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February in Review

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February was an interesting month for us.

We paid off the beau’s car! 
When we started this journey back in September, we owed $10,106.53 on the beau’s car. He bought it (a 2014 Prius) on February 18, 2017 which means we’ve paid it off four years ahead of schedule AND within a year of the purchase date! Boom pow!

We started tackling student loan 2 of 6!
From here on out, it’s allllllll student loans. We’re now tackling subsidized Stafford Loan 1-01. The beau originally took out this loan back in August 2007 and its original balance at 5.8% was $8,500. When we started this journey back in September, the balance was $10,218.42 and if we stayed on Navient’s track, our anticipated payoff date would be 12/25/2031. My personal payoff goal for this loan is June 2018… that’s a 13.5 year difference in case you didn’t do the math. After all we’ve dumped on it this month, the remaining balance is $8,232.72!

We took a holiday / honeymoon in Mexico!
This trip was booked back in July prior to the start of all of this and frankly I don’t care if it was booked two weeks prior, we were going! It was paid entirely by cash, thanks to the generosity of friends and family who gifted us cash as a wedding gift. Seriously, THANK YOU friends and family! xoxo While planning this trip our intentions weren’t to be frugal, we just don’t prefer extravagant accommodations. No resort for us, or even a hotel; we hit up Airbnb which allowed us to book an entire house in a pretty remote area of Mexico inaccessible by road. It was lovely to say the least.

Returning home from the trip, we had about a thousand leftover and my first initial thought was to dump this toward debt. After all, Dave Ramsey says no holidays during the first four baby steps. In one ear and out the other, we both agreed to continue to keep this cash in a separate savings account and we’ll use it as needed for little mini getaways i.e. long weekends camping in the Adirondacks, a trip to NYC to see the Mets play, a weekend in NH with friends, and possibly an autumn trip to Montreal. I think our friends and family would agree with this decision too.

While in Mexico, we celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary!
Time really has flown by! It’s so cliché to say, but I can’t believe it has already been one year. On our actual anniversary, we traveled from Yelapa back to Puerto Vallarta, ate lunch at a wonderful brewery we stumbled upon, enjoyed a delicious taco dinner, and then walked the boardwalk along the ocean and caught the sunset… and drank more beer at that delicious brewery! It was relaxing, it was fun and it was an anniversary I won’t forget! I love the idea of spending our anniversary each year on holiday buuuuuuuuut with annual reporting in the library community, that won’t be possible. We’ll see what we come up with next year.

And because we were in Mexico for nine days, we saved money on both our groceries and eating out/alcohol envelopes! $229 to be exact! Hopefully we’ll see a savings on our utilities bill too next month! Our meal plan wasn’t very adventurous, a rotation of regular meals we enjoy, switching after two weeks.

I earned residual income while in Mexico.
More on this to come in a future post regarding MLM companies and how it’s working for me and has been over a period of time (I’m not talking legging fads), I earned an income while on vacation doing nothing. Was it as much as it has been in previous months while working toward earning that income? No. But it was income that I appreciate and value and not only did I deposit a portion of it toward debt, but I also invested some back into my friends and family who support me on this journey of abundance. I don’t share Young Living just because there’s the potential to earn cash, I share because I’ve been a fan of their products for a number of years (10+ years) and I know many people can benefit from them as well. Earning a paycheck is a wonderful thank you bonus for making a referral (because let’s be honest, we share our opinions about everything)!

I paid a hefty parking fine.
Long story short I got a ticket back in October for talking on my phone while driving… even though I wasn’t holding my phone. That’s a five point violation on your record FYI. Luckily, it was reduced to just a parking violation with a $225 fine. FINE BY ME! I’d gladly pay that over receiving that many points. Don’t worry, I’m no longer speaking on loudspeaker, I got a Bluetooth device for Christmas from Santa.

We still had fun.
Despite being on a budget, we both had some fun outside of the house this month. Oftentimes I think people assume because you’re on a budget, you don’t get to engage in other activities: not true! You get to decide how much money you spend on fun! The two of us are very content being homebodies, which is great because you save money however I know not everyone is like us. We might spend more cash on groceries because we like cooking at home, while you may add more to your eating out envelope because that’s what you prefer. Budget = options.

This month we participated in Nine Pin’s 26er challenge, sampling ciders #3 and #4. On Valentine’s Day we joined a friend at Rare Form for a chocolate and beer sampling. I had a date night out with an old colleague and friend, enjoying a sushi dinner and cashing in a gift certificate at the Latham Paint and Sip location. The beau had a bro night out with his old biz partner in Albany, checking out an art show and sippin’ on beers. We even had dinner out twice this month, once after our trip because the fridge was empty. We did all of this on a reduced envelope this month, normally $195, set at $100.

Other random facts about February.
We cash flowed an inspection, oil change, tire rotation and registration for the beau’s car. I re-upped my subscription with AAA, as I do not pay for those services via our car insurance. AAA is an expense you use once, see how convenient it is and keep in fear of needing again. Ha! I’m determined to take advantage of their discounts this year! I also renewed hosting for this blog, but for only a month. Dun dun dun. Oh! A little home improvement: we bought a doorknob. And a hot water bottle because hello, it’s cold in Upstate NY and this is my $17 solution for not turning up the heat. And relieving cramps.

Numbers wise, we paid off 4.25% of debt this month, totaling 25.09%! One fourth of the way done! Our balance is now $66,730.17 having paid off $22,345.28 since September. This system works, no need to try and reinvent the wheel or my other favorite motto: keep it simple stupid. According to these stats, we should be debt free by September 2019; two years after starting this debt free journey. It’s hard not to get consumed by that date and what’s “expected” of us each month to reach that goal, but on the other hand, it is motivating. I want to earn more money. I want to spend less. I want to live a life saving and spending my income in a way that makes me happy… not giving it to Sallie Mae. I’m constantly fiddling with spreadsheets to figure out how to move that date forward… and it is creeping up. Slowly but surely.

How was February for you? Did you hit any financial milestones?

December’s Budget Review

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December was a wonderful month for us! Hard, especially saying no to a number of requests to go out for a drink, but we did it. We cash flowed Christmas with no sinking fund in place and even had extra cash at the end of the month to deposit toward debt. Step back and think about it: are you going to be paying off Christmas next month or next summer? Not worth it!

The beau and I had a conversation about Christmas and what it means to us: we both agree that spending money on gifts is unnecessary. We both have families that are fortunate enough to buy as things come up / are needed, and having this added pressure is silly. Looking back at last week, my favorite part of Christmas was being together. Wouldn’t it be nice if we all saved our cash and instead saved it for a trip or vacation together? At least on my side of the family, there are no kids = gifts aren’t needed under the tree for that added Christmas magic moment. Do I sound like Scrooge? I don’t feel like one: I just enjoy being home for the holiday, having a special dinner and playing a couple games.

With the added gift expenses, I wanted to save as much possible in other categories. Here are some things we did this month to reduce our fixed expenses:

  • We combined our cell phone plan: I opened my Cingular Wireless account back in 2003. Eventually AT&T bought Cingular and my plan never changed… until December 3rd! I feel silly for paying as much as I was each month (it was up to $79.29), I was admittedly nervous about getting rid of my grandfathered plan, but it was indeed outdated. The beau joined my plan, as I receive a discount via my employer, so we should save at least $25 per month (we haven’t received an invoice yet reflecting the change). With five days left in this billing cycle, we’ve used .8 of 6GB…. so we will most likely be changing our data plan to save even more.
  • We did our research and changed our insurance company for both auto and home owners insurance. It took us about three weeks to make the decision, but it was worth it: we are saving $24 each month for our auto insurance (or $288 each year). Our home owners insurance actually went up $1 per month, but that’s because we opted in to an additional coverage line that we didn’t have previously (regarding water backup damage). But it wasn’t just about the money: we just weren’t happy with the representative that we were working with and as it turns out, our bartender also slings insurance. Or did, he got us set up before taking time off for the holidays.
  • Ohhhhh Spectrum! I received our INCREASED December internet invoice and called to ask why it had changed (the promotion was over) without notification. They insisted it was on my November invoice, but when we both took a look, it wasn’t. So I negotiated our rate for one more month and saved $10. The cost will jump from $44 to $69.95 for 20Mbps (with Time Warner). But with Spectrum, you can get 100Mbps for $64.95… explain that one. AND they insist on saying I’m a TW customer despite logging on to the Spectrum website… but when I asked to become a Spectrum customer to receive the next promotion ($44 for 100Mbps), I was told I couldn’t because technically overall I’m a Spectrum customer. Talk about confusing. I’m just HOPING and SENDING POSITIVE VIBES that Massive Mesh will expand within the next couple of months so that I can officially DUMP Spectrum. I would cancel it altogether until their expansion buuuuuuuut the beau is taking a class that runs through February and he needs the Internet to do his hw. hw – remember when you’d have to write that little shortcut down in your agenda? Ha! I digress: either Massive Mesh needs to get their act together ASAP or we are going back to track phones to avoid that payment each month.

To save money in general, this month we:

  • Installed a new condensate pump ourselves. And by we I mean the beau and his dad. The furnace service person suggested a replacement costing $346 – we had a gift card to Amazon and bought one for $45 – BOOM! 
  • Registered for a 2018 race at the early bird rate. I learned my lesson with the TTT, the earlier you register for a race, the better. $10 saved 🙂
  • Switched around a dermatologist appointment. I’ll now have a deductible in 2018 for my health insurance ($50), so I changed doctors (I didn’t care for mine anyway) and expressed my intention to the new doctor to save money, and not only did she see me as a new patient, but she also performed a little procedure that same day. Normally that’s a second visit, so I saved $30 for a copay and essentially $20 extra dollars had I gone in January. And I no longer have a skin tag growing on my nose that looks like a booger. Win win.

I continued planning our meals but didn’t use the repeating method this month. I can tell you that it’s far easier shopping for repeat meals! It felt like chaos in the stores running around for a ton of different items, ha! We did use up all of our allocated cash for both food and eating out, with the help of some money won during the holidays on scratch offs for Chinese takeout. Not bad because I also bought some added ingredients for our Christmas dinner…

…which was a portobello wellington via Bosh! So so good! It was a tiny tad bit dry but definitely something I can tweak the next time I make it (just add more stock to the stuffing). A delicious gravy would be a great addition too! But paired with creamy potatoes, I didn’t mind one bit.

I also had two leftover squash in the house and tried three new recipes to use ’em up:

Creamy Pumpkin Marinara however I used an ugly squash via Field Goods and didn’t add the cinnamon or parmesan cheese. It was delicious! The beau isn’t a lover of squash but paired with pasta and made to taste like an alla vodka sauce, we both enjoyed this meal.

I had one other random squash lying around from Halloween and decided to make a spicy curry soup. It was bland despite smelling great and the texture was weird and now I can’t seem to find the recipe used, whoops! I must have deleted it from a Pinterest board it was that bad.

But I did attempt my first loaf of no-knead bread! I used this recipe and it came out okay – not bad but not anything to get excited about. It was what we ate with the soup, and just about devoured the whole loaf. I’m determined to master a good loaf of bread!

Now on to my most favorite part of the post – the total numbers!

In December, we reduced our total debt by $3,556.43 (or 4.65%)! *The smallest payoff month to date. Our remaining debt balance is $72,884.19! That means in just four months, we’ve paid off a total of $16,191.26 or reduced debt by 18.18%! That’s soooooo close to 20% or being 1/5 of the way done and sooooo close to being in the $60ks… which will happen in January! The remaining balance on the Prius (our current debt snowball account) is only $4,257.18.

Other random numbers I calculated this month that keep me motivated:

  • We paid $322 in interest this month, NOT including our mortgage.
  • Multiply that number by 12 and you’d get $3,864; that’s money that we’ll NEVER see again. That is WHY we are speeding up this process to get rid of our debt and pause our retirement contributions.
  • On average we paid $4,047.82 a month! If we stay on that track, we’re projected to pay off $48,573.78 next year! Hint: I hope to BLOW that number out of the water by increasing our monthly income!

I know the month isn’t over yet, but the final payment has been made and we’re both in agreement that our bank account is frozen for the next four days (no pun intended – it was -6 when we got up this morning!). Our NYE tickets were purchased earlier this month and money is set aside for an Uber – we’re ready for 2018!

November’s Budget Review

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Despite booking up most of the month and celebrating Thanksgiving, November draaaaaaaaagged on. And for one reason only: I could not wait to pay my bills! By the end of the first week of the month, all of our bills were paid and I was just sitting around, waiting to get paid so that I could dump money toward debt. I relate this feeling of dedication to when I was training for my first marathon: I had one goal, all in, focused on the finish line. AKA I’m obsessed and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.

This month was an outstanding month for us! We paid a total of $4,656.18 toward debt, $755.80 going toward interest! We paid off the last of my personal debt: a credit card that I maxed out a couple of years ago and have been slowly making minimum payments on. Golly, it feels SO DAMN GOOD to no longer have that looming over my head! Especially because it was the debt with the highest interest rate attached to it. We started on this journey back in September with 8 debt balances totaling $89,075.45 and we now have 6 balances totaling $76,440.62! That’s a total of $12,634.83 paid off in three months, down 14.18%. Yes, we are moving at gazelle speed.

We’re now working on debt #3 which is the beau’s Prius. He bought this car in February (of 2017) with a low interest rate of 2.24%. When starting this journey in September, its balance was $10,106.53. November’s ending balance is $7,842.11. My personal goal for this debt is to have it paid in full in February 2018, the one year anniversary of driving it off the lot. I KNOW we can do it!

We also cash flowed a number of items this month (cash flowed = paid cash):

  • 8 snow tires
  • gutters for the back of our house and a cleaning for the ones in the front
  • a baby shower gift
  • a haircut for me
  • three Christmas gifts
  • a birthday gift
  • the Turkey Trot 10k registration
  • a reimbursement to a friend
  • a shirt and dress for myself from the Boden sample sale
  • a winter hiking puffer jacket for myself – thank you Black Friday sales! (the only item I bought Friday)
  • my ADK 46er dues
  • and a domain renewal for the beau

Almost half of those items were gifts, which means in 2018 we need to make sure to start saving for those expenses. To do this, it’s as easy as adding a line to our budget and establishing an envelope to stash cash in each month, similar to our auto insurance savings envelope.

This month we again followed the repeat meals each week:

Monday: Spanish rice
Tuesday: taco pasta
Wednesday: tempeh jalapeno wraps with broccoli
Thursday: veggie pot roast over noodles
Friday: “fish” tacos
Saturday: pizza!

Despite all of my planning, the meals on Tuesdays and Thursdays didn’t work for the beau and his evening class because he didn’t want to bring a meal into the classroom; he’d prefer a sandwich. I’m personally not down with eating a sandwich twice a week for the next three months for dinner, but I let it slide for the first month while he settled into this new schedule. He made a loaf of seitan, our budget friendly alternative to the fake deli slices that are out there. I still made the taco pasta for myself each Tuesday and enjoyed the leftovers for breakfast the following day 🙂 I ditched the veggie pot roast after the first week because although it was super delicious, it was just too much for me to eat day after day. I either made myself a salad on Thursday nights or winged it with other leftovers. We spent every penny of our $400 grocery budget in November. 

We budgeted $195 for any eating out and alcohol purchases for the month and surprise surprise we used it all up. November 4th was our 6-year anniversary of our first date. We returned to Bacchus and enjoyed a drink and an appetizer and looked back on that fun first date. Instead of ordering their wood-fired pizza, we went home and made our own while enjoying some crowlers from Rare Form. The beau has mad pizza skills! We also ordered a box of wine via the Wine Insiders for $65.99. We’re suckers for a good deal and an opportunity to fill up the wine rack in the basement, even if it’s temporarily. Ha! Other than that night out at the beginning of the month, we didn’t eat out again, take out included. This is becoming easier for me because I have a plan and everything needed to cook such planned meals, but I admittedly did want to order takeout at least once. 

For my monthly wellness box via Young Living I stocked up on items that would continue to support our immune systems this yucky time of the year. I spent $301.44 (including shipping) of our $300 budget on 2 bottles of SuperB, 8 bottles of Ningxia Red, 1 bottle of Lime Vitality and a 3-pack of Thieves dental floss. I earned $41.31 back for my next order and received a free bottle of Christmas Spirit essential oil blend… ’tis the season! I also received two free bottles of Red Shot – which I’ve never tried and am looking forward to! The Ningxia Red was 15% off on Cyber Monday, and I snagged 6 of those bottles up then; that just means I won’t have to order Ningxia for the next three months = saving money in this category!

December is going to be another big-spend month for us. I have to wrap up my holiday shopping and the beau still needs to do all of his. This year my gifting will be less, not that I was ever really into gifting, but because I’d rather focus on time spent with family rather than finding something I hope they’ll get use out of. Important to note: we are NOT taking money out of our emergency fund to cover holiday gifts. Nor did we take any out in November to cover the expenses mentioned above. Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, dues etc. are NOT emergencies. They didn’t show up out of nowhere. A friend via FB shared a simple spreadsheet she uses for gifts to track what she buys, how much it costs, who it’s being gifted to etc.. I think that’s a wonderful idea! Do you budget for how much you’re going to spend on gifts? How do you keep track if using a debit card?

October in Review

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Woah. October was a doozy. And I know technically the month isn’t over but our bank account is officially “frozen” until November first. We got hit with a number of expenses this month that don’t typically occur / we hadn’t saved up for AND my income was slightly lower with the transition into my new job. We cash flowed all but one item, but more on that one item to come.

Items we paid cash for this month that we typically don’t budget for:

  • a new skirt and two new shirts appropriate for my new office job
  • the beau’s Stitch Fix delivery
  • a solo trip to the movies
  • RAM for my laptop
  • tuition for the beau’s upcoming class
  • a hair cut
  • a new (used) phone for the beau
  • a visit from the plumber
  • a hotel night in Long Island for a road race
  • pumpkins and Halloween candy for the neighborhood kids

Also, spending $55 within the first week of the month out of food budget on a garlic braid might not have been the smartest move on my end but oh, was it worth it.

Food wise, we’re learning to just make it work. Completely cutting out our alcohol envelope was a littttttle rough, but again, we made it work. And did over spend a tiny bit. I think we only had take-out once (Chinese) and didn’t eat out at an actual restaurant at all. That last sentence is a complete 360 change from our lifestyle six months ago. Do I miss it? Yes. Is it personally worth giving up for a relatively short amount of time to pay off debt? Yes.

I mentioned in a previous post that our meal plan / schedule changed this month and I think it was for the better! Shopping was much easier and we didn’t get sick of the meals, which is a plus! Above is a photo of our second trip to the market (Trader Joe’s), as we only shop twice a month.

Mondays: Stir fry
Tuesdays: Lentil walnut tacos
Wednesdays: Sissy’s sandwiches
Thursdays: Indian over rice
Fridays: Spicy pasta in the crockpot
Saturdays: pizza!

Sundays we planned ahead but switched it up each week. November I plan to do the same thing however I’ve got to plan and prepare at least two crockpot meals because the beau will be starting his evening class. I’d prefer to send him off / have him pack a dinner that wasn’t another smoothie (he has one for breakfast every day). The tricky thing is, it can’t be soup; he doesn’t prefer a soup as his entire dinner meal. I took out a book from the library to help me – it helps that books get delivered right to my desk!

The only item we didn’t cash flow this month was a new winter coat. A few months back we transferred my old cc debt to a new and much lower rated card with our local bank. We of course got a cc card with it and it sat in an envelope for months locked up. This is the debt we are currently working to snowball and are fully prepared (we WILL!) to pay off this debt in November. With funds getting low this month, I figured, eh, why not? We won’t accrue any interest… well, if you’re a friend of mine on FB, you probably saw my post that the representative who sold me my coat, also stole my cc information! I’m positive it was her as this card has never been used previous to that transaction. Needless to say, I took that as a sign and learned my lesson: ABSOLUTELY NO CC USE, EVER! If you can’t pay cash, you can’t afford it.

The only other budget action I took this month was offering to take on the occasional babysitting gig for a local family. I responded to a post on a private FB group thinking, why not? I do love being around kids and I could use the extra cash. For now its as needed, it may turn into a weekly date night thing once they settle into their new routines. AND she offered to barter my services for massages! Hell yes! If you’re in Troy and would like me to babysit occasionally in the evenings, just reach out!

With all of this spending, we still deposited $1,388.73 toward debt! Our new balance is $80,076.40 – so close to being in the 70’s! And in case you’re keeping track, we’re down 10.10% since September when we started this journey and I put my payoff goal out into the Universe…. which is exactly when I told myself I was sick of my current job situation and landed me a far better job; both mentally and financially. Believe in the power of positive thinking my friends!

A change in October

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Fourth load of laundry in the wash.

Full pot of stock simmered and jarred.

Green bean casserole in the crock pot for tonight’s dinner.

A batch of potpie filling cooling, waiting to be frozen for future dinner use.

And a batch of TJ’s pumpkin muffins with a best buy date from March 2017 ready to go into the oven.

This Monday is shaping up to quite productive. Hell yeah! I initially wanted to go for a hike because the leaves are starting to turn up north, but this weather (90 degrees) isn’t appealing. So, I’m making the most of my last personal day with my current employer and getting stuff done around the house. If you didn’t see my post last week on Facebook, I’ve accepted a new position with a local non-profit. More to come as I transition but I am pretty damn excited! And nervous to be honest. Seven more working days until this much welcomed change.

With that change, will come a shift in our budget and debt free goals. My salary will increase and I’ll no longer be responsible for paying for my health care insurance plan. Can I get a whoop whoop?! Seriously, beyond thankful for this opportunity. But with these changes, we aren’t going to increase our monthly budget. Instead, we are going to put all extra income toward our debt snowball. AND we are going to kick it up a notch budget wise and try to spend even less than we did during the month of September.

Why? Because I have some big expenses this month that I don’t normally have and would still like to contribute the maximum. Some of these expenses include a hotel room for an upcoming half marathon and a mini (probably 5 pieces) wardrobe update for the new job. I can’t get away with jeans and t-shirts like I have been the last four years or so. I do hope the Loft has some good sales!

What may you ask are we going to do? For starters, in October we are eliminating our alcohol envelope completely. With the changes we’ve made over the last couple of months, we’ve cut back significantly on the number of meals that we eat outside of our home. One maybe two meals total. The beau has also cut back on his daily DD large unsweetened iced tea and is now brewing tea at home (c’mon cooler weather, help us out here!). We’ve consistently had money leftover in the dining out envelope and have been spending that on alcohol, which is totally unnecessary. So, we’re cutting back and using one envelope for the two categories (without changing the amount). Maybe this will change around the holidays, maybe it won’t.

I’m also going to implement a new meal plan system. The beau already leaves it up to me to plan our dinners and I do this every two weeks. I do ask for his input and he does print off recipes for us to try and makes requests for repeat meals that he’s enjoyed / hasn’t had in a while. I love this task: making a list for the market, sticking to the plan and paying cash. No better feeling. P.s… you tend to spend less if you bring say only $100 to the market and use a calculator. No surprises at the checkout AND no poor snack decisions.

When meal planning I try to stick to similar themes each week: a taco Tuesday, typically at least one pasta dish, one rice dish and Fridays I try to incorporate the crock pot because it’s easy to come home and have a meal ready. For the month of October however, I’m going to stick with the same meal with each day of the week, excluding Saturdays and Sundays. So for example, every XXX of the month, we will eat:

Monday: veggie stir fry
Tuesday: tacos!
Wednesday: pasta and red “meat” sauce
Thursday: BLTs
Friday: chili

These aren’t set in stone, just an example. My thought behind this system is that I’ll be saving a lot of time planning and making lists. If I make one list for the first two weeks, I can reuse that list half-way thru the month. I’ll also be saving money by purchasing items in bulk. I’m starting to plan the five day meals around what I can buy at the co-op. Did I mention that the co-op is within walking distance from my new job? It is! Hello grocery shopping on your lunch break and saving gas money!

I was shocked when the beau agreed to this simple meal plan and I can’t wait to give it a-go. We’ll probably be sick of the five meals we choose but hey, we’ll just switch it up in November. Gotta live like no one else now in order to live like no one else later.

Are you a meal planner? How do you choose what meals you’ll be cooking? Is it on a weekly rotation? I prefer to eat with the season, so I’m going to keep that into consideration as I plan. More to come on this subject when I recap the month!