Math is Motivating.

I posted a NEW page on the side of my Blog.

It is my Sept 2012-2013 Goals. That way once I get home there is no thinking about what I want my money to do for me.

I have a plan...

#1 Ensure I have 12 Months of Emergency Fund.

#2. I used to MAX my TSP Retirement savings, well I want to change that. I want to instead of funding to my TSP which I can't touch until retirement I want to switch to Maxing my Roth IRA First then TSP to fill out the remainder of Baby Step 4.

#3. I want to start autofunding $250 per month to savings for Car Repairs or Replacement. By Dave Ramseys standard of Vehicles not to exceed 50% of yearly income I can afford a $27,500 car. That divided by 5 years, then monthly is Monthly Payments of $458.33 Which is more than I want to apply to a car payment.

#4. Then I want to start on Dave Ramseys Baby Step 6. YEP # 6, I have finally gotten over my fear of tying my money up pre-paying my Mortgage.

My plan is the automatically pay an extra $1,000 per month principle online each month.

Then I will send extra principle twice a month, when I see how much I have sitting in saving after paying all bills and extra misc things that pop up.

If I only pay the 1K then I can pay off my Mortgage in 7.5 years after starting extra payment on May 5, 2020.

If I were to pay $1,920 (which is my true Gazelle INTENSE Goal) than I could pay it off in 4.5 years or
on May 5, 2017.

Living Like No one else, so later I can live like no one else. If I had no house payment, I could live off Minimum Wage if I had too. The freedom to do whatever I really wanted to do without regard to what wage I received would be AWESOME! Also the stress of can I afford my house IF I lost my job would be gone because I could pick up any JOB to pay the bills until I found the position of my dreams.

Yesterday I picked up my cell phone from Fed-EX. I was having my computer looked at the night before so I was not able to make it down to fed-ex between 5:50pm and 6pm to pick up the package in store.

Last night I charged my new phone, and just a few minutes ago I went online and started the process of porting my new number.

Once the port goes through, then I can cancel my cell phone service with AT&T and turn in my telephone. I save $20 a month with my new phone.

The awesome news, I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new phone, it is so much like my old Alltel phone. It also does not look refurbished at all. It looks brand spanking new. I am told it could take 2 hours to port the number up to 2 business days.

I am prepared for it to take up to 2 business days because I have not gotten my first bill from AT&T so I am not sure if my account number is my phone number like with alltel or if I have a different account number. Also my name is hypenated on my alltel bill and the program would not allow the hypen. Not sure if it is hypened with AT&T or smashed together or a space between the two words. Little stuff like that will make a difference.

Worst case, once my number is ported I will need to call AT&T and cancel then turn in my phone and stuff once I get back in town from Annual Training (10 days). They might require the equipment (phone, packaging, charger, books) sooner, which might mean I can't cancel the phone line until I am able to physically turn in the phone.

So I am crossing my fingers that I can get fully ported today and call and cancel my plan and turn in my phone this evening.

So last night I realized I needed to start the look out for new running shoes as they no longer make the style number I have. Mine are old and when I run in them my arches start to ache within like 3 minutes.

I have been putting this off for a while. I went online and checked about five different sites. They all had the shoes listed for $84.99. But then I checked kohl's. The good news was I got Free shipping and there was a coupon code online for 30% off. Plus Kohl's sale price was $5 cheaper. So I saved $30 a pair. Yes, I bought two pairs because after taxes and everything they were $55 each. Which was too much of a deal to pass up.

Yes, you are might be thinking what is she thinking, buying two pairs of shoes instead of just one. Well the reason for it is....I need one pair now. And if I doing my math right this pair will wear out about half way through my deployment. I am worried that I will either break, lose, or have this one pair stolen and so I want a spare pair at home. I also have never shopped online and dealt with APO shipping so I figured it would be easier to buy them now and then if I need them before I come home for R&R then I can have BF ship them, instead of possibly having to pay jacked up prices because of the possibility of the cheapest provider not being APO friendly.

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I talked to BF again about the fact I am broke. He let me cry and told me he understands and has been in my shoes and it is just going to take time to get back on our feet. He gave no ideas, no oh honey but I am going to pay the water bill, nope just yak yak yak about how it will all work out it time, it is just not been very long since my divorce and I just need to relax and let things settle into a pattern.

I knew I needed gas in my car, I need to pay my son's $24 dental bill and my water/waste bill is coming due soon. So this morning I took the gas that I purchased for the snowblower that does not use a oil mix and put it in my car. When I started the car it was nearly on E, oops thought I had a bit more. I now have almost a half tank of gas. I don't know if we will need to use the snowblower again or if it is just going to be shovel weather, and the tank is also the mower one (the grass is still covered in snow so don't need the gas for that yet, so I figured I would use it up).

I know when BF and I sorta talked about him moving in (did not talk about exact finances) anyway he said he would not stand for 2 Rosters in the hen house. Meaning EX could not stay there if he was. Well I am planning to tell him that I NEED to let the parasite live there while I am deployed because I can't afford the financial ramifications if he does not. I hope BF can deal with that. I know it will not be ideal BUT what does he expect for $225 a month rent (which he has not started paying). Yes, it will be ackward for everyone at first, but either everyone will get used to it or I guess BF will move out once he has saved enough money from leaving in my home to either rent an house that will allow a dog or have saved up for a down payment.

I think BF is a good guy, and I would hope he would be able to deal with the situation but in the end.

Not having my Ex live in the house while I am deployed will cost me.
$319.90 Child Support I am paid
$717 Child Support I would have to pay
Child Deduction 2012 taxes
Head of Household 2012 taxes
20% co pay of medical insurance instead of Full coverage
$250 Seperation Pay per month
Yep sure adds up fast.

I feel bad that BF is going to have to put up with my EX living in the basement in one of the spare bedrooms but I can't justify the financial losses.

So Monday I had the talk with BF about finances, not really totally happy with the outcome. I feel sort of taken advantage of when it was done because I was not comfortable telling him what I wanted, just asked him what he thought was fair.

He said his take home is $1600, and he is not going to completely hand his check over to another person ever again. I care about BF, and he is a good housemate, but I want a chance at a long term relationship and BF doesn't plan to get married again. Which is fine with me, because it would just complicate things, but I would like a more intertwined relationship. Okay, I would like to be one of those engaged for 10-12 year people.

Back in Sept 2010 I told my EX-Husband he could move into my house (so our son would not have to move while I was deployed). Well I was not planning on charging him rent since he would still be paying child support but then I got to thinking and feared my EX would damage things such as the stove etc. Or to be spitful run up my utilities bill. So I desided that he would have to pay the utilites so that he would not be tempted to set the heat at 80 in the winter or air conditioner at 65 in the summer. So utilities $250 average per month plus 319.90 child support equals $560 per month $$$ I would have gotten from EX.

Well then I met my BF, and he moved in. I trust my BF to take care of the place better so last night after my EX said he wanted to know exactly where we were sitting, I told EX "he should just rent an apartment". I think it would be best for our sons mental adjustment anyway and mine since I don't trust my EX not to purposely damage the house while I am gone if he gets upset with the responsiblities that come with being a father.

Well BF knows that I was going to let EX move in and just pay utilites so that was what he suggested. That he pay the utilites. I guess part of me feels that is taking advantage of me because of the fact that since my EX is not staying in the house I will need to pay him $319.90 in child support so having BF stay there instead of the EX is costing me $319.90 for my deployment time frame. Also $250 in utilites is less that the $410 (1/3 total household costs) I was hoping he would offer. He was paying $525 a month plus lights in rent so I feel like $410 would have still been a better deal than what he was paying.

That aside, I am trying to look at it like a house sitting option, BF is house sitting my house for me and I am getting the utilites paid out of the deal. Then once I get home I think I will have to re-address the issue. Right now in addition to the utilities (which he has not started paying yet, he does provide me with daycare for my drill weekends whenever he is not working also so that saves me $100 each month).

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I was trying to look up IF I could get composite fencing done here, and the main professional fencing webite had the type of fence I wanted and a section on Dog Kennels. We will need one once my BF's dog comes to live here because I want a composite fence if one is going to be put up and they are expensive PLUS a fence is not one of MY priorities. BF said he would pay for the fence and install it since it was for his dog BUT in his mind he had a chain linc fence in mind. Sorry but if I am going to put up a fence it is going to add curb appeal. I do not want to put up a chain linc fence then try to sell the house later and the buyer turned off because there is a chain linc fence. So for the time being a dog kennel will have to do. I guess I don't really want to pay for the fence, I plan to get a estimate on what having a pro install what I had in mind done. Then maybe BF can apply what he is saving in rent by living with me to the cost of having the fence either installed by the pros or towards the materials that I approve. I saw some at the hardware store but I was not at all impressed. I would prefer the pro install.


After seeing the dog kennel on the one website, I desided to check if there where any new listing for kennels on our local free online website. The last time no luck but last night there was one that was listed on the 16th.

Menards had a deluxe model (5 x 10) for $350 and a basic chain linc the same size for $290. The ad did not have a picture BUT I think it is the deluxe model anyway they want $250 or best offer, because they said they paid $350 plus at Menards for it which leads me to believe it is the deluxe one. BF called them last night and left a message. He will call again today. Hopefully they still have it. It would be nice for him to get a deal on it, also the hardware store said it would take one week for it to get to the store.

Well Last night after I showed BF the web ad, he got a text from his mother to call his tonight. Seems BF's parents are coming to visit, they will be bringing the rest of BF's things and his dog. We found out last night that they will be here either this weekend or next weekend. So need to either get the online one or order the one from the hardware store asap. The good news is because they are doing the trip it is only going to cost BF gas money so instead of having to pay for a uhaul and time off work ($2000 approx) he is figuring about $600 in gas.

Now I just have to not let the housing agreement with BF bug me, I don't want it to ruin our relationship so not sure what to do.

I need to get my Emergency Fund Finished. If the Continuing Resolution is not fixed prior to 4 March 2011, then I am going to have pay issues.

I made a list of my expenses and posted it as a page on here. Hopefully later after I am thinking clearly I can ask for advice on whys to cut out costs that I am over looking.

My Mortgage was refinanced in July 2010 so there is not much I can do about that. It is what it is but I noticed that interest rates are higher than my 4.25% currently so that is that.

I also can't do anything about my house taxes, they were just assessed this Summer also so they are actually correct.

I am thinking maybe it is time to call my house insurance company though and see what I can do to reduce that cost or if that does not help get other quotes. BUT I think I will put that on the back burner for now because I don't want to increase my deductable until I have the increase in my in my Savings.

Today I will try to reduce my Gas/Electric Bill by reducing the heat temp and changing the time settings to match up more with what time we are getting out of bed and going to bed.

I have a list of 5 things that I think will be easy and then hopefully I will start tackling the harder stuff.

Yesterday I got flowers from BF. They were delivered to the house at 5:30pm which is the time I always tell people if they need to come to the house that we will be there. So BF has picked up on that. )

The flowers were nice, they were actually much prettier this morning. Last night I was looking at the roses and thinking they seemed a bit bruised. But this morning once they opened more they were very pretty.

I am picky about my plants and flowers because I used to work in the lawn and garden portion Wal-Mart.

Anyway, it was the card that I loved. Last night I pulled out the card and message made me laugh out loud. He makes me smile. Later that night he asked if I like the flowers and I said yes even though I had already told him thanks for the flowers three times, but I think he wanted to know if I REALLY liked them. He then asked if I like the bear..... Bear, What bear?

See BF jokes that he is going to send me a singing telegram by a teddy bear. He will not because he is the same as I and not into that big production singing stuff. So I was wondering if it was a joke in reference to that. Well he said you were suppose to get the flowers, a stuffed bear and a card. Now I don't know IF flower places just call the stick thing they stick in the flowers with the printed message a card or if there was suppose to be another card. But he is going to look online again because of the MIA teddy bear.

I gave BF a thermal shirt (a need as he is from warmer climates and needs to increase the amount and warmth level of the cold weather gear he has). And the big box of Whitman Sampler Chocolates (My favorite). He ate half the box last night. :0) So I did well. He mentioned that he was thinking of stopping on the way home from work to get me chocolates but he would have probubly eaten them all before he got home.

I got my son a gift package, it came with a tiny box of hard candies, a box that you can put a photo in the front and a stuffed leopord. He really liked his stuff. I knew he would.

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Last night I made Easy Chicken Parmisean. I had 7 servings left for lunches since I made a double batch. I took 4 of the containers to work for lunch. They went into the breakroom freezer. Tonight I am making Pork Chops with Mushroom Rice.

Right now I have 2 brown bag berritos, 2 easy chicken parmisean, and two lemon pepper chicken with rice and veggies for BF for Lunches.

I also have 3 lemon pepper chicken and about 8 brown bag berritos in the freezer for lunches. I want to slowly build up the lunch leftover stash in the freezer so that there is food for lunch even if I make something that does not produce leftovers (like tonights small meal), or we are just not hungry so we just graze all night instead of sitting down to a meal.

I went grocery shopping. I need to stop!!! See if I buy all the groceries really there is nothing left to leave to BF to buy.

I used the last of the ground beef last night, I made these brown bag burritos. It called for two pounds of ground beef, I only had one so it had to be half beef half turkey. I could not tell the difference at all.

I told BF we were out of ground beef so we are going to have to use start to use turkey for a while and then he said well tell me what else we need that is left on the grocery list (I have been lining through stuff as I buy it) and he would pick it up on the way home. Well we will see if he does.

I think I am going to start double batching stuff and using half beef and half turkey. I think it will stretch the beef out longer.

I am planning on making Easy Chicken Parmesan. I really like this recipe and it reheats really well for lunches. I plan on using two pounds of italian seasoned ground turkey, so I can double the recipe.

Today on the way home from work I need to deposit my rebate from some free shampoo and my telephone refund. The telephone refund is only good for 30 days so I need to get that cashed fast.

Today is Feb 14th....Yes it is Valentines Day BUT it is also the day that the IRS is suppose to start taking itemized tax return. I need to get into my yahoo email and see if TurboTax released My tax return. I can't wait to get my return!!!

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Today is Valentines Day, I love Roses. I love getting Roses at work especially on Monday so I can enjoy them all week long before taking them home for the weekend. The problem is Valentines Day is the EXPENSIVE holiday for flower delivery. So deep down I want roses and I want them today so I can enjoy them all week long BUT then the frugle side of me does not want my BF to get overcharged, next week he could get double the flowers for the same price. So even though the day is now coming to a quick end and I am thinking BF is not getting me anything I want to be positive because I know he has that final Student loan payment tomorrow.

Truthfully I want something for Valentines day. I do. BF told me yesterday he does not like Valentines day, he is more a Christmas and Birthday gift guy, he thinks Valentines day is just another day for stores to try to get you to spend money. So we will wait and see....If nothing else I can enjoy the box of chocolates I got him. (They are after all my Favorite Chocolates). :0)

I have a problem, I make a plan then I change my mind. First I might decide to pay extra on my mortgage but then I start playing it over and over in my head and I think I should save a years worth of mortgage payments into saving FIRST before doing that.

How do you keep with your savings goals without getting side tracked and rethinking your plan.

The only debt I have is my mortgage. So I am causing myself mental STRESS over what to assign my extra money each month into.

If all the debt you had was your mortgage and you had a pretty secure job, what would you do? How do you figure out when to start paying extra on your mortgage?

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My irrational thinking below, please don't let it sway your advice to the questions above:

I fear losing my job even though I have no logical reason to fear this, then having to get a new job. My job pays EXTREMELY well and I fear making my mortgage payment if I had to find another job. This is not rational either, Yes I am paid well and would more than likely take a pay cut. The reason the not make the payment is not rational is I have my BF living with me, he has not starting paying rent yet, but if this happened then he would be a shoulder to lean on.

I also currently save a large portion of my paycheck to retirement. If I did not save a dime to retirement at my new job, I would have to find a $18.77 per hour job. OUCH in this area that would be tough. So my fear boils down to how can I find a really good paying job IF all of a sudden world peace broke out.

I guess worst case I could try to sell my home. See I tried to sell it this summer but I know why it did not sell. BF has plans to do some stuff to the home which would will just add buyer interest at a later date. I just hope I can sell it for close to its value. If I was, I could buy a cheaper home and thus reduce my mortgage. I have 74K in equity IF it sold at value. In this town a decent home starts at 110K, so I could get a bare bones house for a loan of 36K and that I think I could afford on a NEW less paying job.

Thank you all for you advice on the mental issue I was having regarding the lack of deck or fire excape as I was looking at it.

""I honestly don't think Dave Ramsey would say it is okay to borrow money for a deck. However, he might think it a safety issue and a priority. He would tell you to take a second job, sell everything you can and use the cash on hand you have. In other words, everything you can think of doing before you would go into debt further."" (Need to go back later and give credit to the poster)

I wanted to post about what I am thinking of doing to get my EF funded.

First: I have responded to an ad online looking for a roommate. I am thinking that for a while I will rent out a room in my house. This is not nearly as much money as a parttime job but after you deduct all the costs with parttime work it would be about half of what my take home would be, equal to it IF I could rent out two rooms.

I am going to look into seeing if there are any jobs in town that I could work from home. I would like to pick up a second job but because I would have to line up daycare and it would have to be when I am not working my primary job it would make it not super easy to do. I also have to get approval from my employer to work outside my home so I am thinking internet in the evenings. If I can find something internet than even if my job took me out of town as long as I have internet acess I could still pull in work. Or the job would have to be one where I could bring my son along (part-time evening nanny).

I have a few items I could sell, I just had a rummage sale and plan to have another next summer for the small things. I need to put ads out for the few large items I do have to sell to make a little money.

Okay now thirdly the "Use the money you have" The point of an emergency fund is to plan for unexpected events. Truthfully My job is secure I have a contract (just not the orders yet) for a 6 year position. So the Emergency Fund is fine at 3 mths. The Escrow and Mortgage do need to be at 12 Months because the posibility of needing to have then autopaid for extended periods without me being able to oversee it are more likely.

So I am going to buy the 3 rolling ladders
then I am going to continue to work on increasing income
then I am going to save for the Mortgage and Escrow.
then once those are at the 12 months I will save for the Emergency Fund and deck.

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The only blip that is going to be on the horizon is in Dec. I NEED to have a months cushion in my checking account at that time as that is when my contract moves from old to new and pay is ALWAYS messed up for atleast one pay period where you end up waiting on the first check to cut.

Today was my one day rummage sale.

It was from 8am until 6pm. I posted a FREE ad online and put a sign by my road and a sign by the cross street that runs off it.

Last night I got lazy and went to Wal-Mart and spent $1.80 on those round garage sale stickers that are super fast to put on stuff.

The stickers were my ONLY cost. So I made $305.10 Profit after factoring out the cost of the labels/stickers not bad, not bad at all. As a result I am now I am about half way to my credit card payment goal (to pay for my new furniture).

My neighbor will be having another rummage sale here in about three weeks so, she said I could add stuff to hers. All I have to do is as I pack up to make sure the stickers have my initals on them and then pack the stuff away for three weeks. Hopefully I can get rid of some more stuff. The nice thing is it will be closer to school so more of the clothes will go.

I am extremely happy about the results of the rummage sale. I should have put together one a LONG time ago. But now that I know the turnout is good for this area I will just keep some totes empty and as I find stuff I want to get rid off I will label it and set it aside for the next sell.

I ended up giving someone a $19 discount on the FireKing Dishes BUT better to have the $30 that I got for the remaining 43 pieces than to have them collecting dust.

If someone asked if I would take lower on any item I always said yes. Better to have cash in hand than a piece of clutter in a box. Truthfully the only regret is the dishes. It would have been $49 for all the pieces and she offered $20. I came back with $35 which really was what I would have been happy with, but then she came back with $30. I need to get over it and not stress out over $5. The thing is that they had special meaning to me and I already priced them low to begin with so here I am trying to let it go.

The only downside is tomorrow I NEED to clean, I moved EVERY flat surface piece of furniture that I owned into the garage to use and so the house is back to being trashed and there are boxes EVERYWHERE. Oh well....I will clean.

Oh I forgot to mention the quality time spent with my computer. During the sale I was cleaning out my email inbox. I have really neglicted the email account I have for sendearnings, inboxdollars and Mypoints. Guess who knocked out a bunch of emails and surveys. So really I made more than just the $305.10 I just dont know how to put an exact dollar amount on the email time.

Well I went back to the store and bought the furniture for upstairs. In 1 to 2 weeks I should have furniture for my house. Later that evening as I was thinking of the total bill I started to regret it.

I got a great deal on the furniture, I really do need furniture as it makes it hard to sit down and relax when you only have wood kitchen chairs to sit down in. But being the tight wad that I am I have a hard time spending money on myself.

Truthfully this is the first Me Purchase I have made in well 11 years. The last Me Purchase was my Car in 1999. I guess I am stressing because I charged it to my credit card and unless I want to pull the $ out of savings about half the charge might sit one cycle on the CC. Of course my rate is 8% so that is not bad considering. But as a pay in full credit card person this extra month freaks me out.

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I would like to have a fully funded 12 Month EF, truthfully I do not need that much as my job is really secure but it makes me feel better.

Today I reduced my retirement savings from 36% of my pay to 15%. This will bring me about an extra $700 per month into my take home. I plan to use the extra money to fund the Emergency Fund, The House Payment Fund and The Escrow Fund. (Basically I have the Emergency Fund broken down three ways) I figure if something were to happen then why breakup the fund to those three things when I can just break them up now.

Once the Emergency Funds are funded I need to save for the Deck and for a larger house repair fund. The Deck is a Need as it is a safety thing. I have a walk out lower level so without the deck if there was a fire at the front of the house the only way out the top floor would be the two story windows. The house repair fund is currently being fed $100 per month. I would like at least $2000 in the account. The deductible on the homeowners insurance is 1000 and I want to have atleast 1000 for repairs.

Once that all happens then I will raise back my retirement savings. It really hurts to reduce my retirement saving BUT truthfully if I continue how I am saving for retirement I will have $50K per year income and I am currently living off of $29K per year with the mortgage payment so I should not be stressing.

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I hope to have a rummage sale this weekend to help pay for the furniture and to also reduce the clutter in my life.

I was trying to think of ways to increase my income. I could get a parttime job (but this would require permission from my employer). I could sell stuff, which is why I am having a rummage sale/sales. Or I could think about having a roommate or two. I am not ready to go the roommate route because I like being able to live my life without having to worry about noise from other. Also if I get a parttime job I would have to line up daycare. So I am not sure what I will do for extra money once I sell everything that I can sell.

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Hopefully I will get clearity as time goes on, I just feel so pulled in so many ways.

Okay here is the situation. 6 months ago my now XH had to have a NEW phone so he could text. So after researching new phone prices I desided to extend my cell phone contract to get new phones at a reduced cost.

The cancel early fee is $200 per line but the discount on the phones was $220 each so the lesser of two evils was to extend the contract. My XH now has his own plan but he still has the phone I purchased for him. He has basically given me the $200 cancelation fee in FREE daycare services. But there was a mess up with the Internet bill; I pay the bill but the bill was in his name so when the bill was transfered to my name; he is going to get a refund of MY $$ for about $100. If I get that money returned to me I am good for the phone but if not then really he only gave my $100 for the contract cancelation.

Yeah a complicated mess. Here is the deal. I can cancel the phone now, and pay $200 and save $28 per month which times 5 months is $140 or a total cost of $60.

Or I can just keep the second line and it will cost me $140 more over the next 6 months BUT if I only get the $100 it will only cost me $40. But if for some CRAZY reason he desided to refund me the Internet refund then It would save me $60 to wait out the contract.

What would you do? Would you pay the extra $60 and just be done with the mess and the ties to your XH. Or would you wait out the 5 months then cancel the line to save the $60? At this point I have to wait until the 9th to make any changes. The way my provider works is any change made mid cycle will be prorated and if I make the change before the start of the new cycle I am afraid of overage charged because of the prorate.

Another thing is he said he would give me the phone, if I do not get the other phone back I will cancel the line ASAP. But if I have the phone in hand and know no calls will be going OUT from it I am more willing to keep the line. What to do?

Oh one more thing, I HAVE ALLTEL yep, Alltel. We were suppose to be in the process of being switched to AT&T like 3 years ago. At this point I am wondering if that switch happens before the contract would end would I really have a contract cancel fee as the contract is with Alltel NOT AT&T? The swap is causing me many questions because I am not sure my phone will work with them and If I cant upgrade am I going to have to pay FULL price for a phone to work on the AT&T plan?

So my Workout Buddy is planning to go to Vegas in August, he parents and uncles/aunts were going to go and meet some radio personality and him and his brother were going to go relax and maybe do a little skydiving.

BUT He has not locked anything in yet. He was planning the end of August and asked if I might be interested in tagging along; but that would not work for me since Mid August school starts. I told him if it was sooner I might be convinced to join him.

Well his answer was that the trip was not in stone yet and if earlier would workout better, an earlier trip could be arranged. How Sweet is that.

Okay so my Workout buddy has many friends in the airline business, so he can get buddy passes, we just have to get to Denver. So I need to start saving for the trip that I want to take; that he said he could arrange buddy passes for.

My plan is July-August (Workout daily, watch food intake, increase water intake) Goal Be down to my 143 pound goal fitting into my favorite swim suit.

Reward: Vegas 3 day trip early August

Sept 18th: Run 1st 5K race

Get a Passport!

Reward for 5K race, Getting fit and trim and My Birthday (Nov): Trip to cancun (buddy ticket) in November which he says would be the best time to go as it is not during spring break and that time of year it is more people our age on vacationing there.

I need to look into the price of tickets to vegas...We have super cheap flights to vegas from my city as we have one airline that just does vegas so I am thinking $100-$150. I then will need $ for food. I am thinking either I will be crashing on the couch in their room (unless the brother is claiming the couch) or will crash on the floor. After all the carpeted floor will probubly be softer than a rocky ground you would get camping.

As for my Birthday trip:
I need a passport
I need Ticket to Denver
I need Hotel $
I need Food $
He has been to cancun 4 times so I am going to find out from him the average he usually spends on food and hotel so I can ball park the savings I will need.

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Disclaimer:
I am not looking for a romantic relationship. We are friends! And if it were to get serious I would require a 2 year dating time line before a 2 year engagement time. With my Ex if I would have done this I would have known we did not make a good couple. Also IF I was ever talk about get married I would make sure it was a church wedding with both of us attending the required pre-marriage classes and us attending a dave ramsey course before wedding planning.

I have been in a marriage that basically was two people sharing living space for at least 5 years so I guess in my mind I dont feel the need for 100% 24/7 Me Only time. Also we are friends, we chit chat and he understands that; we were talking about something and he said "if we were to date in the future" so I know he gets that I am not looking for anything more than a Workout Buddy and a good friend at this time.

So yesterday XH painted the stairwell and the banister. There are only two days left until we leave town for his work thing so once I mentioned that to him he realized today he has to do a bit more painting today then he got done yesterday.

The good news is the new paint in the stairwell and banster REALLY make the house look so much cleaner. We still have to paint more areas but I am hoping getting the really smuggy spots done will help with the (It needs to be cleaned comments). We had all the stuff me needed to do except for threee rolls of paper and we barrowed a painting paper roller from a coworker so the painting job so far has only cost $12. And IF we dont use all the rolls any unopenned rolls of paper can be returned.

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Talked to the realtor last night, she hasn't heard back from the realtor who looked at our house on Saturday yet so I am thinking that means they are not going to be making an offer on the house. Knew we probubly should not have showed it before the stairwell got painted BUT they lived out of state.

The realtor called around and got three quotes on what a deck would cost, 2 said 4k one said 6k. Which is in line with what we had gotten for quotes back when we were looking to add a deck. So we went middle of the road and have now included a 5K allowance for the buyer to build a deck with. So technically the price has not gone down for the buyer but because 5K of the purchase price is being held for them to buy a deck with our profit went down by 5k.

Part of me would like to just pay for the deck and enjoy it now that summer is almost here until the house sells; BUT I dont want to spend 4K and then the buyer not like the deck because they would have chosen a different stain or composite decking or a much larger deck instead.

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I am working on the rock border, yesterday I got the front of the house by the front door done, and I got the side of the garage done. Tonight I will be working on the side of the house by the front door. That way if you are in the front yard everywhere you see the rock border will be done. My back is so sore, but oh well Tonight is that last night I have to work on it because tomorrow night is the road trip.

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Tonight is Subway so that I can keep working on the rock border and not stop to deal with dinner....$7.17.

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On a kiddo note, since we have three bathrooms in our house I staged the two upstairs and cleaned them superwell and the towels are pinned in place so that they are perfect. I figure we can use the downstairs one and then that is two less things I need to be cleaning daily to keep the house show worthy. We told Little Love of my Life to only use the main bathroom IF it was an Emergency and he could not get to the bathroom down stairs.

Well last night as I am working in the rock garden what does he do? He calls me to come quick I need to look at the bathroom, After asking him a bunch of questions to figure out the EMERGENCY, I go inside. In the process of trying to get cleaned up enough to enter the house, I get MUD tracks all over the newly cleaned rugs by the front door. So I go to the bathroom and the Emergency is......... He has made me a smiley face out of WET Toliet Paper and put it on the Mirror in the Show Bathroom!

I also noticed this morning that he got the NEW bathroom rugs dirty in the process of making the smiley face because he did not take off his shoes before entering the house like I asked.

I am ready to sell the house so I can laugh and appreciate stuff like this instead of just thinking about the mess made.

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Added
I just opened my slush fund. It is a goal savings so the amount of my slush fund will automatically get transfer from checking into the slush fund. This is for those bills/events that are once or twice a year. It is with my brick and morter bank that has my checking account so as needed I can transfer the funds from savings to the checking account.

I would like to open a seperate savings account with ING for my car repair/replacement stuff but I am going to wait a few days to see if I can get one of the $25 bonus referal links. My car rarely goes into the shop for repairs and the replacement is a while off so I want to get higher interest on it and the three day transfer time is not a biggy.

Yesterday I found the hubsters two credit cards.

The Capital one card that I have been wanting him to cancel and the other one with a rewards balance on it.

He canceled the Capital One Card....Wahoo one more thing done on the split the finances checklist and he activated the other CC.

I had planned to cancel the joint saving account after the house is sold BUT I am thinking that it is kind of pointless. Yes it is nice to have the repairs money in a savings account but I am thinking that at the start of next month I am going to cancel the savings account and just move the money into the joint checking but move it to the back of the register so it is in there to pay the bills as they come due BUT they are not in there to be spent willy nilly If you get what I mean.

The reason for next month is that is when he no longer gets income from his former employer so we will need to start using that savings money anyway.

Yep, forgot to have the hubster sign the dental form. Oh well it just has to be done by the 20th of the month. I just want to get it done now so I can count it as done. Plus if I dilly dally too long it will cost me $45 per month to drag my feet. $45 per month is the water/waste bill.

I also forgot to complete to order form for the checks for his new Checking account.

I just like to get home and relax. So it did not get done. I am SOOOOOO burnt out it is not even funny. I NEED for the house to get cleaned up, yeah like it is going to clean itself.

The house has to get clean so we can call the RE agent to sell our house so we can get the mortgage payment from hanging over our heads. Also need to sell stuff and clean stuff to list it BUT I feel it needs to be clean so I have some where to work to list things. Catch 22 huh.

Right now I dont want to do any cleaning because the house is a huge mess, everything is on the main floor and a huge pile of mess because the basement is being worked on, all that mess stresses me out then I dont want to clean.

Last night my husband said he wanted to start a more active role in bill paying. You have no idea what a weight this is off my shoulders.

Once the house is sold we are going to sit down and try things differently. His idea is we would each get paid into our own accounts and then split the bills and pay them as they come sitting down on Saturday to do this.

I have agreed whole heartedly to this because once we do this I will not feel like I am holding the burden. My husband will have his extra money to Free spiritly spend and I will have my extra money to save for our sons college fund and whatever other savings I need to feel financial secure.

Right now his income is not enough to pay for half the bills, that is why I am waiting until after the house is sold. Right now I am handling everything and at the end I work extra hard to fill in the slack. Well once we are renting and the bills go down he will get whatever extra is in his account and if it is not enough like he feel it is not enough now then he will have to pick up his own slack.

Now that I know I am swimming to a goal instead of just endlessly swimming to keep my head above water, I have a new burst of energy to do what I need to do to make sure I get picked to stay on at my job.

On March 1st, since it is the start of a new month I will start tracking food spending. This I hope will allow me to get a real look at what we are spending on food.

I also want to track gasoline usage.

I am hoping that this weekend we will be able to do some furnature movement which will mean that I can clean up the house. When we reset up the office or family room I want to make an area to work so I can start posting items for sale on our towns free online classified listing.

Taxes!! I also want to sit down once the office or family room is set up and gather up all the tax forms and file our taxes.

See we textured and painted the ceilings in our basement and everything that was in the basement is piled in the livingroom upstairs and it is a nightmare. This weekend we hope to caulk the seams, paint the seams then clean up from the mess (Paper, painter plastic) wash floors and move furnature.

We are hoping to put our house on the market, Sell it, then rent an apartment for less and save the difference.

Lots of things to do this weekend and then hopefully start March 1st tracking expenses!

Hi I am trying to cut costs so I can work on financial security. Our take home income MAY drop this Dec due to a lay off so I am trying to be proactive. Right now I am just looking to have a solid budget and trim a little so the saving can go to an Emergency Fund. And later if the layoff happens will make more drastic changes closer to Dec.

Here is my budget could you help look it over and see if there is anything you would look into changing.

Expenses: Monthly
House:
Mortgage $1,060.00
Electric & Gas $126.50 *
Water/Waste $56.90 *
Phone $29.17
Cell $100.00 #
Internet $38.11

Dental - Premium $44.68
Sons Meds $50.00
Daycare $239.00
Child Support $679.00

Car:
Gas $180.00
Insurance $33.16 *
Tags $17.00 *

Misc:
School lunch $30.00 (Edited from $50)
School Snack $6.66-> $15 EVERY 9 WEEKS
Food $450.00 #
Cleaner/tolietry/Paper$10.00 #
Gifts $60.00 *
Clothes $20.00 *
Toys/Fun $20.00 *
Spending $ Husband $100.00
Husband Life ins $38.00
My Life Ins $36.50
College Fund $225.00

$3,647.68 (-$20)

House Repairs
Misc
Dental Cost Share

I was going to explain areas but decided not to make excuses and just let you attack it. But I will put * next to Averages and # next to estimates.

Take Home : $4160.02

Mortgage is Mortgage plus taxes & insurance as loan type requires an escrow account

(Changes) I cut the School breakfasts 2/25/2010 out of the budget. My husband is back home now so I dont have to drop my son off for breakfast at school in order to make it to work on time. This was actually more than $20 because he was buying extra al-carte items but my budget was base price.