Mo’ Money Monday

April 30th, 2012 Lindsay No Comments »

One huge part of getting out of debt is finding more money to pay towards your debt! Mondays around here are going to be devoted to different ways we can add money to our monthly budget. Send over any suggestions or creative ideas you have!

Today’s Mo’ Money idea is the Garage Sale!

First, let me start with this caveat – I hate garage sales. I haven’t had one in forever – the few we have had recently have all been managed by my husband. I don’t have the patience for it, and we never earn back enough money to make it worth all the time and hassle.

However, some people swear by them and do very well. So here is what I think to be a very good compromise between the two positions:

It holds the same basic ideas as the traditional garage sale – getting rid of your stuff and making money at the same time – while eliminating all of the hassle. A few ways to work it:

 

eBay, Craigslist, Amazon, or a local classified site

List your items individually on any of these sites. My personal favorites are eBay and our local classified site, southeasttexas.com. We can get immediate results from each of these two.

Pros:
- Sell items as you come across them
- Local sites means no shipping; if you sell via eBay, etc., make sure to charge enough to cover shipping
- No early-Saturday-morning misery

Cons:
- Relisting items if they don’t sell can be a pain
- eBay, Amazon, etc. all charge small fees for their services
- If you miscalculate shipping, you can lose profits

Rating 7/10 – Best used for larger money-makers like electronics (video games, used iPhones, etc.)

A Virtual Garage Sale Website

Instead of using someone else’s site, you could always just create your own site!

Pros:
- Full control over selling your stuff
- No limits or fees from other sites

Cons:
- Time-sucker!
- Gotta know what you’re doing…

Rating 3/10 – Unless you already know html and have your own site, this could really be a pain. BUT if you’ve already got the site up, maybe you could do pretty well with it.

 

Facebook

Facebook is an awesome way to sell your stuff. A couple of ideas:

  • Just tell your friends you’re selling an item! See who responds.
  • Set up a photo album and name it “Virtual Garage Sale.” Post pictures, descriptions, and prices. Share some of the photos on your timeline to highlight them.
  • Join a local group whose purpose is to sell things in your area. I’ve sold buckets of baby clothes and other baby equipment this way.
  • Facebook MarketPlace – this is a Facebook app run by Oodle where you can list your items for sale. I haven’t tried it out myself, so I’m not sure how it works. Let me know if you’ve tried it – I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Rating 8/10 – Easiest way to sell your stuff that’s going to move quickly. I’ve had good success with some of these methods.

So those are some thoughts on selling your stuff via the internet. It’s my favorite way to sell my junk. What do you think?

3 Reasons Being Lazy Sucks

April 26th, 2012 Lindsay 1 Comment »

In the interest of transparency and honesty (which is one of the main tenets of this blog), I struggled with writing this post.  I wanted to give you a lot of reasons that being lazy is helpful to your debt-reduction plan (or any other financial plan you happen to be working on).  I wanted to make you feel better about being lazy and ease any guilt you might be feeling about it.  (Ok, to be PERFECTLY honest, I wanted those things for myself. Telling them to you was just a bonus.)  Unfortunately, here’s what I came up with, along with some examples:

 

1. Being Lazy Costs Money

I’ve been reviewing our finances via an awesome app called Budgetable (still in beta).  I plan on posting a full review later, but not until I’m over my resentment. This ridiculously objective app has showed me exactly where our money has gone over the last month. And that’s just plain depressing.

Over the last two months, since I wrote this post, we have been taking a breather from our intense debt reduction program.  Is that a big deal? Heck, no.  We’ve definitely needed it.

Does that mean we should have done THIS, though?

 

Since the 23rd of March, we’ve spent at least $321.41 eating out.  (It’s possible I miscategorized a few transactions, so it might be more.)  Let’s ask a few questions:

Did we have a budget for April? For sure

Did we follow the budget? Heck no.

Was eating out included in the budget? Yep, $100.

So what happened? Well, obviously we didn’t follow our budget.

 

I said this to myself last month: “It’s too hard to follow the budget.”   But then I find out:

 

2. Being Lazy Takes Time

Back when I was really doing a good job staying on top of our finances (you know, a whole 2 months ago), someone asked me how I had time to make a budget. My response was brilliant, if I do say so:

“I don’t have time not to make a budget.”

Too bad I didn’t follow it.

If you’re really lazy, here’s some advice for you – make (and stick to) your budget.  It will save you from time wasters like these:

  • Checking your bank balance every day to make sure you have money in the bank
  • Transferring money from one account to another to cover something you spent
  • Being on the phone with bill collectors, trying to negotiate alternate due dates
  • Fighting with your spouse
  • Worrying over whether or not you can pay all of your bills

 

All of these things take tremendous time, effort, and worst of all, energy.  Why not cut all of that out of your life and just stick to your darn budget?

 

#3. Being Lazy Depletes Opportunity

The more lazy you are, the more opportunities you will miss.  Remember my very favorite thing I had to give up when we started this get-out-of-debt journey?  I didn’t get the opportunity to go see Chris Botti in concert because I had been too lazy to take control of my finances.  Instead, I sold the tickets and someone else – someone who was more financial responsible than I – got to have that experience.  This isn’t just about money. This is about what you’re doing with your life.  Do you want to wait and “let whatever happens happen”? Does that sound easier? It might be easier, for a while. It won’t be pleasant, though, when the bills come due.

 

Am I saying that, if you make a plan, you’ll finally be able to do everything you want to do? Well, maybe….eventually.  Here’s your choice:

You can have it easy now, and tremendously hard later.

or

You can have it kinda hard now, and really easy later.

 

You get to pick.

 

I’m leaving you with one final thought:

There’s no such thing as procrastination. Only selfishness.  People do what they want to do. Period.

Live First, Blog Later

April 11th, 2012 Lindsay 6 Comments »

So I didn’t know it, but I’ve been following this advice for the last few weeks:

Live your life first. Write your blog later.

I wasn’t intentionally following this advice, mind you. No, it was just out of sheer desperation.  I’ve been sick for what seems like a month, baseball season is upon us (as is recital season), and a myriad of other things have kept me from writing. I’ve felt guilty about it, but decided that all my avid readers would give me a break.  (That’s a little sarcasm for your Monday – wait…it’s not Monday? Where in the week am I?)

 

So, on April 10th, I finally finished our April budget. We’ll scrape by with an extra $.39.  Our Major Issue (as I noted in the comments of a previous post) is that we were only able to budget $300 for Groceries for the rest of the month. That’s going to be a challenge for us – I think we usually spend about $300 on milk and cereal ALONE in a regular month.

So I have two questions for you:

  1. Is our normal grocery amount excessive compared to your grocery budget?
  2. What are your tips for saving money on groceries (besides growing our own tomatoes, which we’re in the process of)?

Embarrassing Friday Update

March 30th, 2012 Lindsay 2 Comments »

My goal on this blog is to be as honest and transparent as I can. (Within the realm of safety, that is.)  So, even though this is a post I hate to write, here’s our horrible financial update for the month of March.

 

You might remember this post where I told you that our lives had gotten so extremely busy and crisis-filled that we have taken a break from our major get-out-of-debt push.  As an unintended consequence of that decision, we evidently decided we weren’t going to worry about our spending AT ALL.  As a result:

 

Some notes on the chart (otherwise entitled “Why It’s Not Quite as Bad as it Looks”):

  • We had $700 budgeted for groceries (a difference of $240 excess spending)
  • We had about $200 budgeted for restaurants (a difference of almost $700)
  • Extracurricular includes ballet and baseball – this was a big month for baseball spending
  • Entertainment included a budgeted $400 for a new iPad. The other $400 was un-budgeted spending

 

As you can see, we had a fun month! We did some fun things with the kids, bought some fun toys, and basically just “coasted” through the month of March. I ended up with a couple of questions:

  • Where the heck did we get all that money? 
  • How do we keep this from happening next month?

 

My first course of action was to label all of our spending (hence this blog post).  My next course of action was to send my husband this instant message:

We agreed that, after the budget is approved for the month of April, there will be no extra spending unless we both agree.  (And since I know I’ll have to write another post like this next month, I’m thinking I’ll have some motivation not to spend any extra money in April!)

 

So, are we the only one who have months like this where we completely blow it? Come on…be honest! 

Kids & Laundry – How Much is Too Much?

March 29th, 2012 Lindsay No Comments »

“Why do I have to do all these chores?”
“That’s why I had kids! So I don’t have to do all the work!”

Do you have those kinds of conversations in your house? No? Oh…me either…

There are two extremes of thought in parenting.
1. Kids should be kids and enjoy their childhood.
2. Kids should work as soon and as hard as possible.

Our family falls somewhere in between these two swings of the pendulum. Our children’s ages are 10, 9, 6, 4, and 1. Obviously, the baby isn’t doing many chores around the house (though she does surprise me all the time with what she is capable of doing), but we’re really trying hard to train them to be a helpful part of the household. With seven of us (plus a cat), we really don’t have much choice.

I’ve written about how we keep track of our kids’ chores in the past, and I really feel good about our methods right now. We’ve recently added another major chore to their lives, though: laundry.

When I posed the following question on Facebook, I got a lot of responses:

Advice I recently heard: by the age of nine, children should be responsible for doing their own laundry. Thoughts?

Comment #1 NO WAY.

Comment #2 Why not? If they comprehend the chore and can actually do it.

Comment #3 I’ve heard that by age eight they should be able to do everything you can do (i.e. scrubbing bathrooms, vacuuming, dishes, etc.). Of course they don’t magically wake up on the morning of said birthday and know how to do it all. They have to be trained. ;o) I’m a weirdo and actually enjoy sorting and keeping the laundry caught up. All I ask of the girls is to fold and put it all away. =)

Comment #4 You can ease into it. Teach ’em to sort and bring it to laundry room. Fold the easy stuff and take it back/put it away. Move on from there.

Comment #5 By the age of about 11, my two older girls were washing all of their own clothes. My two youngest have to sort theirs and bring it out to me to wash. They CAN do this, and many other chores as well.

Comment #6 My oldest 3–8, 7, and 5 can all load the machine, put the liquid in, turn it on, move it to the dryer when needed, fold/hang and put away. That doesn’t mean I make them do the whole process, but they are definitely capable especially in pieces.

Comment #7 Since I’m still responsible for buying their clothes, I want to be responsible for taking care of them. My 11 yr old wouldn’t sort correctly, would shrink things in the dryer, etc. and I can’t afford to replace her clothes, so I’ll stick to washing! Also, I don’t mean this in a jerky way, but if the kids are doing all the household chores, what is mom doing???

Commenter #6 This mom is working, cooking, cleaning, and shopping for groceries. I don’t have my younger girls wash for the same reasons, but the older two know what goes into the dryer and what temps to use. They know I won’t replace their clothes if they mess them up by being lazy. With 6 people in my house, they have to help or we all go down with the ship.

Comment #8 I feel that’s a bit young. I’m certainly not opposed to household chores, but I would rather they focus on school and other things. While I want to teach responsibility, I still want my kids to be kids.

Me: Ok, here’s my dilemma – I CANNOT keep up with laundry. There’s 7 of us, and someone is alway needing clean clothes! So this might be one area where the kids can pitch in to help.

And don’t get me wrong – they already KNOW how to do it, (even my 7yo), I just haven’t made them responsible for their own clothes…until now. lol

Comment #9 I have recently split our oldest 4 into 2 groups. They alternate helping unload dishes for a week while the other group helps put up
Laundry. Laundry and dishes are two areas that big families make a mess in quick!

Commenter #8 Do they do their own from start to finish or just a portion of it?

Commenter #9 I don’t split ours up into loads by person. Maybe that would be easier but with the amount we have it just isn’t practical. They can do it all, but the main thing I ask them to do is to help sort/put up after it is dry

Me: I haven’t before, either, but I’m considering giving each kid a day for the or laundry. Then on the other days, I can do the babies’ and ours, and towels and sheets. I may try it for a month or so and see how it works.

Commenter #6 The big girls (18 and 13) do theirs as necessary, which usually means they spend some time on the weekend. And they’ve gotten resourceful, because they’ll combine their clothes and wash together, taking turns. I usually have the little girls bring clothes or I go get them from their hampers. We’re working on their training. Greg does our clothes, which is why I keep him around. ;)

Comment #10 I think the more they can do for themselves the more they will feel an important productive part of a family. It isn’t punishment. Its reality. It won’t come as a shock to them at 13 when mom says its time to learn to do stuff and they say why? That’s your job! Happened to this momma!

Comment #11 ABSOLUTELY!! My kids begin doing portions of their own laundry in kindergarten (folding/putting away), in 1st grade they load into washer and transfer to dryer and the parents start each machine (adding onto their kindergarten laundry duties

Comment #12 I think it’s extremely important for kids to learn all of the household tasks and have a part in them. My oldest is 6 and a half. He puts all of his laundry in the washer, I do the soap and turn it on.

Comment #13 Nope… I don’t even trust my hubby to do it LOL…

Comment #14 Age is arbitrary, maturity is what you need to look at.

Comment #15 I was doing laundry and cooking family size meals starting at nine. I am glad for it. I didn’t start my boys doing laundry until 10 & 12. Some of their friends now 19 and 21 still don’t know how! Teaching self-reliance is always a good thing in my book. Of course, I also walked 5 miles uphill in the snow! LOL (Not really, but some say self-reliance is old-fashioned and out of style)

Comment #16 Have your laundry baskets labeled, colored, whites,towel,ect. & whoever does it (them or you) will have that step done.

I love all of the discussion and varying opinions. (If I hadn’t been homeschooled during high school, I’m 100% sure I would have been on the debate team. Loved arguing then, and still do!) There was a lot of insight into both perspectives in this discussion.

I’ve personally come down on the side of having my older three kids be in charge of washing their own clothes. (I’m doing towels, sheets, blankets, etc., but they are doing their actual clothing.) I’ve given them one day per week to do their own laundry, they get it all done on that day, and then I’m working on the rest of the laundry the rest of the week.

This has been a huge relief to me!  I’m much less overwhelmed, I’m proud of my kids, and we’re actually getting all of our clothes clean!  Their response has varied by kid. One is great at it, and doesn’t have to be reminded. One will do it cheerfully – but forgets if I don’t remind her. The other gripes and complains the whole time. It’s funny to see their different responses.

One thing I have noticed – my kids are really good and taking care of the stuff right on top of the pile without looking around and seeing other things that need to be done. This is training me to train them (that was confusing, but yes, you read that right) to clean up (fold up, wash up) everything that’s dirty – not just the surface level.

So, what do you think? What kind of chores are your kids responsible for?

Interesting Reads for the Week, 3/29/12

March 28th, 2012 Lindsay 1 Comment »

The Biggest Hurdle to Living Debt Free
An interesting perspective on how watching TV affects our perceptions of money. Seriously, how on earth could Monica and her Friends afford to sit around the coffee shop all day every day, only rarely remembering they needed to go to work, and still afford a two bed-room, spacious apartment in NYC?

Is the “Increasing Income Gap” a Myth?
Semi-related to the pervious link, this article has some interesting points about the truth about the inequalities in income between the upper/middle/and lower classes. The comments spur an interesting discussion, too, about what it means to live like a “rich person.”

Four Things They Didn’t Tell You About Life
I’m not sure who “they” is, but this post makes some interesting points. One I especially liked was “It’s About Who You Know.” The author points out that you can make connections with everyone – not just the CEOs – and you never know when those connections will be helpful to you. I’d add that you never know when those connections might allow you to help someone else.

Relationships and Money
How do your relationships affect your finances? Do you have helpful relationships – ones that balance out your tendency towards overspending or being miserly? Are you able to share the household chores (including managing the finances) with a spouse or roommate? Interesting article about how those relationships affect your money.

Six Steps to Getting a Grip on Your Finances
One note: the above post has some bad language in it, so skip this one if you’re sensitive to that. The post itself still has good info, though, if you can overlook that.
Favorite quote: “Not knowing how much you owe can make you feel better.” This is so true! But “feeling better” doesn’t mean that you are making progress or making things better for yourself and your family. That can only come when you know where you are and where you want to go – so you can make a plan to get there.

This comment was also helpful for me: “Even if you pay off a good amount of your debt, do not grow lazy and start paying the minimum.” We’ve definitely done that this month – we’ve gotten lazy. 

Top Reasons Why People Switch Banks
Are you considering switching banks? Read this to find out more info.

Folly of Paying Someone to Cook for You
This is a major problem in our budget right now, and I was hoping for some very practical advice on how to wean ourselves off this habit of eating out. However, “move to a place with fewer options” really isn’t in our game plan right now, so I’m going to have to keep reading. Still, some interesting thoughts on why it costs more to eat out.

What did I miss this week? Let me know in the comments!

Spending Money! (Weekend Recovery Edition)

March 26th, 2012 Lindsay No Comments »

I got to spend the entire weekend away with girlfriends. I’m recovering this Monday morning from staying up too late three nights in a row, and not having time to record all of my spending for the weekend. What are YOU recovering from this Monday morning?

The weekend was great not just because of a lot of fun (though it WAS a lot of fun), but also because of some great ladies that I got to hear speak! One was Crystal from Money Saving Mom. It was great to hear in person someone who I’ve been reading for a long time!

Crystal got me started in a large way on the financial journey we are on. God put her in my path at a time that I was looking for ways to save our family money on groceries. Once I got that under control, I started making a family budget. After I got that down, I started looking for ways to pay off our debt. That’s when we created this site, and you know the rest! (If you don’t, read this.)

Crystal was such an inspiration to me! She’s just a regular mom, just like me, trying to do the best she can for her God and her family. How encouraging to know us “regular” people can do some exciting things, too!

There were several other speakers there, most of whom are affiliated with Mom Life Today. It was a special weekend full of inspiration and encouragement, and I’m ready to jump back into to our family and financial journey.

I hope every one of you get the chance to have an energizing and refreshing weekend like this sometime soon! We all need them every once in a while.

Walk Faster, Spend Less Money

March 20th, 2012 Lindsay No Comments »

Here’s a random tip for saving money at the grocery store: Walk Quickly.

Here’s the idea: You already know that shopping with a list will help you save money, right? Once you have that list, before you even go in, think about your shopping trip as though you’re in a hurry. Remember the old game show Supermarket Sweep? Yeah, not like that. You don’t want to get kicked out of the store, after all. Just walk like you have a mission – and your mission is to get out of there spending as little money as possible!

If you’re walking slowly, ambling through the grocery store, you’re more likely to pick up things that aren’t on your list (just because you’re curious, of course, not because you intend to buy them…). If you’re walking quickly, determinedly, towards the things that are on your list, you’ll bypass everything else not, and therefore will spend less money.

This, of course, only works if you’re shopping alone. I doubt your kids or your spouse will enjoy racing through the grocery store trying to catch up with you. Then again, maybe that would be a fun game…

Why I Spent $50 on a Pair of Jeans

March 19th, 2012 Lindsay 4 Comments »

Alternately titled “Why Shopping at American Eagle Makes Me Feel Good”

It’s not supposed to, I know. I’m not supposed to get excited about shopping.  I’m supposed to be very unemotional about it, spend as little money as possible, and get out of there as quickly as I can! But I don’t when I shop at American Eagle.

First of all, the store is so bright and colorful. It’s fun to look at the way they arrange outfits on their mannequins. It’s clean. The employees smile and make witty comments at the register. It’s a nice place to be.

I also like their clothes. I once wore a pair of American Eagle jeans for 7 years! (Before you start to worry, yes I did wash them occasionally.) They held up very well, and were the most comfortable pair of jeans I have ever owned.

So when I went in there today, I was definitely expecting to pay quite a bit for a couple of pairs of jeans and maybe a shirt or two. But I didn’t mind spending the money. Why? Because I knew the money was well spent. So, while I’m all about saving money where you can, I’m also about spending it where it makes sense and where it makes you happy.

Where it Makes Sense

It doesn’t make sense to spend $50 on a Wal-Mart pair of jeans, but maybe it makes sense to spend $50 on a high-quality, comfortable pair that you’re going to wear for years. Instead of paying $20 once a year, you can pay $50 once? Of course, for it to make sense financially, that pair will have to last you 2 1/2 years. That is entirely feasible for a high-quality brand that you take care of. But the financial aspect isn’t the only viewpoint to take into account.

Where it Makes You Happy

I’m sure there are some people who could care less about which brand of jeans they wear. If that’s you, please please don’t spend $50 on a pair of jeans when you can get a pair for $20 at Wal-Mart, or even $7 at a garage sale. Spend your money on what makes you happy and where you like to spend it.

The idea is, if you are frugal in the areas that you don’t care about, you can splurge in the areas that you do care about.

So here’s another way to breakdown the “cost” of the pair of jeans:

Total: $50

Cost of a similar style at Wal-Mart: $20 or as low as 12.88.

If the Wal-Mart jeans last for one year, and the American Eagle jeans last for two years, then you end up spending $15 “extra” dollars. Are they $15-worth of comfortable? Do they make you $15-worth of happy? If not, don’t buy them. If so, go for it (assuming you can afford it and don’t fall for the credit card pitch).

See what I’m saying? Your viewpoint of what’s valuable and what’s not is going to differ drastically from mine, so we don’t need to set up arbitrary rules about what each other’s budget should look like. The idea is to maintain a frugal attitude in the areas where you just don’t care so that you can have fun in the areas where you do care.

Side note: This argument changes a little bit when you’re still in debt. We do still have a credit card bill and a van note we’re trying to pay off, so I’ll be required to make these jeans last three years, in which case I’ll actually be saving $10. See what I did there?

The Reason You’re Not Out of Debt Yet

March 15th, 2012 Lindsay No Comments »

Imagine your friend comes to you for advice. He has a ton of consumer debt, and asks you to tell him ONE THING that he needs to know. That’s all he has time for: ONE THING. What would you tell him?

 

Would you tell him about the debt snowball method? Or maybe you’d advise him to cut restaurants out of his budget.  Or maybe you’d get more technical and explain to him the zero-balanced budget. You’d be giving very good advice.

 

But you’d be wrong.

 

Hear me out, now, before you quit reading. Those are all good things, really good tools to use in the toolbox of Getting Out of Debt.  But none of those things by themselves – or even in conjunction with other excellent tools – are going to make the difference in that person’s finances.  I’m going to tell you the one thing he needs to hear:

 

You have to want to.

 

Did I lose you? Don’t go just yet – let me prove my point.  How hard is it to set up a budget? It can be kinda time-consuming, but it’s really not that big of a deal. Is the debt snowball method too complicated for average folks to understand? Not at all. What about eating at home instead of eating out? Really, in the grand scheme of things, that is not that big of a change.  So why don’t people do this common-sense stuff more often?  Why don’t they just get out of debt already? 

 

The reason they don’t get out of debt is because they don’t really want to.  Sure, your friend will say, ” I’d like to be out of debt,” or “I wish I was out of debt.”  He might even give you a positive “One day we’ll be there!” But they don’t really want it.  Until their mindset changes about debt, no financial advice you give a person will make a bit of difference.

 

It’s like a garden. You can just toss a few seeds on top of the dirt and hope that one day you have some plants, but until you’ve really prepared the ground, mulched, and fertilized, you’re not going to see any real fruit.  People are the same way. You can start spouting financial facts and ideas at them (like throwing seeds on the dirt), but until they’re really ready to hear it, their behavior won’t change.

 

So, if that friend came to me today and said, “How do I get out of debt?” I would answer, “You have to want it.” Once they want it badly enough, they’ll figure out how to make it happen. Period.

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