Frugalhousewife's Personal Finance Blog

I always tried to track the money but this is only my second month of following a budget. Somewhere along the line I lost $45. It was cash that never got deposited so who knows where it went. I did have extra money in the checking account, but that made the $$ cushion smaller. I will call that water under the bridge and try to keep a closer eye on where the money goes next month. Now I am debating on whether to put some of the money I have been saving up a)on the loans or b)on the checking account cushion. I do have $1,000 in another account for emergencies and have money set aside for all the bills. I am definitely leaning toward paying on the loans.

Not if it is free! I did spend a little today but really ended up making money. I got up early for the sale at CVS. DH loves Honey Bunches of Oats, which was on sale 2/$4. The real sale part was that when you spend $20 you get $20 in extra bucks.

The look on the cashier's face when I wheeled up my cart filled with 10 boxes of cereal was priceless. I also bought toothpaste, which was free as well. I had $16 in extra bucks and only ended up paying $4.09 out of pocket after coupons. Dh has a two or three months worth of cereal and a tube of toothpaste, and I have $22.99 to spend at CVS. I try to keep the extra buck chain going so I always have some to spend.

I am fortunate that my husband does not mind leftovers. Every now and then we have a clean out the fridge night. I am stretching an extra meal out of my menu plan this weekend though. Last night we had grilled steaks with a nice size piece leftover. I am going to make a steak salad for supper using up some odd and end veggies and lettuce. I cleaned out the refrigerator yesterday and threw out too much. I know we waste too much food, and this is one area of spending I want to stretch a bit further.

I never paid much attention to interest until I decided to seriously focus on paying off our debts. I knew it was there, but seeing the amounts each month is another story. The real estate loan has not added any interest yet, but I have figured that it will be a bit more than $30 a month. The auto loan is adding about $20 a month in interest. Now that I am watching the spending more closely, I am thinking of what I could do with $50 a month.

Instead of spending all my time whining, I am even more focused on paying off these debts. I could be earning interest on that $50 rather than paying it in as interest. My goal for this weekend is to find 10 items that I can sell on eBay. I will get those listed next week and have a bit money to add to the debt payoff.

I never kept track of my no spend days, but I think it would be good to see how many I can get for the month of August. I am going to set a goal of 14 no spend days. It should not be too difficult. I would love to do more but am going to be a bit conservative the first time out.

I had some planned and unplanned spending yesterday. The unplanned was a doctor's appointment as my allergies have been giving me a fit. We have a air purifier, and I did not realize how much it helped until it quit. Fortunately it is under warranty so it is being repaired. The doctor's appointment was $70 as I have not even gotten close to my deductible. The two prescriptions were generic so only $23 for those. DH went to the doctor two weeks ago, but we have not gotten the bill for that. It should be $77. I am trying to set up small accounts for expenses such as medical, car repair, and stuff like that. These medical expenses are causing problems since they are pulling money away from the debt. At least we have the money to pay for it. I was not expecting some magic budget formula and should know this is going to be an ongoing process.

After getting my prescription filled, I stopped by the grocery store. I spent about $50 there, but that covers two weeks worth of meals. All of the items were on sale and I stuck to my list. I did splurge on some steaks for dh to grill. Dh takes his lunch and snacks to work with him so that is included in the grocery budget. We have no great restaurants here so we end up eating at home most of the time.

I put $20 worth of gas in my car. I go to a station that gives you 2 cents off per gallon every day with their reward card. It was only a savings of 14 cents but I found 2 pennies so I really ended up with 16 cents.

All together it was much more spending that I hoped for. The rest of the week should be better though.

I have been reading the blogs for just over a month and have been very inspired by all of them. I decided that it was finally time to add one of my own. As it says on the side, I am a stay-at-home wife. I get quite a bit of grief for staying home without children. To be honest I have found we are saving more money and generally living better than when I was working. I am still trying to figure out what happened to my income all those years. At any rate we are happy so that is all that matters.

On the financial side in the past two months we have a mini-emergency fund built up. We paid off two credit cards. Well, it will be two as soon as the online payment posts today. The remainder of our debt is from two loans totalling about $7750. I have no goal date in mind to pay them off other than ASAP. I am starting to search for any money I can find to pay toward those.

The second goal after paying off those is to remodel and add onto our home. It is old and creaky, but I love it. It just needs some improvements. I also want a bigger emergency fund and more money going toward retirement as long term goals.

I do tend to be a rather chatty writer even though I am quiet in person. I think this will be fun. It is a refreshing change to see people trying to save money rather than being solely focused on spending.