Sep. 4, 2008 - It's all about the perspective
This weekend I posted several articles on organizing your finances and preparing for your future. I am thankful we had the foresight to actually live those words on frugality and saving not living them in theory.
Let me begin with John is OK.
He was in a car accident this morning that totalled his car, completely. His air bags deployed and his seat belt did it's job. He is super sore but no broken bones. I expect he will be in pain all weekend long. I have heard that the pain from the seat belt is terrible. I told him I much prefer to lose that hunk of metal, gas guzzling Jeep than to lose even part of him. :)
The car appears to be a total loss though. On the good side it was a paid for, 11 year old car, on the bad side the insurance company will surely see it as just that, an 11 year old car, valueless. We tend to drive our cars until the don't run or we outgrow them ;) , so this is new to us. We pray that the insurance company is fair and upstanding.
After John's health and well being were confirmed, I sat down and ran some numbers, all day long. I had to find some way to distract myself as he drove home. Did I mention he was out of state! I feel so blessed that we have been saving for an emergency such as this. I am so grateful that it is a steel and metal emergency and not a life and death emergency. We will have enough to pay cash for a newer vehicle for John and leave a little in emergency savings. We are going to really test the frugal tips I have been picking up recently and put them into action. I want to have the savings built back up to sustain us for 6 months.
Knowing that the cash amount will not vary depending on the type of vehicle, we are trying to decide if we should purchase a new to us Honda, that will seat 5 or if we should find a minivan that will seat 7+. We have always talked about having vehicles that could seat most of our family or at least an adult and the 5 kids. I just don't know if John will want to drive a minivan everyday to work! :)
We have a week or two or three to decide. Those of you with large families, what do you think, practical minivan or small, efficient Honda?
We'd love the prayers as John heals and we sort through all the paperwork involved.
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Sep. 1, 2008 - Organizing Your Finances: Part 3
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Only 6 more days of posting here. Can't wait to see you at our new "home",by the way I have had NO comments at my new blog yet so maybe you can be the first! :)
In step 3 of organizing your finances I propose that it is time to set up where your money is going to go each month, yes, a budget.
I set up our family budget in Excel but you could use paper and pencil just as well. I have my budget categories on the left side and the headings of “estimated expense”, “actual expense” and “amount left over”. I like knowing that if I have a surplus in one category that I can roll the money to cover another category. Now you can set up your budget with all of your expenses and list everything out. If you have extra left over after paying all household expenses and the minimum on the debts, start applying all the extra towards the debt with the smallest amount, not interest rate. This is where I recommend Dave Ramsey’s books or his website for more details on a debt snowball. The simple Dollar wrote a review on one Ramseys books here. Here is a handy online calculator to help set up a debt snowball plan.
I love having a budget. It lets me feel like I am in control of the money instead of the money controlling what I do. I decide each and every month what I want my money to do for me and then put it into a budget category. This plan has worked for us for the past several years. I have been able to be a stay at home mom to our five kids and John has been able to support all of us. We just decided a few years ago that we didn’t want to be in debt and we did not want to live a life so stressed out.
Our goals now, are to always pay cash for our vehicles, to pay off our home early, to set money aside for retirement, and to maintain 6 months of living expenses in the bank at all times. We do plan on some vacations but for now camping and visits to family have been great for us.
What are your goals?
One other technique I wanted to share is our budget binder. It is simply a 3 ring 1 inch binder with lots of clear sleeves inside.
Inside the binder:
1. Budget: printed off and in the first slot
2. Bill Calendar: a plain 12 month calendar that I print off and use to write down the exact date I expect to pay a bill
3. A color photocopy of all the cards in my wallet and John’s too
4. A list of all online passwords and websites that we frequent: be sure to include any trust words, hints, codes etc
5. Any goals lists I have made
6. My financial update worksheets that I create to show where we stand currently with our savings and goals
7. Any major financial paperwork
8. My checkbook register: I print one that is half the size of a sheet of paper and stapled together so I can easily reconcile it and see what is written down
9. A folder in back for tax papers for the next year
10. All information about life insurance, typed up on one sheet of paper with all details: no need to make this confusing because if one of us ever needs it we won’t be thinking clearly anyway
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Aug. 31, 2008 - Organizing Your Finances: Part 2
Organizing Your Finances: Part 2
In Part 1, I asked you to organize and collect all the details about your debt. This first step is to bring all the hard to face facts out in the open.
In this entry, I want you to collect all the information you have on income coming into your home. If the number you come up with is lower than you know you need, start looking into ways to raise that number for next month. Start making plans now, so that next month isn’t as tight. Sell something, like books at the used bookstore, on eBay, etc, babysit, get a part time job or whatever you can do to bring in extra money. I personally like to sell items in my house that I know I can live without.
After you identify all sources of income, list out all of your household expenses. These are the budget items that you pay each month to keep your lights on and food on the table. We start with tithe in our home and then follow with mortgage, groceries, gas for the cars, and then the other smaller items. Dave Ramsey’s method says to pay yourself before the creditors.
Household expenses may be the area you have to pick apart and remove some items. You may have to choose between cable and internet service. Or Netflix and neat, but unnecessary features on the house phone. Even if you cut out $20 a month, over a 2 year period of paying down on debt, you will have freed up $480. We gave up all the extra features on our house phone 6 years ago for a savings of about $1080. We don’t notice a quality of life difference without call waiting. Read what others have to say about cutting costs on your home phone. We also choose to have Netflix but not cable TV for a savings of over $3,000! Also, we know that if we had a hard month coming up we could drop the Netflix or suspend our account without penalty. Get creative with what you think you need to have and what you really need.
It will take sacrifice and your friends and neighbors will think you are really weird. I love this article written by a mom who has become intense in her debt repayment. :) But who cares if you are able to pay all of your bills every month and you don’t have last year’s debt hanging on like a deranged monkey! I love living life today and not carrying the burden of my past spending.
Project Organize Your Finances:
1. Collect all the information about your debts and write the details down
2. Tally up your income and write it down next to your debts, also brainstorm how you can increase your income for next month
3. Collect all the information you have on your household expenses, also deciding what you can trim from the budget
Don't forget that in a week I will be blogging fulltime over at www.livetolearneveryday.blogspot.com
Feel free to add me to your feeds list at the new blog.
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Aug. 30, 2008 - Organizing Your Finances
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Jul. 3, 2008 - Amazon.com deals
Let me just start out by saying that I love to grocery shop sitting in my swivel rocking chair, with my lap top in my lap and the kids sound asleep. It really doesn't get any better than that. :)
Ok, so Amazon.com has good deals on groceries . Some days they are average or even more than Wal-Mart, but I love it when I can combine deals and save big.
I purchased coconut oil using the subscribe and save feature, saving 15%, and then had free shipping and no tax. This brand is a much better deal than what I can buy locally.
Then I bought cereal and some Sunkist fruit snacks for the kids. I hope the snacks will last for 2 months but in reality they will last for 2 weeks when the neighbors hear that crunchy, granola, tree hugging Christine has bought gummy snacks! I got these deals using a limited time offer of $20 off $49 purchase. Then it was free shipping and no tax. Notice how my total is really close to $49, that is the best way to get the most out the coupons.
My last purchase was for 2 cases of Sweet and Salty snack bars for John. He loves them and they ended up being $1.59 a box, he said he usually pays $3 a box at Wal mart. I got these through the GROCJUNE coupon for June clearance deals. It was $10 off a $25 purchase and once again free shipping and no tax.
I love these deals but I always try and make sure that I am buying items I need and that it is a good deal. Sometimes I don't mind paying a little more if since it saves me a trip to the store with 5 kids.
Hope this helps someone else.
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Jun. 11, 2008 - Teaching your kids on a budget
I want to share some of the ways I homeschool the kids on a budget.
For starters, I believe it is essential that you have membership to your local library. We have 5 cards, with a 20 item limit each, at our local library and 1 card that I pay $10 a year for that has a 30 item limit and an extensive selection to chose from at our neighboring county. I save myself time and hassle by using the library's online card catalog to search for books and reserve them for pick up. I usually request the books for our unit studies or for specific books I find in Jim Trelease's Read Aloud Handbook, then I pick them up at the library's front desk in a few days. I use the other library for browsing and story times. This is our number one free resource for books, movies, music cds, story times and summer reading clubs.
The other must have that I think every homeschooler should make a priority is the internet and a computer. If you don't have one at home use the library for free. I find all sorts of free printables worksheets and homeschooling support information for me. This site has TONS of information about where to find free material. I will gladly pay a monthly fee for our internet rather than pay for cable tv.
I am also a firm supporter of using everyday life as a teaching tool. Making a batch of cookies but doubling them will teach them practical skills in measurement, fractions, patience, hygenine, oven safety, and so much more. If you make an effort to just look at life through the eyes if a child, you will see that there is so much they need to learn that you just take for granted. Involve them even if it makes a mess and takes longer to finish a job. This is one area that I am trying to improve on. 
In our home I don't really have a homeschool budget, I just buy with purpose and planning. I try to buy items that can be reused or sold easily. I have made a few costly mistakes with curriculum but I am still learning.
This year our purchases will mainly be "tools" for learning not workbooks. I am going to print to print off the worksheets they need for review and continue to read to them. I have material left over from this past year that tey will hopefully use. I also hope to explore more outside on nature walks and hikes.
