Follow Up: Our Yard Sale!

Well after a rocky start our yard sale ended up being a success. We had forgotten to get change on Friday and we had to drive to several stores before we could get change for the yard sale. When we finally arrived to start setting up we only had a half hour before we had advertised our sale would start. Needless to say people started showing up while were still setting up but they were patient with us and stuck around until we go it all out.

We had a steady stream of people coming through all day from 8am to noon. We ended up making $145.70! Which wasn't bad, especially being that we didn't spend much time planning it and getting things ready. We managed to sell half of the stuff we had taken and plan to hold another yard sale at the end of Sept. or first part of Oct. when the weather is cooler here.


Here are some pictures of our little helpers/salesmen! They did so much to help us and we rewarded them with donuts!! (The last picture I took just before we cleaned up, so we had double the stuff you see there.)

Baby Step 1: Save $1,000 Emergency Fund

With our budget in place we are ready to start our Baby Steps to get on our way to being debt free! We are almost half way through the month and our budget is serving us well. I already have much less stress because we are now telling our money where to go so I'm not worried about how we are going to pay our next bill.

We are now working hard on our 1st baby step. We need to do everything we can to get $1,000 fast for our starter emergency fund. We have used the last two days to go through our very full garage. I am happy to say that we have were able to go through the entire garage in a total of about 5hours!! And to make this even sweeter, at least 1/3 of the stuff in the garage has been set aside for our yard sale that we are holding tomorrow!

Not only are we hoping to help start our 1st baby step with the money made from the yard sale but we are clearing a huge spot in our garage so it will be easier to get to things, get what we need out, etc.

We aren't sure how much we'll make in our yard sale tomorrow but we are feeling optimistic. Send us some good, selling vibes!!

Envelope System

Jason and I sat down tonight to write out our budget for the entire month of August. This proved to be no easy task. Actually it took us a little over 2 hours, we are exhausted and ready for bed but there were no arguments and we both completely agreed on the budget!

Now with this being our first written budget in several years we understand that we will have to work with it over the next several months to get it perfect but we are pleased with how our first budget came out. We started with each pay check Jason receives this month, then we "spent every dollar on paper before the month has begun".

To help us save as much as possible and stretch every dollar as far as we can we've decided to use the "envelope system". We have an envelope sized accordion file (bought in the Target dollar isle for $1) with seven envelopes inside. Here are the categories we have: groceries, toiletries (this includes diapers), clothing, gas & oil, laundry, dining out, and entertainment. I will be going down to the bank in the morning to withdrawal the exact cash to put into each of these envelopes for this week. We'll do this with every pay check Jason receives from now on.

Now like I mentioned before I have been couponing for almost a year now. During that time I was able cut our grocery budget in half and eventually in half again! Since moving to Texas I've been slacking a bit so I've made it my personal goal to spend no more than $80 a week on groceries. (Last month I was able to spend $200 less than June on groceries!) Hopefully I can meet this goal and challenge myself more in the coming months.

While couponing I have came across many great coupon blogs with so many great ideas, tips, and information. My two favorites are www.myfrugaladventures.com and www.couponingtodisney.com. Last month I noticed a post on the Couponing to Disney blog that caught my eye. She was challenging everyone to go an entire month without eating out or cutting your dining out bill by 20%, 50%, or 70%. At first I was just going to do the challenge so I could enter us in the giveaway she was having but then I realized that this was exactly what we needed because we would held accountable for our dining out choices. We were able to cut our dining out by 52% last month. We plan to cut that in half again this month plus I am challenging myself to try cooking some new meals for my family and use everything I have on hand here at home before running out to the store.

SIDE NOTE: The biggest thing that has helped us cut our dining out expenses was making a list of 7 to 9 meals that we have all ingredients to make. Posting that list on the fridge on Saturday or Sunday to use for the week. Then throughout the week I can look at the list in the morning when I'm feeding the kids breakfast to decide what we'll have for dinner. If I need to pull meat out to thaw or put food in the crockpot for that nights meal, I can do so right then. Later after the kids naps I can prepare dinner and there is no debating on what we should have so we are less inclined to run to the local fast food place to pick up dinner. I also try to use every last bit of everything I make...for instance tonight I made chicken burritos. I will use the left over spicy chicken in the quesadillas I am make later this week that I'll serve with a crockpot of pinto beans. I also allocate one night towards the end of the week (normally Thursday or Saturday) to have left overs. The boys have big appetites these days so sometimes leftovers also include cold cereal or mac and cheese. ;-)

With our budget written and our envelope system in place we are ready to put away the debit cards, cut the credit cards, and get down to business!!

Monthly Budget!

There was a time when Jason and I would sit down together to write out a monthly budget. Then life got busy with babies, work, etc and the computer got handier so over time I just began putting out budget on the computer and verbally telling Jason our budget for the month.

After reading the book I have seen the errors of my ways. One complaint Jason has always had is that he isn't good with money but that he'd like to learn...my way of teaching him was to do it myself and tell him that is what needed to be done. Obviously I knew he wasn't really learning anything at all but it was taken care of so what did that matter, right?! Okay like I said I know I was wrong.

So starting today Jason and I will sit down TOGETHER and hand write a monthly budget. Not just any monthly budget because unlike our budgets in the past we will be TELLING our money where to go instead of letting our money CHOOSE where to go. There will also be no money left at the end of the budget...meaning every dollar will have it's place in the budget to be spent the way we are telling it to. *If something comes up and we need to adjust the budget then we will call an emergency budget meeting to allocate money from one area of the budget to the problem area.

Here we go...

How our journey began!

Several months ago Jason and I sat down weighed our options and felt it was time to make a big change in our lives. We decided to move to Midland, TX. This decision wasn't an easy one. We knew things just were not going well financially in Farmington and we would have to make a big change in order to make our families future better.

With the oilfield being slow all fall and winter we had been struggling financially. Jason couldn't get enough hours to bring home big enough pay checks to cover all the bills. I was babysitting two children full time to bring in more income for our family plus I began couponing to help bring our grocery expenses down. However despite our best efforts we still managed to slip a little more and a little more behind every month.

Reality set in that things were just not going to get better when we received a foreclosure letter from our mortgage company because we were almost three months behind on payments. We had hit an all time low. I've always been good with budgeting our money but this wasn't something I could fix on my own because our total monthly bills out weighed our total income.

In desperation and not knowing what to do I called my mom crying. I was afraid that soon our family would be homeless. We sat down with my parents and showed them all of our bills, our income, and our rapidly increasing debt. They offered to lend us the money to get current on our mortgage plus get a little ahead so this didn't happen again in a month or two. They also helped give our kids a wonderful Christmas that we couldn't have gave them given the circumstance.

Soon after this all happened Jason got the opportunity to transfer to another location with his company. We knew we had to take it or we'd just be back in the same boat in a couple months.

That brings us to the present... a couple weeks ago I was going through our checkbook, paying bills, etc when it hit me... something just had to change!! We are "making it" now (meaning we make enough to pay the bills and pay the necessities) but we aren't able to pay on our debt or save for the future. I had heard a couple friends mention "The Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey so I headed to Hastings to do some research.

I found several books from Dave Ramsey but I knew we didn't have any extra money in the budget to buy them right now. I knew waiting until we could afford the books would just mean that we'd never actually buy them so I went onto Facebook and posted a status asking if any of my friends or family had the book to borrow. Several friends ranted and raved about the books and several more offered to send us a copy. Thanks to my uncle Royce and a good MOMS Club friend Dallas (and her family) we received a copy of "The Total Money Makeover" and "Financial Peace" with in a week!

Jason and I have read "The Total Money Makeover" and we are ready to take the challenge. We know it won't be easy right now but we also know that all of our hard work will pay off in the future! "If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else."~ Dave Ramsey