should have $1000 in the BEF by next friday.
I found an apple laptop today on a bench at a shopping center. It's really nice. I opened it up and was able to find the persons facebook page with her phone number listed there. I called her. She's going to pick it up tonight. It feels good to do the right thing but man that lap top is ten times nicer than mine. I bought mine used and the disc drive is missing. Wish I could afford one of those.
Wow, I can't believe someone just left an apple laptop behind.
That's crazy. She's lucky it was you and not someone who just wanted a laptop or a quick buck! My sister would have just died if she left her Mac there and then she'd never stop talking about the nice person who brought it back to her!!
AFM,
Yesterday I overspent :( We were at lunch for hours and I couldn't get away with not eating or feeding J. My sister covered it from money she owes me which was great but I still paid for it anyway and the food wasn't really worth the $8.50. I thought I was being picky but that was the general thought - that it wasn't at great as we had hoped.
Eirual, thanks! I wish I had seen that earlier. It's beautiful! My sister bought the family card and I signed it so that was nice enough.
I got home this morning and posted an ad for cans to recycle on freecycle. One person will save them for me. I know I wont get much but that's at least a start towards something I guess.
I tried Craigslist again but it doesn't seem to want to work downloading my pictures so I can't post anything on there right now.
Sorry to be a downer. I'm working hard to have better things to report soon!
So I;m joining. Better late than never, right? Up to this point I have been in serious denial I think. DP and I are struggling across the board and need to get our crap together. Immediate plan is to figure out how we are going to pay our bills that are past due and almost due (rent). I have the numbers to some local charities, but I think my pride is preventing me from calling them. We just went through our house and have a TON of stuff to get rid of, I suppose I will try posting that stuff on craigslist.
DP is trying to find a second job or a better full time one. I have an application I am sending out tomorrow to be an egg donor and I think she and I might need to talk about me getting a job as well.
DP has a lot of dental work she needs done, so I'm going to look for free dental clinics around here to see if we qualify for anything.
I personally want to figure out how to save enough money for she and I to do IVF ASAP! She is only 22, but has premature ovarian aging and I am fearful that time is going to run out on us before we can achieve a pregnancy with her eggs. Ideally I would like to pay off student loans, have a nicer car, etc etc, but time is not on our side right now. Hopefully we can get our stuff together and get moving on the right track!
Hi, hippiemombian!
I can completely understand where you are. Both on the baby side and on the bill side. I live with 3 other adults and I think I'm the one finally out of denial. I try every day to get over my pride too but that's not easy at all. With the both of you on board, you will do very well to dig out of the hole.
On the baby side, there are ways to cut costs for IVF like donated meds, IVF grants for financial need and things like that. I hope you find the one that fits for you both so you can get going. I decided on my son at 23 due to reproductive crap so I can understand needing to get it together financially, save up the money, and do it while you're young and able. I'm working to get us going again so I can eventually get ready for a second baby.
I hope you get on your feet soon! It's tough but I'm sure it will be worth it for us all.
AFM, I finally got my pictures to work on Craigslist. I posted a few things and have had several responses to one so now I'm just waiting for a response from one guy before moving on. I have more to list tomorrow.
I ended up responding to an ad and got two bags of really nice clothes! I had only three pairs of jeans before and now I was able to add 6 pairs of pants and skirt to my wardrobe along with some shirts. What I couldn't fit, my mom will take. The rest of clothes were for little girls but there were plain purple and orange tanks, a neutral tee and some jeans that J can wear so he got a few goodies as well.
It was a good Craigslist day!
I'm hoping to end the day with a few email surveys, some swagbucks searches cause that $5 paypal card would be great and maybe a job application. I want a small second job to kick us up a notch.
Hippiemombian I hope you and your DP can save the money for IVF. I know my DH and I are working toward that too now because of his extremely low sperm count (25 individual sperm when there should be 40 million). I want to get our finances under control since I know that children will change everything. I have significant student loans and credit card card debt and I want it gone so my DH and I can have the freedom that being debt free will bring us. This group is great to bounce things off of and to know that we are not alone in changing our spending habits to have freedom.
Esg, that comment "that I am the only one out of denial" is so true. Still trying to get my DH on that. He bought a tool set on a credit card. Ugh. Then there are the late fees since he forgot to pay his credit card twice over the last 2 months. ARGH! Yes, we have the money to pay for our credit card bill and savings if you really NEED tools for work. Don't use the credit card. Need to have another conversation about not using a credit card.
lilacvioletiris, its so hard not having others on track! Its like, this has to do with all/both of us so we need to work together but its easier said than done.
I was facing foreclosure last year (my mom and sisters moved in and I lost my job that January) and one sister shrugged and said "oh well" and continued to buy expensive things. No kidding.
I was hoping that would change things but they don't even want to have finance meetings. I get that I'm the "nerd" here as Dave would say but still...
I hope your husband stops using the credit card. Its so easy and tempting but its so much better without it. He'll come around soon!
trekkingirl, that is so sweet. It does feel good to do the right thing.
esg, your situation with your mom and sisters would be tough, especially since there isn't that "we are in this together" attitude. My DH and I decided that from now on once I have added the bill to our spreadsheet and know we have the money for it, he is to pay it right then, not wait until the due date. That waiting to the due date, then telephoning in the payment, but forgetting to do it sometimes has cost us. It is hard to change spending habits especially for him since he puts in overtime and keeps wondering "where did the money go?" - "Oh, food, gas, medical copays" he really likes having $20 in his pocket but I want him to use that to buy the little things in his life not just "splurges". Oh, you want an ice cream cone, take it out of your blow money. No it isn't coming out of the food budget. Yeah, I need to work on that.
On a positive note, I was worried about our spending for the last 3 weeks. Haven't kept as close an eye on it and I hadn't been using cash for groceries. Must get back to that - spent too much on food since I was using my debit card. Thankfully, there was some money that I was able to jockey around in our cash flow plan to cover the extras from groceries, gas and the electric bill reconcilation of our budget plan and still have a little bit to make it to next Tuesday's payday.
Trekkinggirl, it does feel go to do the right thing and hopefully in that situation someone would do the same for you someday. Good karma headed your way!
We are still plugging along financially. Some days it doesn't feel like we are making a lot of progress but with me working weekends and picking up a few shifts here and there we are making ends meet, staying current on our bills, and since we don't have a credit card to use we are not spending beyond our means. We are now paying health care bills and trying to get out of our other debts but not making huge impacts since our income goes to our daily living expenses but we are doing better than we were before so that's something, right? We have such a high deductible for our health insurance it feels like as soon as we think we are doing ok we get another large bill or someone needs a doctor visit, or glasses, or dental work, etc. I am grateful that we are able to receive care but we desperately need to take the Financial Peace class when it is offered in our area again and figure out our budget so that's the long term goal here.
I am so excited - I had budgeted $42 for gas for my car for the month and I was able to fill my tank for $42.05 (I was trying to get exactly $42 after it stopped at $41.60). Keeping within budget is so good (taking the 0.05 from another section of my budget).
I pay $42 for gas every other day! Everything here is really far away and gas here is $4.25 a gallon
Gas is $3.67 as of last night here. Last night on Dr. Oz one of the Transformation Nation finalists talked about riding her bike 12 miles to work each day. I need to lose weight and save money and it made me contemplate filling up the tires on my bike since my work place is only 3 miles away from where I live. But there are big hills in a couple places. Not keen on those.
Wow, 12 miles is a LONG way to commute by bike, kudos to that person! I think I do a 2 or 3 mile round-trip to work and back, but we don't have a car and commute distances of up to 10 miles by bike when running errands and such. I know that having a car is a money suck, but I guess I just didn't realize exactly how much it can be, especially now with gas prices. I'm reminded to be grateful that we live in a place where our jobs and other things are centrally located enough that we can survive without a car. And it doesn't hurt that the weather is almost always nice.
Looking back over this month's budget, we definitely overspent in more than one area, but we also managed to oversave too, so I'm trying not to be too down about the overages. Our grocery budget is pretty much out the window in May, I don't think I even came close to the $350 that I was supposed to spend. We also had a semi-impulse purchase of an Ikea entertainment center (solid wood, though! Which is good for Ikea.) that was $400 more than we had planned to spend at the beginning of the month. But I'm really really glad to have it. And somehow, even with the overages in both spending and saving, we have managed to come out of this month without adding to our credit card debt. May was very very lucky for us. I'm hoping to do a better job of sticking to the budget in June, but it's our anniversary, so we'll see.
Also, Trekkinggirl--Big hugs and kudos to you for doing the right thing. I know it must have been hard to do when your own computer is in need of an update. Here's to good Karma coming back around for you.
As of today I finally have my BEF! $1001.72 is my ING balance...........................Victory
hi thanks for the welcoming.
on the down side i forgot to pay my car insurance on time this month. so the 83 dollars i was suposed to pay became 96 dollars.
on the positive side all bills got paid. and this week was able to get some OT at work. so june should go great next pay check will be june 11th and this time i will pay my bills ontime to advoid the late fee. if i can get my job to give me these hrs every week it would be great.
Trekkingirl, that's awesome! I bet it feels nice to look at that balance often!
I remembered from reading about the person who bikes (wow) that I need to put air in my tires. I don't have many places to ride to but I think if I can put a basket on it and figure out the back way to the grocery store, maybe that would save a good bit in the end. It's not too far away
AFM, my challenge this month is to save up an extra $100. I'm down to $97.49. It's encouraging and maybe I can get back to my goal of $1400 in my BEF soon and not have to spend it this time.
I'm also on a no spend challenge so it's looking good so far.
Hope everyone is having a good weekend.
I am so excited - we started 12/20/2011 to change our spending habits. I am so happy that as of today we have paid off $5011.75 in debt! Yeah! We have a away to go but this is a significant first step in paying off our debts.
I just paid off my big student loan!!! I have two smaller student loans left, but the biggie is gone. Now the other two feel so totally do-able.
Anka
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