It's Been Awhile!

It's been awhile since I've posted here but I think it's time I came back. :)

In the past five months we have seen more than our fair share of Mr. Murphy and we are more determined than ever to kick him out for good!

Now, what makes us so determined?  Little Bean #3 will be joining us in April!

Here's the trouble though:  DH is currently only making minimum wage and while I'm still serving tables 35 hours a week, my business from home isn't quite profiting yet to add to our income.  We're back to Baby Step Zero and trying to get current on our monthly bills.  Our Baby Emergency Fund is E-M-P-T-Y and our only cushion is the $300 in our lovely Jar.

We do have a few slivers of hope though:

• DH is on the hunt for a "Big Boy" job.  A lovely friend created the greatest resume I have ever seen for him (Thanks, Christy!) and he's been sending it out non-stop ever since.  He has a lead and a foot in the door with a company he really wants to work with and will hopefully interview with them next week sometime.  And as a back-up plan, DH has been talking with a couple recruiters about going active duty.
• We have finally gotten a good grasp on meal planning.  It took a few months but I have finally come up with a system that works for us.  Expect to hear more about this in a future post!
• We finally have a handle on the biggest areas of spending that trouble us: eating out and "random" spending.  The meal plan has really curbed our eating out and being flat broke has taught us that spending really isn't that fun.  It also helps that our schedules have been so busy and conflicting that we haven't even had time for either of those activities!

I'm hoping that posting here will help keep us accountable as we try to climb our way out of this hole!

Ready for the stats?
Baby Step Zero: Catch up on all past due bills: Current Total $2225.19!  Yes, I know, it's scary.  I want to hide under the covers every time I see those numbers; BUT hiding under the covers isn't going to get us out of this mess!

The Jar: $323.80  This is our "cushion" account.  We don't classify it with our Baby Emergency Fund, but it's there for us when the fuel tank and the bank account are both on E or for any other small emergency comes up.  It's not much, but DH and I both feel better knowing it's there.  


So why not accompany us on this journey to meet our financial goals and change our family tree!

By April we plan to:

• Significantly increase our income.
• Be able to comfortably live within our means.
• Save $2000. 
• Be able to afford a second vehicle.
• Be able to afford a move to a bigger house.

Would you like to join us in making some financial goals to reach by Tax Day 2012?  Share them with us!

Be the Master, Not the Slave

Your first step on the journey to financial peace is getting control of your money.  If you don't have a budget your are NOT, I repeat: NOT, in control of your money.  Before the beginning of the month give every dollar of your income a name.  This is what we call a zero-based budget.  It's not going to be perfect the first month, or even the second, but you need to have a PLAN. 

Do you have more names than you have dollars?  You're not the first, don't be scared.  Take a piece of paper and start righting down your expenses: start with your four walls.  Once you've taken care of the roof of your head, food, basic utilities, and clothing move on to things like car payments and fuel.  Debts go at the BOTTOM of this list.  Now, figure out how far down the list your income stretches.  Now draw a line, anyone below the line isn't getting paid; you don't have the money to pay them. 

Now go back through the expenses that are above the line.  Where can you cut back?  Can you drop cable and watch tv online or subscribe to Netflix?  How about losing the data plan and cutting to the bare minimum on your cell phone plan?  Find ways to cut back on your utilities and grocery bills.  Quit eating out.  Now take all of this extra money and use it to get current on EVERYTHING. 

Once you are current, this "extra" money you found in your budget goes straight to savings.  Your goal is $1000.  It may sound like a lot but it shouldn't take long at all. 

This is what we call the Baby Emergency Fund (BEF).  This is your cushion from Murphy.  Do you know who Murphy is?  "If it can go wrong, it will go wrong."  Do whatever you need to do to build your BEF.  Work overtime, do odd jobs, forgo your daily coffee/soda, whatever you have to do to scrape this together FAST.  If it means getting another job, DO IT! 

Take it from someone who wasn't there all to long ago: this may seem like an impossible task that is going to take forever, especially when you're just recovering from always worrying about when your electric is going to be cut off, but it is doable!  While we were trying to get our budget under control and get current we started saving in a jar.  I'm a waitress, so all of my change and ones went in the jar each night and I was amazed at how fast that total grew.  It took me less than 3 months to save a couple hundred dollars.  I'm not going to lie, it was hard…every time I felt like I was making headway, Murphy would come for a visit.  I'd get up to a few hundred dollars and something would break, or a bill would be way more than budgeted.  By the time I rebuilt the jar, something else would happen.  I started this back in September and finally managed to complete Baby Step One by using part of our tax refund. 

This, my friends, is the beginnings of Financial Peace.  We've had or BEF in place for almost a month now and we haven't seen much of Mr. Murphy.  I haven't stopped the jar either, it's a nice little habit and I rather enjoying adding onto that little total everyday.  It's amazing the way my stress level has dropped just knowing that Murphy could visit and I've got a way to handle it and won't be paying 30% over 3 years to pay whatever damage he causes.  Between that and the breathing room I found in our budget by truly figuring out what our necessary expenses are, we're even able to move and pay a deposit and double rent for a month without touching the BEF.

So, kids, what have we learned today? 

Sick and Tired

There comes a point in your life where you find you are sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I was there.  I was sick and tired of being scared to answer the phone or the door.  Sick and tired of seeing red when I checked the bank account.  Sick and tired of wondering when they were going to shut off the electric or how I would take my little ones to the doctor if they got sick. 

As if that wasn't bad enough, I was sick and tired of waking up to the disaster that is our apartment.  We moved from a huge 2000+ sq ft house to an apartment weighing in at 950 sq ft.  To put it nicely, we have "spacial" issues.  My youngest has no where truly safe to play.  DH couldn't move around on crutches.  I can NEVER find anything without a 45 minute scavenger hunt. 

I was done.  After a few days of wanting to do nothing but hide in the shower and cry, I womaned-up.  No one was going to come behind me and clean up either mess.  I realized I'm just going to have to buckle down and make my life what I want it to be.  It took me months to get to where I am now from that day and I finally feel like I am gaining momentum.  The turning point for me was getting DH on board.  Once I fessed up that I couldn't do everything on my own, things sure started going a whole lot smoother. 

There are three people in this world who have helped me grasp what I need to do to put an end to "sick and tired" for good: my DH, Josh; Dave Ramsey, and the FLYlady.  The common thread from all of them? Baby Steps! 

Josh and I sat down and had a big long talk one night about where we were financially.  We were in a hole.  A big, fat, deep hole.  Well, the first rule of holes is to STOP DIGGING!  We've sworn off debt, we have made a commitment to stop gaining new debt.  We worked out a budget and are doing our best to make it work.  We used our tax refund to complete Dave's Baby Step One which I'll talk more about later and we are already beginning to work our way out of that hole. 

Now comes the FLYlady.  If you don't know about the FLYlady please check her out at flylady.net.  She is an amazing woman who can help anyone become organized if you'll just follow her Baby Steps.  I will admit that I flutter at best right now, and at worst I fall completely off the FLYwagon.  It's a work in progress, and it will never be finished but it will always be moving.  The FLYlady focuses on routines to keep a household running smooth.  I am working on basic routines: things like getting up before the kids, running a load of laundry each day to avoid weekend marathons, and keeping the kitchen clean. 

We will be spending the rest of March in a slight pause mode as we move to a bigger, better space for our family and Josh awaits knee surgery.  I hope to use this move as a chance to declutter and start again fresh both in our routines and our financial goals.

I hope you'll join on us this journey and see if any of our experiences can help you find your PEACE.