The partner is also on board for paying more attention to what’s going on and not leaving me the only one aware of our finances. I did a great job with our money when it easy, when progress was being made, when I felt like we had control. But the past two years, everything been a huge struggle, one that I just gave up and walked away from. Now we’re back to getting on track for erasing debt and getting the things we need.

When we were really on top of the money game, we made great progress on our credit card debt – going from $30,000 to $13,000! Being able to buy a house was the prime motivation and I’m said to admit that since buying said house, we’ve added back at least $7,000. This has been a combination of things going wrong, poor money choices, personal business purchases, and economy fall-out. Since buying the house, we’ve not really made any positive progress on paying off debt as most month’s have felt like we’re lucky to be eating. But now we’re looking at $20,000 in credit card debt that has to get paid – and we’re going to!

The other big money buster has been the eating out habit. I’ll be honest, this is my problem. I’ve gotten in the habit of always going out to eat and not spending any time working up meal plans or menus. I’ve let various excuses get in the way and am always quick to play the “we have to eat” card when everyone is starving and going somewhere is then the easiest option. In fact, I manage to eat out almost once a day — I’m a stay-at-home mom that lives in the country. It’s at least a 20-30 minute drive to get somewhere to eat — there is no excuse for this. So, we’re going with the envelope system for eating out and groceries to curb this habit – wish me luck.

Oh and the money group plans are actually moving forward, yay!

We’re looking into the Dave Ramsey system and I know their courses do provide this sort of mentorship – but I’m not spending money to save money at this point. I think the partner and I can get on board and make positive changes without outlaying cash for courses. The small online group I was hoping to work with doesn’t look like it’s going to pan out – they’re probably just going with a format that I won’t be able to follow along with due to a lack of structure and easily accessible support. I do have my hopes that they’ll move to a slightly different format so we can make it work, but since I’m not in charge, I can’t force that change.

I just have some questions and issues I’d really love some supportive feedback on, especially the ones that seem pretty obvious what the answer should be but is hard to accept or follow through with. I’ll probably just end up posting them here eventually, but feel like the possible comments I’ll get in return won’t offer the supportive feedback that will make it easier to make necessary decisions. I’m not looking for someone to tell me “yes, make that stupid decision” but I do want something more than “well duh, it’s obvious that you shouldn’t do that” as well.

Perhaps for now, it’ll just have to be the partner and I supporting each other.

For 2 years (guesstimate), I’ve stopped watching our finances. My head has been in the sand and it’s time to get it back out. We have some goals that we’ve been talking about eventually getting to, but they aren’t happening because we don’t have a real plan for how to make it happen. I’m considering doing the Dave Ramsey method for the next year to help get us in better financial shape. I’m not sure how the partner will feel about that method, but I know that he’s also feeling the strain of wackadasical finances.

I have some friends that are trying to come together to support each other for reaching their financial goals and am going to use this opportunity to get back to being honest about our money. Right now, the situation is pretty scary and it’s been that way for quite a while. I’ve been trying to hide it from myself and the partner and it’s time to get out of that destructive pattern.

So, hopefully I’ll be back here soon to give an honest assessment of where we’re at financially and where we want to be in the short-term.

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.

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.

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.

The shade structure idea wasn’t an out-of-the-blue thought. We’ve been discussing getting a good structure for several years and somehow manage to talk ourselves out of it each time. We have a big party coming up in a couple weeks where we could certainly use a nice sized structure – but is that reason enough to get one? He almost had me convinced and those lovely little “Buy It Now” buttons on ebay can be awfully tempting sometimes. But, before clicking that button, my mind started to wonder about some of the details.

I’m a bargain hunter – I hate to pay extra for anything I think I can get for less somewhere else. Considering shipping costs, I’ve began wondering if we couldn’t get some of the structure elements cheaper, closer to home. This threw a kink in the whirlwind of activity – not so much because I was questioning the savings, but because I was taking longer look at the situation. What started out as a conversation about getting a bulk discount on EMT had turned into definite plans to buy the kit and the EMT without even knowing if a discount was possible. Having the shade structure for the party would be great, but having the cash to pay for everything would be even better and thats where the problem comes in.

I can justify needed expenses that are necessary. We have to get vertical supports up for the crops (now!) and I don’t mind forking over cash to make that happen. However, we don’t *need* a new shade structure for the party – no matter how nice it’d be to have. Also, we’re currently looking at options for buying another vehicle – one with 4-doors and a/c – and now is not the time for buying frivolous items. Once I started adding up the shelter details, all I could see was that adding up to the 6-month or 12-month increase in auto insurance we’ll be paying for a 4th vehicle.

It’s easy to get pulled along by ideas, but sometimes you still need to hit the breaks and really look at the situation. We may end up with a shade shelter, but it’ll get a lot more consideration than the 2 hours of talk we gave it last night. Also, before we make that decision, we’ll need to finally decide if we’re going to get another older car for the cash we can spare, or it we’re going to add a car payment to our already tight budget. I’m already leaning toward the first option, but am not sure the partner is on board with that idea just yet so we gotta talk it out a bit more first.

Our house has a 30+ year old boiler that supplies our heat and hot water. On Saturday or Sunday last week, we suddenly had no hot water. This isn’t really a big deal since the partner is pretty good at fixing things; the complicated part is figuring out what is wrong. But, it threw a kink in our regularly schedule programming. At this time, we also noticed we were finally almost out of fuel (see below) and thought that might be contributing to the problem, but turns out that it was just a coincidence and we managed to solve the broken boiler before solving the lack of oil.

One of our in-progress projects was replacing our ancient oil tank with a newer tank. We’d placed all our oil deliveries on hold so that we could run the tank empty and switch them out. However, while we’d finally run low enough to make the switch, the heat, broken boiler, and the impending baby arrival made us rethink that plan and decide that late fall would be better timing. So, we called our oil company for a delivery and let them know we hadn’t switched tanks yet.

The oil company insisted that the tank had to be inspected before they’d deliver oil. This made no sense and I argued about it being the same tank they’d been filling, but they insisted and I finally shrugged it off and agreed. We had a tech out that afternoon. The tech takes two seconds, a quick swipe of his hand on the underside of our tank, and fails it. Crap! Then, he gives the partner a $50 bill for the inspection – what?! No one said anything to me about charging me $50 for the inspection — I was pissed and immediately called to refuse to pay it. The reasoning: no one told me that there would be a charge for the inspection. Had they mentioned it upfront, I would have hemmed and hawed until the dropped the inspection requirement in general. It also didn’t improve my spirits that we now had to switch out tanks.

Fuel oil companies are very competitive with each other and there is nothing holding me to this particular company. Also, because we’d had our oil deliveries on hold for so long and were still on monthly budget billing, we have a sizable credit with them that I was more than willing to take elsewhere. I immediately called the company and got an agreeable CSR on the phone who was a bit stubborn at first but quickly realized I was much more stubborn. She wasn’t able to cancel the charge, but she gave me an extra $50 credit on our account to cover it – problem solved.

The tech that failed our tank said that they probably wouldn’t be a charge for the to reinspect the new tank that we now had to put in. This wasn’t the case when it came time (the next day) for that inspection. But, the person on the phone did let me know about the charge ahead of time and I was going to let it go. That was until the oil company dropped the ball…

When the new tank passed inspection, a delivery should have been ordered right then. The tech called in the passed inspection as he was supposed to, but a delivery order wasn’t placed. Around 4pm this afternoon (on a Friday) I noticed we still didn’t have oil and called to find out if the truck was running late. Since I called so late, I was told there was nothing they could do and it’d be Monday, maybe, before a delivery could be made. Also, I was told that I have to call back first thing on Monday to make sure an order is placed (why do I have to call again?) and that it may still be another day or so after that since they only travel to my area once or twice a week during the summer – most customers use oil for heating only and they reduce their trucks and staff in the summer.

So, considering this issue too – I’m going to write a letter about the entire ordeal to the company and will expect some sort of corrective action (in financial form) for this entire ordeal. In the meantime, I’m thankful that I’ve got such a talented partner and know that we’ll have hot water even with an empty oil tank over the weekend – of course, I don’t need to let the fuel oil company know that.

I don’t like not having online access to my accounts. i don’t like that I feel my only option is to call them and I’ve got a million other things that need done instead. I don’t *need* access to my account at the moment, though I did want to schedule two upcoming payments and looking to see if our tax returns or stimulus package amounts have been deposited. Luckily, I know we’re covered in instances like this and I don’t have to stress over the fact I can’t get into my account. However, I’ve now lost all patience with the situation and want to know when this situation will be resolved.

Oh, and you know the saying “when it rains, it pours”? Oh so true and maybe I’ll have some fun updates this weekend or next week with how life just gets more and more exciting here every day. In the meantime, if someone wants to buy the partner and I two new cars, I won’t complain.