New blog name

 Hi everyone! It has been a little while since I posted. Sometimes I get wrapped up in my projects that I forget. 

So, things have changed. New blog name - I'm not giving up on going debt free. Still working as hard as ever. Saving every penny I can. I finally bought Dave Ramsey's book and it arrived today! I'm so excited to start reading it and really buckling down and moving my life forward. 

One of the first steps I'm taking is to really take a look at my finances and my monthly budget. It's never a fun thing to do, trust me. And I've found a couple places where I can trim.

First - no more manicures and pedicures. At least until I can get the debt paid off. Yes, I realize that may take a year or more, but I am confident. One thing I have learned from Dave Ramsey is to "Live like no one today so you can live like no one tomorrow." Basically, don't live like everyone else and their extravagant spending. Don't live above your means until you have that disposable income.

I read in my financial FB groups - "I'm in debt over $50k, but I don't live extravagantly." "I have to put so much on my credit cards, I'll never pay it down." "I don't have any where that I can trim some cash away."

Listen, I was in that boat too. My son, Chewy (not his real name, but I like calling him that), needed clothes. He needed food. He needed school stuff. I put all that on credit cards and kept promising myself that I'd be able to pay it off. But I couldn't. Now that he is grown and moved away, I'm really seeing my spending for what it is. 

I've said before that I'm not going to spend beyond what I make. If it isn't budgeted, I'm not going to spend money on it. Well, that doesn't really work. I mean, I don't need manicures and pedicures, do I? Yes, they make me feel good and make me feel pretty, but honestly - $35 every 2 weeks adds up. That's just for the manicure. Pedicures can run about $50. I don't need them to survive. And right now I have to be in survival mode. You know what? I took that money I would have used on my manicure last week and paid off my Christopher and Banks Credit Card. That's another card done! 

I also took another page from the Dave Ramsey book and I took out the money I need for food and groceries the next 2 weeks. I emptied my grocery checking account and removed that debit card from my wallet. No more temptation to use it. So, if I don't have the cash to buy it, I won't!

I also took off the feature my bank has of rounding up my purchases to the next dollar amount and putting the difference in my savings account. Yes, it is nice to slowly grow that account, but at the same time, it's not letting me see how much I truly have in my main checking account. 

I need to stop the spending, including on my business. I need to go through all my business expenditures and see where I can trim that down. Right now I have enough mailers and boxes to last awhile. Plus I reuse boxes and packing materials. 

I have to live within my means. Yes, my debt goes up and down like a yo-yo because I add in the interest I accumulate. But I'm hoping that my emergency savings account will stop doing the yo-yo dance. It will be a true emergency savings account. I'm sitting at $569.37 right now. Once I get it back to $1000, I will be able to start paying off the debt again.

I'm going to do it right this time. Starting by reading the book. BTW - I got it used for $6. Saved a little money there. 

Time for bed. Oh - I sold 1 thing today! I sold a Longaberger Horizon of Hope tie-on. Originally priced at $5 plus shipping on eBay. Someone was watching it, so I sent an offer of $4.00 with shipping. He countered with $2.50 with shipping. Sure. I'll take that. Ended up after shipping and taxes and processing fees, I made $3.12 because I bought my shipping label through eBay. That went directly into my savings account. Sometimes you need a small sale in order to start the sale train rolling. It is my goal to get 1 sale a day. No matter how small. 

Now it really is time for bed. Talk to you later about the name change and where it comes from. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What's in a name? This reminds me of Romeo and Juliet (I was an English major, after all). And I'm having a bit of a tough time with what to call my emergency fund. I need to call it something other than emergency fund, because that's not what it is. I haven't had anything remotely that I would call an emergency, but I keep spending out of it. I mean, after all, on Friday, I drained it to pay for the brakes on my car. So, I've said this before, I'm adopting the Dave Ramsey model of personal finance and his baby steps. Step 1: put $1000 in an emergency fund. Step 2: snowball your debt. Pay the minimum amount on each account, then anything extra, pay down your smallest debt. Once that is paid off, add the minimum payment for that debt into the minimum payment of the next smallest debt. And so on and so forth. I've already paid off one account. I'm on my way to paying off a 2nd account. I'm accounting for every dollar, not keeping anything in my...
Read more
Oh wow, it's been awhile. So, catch up. I am currently under $21k for debt (yay) and I have $652 in my savings account. I have been using my savings account not as it is meant to be used - Not using it as a savings account per se, but as a supplement to my current checking account. Every penny of my checking account is being used for debt. If I need extras, I'm using my savings account. For example. I got paid on March 20. Every penny of that paycheck was spent for bills or put back into savings. I received $1,132.73. I paid my gas bill ($78.97), Car insurance ($64.88), Internet ($79.95), Kirby ($58.32) and cat food ($29.00). I also deducted the payments for the mortgage ($202.53 - the rest comes from my VA benefit check) and Hulu ($12.87). I put $250 in my grocery account and $25 in my savings account. That total was $800.52. The rest went into savings, bringing that total to $790.82. Since the 20th, I've paid my Google Fi account for my cellphone ($77.68), purchas...
Read more
Good morning and Happy Saturday! These weekends are very important to me. I have learned that I will not be working from home at all. My boss's boss's boss has decided that since we execute and sign documents in front of notaries on our team, and those notaries have to enter activities into our database, we cannot work from home and sign in front of a notary at a bank. Not that we would be able to anyway, with most branches closing the lobbies in this coronavirus pandemic. And I have been very busy executing assignments, so I get to go into the office every day. Not the greatest for my anxiety, but what can I do? At least I have a job and I'm getting a paycheck. Which is more than I can say for a lot of people in this country and worldwide. Okay, so you may have noticed that I'm no longer under $21k for my debt countdown. Well, that's because when I was adding up totals, I discovered I didn't account for the interest I'm paying on my Kirby. Had to add ...
Read more