay at home mom has taught me a lot, not just about parenting a toddler and now a preschooler but also about money. I know this is something that quite a few moms that stay home struggle with.

Some women are very lucky that their husbands provide a salary that makes it so they don't "need" to work. Others though WANT to work! There's this craving for something more than being a "domestic engineer". There is a vast amount of information out there that's legitimate information out there on not only how to make money while still being able to be there for your children full time but also how to save money and make what you have work better for you. I hope to be able to help out with condensing some of this information into one place to make it an easier reference for you.

A little introduction

2007-11-05T10:37:00.000-05:00

So I decided to start a blog. But who hasn't these days right? I was slightly inspired by another lady on a message board I post on. She has started writing about her and her families journey to get out of debt. We are on such a journey as well. This blog will talk about that but I'm also going to focus on some things that stay at home moms(SAHM) can do to earn extra money from home, reduce the monthly budget, and throw some other miscellaneous other money/finance things in there as well.

The title pretty much says it all. I imagine because of that you might think that I live in some McMansion in a development and drive an expensive gas guzzling SUV, right? Wrong. We actually live in a small town north of Pittsburgh in a modestly sized home on a lovely 1 acre lot. I drive an older car and live on an ordinary street. My husband(the big guy) is a computer guy and makes a decent salary for the area in which we live. We also have a little guy that's 3 1/2 and is the spitting image of his father, in more way than one:) These two are a large part of why I'm a rich stay at home mom. They both fulfill my life more than I ever could have imagined. My husband and I will be married for 8 years, we've been together for 12. There isn't much we haven't been through, including bankruptcy which is something I'll touch on at some point. Our son is well, he's our son. Stubborn but sweet and all around boy sometimes. I have an amazing family that has supported us (and me alone) through so much. They make my life so very, very rich.

I've only been staying home with my son full time for a little over a year but in that time I've learned some valuable things including ways to make money without having to leave the little one with a babysitter for 8 hours, and how to cut our monthly expenses down considerably. My plan is to share this all with you. I hope you enjoy reading, and learning.