The Weight of Money

So, I took the coupon plunge and have my first shopping trip to report on.

CVS:
- 2 boxes of Triscuits, Free with coupon
- Razor for $3.99, less coupon
Out of Pocket: $4.47
ECB Earned: $4.00

The crackers are a snack item for the partner to take to work or hide in his office so our oldest won’t eat them. The razor was for me because I needed a new one and to start the ECB ball rolling. The ECB can be used like cash for my next purchase and there will be a next purchase.

Shoppers Food Warehouse:
- Grocery Items totaling: $89.92
- Manufacturers Coupons: $11.15
- Shoppers Double/Triple Coupon Discount: $13.14
Total Grocery Bill: $65.63 (27% savings)

Now, many people argue that coupons get people to buy things that they don’t really need and I’ll admit that I did buy 6 items that I normally wouldn’t buy: 6 can of Pringles Chips for $0.40/each after sale and coupons ($2.40 spent, $6.49 saved). But that’s the only item I purchased that was out of the ordinary for us. I comparison shop unit prices on name brand and generics and combining sale price with double or triple coupons saved us extra money in the end.

I plan to stop by Shoppers to get a raincheck for the pizza rolls that were out of stock because I forgot to get it while we were there (I’m going by the store anyways). Those are another item I usually don’t buy but with the coupon and sale price, they’re free. Free is a good price for a snack item to fill in on days when dinner is running late or we want a treat.

Some notes for myself as I go forward:
- I need to find a way to track my savings.
- I originally planned to just save coupons inserts intact, but since my local stores aren’t listed in the common databases online, I’ve decided to clip the items that I would normally buy or that I would buy if it were free or close to it. For beauty and paper products, those I’ll continue to file with the inserts and only pull those coupons if there is a for-free sale offer at CVS or another major chain.
- I will cross reference the coupon databases as I scan sale flyers and place the plan-to-use coupons in an envelope that I will write our shopping list on… no forgetting coupons, well as long as I don’t forget the list.

One frugal tip that I always scoffed at was cutting coupons. I had plenty of reason to scoff: it takes too long, I never buy name brand anyways, it’s all for processed foods we don’t eat, I’d never remember to take them to the store. Reality was that I’d never really looked into the art of using coupons and maybe that was a good thing.

Turns out that couponing or Qing is quite an elaborate system thanks to people’s obsessive natures to save a few dimes (or many dimes) and the wonderful community building aspect of the internet. A friend told me how much money she saves and all the free products she gets and I made the mistake of looking into the sport of using coupons, a mistake that cost me about 5 hours of my time so far. I looked it over, read everything over and over again (maybe I’m dense, but this stuff can be confusing), and finally think this is something I could get into on a small scale.

There are a two things going for coupons that has me interested: I already subscribe to the daily paper and I need to save money. That seems like simple enough motivation. I still feel like coupons are often for items that I typically don’t buy and this is where the wonderful world of FREE comes in. Now, I’m not someone that has to get something because it’s free, but I do like taking advantage of opportunities when I find them. While I usually don’t buy items like cereal bars or frozen meals, I would bring them home if they were free or darn close to it. The partner can use them for snacks and meals at work and it’s often nice to have a dinner alternative around for those night when no one feels like cooking — plus any food with a $0.00 cost is a budget bonus right now. Another reason to try it out is that with all the internet sites out there supporting the coupon habit, I don’t think it will take much time in my extremely busy schedule. I don’t have to actually clip any coupons unless I need to. Coupons get filed away by date, intact with the insert they came in, and I wait until a handy dandy coupon database tells me there is an awesome sale that is too good to pass up. When such sales come along, the database tells me where to find the coupons I need, so I clip only when it’s worthwhile.

I admit that there is still a lot for me to scoff at, but I’m going to hold back on my coupon-clipping-criticism for a couple months and give it a try. My first adventure into playing the coupon game will be a trip to CVS to pick up some free items and start the ball rolling. I’ll try to update with how things go, but don’t hold your breath, you might have notice the intense lack of posting over the past two years.

This weekend, the partner and I brainstormed a bit to figure out how to work the numbers so that we can stay afloat for a while longer. So far the current plan is to reduce fixed expenses as much as possible, reduce variable expenses as much as possible, and stop eating (oh wait, that’s not a serious idea.. but one we considered just the same).

We’re planing on bringing in $500+ less per month than we were before. I worked up the number for all of our fixed expenses that must be paid - mortgage, debt payments, utilities, insurance, etc — and that alone came out to more than what will be coming in. That didn’t take into consideration anything like food or gasoline. So, I think that was what the partner needed to see; finally my testament to the severity of our current situation finally made a little more sense. So one step is that we’re trimming where we can.

Yesterday I made a call.. in fact, I made a lot of calls.

I called our internet company because our rate had gone from 19.99/month to 39.99/month. I did my best to argue that down but didn’t get anywhere. But I did get the concession that I could call back in 90 days to re-request the lower rate; originally the woman had said I had to wait 6 months to call. So, that date is on my calendar to call back. Savings: $0/month

I call my home phone company. Their rate had been creeping up and it was already on my to-do list, now I had motivation to do it. This was the longest call of the day, probably taking about an hour to complete. While I was on hold, twice I forgot who it was I was calling. But I argued a bit and got the rate reduced along with some extra I really didn’t care about. Savings: $6/month

Balance Transfer. I don’t care much for credit card games, but I needed to get our monthly debt payments down a little bit. I actually called all four of our companies. The company with the best rate (5%) never spams us with offers but I called to see what they could do. They had the same offer as everyone else, but without a cap on the balance transfer fee — next call! Ended up transferring the balance from our highest interest rate card (17%) to our second lowest card (7%). This is a temporary band aid, it doesn’t really help us get above ground, as it just lets us continue treading water. But, it’s what we’re going to do for now. Savings: $300/month

We’ll also emptying our local storage shed and moving all of those items to Bowie. Savings: $145/month

We’d already canceled our plans to attend an annual camping event that is happening this weekend. We also nixed the idea of driving the daughter down to a soccer tournament 5 hours away as well. Luckily, we did find someone else for her to go with and my mom volunteered to send money with her — otherwise, the daughter would still be staying home as the cost would be too much even without the hotel stays.

When I looked at our numbers last month, I realized how much I’d been wasting on eating out. I’m please to say that we have basically eliminated that expense - having spent less than $20 eating out in the past 3 weeks - once a small special occasion funded by bake cookie sales and the other when we were out all day from 10am - 10pm and failed to plan ahead to bring food with. We’re getting much better at making sure to bring food with us while we are out.

Our dinners are getting much less elaborate and so far that has the support of everyone in the household. Eggs are a pretty big part of our diet now thanks to our 9 laying hens. We’re also doing more meatless meals and bean dishes. But, this also means that the quality of our meals is going down a little, so I’m trying to figure out how to still eat as cheaply as possible while still eating healthy.

To increase income, the partner plans to sell off more of his ’stuff’ - this should work out to about $500/month in income for the next few months. And I’ll get more help from him for working on business stuff which should also bring in about $500/month in income as well. And the partner is working on his resume and looking for other employment options. A 15% pay cut hurts but losing his job will hurt even more and it seems obvious that is a probability on the horizon.

Also, clearing out debt is topping the priority list as well. We realize that we may end up using credit in the near future if pushed to it. But we also realize that debt has to be eliminated for us to make any real financial progress in the future.

How much of a hardship would instantly losing 15% of your income pose? How would you react if you were already struggling to make ends meet and had finally worked out a way to barely squeak by, how would this news affect you then?

I’m not really sure what my answers are because I’m still in shock. Come Monday, the partner’s company is striking 15% off everyone’s salary as yet another last-ditch effort to help them survive their financial crisis. The good news is supposed to be that we he still has a job, but at the moment, that isn’t cheering me up every much. 15% is a substantial chunk of our monthly budget that was already stretched way too thin. Also, I’d finally worked out a plan that trimmed off all the fat and kept us just within our means, and that was by cutting out everything I could think to cut. Now what?

We had a brief family meeting tonight about it and I’m really worried. I’m worried because I feel like I’m the only one that really sees what a giant issue this is. Tomorrow, the partner and I will sit down with the numbers because he says he needs to see them to understand the severity of the situation. The severity is, that a 15% reduction in income isn’t wiping out ‘luxuries’ (those were already wiped out), it wipes out gas money, grocery money, the electric bill, the heating bill. This isn’t a matter of eating out less, sadly.

Okay, sigh, breath. This will work out, somehow, this will work out. I need to go sew because I need my sewing business to not only bring in no only my conservative estimates to help us get by, but now it also needs to cover this short fall we’re facing too.

So, I’ve been thinking something crazy tonight… liquidating measly retirement accounts to pay off debt. Yes, it’s one of those crazy thoughts that hit you when you’re feeling extremely overwhelmed by your current financial situation and you just want to make a problem go away.

There are some pluses:
- eliminating this debt will free up income that can then go back into savings and retirement
- the emotional freedom of eliminating this debt is HUGE
- yeah, thats about all the pluses I can think of

the negatives:
- the financial impact of early withdrawal penalties… 10% of amounts taken, and then the cash is taxed like income, if my quick 5 minute review of the conditions is correct
- we lose the retirement account.. it’s losing at the moment anyways, but that’s another post
- it probably won’t eliminate all of our debt, so whats the point?
- while debt increasing behaviors are mostly gone, they’re not 100% gone — in that case, that makes this a very bad idea, it’s a bandaid, a bad bad bandaid that negatively impacts our future

some messed up rationale centers on the fact that we’re soooo far behind on retirement planning, what does it matter — not an approach to take toward your finances. also, freeing up the money currently going to debt will help the monthly cash flow somewhat, but it’s still a losing battle at the moment.

so, yeah, I better go to bed before I give this stupid idea any more thought. feel free to comment on what a bad idea it is if you want, though I don’t really need anyone telling me what I already know.

oh and just cause I like adding details… I’m a numbers and budget wench. There are great suggestions out there for taking serious strides against debt and your budget, I’ve read them all and considered them all. For our situation, I can say that we’ve trimmed our budget down as far as we can/will, let just say that pasta and rice are more than just staples for a while. Getting another job doesn’t work either because I home with a nursling and the partner honestly cannot add that on top of his professional job, with unpaid overtime - yay salary, commute, and helping me continue to run my home business (which does bring in as much income as I can earn with said nursling eating up much of my time).

Though, having said that, I will work up some numbers for our family budget night meeting to go over some other drastic steps that we might consider to improve on this situation. I’m feeling recommitted to getting numbers under control, especially now that I’m not hiding from them as I have for the past 6 months (ouch, that really hurts … we could have been in much better shape if I’d clued in even 2 months earlier). So, I’ll be thinking drastic thought but hopefully nothing as foolish as 401k withdrawals. Oh, and maybe now that I’m facing numbers again, I’ll start posting again on the steps we’ve been taking to make ends meet.

There isn’t anything to talk about when there isn’t any money in the account. For the first time in 2 years, our personal account will have a balance less than $1,000 - maybe even less than $400 if I drag my feet on an account transfer. This freaks me out, to me, it’s the equivalent of being flat out broke. Right now, I’m worried about filling the gas tank and going to the grocery store. Sigh.

One-plus year of not making quite enough has finally caught up with us. We’ve been able to skate by, somehow, each month but that has run out. I need to figure out what I’m going to do about it, but I’m at a loss because I’m out of options. I was hoping for a raise to come in last month and it never did. Last week, we finally got paperwork about a raise (I don’t think it’s going to be back dated, or is that call pro-rated, for a July 1 start as it has in previous years) but it wasn’t anything to be comfortable with. So, what was going to be a slight boost, didn’t come when we really needed it, and as it is, we’re probably only close to breaking even now - which doesn’t make up for the fact that, based on the way our budgeting is supposed to work, our account is facing a $4,000 deficit.

Sigh - I’d love to post more, but lately, it’s been too frustrating to face the numbers - even for me, someone who usually finds comfort in the reality that the only way to solve the problem is to truly understand it. I understand the problem, but don’t see any solutions on the horizon, other than starting busting my butt 24/7 (something thats not remotely possible with a newborn in the house). I need to do something though… maybe posting about it will help get me motivated.

sigh, I get so tired of making calls to credit card companies. Somehow, in the unfortunate coincidence of my bill pay service delaying a reoccuring payment and my credit card company upping the due date — we missed a payment - by a day. This shouldn’t have happened, but it did. Now, the past few weeks I’ve been a bit busy paying attention to our new little girl and no so much our finances, but this one is a big one because we’ve lost our 0% balance transfer if I don’t get this corrected.

Now, it’s not the end of the world, I can always transfer the balance off somewhere else. In fact, that’s the bargaining chip I’ll be using when I call them up because this is the same company that I’ve missed 2 payments with in the past 2-3 years (both times during our move) and while they’ve been understanding each time, I don’t expect the same consideration this time. But I’ve been dragging my feet on making the call, as usual. But I at least have the excuse that every time I think I have a moment to make a phone call, a little angel starts fussing and reminding me that I should give up thinking I have any control over anything in my life.

As I mentioned in my last car post, we’re not actively looking for another car but we are keeping our eyes out if the right situation appears. Well, this weekend, we thought that situation had come. On one of my local email lists, someone posted a four-door car with air conditioning for sale. The details sounded right and the price was right. We went to check it out, had one small concern with it that we decided was worth accepting for the price, and agreed to get the car pending the safety inspection.

The sellers and I agreed to split the cost of the inspection and they got it done today. Since Maryland loves to nit pick all the details on safety inspections, I wasn’t surprised to hear that the car failed — I doubt any car ever passes the first go round. But the list was rather lengthy and touched on the one concern we had with the car - the transmission. In all, to get the car fixed would have been $1,000 in repairs. The sellers were willing to drop a few hundred dollars off the price, but it still took the car out of the “right price” category for it. If we were confident these repairs would resolve our transmission concerns, we would have probably gone for it. But since it included a long list of nit-picky detail that safety inspections love to hit on and just a couple minor tinkerings with the transmission, we took a pass.

I’m a little disappointed because I got very excited that our car woes would be satisfied, but I’m also not interested in throwing out money to bring another vehicle with issues into our life. Sometimes you’ve just got to let things be and I’m glad that the partner and I were both willing to walk away from this situation without trying to talk ourselves into it. It’s nice not being in a position where we *have* to take action.

The partner and I got an unexpected date night last night since the daughter wanted to hang out at a free movie event at our local library. We stopped at a local yarn store and chatted with the owner and some of the other ladies before heading over to a yummy dinner of thai food. Even though we took our time at each stop, we were still early in picking up the daughter from her event and ended up parking in library lot waiting for her to get out.

This was the perfect opportunity to talk about anything and everything without losing sleep - usually these discussions take place as we’re both drifting off to sleep. The partner reveal another upcoming change with his company’s 401K program. It sounds like his company continues to struggle financially and is still cutting corners here, there, and everywhere to stay afloat. The partner is expecting that the newest announcement, only alluded to at this point, will address the account fees associated with the 401K accounts. He expects that the company, in addition to dropping their matching program and tacking on a lengthly vestment clause for previously contributed dollars, will also stop covering the fees charged by the 401K company and will be passing those charges on to participating members. To me, this is just another kick in the shins from the company at this point.

The partner is currently on is 3rd years with this small start up company. The past year has been full of lay offs, cut backs, scaling down of options, and other negative financial steps (negative from the employee’s perspective at least). What was a nice company to work with has really drained away to just some job this past year. The other draw back is that this company doesn’t pay that well to start with, so the few perks (most of which were not financial) it offered, made a big difference in employee satisfaction. All of that has been stripped away this past year or so. I’m sad to see this change since it was a very family-focused company that seemed to go out of it’s way to support it’s staff in recognition that it’s financial support wasn’t the greatest. At the same time, I’ve hoped that these changes would prompt the partner to look elsewhere for employment, and while there have been days that he’s lost all patience with the company, he’s still pretty loyal to sticking around longer.

During our parking lot discussion, the partner mentioned just stopping all retirement contributions. This would put a few more dollars in our pockets each month, but would it be worth it? I don’t think so. Retirement is something that is going to happen - having a couple more dollars more a month might ease our financial stress a little bit, but not to the point to put future retirement in jeopardy. Since we’re already not seeing that money, I support continuing with contributions, even if we’re paying all the fees to make it happen.

This past year of making no financial progress is taking it’s toll on the partner as well - he wants to see debt going down, savings increasing, or equity growing. I understand the feeling, I want to see those things happening too - but we’re just not there yet. In fact, I’ve been anxiously waiting to hear what his raise is going to be and am starting to worry that one won’t be happening at all since his company has been struggling so much and we’re already entering the third week of July and there has been no word about this year’s raises (they usually go in effect July 1). I also struggle with the fact that the he chooses to stay with a company that limits his earning potential. In my mind, if he really wants to see progress in those areas, he’d be making the effort to apply for other positions that are available to him at this point and would come with a decent pay increase as well. But that’s not a fun argument to make and is one area that I’ve finally learned to not push too hard - but it’s difficult to not push when I see that as one of the only positive steps to reducing our financial struggles.

One of the joys of raising children is that they need things, like clothes. Luckily, I have a wonderful daughter who isn’t the least bit interested in fashion or keeping up with her friends. This makes clothes shopping an easy and affordable experience.

A couple years ago, I stopped at my favorite thrift store to pick up some camp clothes for the daughter. These were clothes that I didn’t care what happened to them or if they ever came back from camp. Since we’re pretty frugal with most of our purchases, I didn’t want her taking her “normal” clothes to camp and getting them ruined or lost. I think I spent about $20 on shirts and shorts for the two week camp.

It turned out that she really liked a lot of those clothes and they quickly became part of her normal wardrobe. Suddenly, I realized that buying her clothes anywhere else made no sense whatsoever. So, we started shopping at thrift stores for pretty much all of her clothing needs. I love that I can pick up an entire season’s worth of clothes for about $30. I also love how flexible she is and the fact that she could care less where they come from or what they look like, for the most part. Plus, if you see the way she treats her clothes, you’d probably feel much better knowing that she crawling in the mud in a pair of $3 pants versus a pair of $30 pants.

So, today we’re heading down to our favorite thrift store shopping district to get some summer clothes that she’s been desperately needing. I’m really getting tired of seeing her running around in mid-nineties degree weather wearing flannel lined jeans (she swears she isn’t hot, but come on!). While I figure we’ll spend about $30 on clothes, maybe a little more if I get a few things, we’ll probably spend almost that much on lunch and gas as well. Unfortunately, there are no good thrift stores where we live and we’ll be making the partners commute to the stores that have proven time and again to be worth the drive. And, since we’ll be down by the partner during his lunch hour, we’ll stop in and dine with him too. A nice family lunch out on a weekday is a rare occurance these days since gas prices went up and we moved so far away from his work.