Frugal Idea

This is totally out of season but I wanted to mention it before I forgot. Thanks to the magic of Google, it will be searchable next October so it may yet help someone.

For those of you who have to dress up for some sort of Halloween get together every year, find a nursing friend and borrow an old set of nursing scrubs. Sure you won't win most original costume, but if your goal is to not look like a stick in the mud by not dressing up while at the same time spending as little as possible, then it's a win win.

Not to mention the fact that it's also far more appropriate than what a lot of folks are wearing these days.

Closing in

We are fast approaching a milestone in our debt free journey that I have been dreaming about for a long time. If all goes according to plan, we will have zero car payments in about 2-3 months. When I think about how much money I have wasted on cars in the last 10 years it makes me sick, so I try not to.

Based on what I've learned from Dave Ramsey and doing my own research, there is no reason for us to ever have another car payment. The only exception I can think of is if something happens to our van at a time when we don't have enough savings built up to get an adequate replacement right away. But even in that case my plan is to spend as little as possible and pay it off immediately.

Once we pay my car off, all we will have left besides our house are our school loans. One of those isn't very big but the other is kind of a monster. It costs us about $200 a month in minimum payments, so even if it takes us a while to get rid of it will feel pretty good knowing that that is the max we would have to pay out on any given month.

Life Insurance

Life insurance is one of those things that no one wants to think about. It's very macabre, and is more easily avoided then handled. The sad part is that, all too often this leads to others being hurt when then unthinkable happens.

The last thing I want my wife and kids worrying about if something were to happen to me is how they are going to make ends meet. So, I got life insurance quotes online and signed up for a policy. Hopefully it will never be needed but I feel better knowing that my family is protected.

Wow

For a minute there I really thought that the Browns might actually win a game, but being the the stalwart losers that they are, they found a way to get the loss. Other teams might have folded and just taken the win, but not Cleveland. They never give up when there is still a chance to get the loss.

The idea that this team could actually be worse than last year's team is pretty unbelievable. The are so talentless that it will take a miracle for them to be competitive any time in the next 3 years.

It gets really old as a fan of the team that they are never worth watching. I really want to watch a NFL season again in which my team is relevant. I haven't had that experience since the late 80's.

Come on Cleveland, get it together, and soon.

Two Turn Tables

I used to run the sound at our church and so I can claim to be mildly dangerous when it comes to my knowledge of sound equipment. At our church we used three different kinds of mics. Wireless, wired, and lapel.

The wired ones were annoying only because it was sometimes hard to figure out what channel they were plugged into and our board at the time didn't give me any clues.

The wireless ones were cool in that regard but failed to let us know when the batteries died thus rendering them useless at inopportune times.

I have nothing to complain about in regards to the lapel mic except that were never able to recreate the scene from Naked Gun in which someone forgets to turn it off when using the restroom.

Kidding, I would have turned it off... probably. :)

Techie

I am a professional techie. I program for a living and enjoy doing that kind of work. It can be a challenge at times but I have found it to be to my liking over the years. Application Development Jobs are becoming harder to get now, however.

Now that the industry is getting older and more people have more experience in the newer languages there is more competition. Not to mention the surplus of out of work developers scrambling for jobs.

It may be that sooner rather than later we will be forced to declare some sort of specialty right out of the gate.

Vintage

If vintage is your thing when decorating a room there are certain items that are a slam dunk to throw off that vibe. An old stand up radio for a living room, a claw tub for your bathroom, or some old tools in your garage.

The nice thing about most of this stuff is that you can get it pretty cheap at flea markets and swap meets without breaking the bank. One thing that I'm learning is that the internet is not the way to get a good deal anymore. It's now the mainstream retail market, and to actually get a good deal you need to venture out into the dreaded real world.

Web Pages

I'm a computer programmer by trade, which is kinda like being a doctor. You have a very specialized expertise in one area of a large field and everyone you meet assumes you can do everything from fixing their Windows problems to web design Houston.

True, I have an aptitude for those things that most people don't but I can't do it all. Writing web service code does not translate directly to those things. Frankly web design is one of the harder things to do well.

Photos

How do you get your pictures? I find that ordering them online is the cheapest way. Our printer is one of those photo printers but I find that the ink and paper cost can't compete with the cost of just ordering them online.

Is that just because they buy supplies in bulk so they can limit the costs? I assume that they aren't doing something that much cheaper but the prices aren't even close. Clearly bulk pricing plays a part.

Sure it's cool if you need a pic printed quickly but I don't find myself ever doing that. Do you?

College Costs

I read that this past year college loans topped 1 billion dollars for the first time ever. Clearly this is a problem. You have to stop and think about how this is affecting people. These loans are basically inescapable which causes two problems. One, you can't get out of them if your life takes a turn for the worse. You shouldn't declare bankruptcy to avoid debt but sometimes bad things happen and you have no choice. Two, it allows the colleges to charge insanely high amounts because they know that they are guaranteed to get it, and the kids will pay it. Something needs to be done. These aren't rv loans that people are choosing to get for fun, they affect the livelihoods of a lot of people.

Coupons

I love coupons. I should rephrase that slightly. I love the coupons that my wife finds. I'm not terribly good at it but I have seen how amazing they can be when put to good use. We have had stores pay us on several occasions to take merchandise out of their stores. Gotta love that.

Some stores cost a lot and so if you can find coupons to make the cost more manageable then it can make all the difference. Take for instance this site with pottery barn coupons. Pottery Barn has great stuff but is typically out of our price range. The right coupon could make all the difference. Especially one that is for 50% off!!

Christians and Science

I'm finding that more and more Christians are coming to the conclusion that science isn't the enemy. You don't have to believe sill and ridiculous things because you believe in God. There are even Christians in Geneticist Jobs. I recently read a book written by one and instead of being bothered by the evidence for evolution, he was encouraged by it because, to him, that was just one more discovery of how God made what he made. What does it matter how it was done? Whether you believe God was behind it or not, we can all learn and understand how things work and not have to be worried about what it says about our faith.

V02 Max

One thing I learned in my running career was that there really is a difference in the physical makeup of some people. It isn't always someone's ability to work harder. For instance, when we would run repeats in cross country practice, my heart rate was always far higher than any of my teammates. We didn't hook up an ekg or anything but pulse rates were enough to tell the story.

So my bodies ability to process oxygen efficiently was significantly less than the other guys. This plays out a lot in cycling as well. That's why these guys get blood transfusions and such. It's to increase the white blood cells in their body so that they could process more oxygen.

Not much you can do about that I don't think, besides sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber.

Bug Attractant

I may need to start looking for a new hair gel. Admittedly I don't use much but it seems to contain some sort of insect catnip. They buzz around my head like planes at JFK.

Honestly, I doubt I need anything as strong as what I use now anyway. I keep my hair much shorter than I used to so I don't need nearly as much help keeping it in place. I'm not sure where to start looking though as I don't want to spend much money on stuff like this. I've heard of herstyler serum but I'm pretty sure that that is for women if the name were any clue.

What suggestions do you have? What works well and is cheap?

Tablet Envy

I really want a tablet pc. I don't know whether I would prefer an ipod touch or xoom, but they both seem really cool.

I just love new technology and although you can make the argument that a laptop is still much more useful, it's tough to ignore the siren song of new tech gadgets.

Hopefully at some point I'll be able to get one and play around with it and see what everyone is talking about. So far I haven't seen or heard from anyone who had one that didn't love it.

Cost

It seems today that in a lot of cases cost is the deciding factor. A lot of companies offer very similar products and so what it costs you tends to make your mind up for you. So if that is the case, then where is the best place to buy?

In most cases it's big companies that do a lot of business who can keep costs down and offer lower prices. Big retail chains, Wholesale Insurance companies, and other large companies.

The one exception would be for items that you can buy used, in which case ebay and craigslist will almost always save you the most money.

Debt Limit

Is it any wonder that America is in the predicament that we are in? Consumer debt is considered normal and a very large segment of people owe far more than they can afford to pay off quickly. Why would we expect our government to be any better?

$14.3 trillion in debt and we need more?!! Is anyone else scared by this? Cut some spending, raise taxes and get that moving in the right direction. Once we have it paid off, then lets see what public works we can AFFORD to do.

It won't be fun, but it's necessary if we want to be fiscally responsible.

Google+

Got my first try of Google+ today. So far so good. It's kinda hard to truly evaluate it compared to facebook when I have about 7 friends so far compared to almost 300 on facebook.

Given that, it seems to do some things well. I like the circles idea for keeping conversations where they belong but I really think that one of the biggest drawbacks to facebook is the hidden nature of the privacy settings.

Plus doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot better in this category, and I would have expected that this would be the main area to improve in comparison. Now I don't understand the point of everything or the point of care carts, but I think that that would have been item number one on my requirements list.

Guy Places

There are some places that guys just enjoy being, regardless of purpose. This isn't true for all guys but a lot of us fall into the category. Places like the woods, a bait shop, sneaker stores, and garages all count.

It's not that you won't find women in those places but guys just tend to feel especially comfortable. I'm sure I could come up with a myriad of reasons why this might be so, but I doubt that there would be one that applied to all.

For instance, one of the main reasons I fell in love with the house we currently own was because it has a huge workshop out back. I still feel incredibly blessed to have that space. It came in incredibly handy while doing all the work on the basement.

So next time you are feeling a bit down, go to your "guy" place and relax.

Basement = Done

Finally I can stick a fork in the basement project. There are one or two very minor things that I might do at some point but clearly we've reached the point at which no one can argue that we are done.

We passed the building inspection and the girls are all moved in. It took us over a year all told but it was very worth it to give them their own space and free up a room to be used as a guest room. Already that has been very helpful with my MIL staying with us this week.

It will be a long time before we attempt to tackle the rest of the basement but for now I'm very happy. Frankly, it was a lot of fun and I learned A TON doing it. Something that I always consider a big bonus!

Printers

It is very convenient to be able to print things at home, especially when my wife works for the church and has to constantly print things for lessons and meetings. It just amazes me how expensive inkjet ink cartridges are.

Thankfully the church generally either purchases them for us or reimburses us, otherwise it would be a real pain. I really hope I can get our main pc up and running again soon so that the wireless network will allow us to print from anywhere again.

Retirement

I worry a lot about retirement and the fact that I know I'm not saving enough right now. The problem is that I want to get my debts paid off before I focus too much on that. It scares me mainly because I know that there won't be any social security benefits to fall back on when I reach retirement age. Frankly, even if there were I'd like to be able to live a little better than that financially if I could. I just need to be patient and stick the plan and I'm sure it will all work out right in the end.

XMen: Latest Movie!!

Went to see it the other day. Not too bad but I won't be jumping in line to buy it on dvd. Some crazy characters and strange abilities and decent action sequences. I thought they did a good job of showing how Magneto and Prof X took their different paths. Kevin Bacon as a mutant was pretty cool too. And no, his power wasn't being a lawyer. Frankly, they made him so strong I wasn't sure how they were going to be able to kill him off without violating their own rules, but they did ok. All in all I enjoyed it but it wasn't the greatest movie I've ever seen. Pretty standard fare for the X franchise.

Bad List

I saw an article the other day that had a list of the top ten toughest cities to find a job. Apparently there must be more columbus jobs than I thought because we weren't on the list.

Based on what my friend has been through in the last few years it feels like we should be. So given that, these cities must be REALLY rough.

It stinks that the economy has tanked so badly but in reality can we expect as a nation to sustain the insane growth that we have had over the last 100 years indefinitely? I don't think so, so maybe we are moving into something more slow for a longer period. Time will tell.

Soccer Season

I'm planning to coach the 6U team that my middle daughter will play on this year. I love soccer and I really enjoy helping kids learn to enjoy the sport. Plus it is starting to become apparent that our daughters are very different in their enjoyment of the different sports. My oldest seems to be taking to softball and really enjoys it. It took her 3 seasons to finally score a goal in soccer. My youngest daughter scored soccer goals in almost every game she played in her first season. It's really cool to see them grow and develop talents in the things they really enjoy doing.

Tressel

I have been arguing about whether OSU should fire Jim Tressel or not. It seems that the majority of my friends believe that they should not. I think that they should take a higher moral stand and get rid of him.

I think he has done an amazing job at OSU and made the last 10 years of football really enjoyable, and it's not like he needs alcohol detox, and I understand that. The fact is that he lied to the NCAA about whether or not his players were eligible and then pretended to be surprised when it all came to light.

We've all made mistakes and I'm all about forgiveness but the message OSU sends by keeping him is that winning is more important than integrity, and I'm not ok with that.

Don't Have It? Then Get It.

This is one of those things that no one likes to talk about but it's something that everyone needs to do. Get yourself some life insurance. Especially if you have kids. Protect their future now.

No one wants to think about that but if something happens to you, then the last thing you want them worrying about is where their next meal is coming from.

Sure no one likes to pay premiums for something that they hope to never use but it is the smart and responsible thing to do.

10 years next year

Next year will be our 10 year anniversary. We had always talked about going back to St. Thomas for our 10 year, but I doubt that we will be able to afford to do that. I'm hoping that we will be able to get away someplace nice and spend a few days however.

It would be nice to hang out together and enjoy some mutual gourmet anniversary gifts, as well as some great scenery.

Not sure what we have in mind exactly at this point but we'll think of something. We have more than a year to figure it out.

Obama 2012

I don't really purport to be a follower of either political party but you have to think that given the news of the last week and the republicans lack of anything resembling a credible contender, that we might as well go ahead and declare Obama the winner of the 2012 Presidential election.

I'm not particularly pleased with his run so far but that isn't the point. There just won't be any way to defeat a man who has Bin Laden's scalp on his resume. It will take more than a dose of Acneticin to clean up the contenders image enough to compete.

It's already over.

Cash Crate Starting to take off

I did some math yesterday and for the last 25 days I've averaged about 68 cents a day just from referral money. That doesn't count bonuses or anything, just the percentage I get from the offers and surveys my referrals are doing. Here's hoping it keeps increasing. I made over $54 last month, and I'm hoping I can break that record this month!

Timing

I've seen a lot of people wearing custom lapel pins that denote which team their daughter or son plays for at kid's sporting events over the years. The one question I have is, how did they get them in time?

In my experience, whenever those have been offered for sale, they have an arrival date that is either at the end or near the end of the season in question. What good does that do?

So do these enterprising parents just order their own or are some teams using half a brain cell to determine that getting them in the preseason would actually be most beneficial?

Enquiring minds would like to know.

Cash Crate: Full Description

Most of you know that I have been singing the praises of Cash Crate for a while now and I thought it would be helpful to lay out exactly how it works.

First, the easy stuff.

Each day you can "check in" and earn $.03, and if you check in every day during a calendar month, you will earn a $.50 bonus.

Searches - if you download and install their toolbar, you will get a $1.00 bonus for your first 20 searches, and $0.50 for each additional 25 searches you do. Only 10 searches per day count, so you can earn $0.50 every three days or so.

Videos - There is a section where you can watch videos that are available to you. Basically these are like commercials in their content and length and generally pay between $0.02 and $0.04 per video.

Offers and Surveys

Surveys generally pay between $0.50 and $0.80 and can be completed once per day per survey site. There are generally between 6 and 8 survey sites available, so you can do several per day if you have time. They generally take between 10 and 25 minutes.

Offers are tricky. Sometimes these are very easy and pay quickly and other times they don't pay at all. I tend to not rely on these as they are very finicky and don't always confirm so that you can get paid. Also you run the risk of spam and telemarketers by completing these so if you do choose to use them, use a phone number you don't check, and an email address you don't care about.

Referrals

Many say that this is the heart of the Cash Crate genius. When you first sign up, you are considered "Bronze" level which means that you get 20% of the payout from anyone you refer who completes an offer and 10% of the payout for anyone that your referral refers. So there are two layers of benefit there. You also get a $3 bonus any time someone under you earns their first $10. You get $0.05 for every survey that someone under you completes, but nothing from your 2nd level referrals.

After you get to "Silver" level by referring 50 or more active users, more options become available. You now get 25% of the payout for the people under you and have the option of getting $1 for every active referral, instead of the $3 bonus. You also get more tools to help you market yourself better such as multiple links and performance reports. Also you get the option for direct deposit at this level.

There are three more levels and at each level your payout percentage increases a little.

Payouts

In order to cash out each month, you need to earn $20. If you don't, the money you have earned will roll over to the following month. I have never failed to cash out and have never yet earned less than $30 in a month. Basically by doing the searches, videos, and check in's, you are guaranteed close to half of it, so a few surveys and offers here and there will make up the difference.

They also run contests periodically where you can win money or referrals by doing various things. For instance, this month you get one raffle entry for every video you watch and at the end of the month they will draw 15 names to each receive an additional $10.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, and if you are interested in giving it a try please click here.

Random Thought of the Day

So if you are retired and sell your home to drive around the country in an RV, what type of insurance do you need? Do you need a home insurance quote, an rv insurance quote, or both?

It's a vehicle but it's also a house, so I'm really not sure. I wonder if the cost is higher depending on how much you actually drive it. (Once a year on vacation as opposed to daily)

I honestly can't see myself doing that because although I love to travel, I hate to drive. I'll be pretty happy if I can just live in my paid off house and take normal vacations.

Tough Decision

Our church is forming a work and witness trip for next summer. I have never been on one and want to go at some point but we won't be done with baby step 2 before this trip happens. In the old days I think I would have just shoe-horned it into our budget and made it happen, and although that was my first instinct, I ultimately decided that I should wait until we are debt free. Barring a directive from above that I should be there, I think that that is the best decision. Now I know about as much about the location as I do about bridesmaid dresses but regardless of that, I really would have enjoyed going but now just isn't the right time.

Drywall: Done, or very nearly

This project is getting closer and closer to being finished. This weekend we got about 90% of the drywall up, and I plan to finish it up tonight. I was planning to work on the well covers but with the weather being so foul today I'm going to be relegated to working indoors.

Next up will be the mudding and I'm hoping that we can get that done in the next week or two. Then we move on to paint, trim, doors, and the drop ceiling. So excited to see this coming together!

Softball: Do or Do Not Do

There really is no try. At least not in our family. We have a rule. If you start something, you finish it. So we really need to decide soon if we are going to pull our daughter out of softball or not since it starts this Friday.

On one hand, I think that these types of things are very important and athletic skills can do a lot for a child as they grow older, and with sports the way they are now, if she doesn't start early and work at it every year, she will have no shot of playing in high school. (assuming she even wants to).

On the other hand, I hate it that the practices are on Wednesday nights. She will have to miss church to go and I don't like the message that sends.

On the nose (out of hands), it's going to cost money to buy the equipment she needs. We have already paid the entry fee for the year as well. blackheads on nose for sure.

So what should we do.? I have been praying about it and I really hope the right answer shows itself soon. I want to do what is best for her.

Cellphones: Then and Now

It is amazing to me that I can remember buying a cell phone when it was a new and very unreliable technology, that I rarely expected to work, let alone relied upon. Now it amazes me if I'm in a place with no signal. I don't know much about cell signal boosters either so I have no idea if those would help or not.

There are just a couple of places that I regularly go that have no service and they are like communications waste lands to me now. I know going in that I'm going to have that problem and have to plan accordingly. Wow how things have changed.

End of the Month

It's about that time. The time of the month where we redo our budget for the next month and take stock of how we have done this month. The better we were at sticking to our budget the bigger our snowball will be to throw at the debts we are trying to pay off.

Already this month I can tell that gas is going to be a problem. Gas prices were much higher and we forgot to factor in that March was a 5 week month. So more than likely we are going to be about $100 over in that category. Pretty disappointing but not a lot we could have done about it.

What really has me concerned is the number of "monthly specials", as we call them, that we have coming up in April. Mulch for our yard, the hotel cost for my wife to go to "Women of Faith", a birthday gift for a close friend, and possibly softball equipment for our oldest daughter's upcoming season. We could easily lose $150 from our snowball for these items if not more.

Generally I expect to have about $100 of unplanned expenses every month but this month it's looking closer to $250!

Just looking over that list, I don't see anything we could cut out, save for maybe the softball if we decide to pull our daughter out of it. We are still debating that one.

The struggle is to stay positive and know that we are still making a lot of progress even if it doesn't happen as fast as we hope. We are still hoping to learn more when it comes to making extra money and I think we are still on track to have all the money we need for our basement in one more month. Then we can start attacking my car loan!

Power Struggle

I'm really concerned with the backlash on nuclear power that has stemmed from the disaster in Japan. Many people are clamoring for states to remove nuclear power plants out of concerns for safety.

My feeling is that this view is a bit short sighted. For one thing, this is only the third time that there has been a problem with a reactor, and it took the 4th largest quake in recorded history to cause it. Modern reactors are very safe and quakes like this aren't going to happen often.

Secondly, what is our other option? Coal? This is probably what scares me the most as I'm a firm believer that coal burning power plants are doing irreperable damage to the environment and the last thing I want is for them to up production to cover for nuclear plants that are going offline. Not to mention that coal is way deadlier than nuclear power. How many miners have died in recent years? Many more than have been killed by nuclear plants.

If there were a viable alternative available that could completely cover for the nuclear plants without further damage to the environment then I would be all for it, but there isn't. Wind, solar, and water power aren't enough to make up the difference at this point in time.

We need to all calm down before we make a bad situation worse with a knee jerk reaction to what is an unthinkable tragedy.

Cash Crate

I've found a way to make quick cash for those of you who are on a computer all day anyway. The site is called Cash Crate. You fill out free offers, watch videos, or do surveys and the money adds up. I made $30 last month and I'm on pace to make at least that this month as well.

So for those that are looking to pad their pockets with a little extra, feel free to take a look. Every little bit helps.

Choices

Sometimes we are faced with choices that regardless of our decision leaves us feeling bad. I was dealing with that yesterday because we have the opportunity to sign our girls up for gymnastics and it is going to cost more than I would like.

On one hand, we have not signed them up for a long time in order to save money and if we don't get them involved again soon, they will be a lot older than the other girls in their respective skill classes and I don't want them to be embarrassed by that.

On the other, we are trying really hard to spend as little as possible in order to pay off our remaining debts and get control of our finances. So doing this feels like a departure.

The only way I could justify it was to take it out of the budget equation. My wife and I decided last night that we would each sell a few of our own personal items, give up some spending money, and put our Cash Crate and blogging money towards it. Hopefully that will be enough to cover it and it won't have to show up in our budget at all.

Sure, we would still be better served to put that money towards our debts but since we wouldn't normally have done those things, it feels like a win.

They don't call it "personal" finances for nothing.

Projection Pain

I am a big time, get out your spreadsheet and forecast kind of planner. I like to have projections for all of our remaining debts and when I expect them to be paid off.

So when things don't go according to plan it can get frustrating for me. I really have to try hard not to let things like that get me down. For instance, our debt snowball turned out to be less than I had planned for this month and I immediately started to feel discouraged. Then I remembered that this is a marathon not a sprint and we are still on the right track. No amount of worrying is going to change that.

Along those lines, I'm on the lookout for anything I can do to make extra money right now so if you have suggestions please let me know. I have been doing Cash Crate this month (see the big green button to the right) and so far I've made the equivalent of one, maybe two hewlett packard toner cartridges and that's about it, but every little bit helps. I'll add that to my basement fund and we'll keep rolling!

Financial Peace

We had our first preview last night at the church. I'm really excited to help people shove some financial diet pills down the throats of their budgets. We are doing it again on Sunday night at 6:30pm if you missed it last night. The more the merrier.

I'm so pumped up about this stuff right now, that I can barely stand it. I can't wait to get the rest of our debt paid off and see others get with the program and change their lives.

I only wish that I had done things right from the beginning. I don't even want to think about where I might be right now if I had. Can't change the past though so the best I can do is make the future better than it could be if I did nothing.

I'm really looking forward to the day that we are done with debt payments for good.

Financial Peace University FREE PREVIEW TONIGHT!!

At our local church we are getting ready to start this truly great program. If you are interested in attending and live in the west central Ohio area please feel free to come to our free preview tonight. It's at the Urbana Nazarene Church and starts at 6:30pm

Hope to see you there!

Take Good Advice

There are some things like phenphedrine which I am willing to admit that I know nothing about. That isn't dangerous. What is dangerous is when I "think" I know what I'm doing and I really don't.

Since I have signed up to for Financial Peace University, I now have access to the forums on his website. (you will get this too if you sign up for our class or someone else's). This has allowed me to run my ideas for our debt snowball past others who are thinking along similar lines as me.

It has helped me to avoid mistakes and stay on the right path. It's also encouraging to see so many others doing what we're doing.

Broken Window Principle

It's a good idea to keep things in good standing even if it just seems minor.

There was a study done that showed that if a building has one broken window, it is much more likely to be vandalized than a building which immediately had the broken window replaced.

It's a group think principle. If "everyone else" acts like the building is worthless than you are more likely to follow suit.

The same is true for your budget. If you stay on budget, then when you have a chance to make an extra $20, it doesn't seem like a waste, it seems like an opportunity because it can go straight to your debt and not to your overspending.

Keep on budget, and use your envelopes. Stay accountable, and don't pass up opportunities to make extra money. Whether it's Cash Crate or a blog or reading hydroxycut reviews or whatever. Do whatever you can and watch that debt shrink.

Strength Gains

Over the last few years I have been very active in the gym with mixed results. I lost a lot of weight and am clearly in better shape but I haven't built a ton of muscle or broken through with a six pack stomach yet.

One thing I noticed was that I tended to try to either do it all with aerobic type workouts or all with weight training. Neither really got me to where I wanted to be. As of now I'm trying to do a better job of combining the two. I do both kinds of workouts on a weekly basis. I'm only about 3 months in so it's too early to say whether or not it is going to be a success but I have gained a lot of strength, and lost weight so the signs are good.

One thing I still need to work on is my diet. I have been limiting my calories but I'm still eating too much in the way of carbs and probably not enough protein. I haven't had a lot of success with protein supplements in the past but I may give them another try. We'll see.

I will keep you posted on how things go over time.

Basement Project Underway

This weekend I finally got started on our basement project. I spent a good deal of time on Saturday painting the Drylok onto the walls. It was a very dirty job, and I'm glad I wasn't wearing any rocawear when I did it.

It ended up costing about $60 more than I had expected for this stage but it's now done. Hopefully I'm not that far off on the other steps or things could get expensive.

I'm happy that things are underway, but I'm a little nervous about step 2. I need to get the actual framing done and I haven't done that kind of work before. I plan on having some experienced help so hopefully it will all go well.

Consumerism: Not Always

Sometimes I feel like it's easy to forget that debt isn't always the result of overactive consumerism. Sometimes it is, but not always. In our case it was a lot of "Murphy", and some bad decisions that resulted in our flowering trees of credit card debt.

Sure we weren't living smart financially like we are now, but there were things that were out of our control such as my wife being put on bed rest during pregnancy and not being able to work, and paying for our own wedding and honeymoon.

There were also a lot of things we bought that weren't really needed. So sure, things are going to happen, but the idea is to get yourself into the right place financially to keep those things from become mountains and keep them at the mole hill level as much as possible.

Therefore, if you have no debt and a large emergency fund, those things aren't going to be nearly as catastrophic as they might have been, but you have to go through the pain of cleaning up your finances to get there. That's what I'm shooting for.

Totally Enveloped

I was very against switching to an envelope system for our expenses. It just seemed like a giant hassle and I wasn't sure how we could pick up things we needed if one of us had the envelopes and the other didn't etc.

Boy was I dead wrong. Why didn't we start doing this years ago? Honestly, I haven't found a better way to curb the "here and there" spending that you barely noticed when you were using your debit card.

So now, instead of going over budget in food and other categories, we are sticking with it. When the cash is gone, you're done. Simple as that.

Now when I make a little extra money with cash crate or my blog, it goes straight to my snowball and not to make up for some silly thing I picked up that put us over budget. So if you haven't started using envelopes yet, then GET TO IT!!! Trust me, doing that combined with your budget will save you SO much money.

It really isn't the giant hassle that it seems like it could be.

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Cash Crate

Up To The Basement!

One of the things I am struggling with right now is our basement. Technically, we don't owe any money on our basement, so it's not really a debt, but it might as well be. Let me explain...

See we bought this house with the intention of adding two bedrooms in the basement. So until that is done, we have no guest room and our girls have to share. Is it an essential thing? Yes it is as far as we are concerned. We have a lot of family that has to travel to visit us and it is really important to us that our girls have their own space.

So what do we do? We have debts we want to pay off and in the middle of it, this looming basement project. So we simply treat it like a debt. We decided to figure up the amount of money we need to finish their rooms and are working to save that up before moving on to the next debt in our snowball. I have to fight the urge to feel guilty about spending money on something that could easily be classified as a "want" instead of a "need", but we put ourselves in this bed when we bought the house so now we have to sleep in it.

These are the kind of things that you will find yourself struggling with as you work your way out of debt. Sure you will make some mistakes along the way but you have to remember that 12 steps forward and 11 steps back is still one step in the right direction. I really wish I had handled my money better when I was younger and not had to go through all this but I can't change that. I can't go to an online printing site and print out money. I can only make good decisions from here on out and know that ultimately we will be far better off financially.

Our Situation

So where are we now in our quest for debt freedom? I'm going to lay out our story so that hopefully if you are in a similar boat, you will see that there is hope.

I first read Dave Ramsey's book "The Total Money Makeover", in 2006 and we have been trying to dig ourselves out of the mess we had made ever since. It has been very slow going, but then we had made a lot of mistakes. Where we are now pales in comparison to where we started. Back then I felt as if there was no way we would ever get out of the mess.

When we started, we had a $50 a month payment for a computer, a $475 car payment, another car that cost us $300 a month, two school loans totaling $300 a month, and close to $10,000 in credit card debt. Not to mention our house payment. After we paid all our bills we were VERY lucky if we had $300 to pay over on something. Not a lot of wiggle room when you want to get out of debt. I felt like we were staring up at Mount Everest. Having to buy something as simple as baby gifts could throw our whole budget into a tailspin.

Fast forward to today and things have changed a lot. We are down to just one car payment (which is $100 less than it was) , house (close to $200 less than 2006) and the two school loans. Everything else has been paid off. We have managed to free up enough money in our budget to really put a dent in the things we are working on paying off and my plan is that by the end of this year we will done with the final car payment. It would be sooner but we are taking some of our money to finish part of our basement. I'll talk more about that later.

It has been frustrating at times and not easy at all but God has blessed our endeavor to handle our money more wisely. I'm really please with the progress we have made but we aren't entirely out of the woods yet. I want to get to a point where we have money saved up for our next cars before the ones we have are done for. I really don't want to have another car loan ever again.

In future posts I'll lay out what my plan is for the current year and what we are doing to maximize our efforts as well as the struggles and frustrations we face. Whether you are as bad off or worse than we were at the start or even farther down the road to freedom already, I hope you can learn from our experience and start taking control of your money in a more positive way.

New Direction

I've decided to take this blog in a new direction. For a while now I have done little more than stream of consciousness in this space and I plan to much more focused with my upcoming posts.

I'm about to start a class at my church about managing money, but since I don't have all the answers, it is going to be taught by none other than Dave Ramsey. Before you get too excited he won't be teaching it in person but via DVD. Some of you may know that I am referring to his Financial Peace University class. His perspective on managing money is unmatched in both it's simplicity and its' effectiveness.

So I've decided to chronicle my own journey with money on this blog. I have been following his plan for a while now but it has been going slowly. For those "in the know" we are currently on baby step 2, although we have made great strides in the last couple of years as we continue to get smarter with our budgeting and more diligent about our debts.

At this point we have one car loan left and both of our school loans. The car loan and one of the school loans are relatively small, but the other is more significant. Thrown into the mix is our desire to add a couple of bedrooms to our basement. Unfortunately, this really can't wait as we have family that comes from out of state on a regular basis and they have nowhere to sleep. So we will be spending some money on that before we get back to paying off my car. That's enough background for now. I will get into more detail about our situation in future posts.

My plan is to talk about where we are and what we are going through as we work through this journey. There will be posts on other topics as well, but I hope you will get something out of this.

Feel free to comment and let me know what you think or if you have ideas of your own about how to become debt free!

Weight For Me

I'm a little frustrated at myself because I got a little fed up last year and took a break from watching what I ate and exercising enough and it caught up with me. I gained about 15 pounds, and I'm not terribly happy about that.

But I'm back in the gym and back on the band wagon so hopefully I'll be conquering the scales again soon. I'm going to endeavor to track what I do better than I have in the past so that I can clearly see that I am making progress. I think that will hope to motivate me over time.

Shopping Out of Season

My wife and I have found that shopping for stuff out of season is a really great idea. Buy a snow blower in the summer, or halloween costumes in the spring.

Most people are familiar with the idea of buying Christmas stuff right after the holidays because it will be on sale, but there are plenty of other things that you can do that with as well. Buying clothes out of season is also a really good idea. We have saved tons of money by buying our kids clothes a year ahead of time when they are out of season.

So don't be afraid to plan ahead and look for good deals on things you might need down the road.

Economic Issues

Not a lot of talk in the media lately about the economic situation. Seems from word of mouth, though, that things are still more down than up. More people have jobs than before but there is still a scarcity out there if you listen to people.

Speaking of which, if anyone knows of any administrative clerical jobs available I know someone that could really use it. One of a couple of people I know who have jobs but really need to move on to something else. Right now that just isn't very easy to do.

Knives

I've never been much of a gun guy but I really love to collect knives. I have had survival knives, pocket knives, and utility knives. I think it all started when I was a kid and used to whittle with the pocket knife my Dad gave me. Ever since I have thought them to be a really cool tool to have around, and a fun thing to collect.

My favorite one is probably a survival knife that I have that contains a sparker, and a signaling whistle. Pretty cool although the sparker doesn't have a magnesium block so I have my doubts about how easy it would be to actually get a fire going with it. Still pretty cool though.

Sleep Changes

I've had the opportunity over the holidays to sleep on a variety of different mattresses. A nice solid one, an air mattress, and then our deeply cratered old fly catcher. Clearly the first one was the best.

I really would like to buy a new mattress, but I have no idea when that might fit into our budget. I'm hoping that we can do it at some point in the near future but I have no real idea when that might be at this point. If only they didn't cost so much.

Yes I know I spend a lot of time there but it is really hard to pull the trigger on something that expensive.