Creating My First Real Budget #4

Do You Really Need it New?

Do you really need that new? All the pictures above are the pictures I saw on Craigs List to buy our furniture. Cash - no buying on time ..... You really don't need to by brand new items all the time.

Check out local thrift stores for the kids school and play clothes - I have even found great church/special occasion dresses for my girls. You need a new couch? Check out a thrift store or your local craigs list. If you live in a small town, check the nearest big city craigs list, you can always drive in and pick it up! (be safe and smart when meeting and buying/selling on Craigs List!) And lets not forget eBay! I get ALOT of my clothes on eBay because its hard to find plus sized clothing in thrift stores and the plus sized clothing stores are so expensive!

Also check you nearest Ross, TJ Maxx and Marshal's - you can have brand new clothing for a fraction of the cost! Just to show you how much new stuff you dont need, here is a list of all the things in my house that is craig listed or second hand. (some of which can be seen above)

Matching blue couch and love seat craigs list both for $125, Flat Screen HDTV - free from a friend, vintage wooden credenza to put TV on $40 on Craigs List, China Hutch $60 Criags List, Oak dinning room 8 seater Table with 6 chairs and matching Hutch CL$250, 2 matching retro green side chairs $40 for both. Retro rug CL $25, Cal King Bed - Free from a friend only used 2 years! Both kids dresser brand new free from a friend (they match), Serging Table CL $50, Vintage Wood Sewing Table CL $50, HUGE Tall Bookcases (the white ones in the front room) CL $50 each, Portable Dishwasher - free from a friend who was moving. Awesome 2 round hanging lights - free from a guy in CL I bought something else off him, I saw that and mentioned they were cool and he gave them to me, Trampoline CL $30 (brand new in box - looked online and it would have cost $240 online). - That is all I can think of right now But I know there is more!

I share all this - to show you, you can do it. My house does not look like second hand furniture, it all looks very nice. Just take your time and have cash (a set amount) ready and wait till what you want shows up ....

Items I always buy new ... Underwear, socks, swimsuit sheets and towels (new but NEVER full price! heeheehee)

A word of caution! Internet shopping is good because you can look around and get exactly what you want and really check out the whole world! Be cautious and don't buy buy buy cause you like it. Start looking for something at a set price. Then buy only it. Don't run across something you never new existed before and suddenly need it! When I eBay I either BIN (Buy It Now) or I snipe the auction, so I set an amount that is the most I am willing to pay and then forget about it, until I get an email from the snipper program saying I won or lost!

And here is an idea ... if you owe a lot of money on your stuff .... can you make back what you owe by selling it, then finding something super cheep you can pay for in cash? Because you NEED to get out of debt! Good luck and happy shopping!

Creating My First Real Budget Step #3

The next thing I started to look at was our grocery bill. What can I do to make that money go further? I started looking at the weekly adds and then I bought only what the stores had on sale. I usually did pretty good. Then I started buying a paper for its coupons and I would use then from an envelope - I had a shopping list and I stuck to it. (that helped with spur of the moment purchases on things like chips or snacks when you are hungry/shopping) As I have mentioned before - I read the book from "Coupon Mom" and really started to learn how to make coupons work. I am still not an expert - but I never pay full price. My goal is saving 50% on EVERY shopping trip!

The food bill will never go away, but you can make it go further or reduce it (if you family already has enough food). I know people who say "we can afford food and I just dont have the time to do coupons" Ok that is their choice, but no matter how much money you earn, you can always put some away for a rainy day. And if you even dont need to do that - here's an idea .... clip coupons and all the money you save, donate that to someone less fortunate then you are!

Creating My First Real Budget Step #2

OK – so you started your second bank account that you only pay bills out of. You transfer money each time you get paid to cover all your monthly bills. Great … your are at the point that if you keep up with this, you won’t bounce a bill payment again! WOOHOO!

Now you need to think about tracking what you need to pay and have paid. I made up a simple sheet in MSWord using the table functions. The top of my sheet has the month (ex June) and the year (2010). Then the table has 5 column’s and about 35 row’s. The top of each column I have the date we get paid that month (Tuesday’s) and the amount we got paid (total bills and spending money).

The next row I leave blank to help keep things easy to see at a glance.

The 3rd row starts the rows of things my husband pays (his car gas and credit card – each gets its own line) when that is done I have a row for the amount he is responsible each week for paying. Then when he pays it, he tells me and I go to the Format drop down menu and click on the Font and then click “strike through” so I know it has been paid.

After my husband’s finical responsibilities for the week, I skip a line and start the bills I take care of.

In my section the first line is the AMOUNT I TRANSFFER to the household account each week. Its easy to look at and get done ASAP even if I don’t have time to sit down and pay bills, I can take that amount out of our other account and I KNOW bills are now covered and pay them later that week when I have time.

I start with Rent as the top of my list. Then I have all the bills I pay online in the lines below those. At the bottom of my list is the bills I pay by check through the mail. Then when they get paid it, I go to the Format drop down menu and click on the Font and then click “strike through” so I know it has been paid.

Now that you have made up your monthly list of bills that need to be paid and when they need paying, see what bills you can pay more often (mostly your debt). For example, we pay our credit card bills each week. By doing this our monthly payments have gone down a total of $60 a month! It’s because the interest doesn’t have time to build up as much. So we will pay off our debt faster and for less then just by paying the min due each month. It works for me! If you pay your student loans or other loans on line you may be able to do this with them as well. Just check to make sure you don’t have early payoff penalty’s!!

At the bottom of the sheet I also list our debt and approx how much we own and I update it 2 times a year and I LOVE when I can cross out one of our debts as paid off on that bottom part of the sheet!

Creating My First Real Budget Step #1

I started this way of balancing our budget 2 years ago. Back then we were living paycheck to paycheck and living out of one bank account. We would bounce a bill payment a lot more then I want to admit. Just trying to pay for groceries and car gas … I would miss writing down one thing or my husband would forget to tell me another thing and poof NSF fees everywhere! We are still living paycheck to paycheck, but haven’t bounced a BILL payment since then (we have gone under on our spending IE groceries and gas accounts from lazy record keeping and lack of communication, but at least no bills have gone unpaid!)

OK – here is the plan. Have a “household” account separate from your spending account. The household account will be the account you write your checks from, or have your bills come out of however you are most comfortable doing it. We get paid weekly so I added up our bills and divided by 4. Each week I transfer that amount into the household checking account. I started this 2 years ago when we got our tax returns and put one MONTH of payments into the household account so that we have everything one month in advance. And always be ahead of the game. Also I round everything up to the nearest dollar amount. This way when the once a year bills come due I have extra, and usually enough to pay it. Even if I don’t it’s NOT such a big deal on the budget. One more thing that really helps is when that extra paycheck comes (the 5th week of the month happens 2 or 3 times I year) I transfer as normal to try and get ahead.

Honestly we are not as ahead as we should be. When we had things like unexpected Dr’s bills or my husband got a ticket, we had to use the stuff I saved in reserve for it – but at least it was there to use.

My long term plan with this payment system is that we keep adding to our account as we get those 5th weekends in the month as well as adding more each time we get a tax return. We can’t put all of our tax return to it, but some. We will keep adding to this account until we have 3 months worth of money in it to pay for bills and ultimately 3 months worth of food money. That way if we have some unforeseen issues, we can live for 3 months with a little less worry.

Look at this ladies savings so far this year!!

January Grocery Bill:~Spent $395.11
~Saved $672.14 w/Q's & Sales!
February Grocery Bill: ~Spent $335.75
~Saved $793.15 w/Q's & Sales!
March Grocery Bill:~Spent $283.10
~Saved $1231 w/Q's & Sales!

WOW - I was just reading the couponmom forums, trying to find more advice and ran across this ladies savings so far this month. how NEAT is that. last month she saved $1231 and spent $283.

Inspired once again. Today I spent $89, and saved $66!!!! :) not to the big legues yet, but getting there! :) I did find out something interesting. My Ralphs (Hawthorn rt next to the Galleria) only doubles the 1st coupong of multiple items. I had 4 coupons for .50 cent each on rice that was on sale for $1. If they had double each I would have gotten 4 bags of rice free! (its what I was hoping for ...) but they dont. Next time I will give a coupon to each kid and the hubby and make them pay seperatly .. LOL that way we will get them all for free! heehee where there is a will there is a way!

3 movies tickets FREE! Thank You Coupons!

How many of us DONT clip (or even notice) coupons on the items we buy? I admit I used to be one of them. Tonight I just printed up 3 free movie tickets (a $36 value) from 5 coupons!!! I bought some General Mills cereals, they had codes for every 2 boxes you could get 1 FREE movie ticket worth up to $12.00 value each. Then I was about to throw away those papers they had you at the super market this one looked like an advertisement??? ... it turned out to be my choice of 15 free download ring tons (bla) or 15 free downloads of music (also Bla) OR 1 free movie ticket WOOHOO. Another $12.00 value.

I just got 2 free movie ticket worth $36 just for reading the coupons on things I already BOUGHT! Now how convenient is that? Its like people are trying to give us money. A little attention to details and I am rewarded.

"Stacking" Coupons

Ever heard this term before? I sure hadn't. It when you can use more then one coupon on a single item. For example, you have a manufactures coupon for .50 cents off a box of cereal. Then you sign up online for e-coupons and you add a .50 cent coupon for the same item. Then you scan your weekly circular and that item is on store sale. So take that item to check out. They ring it up on sale, you hand over your coupon and they scan it (my reg store is Ralphs and they double manufactures coupons only) so another $1 comes off. Then you hand them your rewards card they scan that an another .50 cents comes off!!! You just saved $1.50 with coupons and what ever the store sale price was. For something you probably wold have paid full price for in the first place.

Now is stacking coupons NEAT or what?

Helpful tidbit!!!! - when you add coupons to your store card you can write down the item, coupon price and date expires to better help you remember its there and stack coupons to the best advantage to you! The book I am reading recommends that you look threw e coupons 2 times a month and they are updated on the first of each month and only a certain number are available .. so sign up early to get the best selection of available coupons.

Where to get free money!!!

So in my quest for saving money with coupons, I have started looking more closely at my receipts and saving them. I have noticed that sometimes there are survey codes at the bottom but I never did them. Well from now on I will be checking every receipt religiously!! It took 5 mins each, and my grocery store had a chance to win $100 for filling out a servery and Target is a chance at $5000! Now that kind of cash would be a HUGE help!

And I know that fast food does that too. But usually its for like a free drink or something on your next purchase. If you eat out there a lot its worth it. Just don't do back there and spend more then you should because you want that free drink or burger - that is actually waisting money.

Also check the restrictions - many have deadlines and by the time you are in line waiting to eat lunch and you ordered and they pointed out you cant get that free item.... you are just hungry and will pay for what was supposed to be free!

Our first true attempt at coupon shopping!

Well tonight I sent my husband out with a list and coupons. I sent them with a clipboard too, very dedicated! (and a 13 yr old and a 3 yr old .. oh the joys of shopping that he doesnt usually get to enjoy!)

Saved almost 50% on grocerys tonight! It was great! He saved $42.85 and spent $48.42. He only bought 4 items not on the list ... if he had stuck to the list (this is a HUGE rule ... DONT bye anything not on the list - eliminates alot of excess spending, but I didnt give him that rule) ... he would have only spent 36.76!!! and it WOULD have been more then 50%!! WOOHOOOOO

This was our first forte into real coupon shopping and I think we did well. I only have 2 weeks worth of sunday paper coupons, imagian what I could do with more!

AND we got a 48 oz tub of icecream FREE!!!!

Happy shopping to you!

Save 50% or MORE on your grocery bill!

Coupon Mom.com

I just was told about this site and rushed right out to buy her book. (only $15 and well worth it) I am only on chapter 8 and I have learned SO much! I am so excited. The book warns that it take at least 6 weeks of collecting weekly newspaper adds to really get going and understand the system they are teaching you. And I believe them. In the beginning it takes more time and effort. But they tell me after like 6 months it will be a lot easier.

Cutting coupons can save you money, but having a coupon system will save you A LOT of money. If you could buy approx $100 worth of grocery’s for $20, wouldn’t it be worth a few hours a week? I sure think so. And here I am trying it out.

So far I have 2 weekends worth of adds. I have started going on line and printing coupons. I am learning about coupons that you can put right onto your store card from on the internet NO paper – it just comes off your total when you check out! And did you know that you can use (in most stores – need to check your store policies) a manufactures coupon and a store coupon on the same item?? Me neither! How neat is that? And if your store doubles coupons … it will usually double a manufactures coupon and not there own. So if you use a store and a manufactures coupon – you might be able to get the equivalent of 3 coupons off? Now if you got that deal at the same time as the store had it on sale … you can get it to next to nothing! And couponmom.com has it all organized so its easier for you and takes you less time then it would figure it all out on your own! No matter where you live in the country!

I have a lot of friends who swear they haven’t paid for a toothbrush in years! And that is only the beginning.

Honestly you need to be flexible with your brands, cant be brand specific. And there is work involved – but no matter what stage of life you are in, you could always use more money right? Me too! I will keep you updated as I go ……