Budget Update - February

So February was, once again, our month that we started really focusing on our money.  We started out our home-ownership with very little debt - comparatively - and since then we got a little out of control.  I mentioned to you all the ways that we were going to stay focused last week and I am happy to be here to let you know how our first month went.

Our ultimate goal is to have a majority of our debt paid off by the end of 2015, all while still being able to live a good life and have fun.

Starting out, in February, including our home, we had about $300,000 in debt.

Now, take away our house, because let's be honest, that debt won't be gone by the end of 2015 unless we hit the freaking jackpot - which I hear you have to actually play to win, shucks! - and we have about $50,000 debt, give or take, including cars and everything.

I am stoked to announce that in February we paid off $5108!!!  Now it may not seem like a lot but it is a major step in the right direction for us.  With a baby now, money is tighter than ever because of his expenses that we just can't do without.  We were also able to put away money for Caleb in his savings account and put some money in our savings account for a rainy day. :)

We are making steps in the right direction and I couldn't be happier.  Although this will probably be one of our largest debt pay-offs for one month due to the fact that we used our tax return for most of it, it still feels good.  With that debt paid off we are now saving over $200 a month on minimum payments.  Just like the plan was, we paid off our 4 highest interest rate debts and are no longer paying that money for no reason - interest that is.

Our next goal is to work on our last credit card and my car.  All together that is a big chunk - almost $15,000 - but if we can get one of them paid off, that will be saving us another $150-$300 a month.  It's amazing how fast debt can add up, but paying it off is rewarding and exciting.

Here's to another successful month :)

5 Exciting Things

Linking up with Karli and Amy as always this beautiful Friday morning.

//one
I will write a more in depth post about this next week, but we have paid off major debt this month and we are soooooo excited about it.  Look for that soon.

//two
I finished the Serial Podcast yesterday and it had me hooked.  It took me less than a week to listen to all 12 episodes and I kept wanting more.  I will say - without spoiling it, although I'm pretty sure I am one of the last people to listen to it - that I was a little disappointed with how it ended.  I wanted more!  I had questions that I feel as though I need to email Sarah with so that she can try and answer them for me.  LOL.  Did you like it?

//three
We are almost a week and a half into Lent and giving up soda is hard.  I knew it would be, but I am tempted daily.  On the plus side?  I've lost 2 pounds since I stopped drinking them!  Whoot! Whoot!

//four
Last Thursday I got rear-ended on my way to work and this week we finally heard that the other party does have insurance and is accepting full liability!  Thank goodness!  My car needs to be repaired and I didn't want to have to pay my deductible for something that wasn't my fault.

//five
We are done with our first week of letting Hank out later in the morning because we have an awesome family that lives next to us.  We haven't gotten any more complaints about his barking and as annoying as it is, I'm glad that I don't feel worried about it anymore.  Plus I'm pretty sure Hank likes the extra attention during the day and snuggling in his kennel while it is still a little chilly in the morning.

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Overall, we had a great week this week.  I have some exciting posts coming next week - hopefully, if I can find the time this weekend to write them.  

Hope you all have a great weekend!  Can you believe it is almost March already???

PS!!!!  Don't forget to enter this awesome giveaway!!!

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So The Cops Were Called

Before I tell you all about the title, let me first say that I am in no way blind to the problem, I just think it was taken too far.

Hank Hughes.  You know, that giant yellow lab of ours?  The biggest lover in the world.  Well Saturday night we received a text message from our neighbor stating that the cops were at our house and shinning their flashlights inside my car.

Let's set the scene shall we?  I live in a town with a population of 3000.  3000!  We have a police department with about 5 deputies.  We don't have a lot of crime, most of the calls are for drunk drivers that are driving on the highway that cuts through the middle of town.  We are surrounded by farms and it is a quiet town.

So while we are driving home and receive this text we call the police department and see what is going on.  If there was a conflict or something wrong with our house we wanted them to be there with us when we arrived home, since we had Caleb and all.  We were informed that an officer would meet us at our house to discuss the issue at hand.

We show up and so did the cops.  We find out that they were there because they received complaints about Hank's barking.  WHAT?!?  Seriously?

About 3 weeks ago we received an anonymous note on our door stating that Hank's barking was waking their children up too early and we needed to take care of it.  We talked to both of our direct neighbors and neither of them claimed the note.  We talked it over and decided that we would try to do something about it, but we have to go to work.

Now, 3 weeks later, after no other forms of communication, we have the cops at our house warning us about our dog.  To say we were upset is an understatement.

Now let me explain.  I understand that barking dogs are annoying.  Trust me, we don't want Hank barking either.  But we are pretty sure we know what is happening.  I leave for work Tuesday - Friday between 5:15 and 5:30.  I put Hank out in the backyard with his breakfast, water and toys - a.k.a our backyard because he is still a puppy and is chewing and digging right now.  Our neighbors put their two Boston Terriers outside to go potty around 5:45 and I assume that the doggies say "Good morning!" to each other.  We assume that this sets another neighboring dog off and that dog starts to bark, but that dog is inside their owners' room and not outside, thus waking them up.

I don't understand how this is a major crime?  Aren't there bigger issues that the police should be looking into?  Apparently not in our small quiet town.

We were then held to a 20 minute conversation about how we need to do the following to stop him from barking:
||remove the dog from the residence - because he is just a piece of trash that we can move around as we please
||get a bark collar - because we never want him to bark to protect us
||kennel him - because I would love for him to get a bladder infection after being in his kennel for 10 hours 4 days a week
||leave him inside my house - because I don't value any of the things inside my house that he will destroy from boredom
||let him out later in the day - because I just put him out at 5:30 for shits and giggles
||MOVE - because everyone has a disposable income that makes this a possibility

All of their suggestions made me 100 shades of red I'm sure, but they are ridiculous.  I'm sorry officer, but are your pets not part of your family?  Would you just send your pets away?  And better than that, I own my house.  I pay property taxes and help pay your salary, these complainers are renters - if it's who we think it is - and they can move if they don't like it.

I don't understand people.  I understand that you have a problem with my dog.  But did you really think it was at the point where you needed to call the police on us?  I have so many emotions about it.

It must be nice that you don't have to get up and go to work this early.

I am pretty sure that it is your dog that has the barking problem, not my dog.

We live by train tracks, you can sleep through that but not a barking dog?

You left an anonymous note and never came and talked to us yourselves, how old are you?

We have come up with a solution and it makes Ryan angry that he feels as though these jerks are winning.  But when we are getting threatened that Hank will be taken by the Animal Control - which just try and take my dog, I will fight you on that one - we have to figure out something.

We are lucky enough to have one neighbor who is awesome and her oldest daughter has offered to come let Hank out later in the morning after the kids are all in school.  Today will be the first day of this and if it doesn't work then everyone else can just suck it.

We are trying.  We don't want our neighbors to hate us but Hank is part of our family and he isn't going anywhere.

So for now, we have a law breaker living with us.  Poor Yellow! ::his nickname most days::

Februarys Are For Budget Planning

Now don't ask me why, but for some reason, February is the month that I get on us about our budget.  It is the first month after all the holidays and birthdays and gives me a real slap in the face about our money situation.

Money is stressful.  I don't care who you are, money is stressful.  I have always been in charge of our finances since we became a "we" and moved in together in 2011.  Ryan, self-admittedly, is not good with money, in the sense that he doesn't realize when he is getting low on it and doesn't stress about it.  I, am self-admittedly, a little obsessed with money, in the sense that I stress over every detail of it and freak out each and every month.

I have tried to come up with a way to help myself out this year so that I don't get so stressed and upset about our money situation.

Going into our marriage we had debt.  Ryan had built up a bit himself and I had a credit card that I would love to use when it wasn't maxed out - don't get scared for me just yet, it only has a $500 limit - which I know is still a lot, but at least it wasn't thousands of dollars.  Anyways, we got married, Ryan went overseas and I was left at home to save money and pay off our debt.  I kicked our budget's ASS and got rid of all of our debt and managed to get us a gorgeous savings account.  We managed to pay for our wedding and honeymoon all in cash and still had some left over.  We did well and lived a great life.

When we bought our house we only had our two vehicle loans to pay each month.  Although I was still stressing about money, we were rolling in the dough - if only it could have stayed that way.

We got excited.  We bought a boat - well we are paying the bank for a boat now.  We bought a new couch - the first piece of brand new furniture either of us ever bought for our home.  We got a credit card.  We had a baby.

Now, we are five and a half months into life as a family of 3 and expenses are not going down, they are just increasing.  February Budgeting has been in full force.

Here are some ways that I manage to stay sane in our goal of becoming debt free - once again.

||SPREADSHEET||
I'm a bit crazy and have created a spreadsheet.  On said excel spreadsheet is a tab for each bill we have.  I have a total of 22 tabs - this sounds like a lot but it includes everything like utilities, mortgage, insurances, etc.  On each tab I have it labeled for the business, the link to the website, username, password, account #, due date, interest %, minimum payment, date paid, amount paid and remaining balance.  Each tab has a whole bunch of numbers on it, but in the end it is our life, in bills, in one spot.  I have an "overview" tab at the beginning that shows our monthly income, all bills with minimum payments totaled, bills in interest % ranking order and miscellaneous items that aren't included in the bills section.  I need this.  This is a great way for me to have everything in one spot and be able to show my hubs what is exactly going on.

||MINT.COM||
I still use Mint.com and I love it!  I have revised our budgets a bit and still work on it weekly.  I love that it uses pie charts and line graphs.  I am a total admin and love all things excel and charts!

||PRIORITIZING||
Like I mentioned above, our spreadsheet has our bills listed in highest to lowest interest rate and this helps me prioritize our bills.  Of course our main bills - mortgage, utilities and groceries - come first, but after those are paid we still have the rest of those pesky ones.  I have made a goal for us to be "debt" free by the end of 2015.  I want to have no debt except for our house and possibly the cars and boat.  I know that still sounds like a lot of debt, but if we only have those 4 payments per month we will be saving an average of $500/month!  That's huge!

||EATING IN||
We love to eat out as much as the next person but living 20 minutes from the closest "chain" restaurant also makes it expensive in gas terms.  We are cutting back on spending money by eating in more.  I have gotten us on a schedule of eating out MAX twice a week, including the weekends.  This is huge for us and I have already noticed a difference.  Of course, there are those nights when you just have to eat out, and I make those okay as long as they don't get out of hand.

******************

We are going to achieve our goal of becoming debt free by starting at the top of our interest rate list and working our way down.  We will pay minimum payments to all debts except for the highest one and put as much as possible each month towards it.  We will then work our way down and never decrease the amount of money we are paying until all of our debt is gone.

For Example:

Loan A minimum payment is $25.00.  Loan B minimum payment is $25.00.  We will pay $100.00 to Loan A and only pay $25.00 to Loan B until all of Loan A is gone.  Once Loan A is gone, we will then pay $125.00 to Loan B.  We aren't out any more money than we normally are, but now are paying off Loan B a lot faster then if we were just paying the minimum payment.

We are still in Month 1 of this new process and I hope it works.  I plan on doing a budget update in the next couple of months once we see a difference in our debt.

Lent 2015

My whole life we have participated in Lent.  The yearly sacrifice of giving something up for 40 days and 40 nights.  It starts 40 days before Easter, on Ash Wednesday, and this year it starts today and goes until Sunday, April 2nd.

I remember as a kid I despised it.  I hated having to give something up.  I hated going to church most Sundays in fact.  Despite my annoyance to it, I have always done it.  Even now as an adult, even though we don't go to church like we probably should, I still partake.

I make an effort every year to challenge myself with something that I haven't done before.  I have given up so many things for Lent over the years; ice cream, red meat, candy.

This year I am challenging myself even more.  I am vowing to give something up and do something for those 40 days and 40 nights.  Lent 2015 will be the year that I give up soda and vow to work out at least 4 days a week.

Giving up soda is a big thing for me.  I love soda.  If I don't see it, it really isn't that big of a deal to me, but if I do, man oh man, it's all I want.  I went half of my pregnancy without soda and then towards the end I gave in and went for it.  I know I can do it, but it will be a tough one, especially when I am at work.

Vowing to work out 4 days a week is something that I should do anyways, without the encouragement of Lent, but it just isn't happening.  I know that I can do it for the 40 days and am hoping that once I am in the habit of doing it, that it will stick around once Lent is over.

I hope that if you participate in Lent that you succeed this year and try to do something you haven't done before.

Pinterest Recipe Challenge - Week 5

So for week 5 of my Pinterest Recipe Challenge 2015, I tried to make a soup in the crock pot.  I love soup and what an easier way to make dinner then in the crock pot?

This recipe was shared by my friend Heather and after trying hers, I wanted to make it myself.

The recipe goes as follows:

• 3 Skinless, boneless chicken breasts
• 32 oz Chicken Broth
• 2 Cans of Rotel (I use original)
• 2 Cans of Black Beans (drained)
• 1 Can of Fresh Kernel Corn (drained)
• 1 small onion
• 1 tbsp Chili pepper
• 1 tbsp Cumin
• 1 tbsp Garlic Powder
• Suggested Toppings: Tortilla Chip Strips, Mexican Blend Cheese, Sour Cream

I made my changes based on what we like as follows:

• 6 chicken tenderloins - it's what I had on hand
• 32 oz Chicken Broth
• 1 Can of Corn - drained
• 1/2 red onion
• 1T Cumin
• 1T Garlic Powder
• 2 Cups White Rice

I made the recipe just as she did, but cooked the rice separately on the side and added it in 10 minutes before we ate.  I also took corn tortillas and cut them into strips.  I drizzled olive oil on them and put them in the over on a baking sheet at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes until they were nice and golden.

We loved this soup and it is definitely something we will be making again.  It made a ton and it is so filling.  Next time I make it, I will make homemade pinto beans to add in as well.  I can't wait!!! :)