Wacky Wednesday - Baby Step #3

What is that I hear? Gasps of amazement that I have posted a new blog two days in a row?! Okay, so maybe not, but I am kind of proud of myself :) And I still love Full House, is anyone with me on that? Anyways.

Today has not been really that wacky, but I have a hard time thinking of 'W' words to go on Wednesday. (I know I'm a nerd) I took my kids to school, came home and made a grocery list and got all of my coupons in order and then went grocery shopping. It was the most peaceful, easy-going shopping trip I have taken in the last 5 years. Why? Because I was all by myself. Don't get me wrong, I love my daughters to pieces, but grocery shopping is much easier when you're flying solo. Haleigh started Pre-K yesterday. This makes me sad that my little darling is growing up so quickly, but I know that she will enjoy herself there. As most (or some) of you may know, Gracie had some developmental issues like not bearing weight on her legs, slow gross motor development, and very low weight gain earlier in her life. She is now doing fantastic thanks to lots of prayers, ECI, and pediasure. Because of these issues and because she is on an IFSP she qualifies for the Early Head Start program which is an awesome developmental program for ages birth-3 yrs old. I am not one who would normally take my child somewhere if it wasn't absolutely necessary (like for work) but EHS is my former employer and I trust and know them. I also know that she will greatly benefit from this program in all developmental areas. Anyways, enough about my kiddos and how mommy is kind of going crazy without her sidekicks.

Baby Step #3 : The Fully-Funded Emergency Fund (FFEF)

So, what is the fully-funded emergency fund? Remember back in BS#1 when we saved $1000 as an emergency fund and that was to be used for emergencies only during the period when you were doing BS#2? Okay, well now that the debt snowball is complete and you are debt free minus your mortgage, you need to fund your FFEF. This is 3-6 months of living expenses. This figure will totally vary depending on alot of things, so I can't tell you how much it will be. If you or your husband works a job that has excellent job security, 3 months of living expenses would probably be sufficient. If however, your husband works a job that does not have much job security, then 6 months is probably a much better option for you.

Once we get to the FFEF, we will be saving 6 months because my husbands job is one of those that if their company loses their contracts, his job is gone unless we want to relocate. And as a life-long Abilenian, I don't know if I could scrape myself away from this wonderfully awesome place. (did you sense a little bit of sarcasm there?) Seriously though, we have a love-hate relationship with Abilene and are unsure if we ever want to relocate. We all know that job loss, injury, or many other things are very real situations that happen everyday so it is always safe to be prepared for times like those.

Even though this doesn't completely apply to BS#3, one of my readers wanted to see an example of my budget. These are the forms that I personally use. I tend to use the irregular income budget the most, since our income varies. The quickie budget and the monthly cash flow planning form are better for those who are on a salary. I do use the quickie budget too, though.

How do you budget?

Touched Tuesday - I win an award! (and Baby Step #2)

Since not one, but TWO of my friends who read my blog have mentioned to me in the past two days that I need to update my blog, I feel that I have earned an award as a ...

Okay, not really. World's Worst Blogger would be more like it. It seems like I say this alot, but my life has been absolutely crazy and chaotic in the past two weeks since I last blogged. (yikes!) But I think these two weeks top them all in the craziness department because they include things like : taking an unplanned, spur of the moment trip to Arlington; my husband starting his new job which includes him being in training for 4 weeks(hence the Arlington trip-thus making me somewhat of a single mom during the week); my darling daughter starting Pre-K after being home with me for the past 2 1/2 yrs.; and preparing for the fall semester at Mother's Day Out (where I work). Sheesh, talk about a headache just thinking about those things. Anyways.

I guess this kind of goes without saying, but we have not been as diligent at debt-paying in these last few weeks because our income has been kind of screwy with the whole hubby quitting his job and then starting a new one thing that we have going on here. I am SO not looking forward to having to redo my budget since his new company's pay periods are different than his old company. I haven't had to deal with an every-other-week payday budget in 2 1/2 yrs. Okay, so basically since I have been a stay-at-home mom my husband's jobs have always paid weekly. Not anymore. Ugh. Another headache just thinking about it. Anyways, again.

Baby Step #2 : The Debt Snowball

The debt snowball can seem kind of confusing, a bit intimidating, and sort of strange if you're unfamiliar with it. Once you become familiar with it, however, it can be what I consider a major money saver. Let me explain.

First, list all of your debts from smallest to largest by their BALANCE.

Example: Credit Card #1 $200, Medical Bill #1 $300, CC #2 $450, Medical Bill #2 $600, Student Loan $7,500, Vehicle Loan $19,500

Do not include your mortgage. That comes in a much later baby step. Once you have listed all of your debts in order by their balance, write their minimum payment next to each of them. This is the payment that you are required to pay every month regardless. By this point, you should already have a budget in place and know how much extra money you have per month to pay on debt only. When I say debt only, I do not mean minimum payments. I mean everything beyond that. This amount is what is referred to as the debt snowball.

Whatever amount you have that is left over, apply it to your smallest debt. So for example, say your smallest debt's minimum payment is $50 and you have $200 per month extra to pay on your debt snowball. You would pay $250 which is your min. payment + your debt snowball. Once you pay off your smallest debt, you would then apply that $250 that you were paying to your next smallest debt by paying the minimum payment on that + $250. Kind of confusing, I know, but it does have a snowball effect because you start small and snowball your money until your debts are gone. This post actually explains it much better, so you may check it out! Once you have paid off all of your debts, you will start on Baby Step #3! We are not there yet, but we are trying our best to work the debt snowball. As I said earlier, this month has been a financial strain for us, but we know that God is good and will provide for His children.

Um, maybe I shouldn't skip multiple weeks of blogging because instead of writing a blog, I have now written a novel. Thanks for the motivation, my readers! Until next time...

Tested Tuesday- Baby Step #1

Whew! Is it Friday yet? Wow, it's only Tuesday and this has already been a long week. God is good though, so we will be okay. Let's just say this, my husband quit his job today. Okay, I'll say this too - he already had another one lined up before he actually quit. His company was trying to garnish his wages over something relatively ridiculous, so he quit. I was completely supportive and did not blame him at all. Thank the good Lord for his ex-employer's competitor, who is now his employer! Did that make any sense? Anyways, he's still going to be working in the same industry, just for a different company. A better company, that will be paying him more! WooHoo!!

Remember when I promised you, my dear readers, that I would go through Dave Ramsey's baby steps one by one and explain them? And do you also remember that I promised that I would do that like, umm, 2 weeks ago? Okay, so life has happened since then and I am here now to say that this is the beginning of my mini-Dave series.

Baby Step #1: Save a $1000 Emergency Fund.

And do it quick. This might seem like a big task, especially for those who live paycheck to paycheck with nothing left over. It really doesn't have to be, though. There are many ways that you can do this in about a month. My first personal suggestion would be to go through all of my previous blog posts and try to utilize some of my favorite money saving tips. My next suggestion ( I guess this should have been my first) is to cut out all of the extras - as in things you literally can not survive without, and see how much money you could save. Next, have a garage sale. Since embarking on this journey we have still not had a garage sale, but let me just tell you that it is in our future. I don't really like them, but we have a ton of stuff that we do NOT need and is just collecting dust and taking up space. Lastly, get a part-time or 2nd job. I know that seems drastic, but if you are in debt then there's a reason. If your monthly outgoing expenses exceed your monthly income, then there's a problem and the only solution to that problem is to increase your income.

This emergency fund ties into the entire Dave Ramsey plan which I will explain in more detial in coming blogs. Once you save it, it is to be used for true emergencies ONLY. And no, a pedicure is not an emergency, sorry!! And if you have not read The Total Money Makeover by now, you are definetely missing out! Buy it, check it, whatever you have to do to get your hands on it, DO it!!

Thankfully, we are on baby step #2 - which I will discuss tomorrow. Or whenever I get around to it!

Frugal Friday - Saturday Edition

So today is actually Saturday, but I had to share my Frugal Friday happenings with you guys. Yesterday was quite a day for us, well, actually this whole entire week has been quite a week! Whew! I am so glad it's almost over! Between my hubby getting in a wreck in his company vehicle(he's okay, praise the Lord), VBS, and trying to maintain a household - it has been interesting to say the least. Besides all of those things, this is what my backyard looked like yesterday :



This is not actually my backyard, though I did have every intention of taking a pic of all of our lovely laundry hanging out to dry yesterday morning/afternoon. I am bad about taking pictures of things to post on my blog because I forget and then once I remember I am really not interested in re-doing whatever I needed to in order to just take a picture. Thank goodness for Google!


Anyways, you might be wondering why I had to hang my laundry out on a makeshift clothesline. (I didn't even have any clothespins for crying out loud) The reason is because the knob on my dryer twisted right off into my hands. This is the second time this has happened with this dryer, but luckily it should be a very inexpensive fix by just replacing the lovely little knob. That is, if my uncle can get the right one since we have a stackable washer/dryer that is kind of old-ish. Instead of being irrational and going to purchase a new washer and dryer that I want ever-so-badly, I wondered into the garage and found a piece of rope. I then proceeded to somehow string it across our back patio in the 100+ degree weather and hang the already washed laundry on it.


It wasn't so bad, in all honesty and I guess I can see myself becoming a clothesline girl if I had to. The only thing I don't like is that my clothes and especially jeans have this really stiff icky feeling. I suppose I could get used to it, or I could just invest in some fabric softener. We'll see.


In conclusion, my frugal tip of the week is to try to find an alternative solution when something in your house breaks that you use on a regular basis. Like your dryer. I give major props to those of you that do this on a regular basis, like my darling sister-in-law Rach. For now, I will follow in your footsteps - but I'm not promising that I will continue once my knob is replaced! We'll see!!

Funny Friday

This week has been C-R-A-Z-Y ! We had VBS in the evenings at our church this week, so needless to say lots of things were put on hold. Including nutritious meals, a clean house, and my blog! Sorry! I'm glad I didn't make any promises on discussing the baby steps from Dave Ramsey's program, because I haven't blogged in over a week! Trust me though, it will be a topic, in the very near future.

The funniest thing happened this morning while I was making coffee. My darling husband was up and getting ready for his day when he went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. That's not funny, I know, but it gets better. SO much better. As I'm pouring hot water into our coffee pot, I hear this 'Eck' 'Yuck' 'Blech' kind of sound followed be very loud spitting. I rush to the bathroom to see what was wrong, and found my hubby holding a tube of diaper rash cream! (I'm laughing as I'm typing this) Apparently, one of our daughters, or maybe myself, placed a tube of diaper cream on the bathroom counter. My husband mistakenly squeezed a large amount of it onto his toothbrush and then proceeded to begin to brush his teeth with it. I was uncontrollably laughing as I was trying to rinse his relatively new toothbrush when he declared that he wanted a new one! Thank goodness for my CVS stash, because he was able to have a nice, fresh toothbrush to put actual toothpaste on that was free of diaper cream! Talk about hilarious! Poor hubby, though :0)

Well, that's all for now. I hope you got a good laugh out of my funny friday story. I will post a frugal friday blog later on in the day that relates to another not-so-funny thing that happened to me today. It seems that this friday is turning out to be a doozy for the Buse's!!