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photo credit: biggertree
It has been quite some time since I have posted here, and with good reason. I have been doing a lot of thinking of the direction that I would like to take this blog, and have finally solidified some ideas that will be materializing during this month. So stay tuned… I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth!
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“It’s time I sling the baskets off this overburdened horse
Sink my toes into the ground and set a different course…”- T. Anastasio, T. Marshall
photo credit: renatotarga
We had a wonderful New Year’s Eve with some friends, followed by a nice lazy New Years Day. We’re going to be spending some quality time with friends and family over the next couple days, but after that I have every intention of starting this new year off with some ambitious goals.
I hope that everyone else is having a great weekend. See you soon!
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In a previous post, I mentioned that we hoped to spend $250 total on Christmas this year. We had $95 dollars left and quite a bit to still get. So in the end, how did things turn out?
Overall, that put us at $3 over budget for Christmas. I can live with that!
I would highly recommend a Christmas budget for everyone. It really forced us to pick and choose what was most important to us, and as an added bonus, we don’t have a ton of useless crap after Christmas!
Did you follow a budget this year? If so, how did it go?
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photo credit: Lisa Brewster
I know, it’s been more than a week, but it’s Christmas! Time to break things down:
| Category | Current Balance |
Overall Change |
| Loans (includes mortgage and student loans): | -$160,442 | $18 |
| Credit card debt: | -$29177 | -$166 |
| Savings: | $2123 | $51 |
| -$97 |
Oh no! Despite making one student loan payment and putting $50 in savings, our interest accrued on our other student loans (bringing down our $80 payment down to $18) as well as one of our credit cards. I also am including the $115 we picked up in American Express charges for the $180 in Walmart gift cards, since this was an extraneous purchase on a credit card we don’t normally use. When all is said and done, we are actually almost $100 MORE in debt. Yikes!
Things aren’t looking so great right now, but we do have a couple of things to look forward to. First, I was fortunate enough to receive some money for my birthday, so I’ll be depositing that soon. I also got a $15 rebate check in the mail. Most importantly, however, will be my husband’s raise and yearly bonus that comes at the end of next week.
In terms of our “immediate future” finances, we really want another computer, and we were considering using part of the bonus for a new one. However, after our truck scare, I would feel much better if we had some more money in the emergency fund first. Time for a family discussion!
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photo credit: Stuart Chalmers
This is one instance where I am so glad that I was wrong. Yesterday, I was wondering if our truck had finally reached the end of the road. It turns out that the rear brakes had iced up (it’s a pickup, which explains why warming up the truck for 45 minutes had no effect).
In addition to a free tow (thanks AAA!), our auto shop didn’t charge us anything. Maybe they felt sorry for us, or are full of the holiday spirit, but I am so thankful that we didn’t have to shell out any money.
This did serve as a huge wakeup call, though. I don’t like the fact that we don’t have a huge down payment saved up right now, especially considering the economy. I’ve been thinking about our 2009 goals, and am reassessing our priorities based on yesterday’s experience. I really don’t want any car/truck loan if we can help it!
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I woke up this morning to find that the car was gone, but the truck was still parked in the street. My husband always takes the truck to work, so I knew that this wasn’t a good sign.
I called the husband. He thought that the truck just needed some time to warm up, since it was cold this morning. He said that he couldn’t get it to move.
I went out and let the truck warm up for 45 minutes. Basically, it will start and shift into gear, but it won’t move. At all. I called AAA, and it’s been towed to the repair shop. According to the tow truck guy, “The transmission’s locked. That’s never good.” Hmmm….
My husband is in denial that anything serious is wrong, but I have a feeling that the truck may be at the end of its road. After dumping $1500 into it earlier this year, ponying up for transmission work on a vehicle with about 200,000 miles on it falls into my “money in the toilet” category.
We’ll see what the auto shop says. Luckily, we can easily do with one car until at least the end of January.
Anyone got a nice reliable car for sale?
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photo credit: bettyx1138
I have to admit, it is nice to have all of our Christmas shopping done! The only thing left that I might look for is alphabet stickers (when I asked the kid what he was going to ask for from Santa, this was his response. Who knew?)
We did pick up some good deals this week. I ended up getting gift cards from Walmart using their $20 off $80 promotion. I got $80 in gift cards for $60. We combined this promotion with the American Express wish list gift certificate on my husband’s card, and we were able to get $100 in gift cards for $55. Good stuff! We’ll be saving these cards until we need them, but we did give one away – one of my husband’s coworkers is part of the Big Brother program, so we gave him a gift card to buy stuff for his “little brother”.
Other than a trip to the craft store for some yarn (we just found out our friends are having a baby boy – time to put my new knitting skills to use!), it’s going to be a cozy weekend at home.
How about you? Will you be braving the malls this weekend? If so, please follow a budget!
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Financially, it has been somewhat of a depressing year. Retirement accounts have gone in the crapper, home values have gone down… blah, blah, blah.
While these are more universal concerns, and are important to consider, my husband and I have some financial concerns that are on a more personal level. First, we really need to start saving for a replacement vehicle. His truck has had over $1600 in repairs this year, and has roughly 200,000 miles on it. Let’s face it, the old beast isn’t going to last forever!
Second, and perhaps more importantly, my father-in-law may be in need of a “financial bailout” of his own soon. It’s a really long story, and I am not sure if I want to talk about any details yet, but we need to consider the possibility that we are going to be responsible for another member of the family.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I am impressed with how easy it is to breakdown our debt and savings using Mint.com. I am going to use this data to post our weekly financial breakdown. I am leaving out retirement accounts and 529 plans (we make regular contributions, but these funds are not going to be used in our immediate future). I am also leaving out our credit card that we use for food, gas, and other monthly expenses. We always pay it in full, and I am not concerned about it since we use it responsibly. My immediate goal is to increase savings while reducing debt, and I like this simplistic view:
Loans (includes mortgage and student loans): $160,460
Credit card debt: $29011
Savings: $2072
I am interested to see how things shape up over the next couple of weeks!
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As you may know from some previous posts, we have a $250 self-imposed budget for Christmas this year. We had a budget left of $227, and I have definitely made a dent in it. Here’s the breakdown:
$41 – the Christmas shopping for all of our little friends. We have three little ones that are like family to us, and I combined this with two birthday gifts for kids (the total order was $69) to get free shipping. All of the gifts are made from sustainable wood and are earth-friendly. I had budgeted $15/kid for Christmas, so I came under budget by a few bucks. But now I am sad since all the fun gifts have been purchased!
$2 – stocking stuffer for our kid. This was an impulse purchase at the craft store – I got him 2 sticker books with stickers.
$20 – gift certificate for the stepfather. We get him the same thing every year. Whatever.
$46 – Crap from Bath and Body Works. They kept giving me coupons for $13 in free stuff when I spent $10. I am not a big fan of this store, but my sister loves it. With the coupons, I took care of my sister, her boyfriend, my sister-in-law, and our niece. Each of them is getting basically $20 – $22 worth of stuff for $10-$12. I am glad that I found this deal because all of the people mentioned above are hard to shop for.
$23 – a clearance truck for the kid from Little Tikes. The box is damaged, and the batteries may need to be replaced (I can handle that!). This is one of those really big trucks that he can push around and play with in the yard. We like the fact that Little Tikes toys are made in the USA, and this truck got great reviews for being durable.
This leaves us with $95. We expect to spend $25 on my brother (we’re going in on a video game with my grandmother), $25 on my sister-in-law (gift card), and $20 for my sister-in-law’s boyfriend. That will leave us with $35 for the tree, and nothing else for the kid. I’m not sure that this is going to work, as we would like to get a couple more things for the kid; I want to at least spend a little money on yarn so that I can make him some more stuff.
I’ll have to show the numbers to the husband so that we can make a decision. I am thinking that another $50 might be reasonable, but I don’t want to go overboard. Any thoughts?
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I was talking to my mom the other day, and she had mentioned how she had no idea what to get my brother for Christmas. My brother has Down’s Syndrome, and spends a lot of his free time playing music and video games. He also loves wrestling.
I was asking if there were any new video games that he might like, and she couldn’t think of any, but mentioned that she was thinking of picking up a Wii for him, since she was at her local Walmart the day before and they looked “kind of cool.”
I had never thought of a Wii for my brother for Christmas, only because I didn’t expect there to be any available. I expressed to my mom how that would be a great gift, since he would have to get up and move around to play the games (he participates in Special Olympics, but has a fairly sedentary job and doesn’t do much when there aren’t Special Olympic practices taking place).
I added that there was a pretty good chance that there weren’t any more available, since she had seen them at the store the day before. I promised that I would try to hunt one down for her if she wanted me to, and that was the end of the conversation.
Yesterday, she told me that she was able to pick up a Wii for my brother! I was really excited for him, since I think that he will like it a lot. Then she said, “I got one for you guys for Christmas too, if you want it.” She went on to say that she could return it to the store, but that she wanted to get us something fun this year, since “you guys always want practical things and that’s so boring!”
I am not sure what I was more shocked by – the fact that my mom dropped some major cash on a Wii for us, or that she had just called us boring.
So here’s the question: Should we accept? I’ve wanted a Wii for awhile, but never really considered getting one until they went down in price. I would really love to get a Wii fit to try to learn some yoga. I think that we would have fun as a family playing together, and if I had to choose a video game system for my son when he gets older, this would be the one.
On the other hand, it’s not practical at all! I had mentioned that a gift card to Lowe’s would be a nice gift, since we need to replace the fixtures in our bathroom. I’m guessing that this falls into the category of boring to my mom…
So if you were me, what would you do?
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