We went to the farmer’s market again this week and I scored a great deal on bananas and an ok deal on strawberries. I got 3 HUGE bunches of bananas for $3.75 and a quart of strawberries for $2. I spent $0.75 on a red bell pepper and we got out of there for $6.50! We had some left over money from being under budget last month, so we didn’t dip into the week’s grocery budget. Kind of cheating, but I ended up under budget at the store so not so bad!
I went to Publix and picked up milk, coffee (on sale BOGO and I had coupons, so I got 2 lbs of French Vanilla coffee for $3!), flour, and shaving gel for Andy all for about $15.
So in total I went over budget about $1.50 but I didn’t dip into next week’s money (I’m determined not to do that!).
I’ve been so happy there haven’t been many good grocery deals, it’s really hard for me to pass those up!
Last weekend, I posted how we decided to go to a cash system on our monthly budget. The ease with which we transitioned really inspired me to take it a step further. Since we were no longer overspending on groceries and eating out, I thought it was time to step it up a notch.
When we read Dave Ramsey’s book last year, we decided to start on our debt snowball. It didn’t work out so well. Because we hadn’t yet gone to the envelope system, we were still overspending and not putting any extra money on credit cards. I had gotten a handle on seeing where our money was going, but was still failing at spending less, which meant still not paying down debt. And we were still using our credit cards. Big no-no.
If you know me, you know that I’m not a big New Year’s Resolution person. I stopped making them because I never stick with them. This year, the timing of our decisions about our financial future coincided with the New Year but I decided that these are for-life resolutions. We really needed to make major changes, especially with me quitting my job to stay home with the girls.
This brings us to the next big change we made. Stop using credit cards. No matter what. This is a big deal for us because we like to travel, so we always put our plane tickets on a card. Or if we thought something might not fit into the budget for that month, we’d just put it on a card.
No more safety net. We have our emergency fund to fall back on, and we are trusting that God will provide. We have been tested on this, but we’re sticking to it.
So we’ve converted to the envelope system and made a commitment to stop using credit cards completely. Huge steps for us. Next week I’ll explain the next step in our financial makeover, the biggest one yet!
A couple days ago I announced we are adhering to Dave Ramsey’s plan to pay off our credit cards in 2010. Today I’ll start to explain what led to this decision and what has happened since. So we start with…CASH!
One of the blogs I frequent posted an update to her quest to purchase a house with 100% down. I was really inspired by their success and set out to find out more about how they did it and what I could learn from them. Turns out it’s not as daunting and complicated as it sounds!
As I dug deeper into the money saving blogs I frequent, I noticed one theme popping up again and again – paying cash instead of using debit or credit cards. Common sense, right? Not so much for us. I was firmly set in the idea that it would be easier for me to budget if we used our debit card for everything, so I could just log on to the bank site and enter everything into our budget. Saves time and clutter because we don’t have to save receipts! Yeah, not so much. We still spent much more than we should every week. I took comfort in the fact that I was couponing and saving money that way, but we still spent. And spent, and spent.
So we did the unthinkable. The truly crazy. We decided to go to an all cash system. Crazy, I tell you! I mean, what happens if it’s the middle of the month and we run out of cash? What if the gas envelope gets low and we have a week left in the month? What if there are too many good grocery store deals and not enough cash? The what ifs just kept adding up. Then it clicked – we simply put our faith in God and stop spending. Simple, yet spending is something we really seem to struggle with.
I really felt led by God that this is the right direction for us to be going in. And the ease with which we transitioned confirmed this for me. Once we made the decision to go to the envelope system, I felt such a burden lifted off of me. I was even able to make pretty envelopes for a very small price so I didn’t get discouraged looking at those boring white envelopes. Handling the family’s finances is a great responsibility – one I am proud to have. And I’m happy to say that I’ve managed to make it much less stressful!
This brings us through the first step towards our financial freedom. It seems like a small step, but it’s been huge for us. Next time, we’ll explore how this step led me to dream big about the rest of our financial life!
Some time last summer, Andy and I bought Dave Ramsey’s book, Total Money Makeover. It really inspired us to get budgeting, and over the past 6 or 7 months I have really figured out what works for us when it comes to budgeting. One thing that doesn’t work – nixing cash. I’m not sure what I was thinking, going against all common sense that says it’s so much easier to spend too much money when you’re using a card. So we kept on spending too much, and for the time being I felt it was okay because at least I was keeping track of what we were spending! That leads us into 2010…
Over the next few days I’ll be telling the story of how we came to the decision to put our full faith in God and do the unthinkable – PAY OFF ALL OUR CREDIT CARDS IN 2010!
