Sad Good Night

Tonight was a sad night for our family... we sold Steve's truck. The 1979 Ford F-250 that we had for almost two years is no longer. It was a great truck... very useful, very reliable and full of character. I've never been emotionally attached to a vehicle, but I totally shed some tears as she drove away. Kylee started to really cry and even Steve shed a few tears. Jordan doesn't know yet as he's with his dad this week, but I know he'll be sad too. He wanted the truck to be his first car :) We all are truly going to miss that truck.



On the "bright" side though, by selling the truck we will be able to pay off a chunk of debt, which is all part of the plan. It's actually been three weeks since we started our Dave Ramsey plan and things are going well. We've been sticking to our budget as well as can be expected. We've been paying cash for everything, which is definitely something to get used to and I've been couponing. I haven't done any crazy savings yet (like using $50 worth of coupons on $55 worth of groceries) but hopefully I get to that point. Though I do get a little rush from finding a good deal and having a coupon on a particular product. :)

One of my friends (I won't name names, but she knows who she is) said she gives me 5 weeks before I go on a shopping/spending frenzy. And tonight my dad enlightened me with his opinions on finances. I love the advice dad always gives, but I disagreed with his opinions (because I'm focused on Dave), so we ended up arguing. It was all good and fine in the end (no serious arguing), but dad doesn't necessarily believe in some of Dave's views. He doesn't understand how we will survive without a credit card. So now I'm motivated to prove him wrong too. :)

Spiritual Growth

Today I've decided to write about my faith. I'm a Christian. I attend church pretty regularly @ the Vineyard in Greenwood. I've been going since 2000 thanks to my amazing friend Nikki who invited me one weekend. I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart and I was baptized on February 20, 2005. I have gone through periods, as I believe many Christians do, where I'm faithfully praying everyday, attending bible studies, reading daily devotonals & scripture. And then there are times I drift away from all of that. It seems as though when things are going good in my life, I am further from God, but when things aren't going well, I turn to God instantly praying for guidance. Really I need to be praying everyday! I need to be reading my bible everyday! I need to be thanking God for all the many blessings I have whether things are good or bad, knowing that God has put me in whatever situation I'm in at that time for a reason and it's all part of His plan.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." - Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

The last couple of weeks, my friend Jackie has been going through some pretty dramatic and amazing "events" in her life. Talking to her pretty much daily, hearing the things she and her family are going through and experiencing, has triggered a hunger inside of me to go deeper into my relationship with Christ! To start I'm going to read my bible... I mean really read my bible from beginning to end and really study and understand God's word. I'm starting this weekend and Jackie is going to do it with me and we're both really excited. We've also asked our bff Nikki to start a bible study for the three of us. Nikki is who Jackie and I consider the "spiritual leader" of our little group :) Anyway, I started googling schedules on how to read the bible in a year and I came across biblestudytools.com. They have Reading Plans that can track your progress as you go along. You simply register on the site, select your plan, your start date, and preferred Bible translation and then start reading. You can even read the bible on the website in the translation you selected and you can bookmark certain pages, highlight scripture, and even add notes. I chose the one year plan in chronological order, reading the NIV translation. I'm starting tomorrow and even though it's the one year plan, my GOAL is to finish before the end of the year.

I've also decided to attend the Great Banquet this year at Southport Presbyterian Church. The Great Banquet is a weekend (72 hours) designed to strengthen and renew your faith. My sister Lorrie attended last year (or the year before) and said it was an amazing experience and has "insisted" that I attend! Her husband also attended that same year and also raved about how wonderful it was (the men go on a separate weekend than the women). Lorrie said there's nothing else like it. She couldn't tell me much about what goes on, so that you can experiecne everything for yourself. Really anyone who has attended a Great Banquet shouldn't give you details. All I know is that the windows and clocks are all covered, you can't bring cell phones, watches, ipods, etc. It's just 72 hours of time with God and I'm really looking forward to it!

Coupon Organizer & Deal

So Sunday I went to Meijer, excited to purchase a binder and baseball card inserts so that I could start my new coupon organizing venture. With 'school starting' season right around the corner I had no problem finding binders. I found a really cute pink and purple binder with 4 pockets inside and now I just needed the baseball card inserts. I started searching in school supplies, no luck. Went on to the sporting goods section, the crafting section, picture album section, etc. and couldn't find them. After searching all over the store for these baseball card inserts and unable to find one employee to help me find them, I gave up (very frustrated) and went for Plan B. I didn't really have a plan B, but by this time I was over the binder (even though the binder itself was very cute). So I went back to the school supply section and started browsing all the accordian file items, and I finally came across a colorful accordian file that would work great for holding coupons (see pictures below). It's bigger than the average accordian coupon holders and it seemed more durable (plastic), so I'm hoping it will serve it's purpose well. Plus the designer of this item is named Jackie, and since I have a bff named Jackie, I thought this was "the one" :) The more I thought about it, the more I was glad I didn't find the baseball card inserts... I mean I really didn't want to have to put every single coupon into a clear baseball card size sleeve... seems more time consuming! In the end, I'm happy with my choice for organizing my coupons.

Now it's onto finding coupons, printing coupons, and cutting coupons. Luckily I have two kids that are old enough to use scissors and who can cut straight on a dotted line. They often say (especially this time of year) "I'm bored". Well now they may think twice before saying that because the next time I hear those precious words, I'm going to hand them a stack of coupons to cut out! I love being a mom :)

As I was searching around finding coupons to print this evening, I came across (in one of the blogs I follow) a deal for a free one year magazine subscription. I was excited about the 'free'part and I was also equally excited about the magazine... It's called 'Working Mother'! I had to answer a couple questions and they prompted a couple advertising links that I had to at least view and then scroll down to "skip", but after all that, I'm now subscribed to a magazine that I could totally relate to. I'm very excited!

Spending Less

So I'm on a mission to spend less, which means I've been researching (a.k.a. googling) the best way to effectively organize coupons (the organizer in me). I've added to my 'favorites', websites that give daily updates to recent deals, and I've searched for blogs to help in my new couponing/money saving adventure (see the list of blogs I follow to the right).

In researching all of this, I also found this great site to download a debt snowball spreadsheet (I love spreadsheets). And this spreadsheet is nicer than the one I created for my debt snowball. Here is a link to the website if your interested in downloading it. This is of course one of the things you have to do when tackling debt on the Dave Ramsey plan and this guy created the spreadsheet specifically for Dave Ramsey users.

Anyway, for my coupon organization, I'm going to go with the "binder" method. So tomorrow I'm off to buy a binder with pockets, some clear baseball card holder inserts (for the coupons themselves), and some divider inserts (to categorize the coupons). I've also found (via a blog), what's called a 'Pricebook'. This is a way to track prices, products, and sales on items you buy frequently at the stores you shop. I found a spreadsheet version of keeping a pricebook, so of course that's what I'm using. By keeping record of price variations between the different stores I shop, I'll be able to establish target prices for the products I regularly buy. The task of getting the list going is daunting as it's is going to take some time, but in the long run it will serve as a great money saving tool! Here's the link to the site where you can download the pricebook spreadsheet. You'll have to edit the formatting of the spreadsheet a bit (the heading column was not at the top so I moved and "froze" the heading and added filters).

If you view the list of blogs I'm starting to follow, you'll also notice I've found some crafty blogs as well as money saving blogs. I've always had a natural "crafty" side to myself. I used to scrapbook, but it takes me so long to do one page because I'm such a perfectionist... the pages never seem "good enough". I've recently found a niche in creating picture slide show DVD's to music. I've completed 3 so far (self taught) and I'm learning more each time (so they get better each time). I did one for each of my kids for their 10th birthday, which was a slide show of their past 10 years. And I did one for my niece, Jenny, when she graduated from college. It was a slide show of her college years (she's a volleyball star, and traveled to Africa twice and Brazil on student athlete mission trips). Anyway, with following these crafty blogs, I hope to find a way to create unique (low cost) items that I can 1. use for myself (to help organize and decorate) and 2. as gifts. Some people can be hard to shop for and I love to give gifts, so this way when I need gifts (especially at Christmas), I can give something no one else can give because I created it (and hopefully I can give something great for little cost).

Money Money Money Moonneey... Money!

My "money" story... First of all, I think that all high schools should mandate students to attend a 'Real Life Finance' course of some sort. I mean not once in the 12 years of school did we get taught about money and how to save, invest, and wisely spend it. I blame that as the reason I ever got into debt :) Everywhere you look it seems like getting into debt is normal. I mean you have to get into debt to even get a credit score! But then you see all the commercials about debt consolidation, bankruptcy, and the evilness of being "chained" to debt. So I've read some of Dave Ramsey's book 'The Total Money Makeover' and I subscribed to his weekly e-newsletters and I'm hearing unbelievable, inspiring stories about families in mountains of debt (some with only one income) who follow Dave's plan and become debt free in usually just a few years. Dave's motto is "If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else". What it boils down to is, if you can live like no one else now (ie. cut up credit cards, pay cash for everything, sell things to gain money, get a second job, cut back on unnecessary spending), then later (after you have paid off your debt) you will be living like no one else (since debt free living is so unheard of). I love that quote! So as you can guess (from the first listed goal), I'm in debt. Well, my husband and I are in debt. I'm not going to give a number (I'll save that for when I've paid it all off), but I can tell you it's in the thousands. So since I'm the "bookkeeper" for the family, I started to put together a plan (in a spreadsheet). I love spreadsheets! I then met with a trusted friend, Jackie, who also is a big Dave Ramsey fan, and asked for her opinion about my "plan". She gave some great advice and feedback (and was very excited for me) . I then put together the many spreadsheets I had created and was ready to propose this idea to my husband. Steve greatly appreciates the fact that I handle all the finances (there seems to always be one in the family who handles the money) but when I tell him we need to talk about money, well he rolls his eyes and trys dodging the subject. Later (after I noticed he couldn't find much more to do), I finally got him to sit down with me and I unveiled the 'Master Plan'. I mean I need him to be on board or this "plan" wasn't going to work. I was getting totally excited about the "plan", even though I knew it wasn't going to be easy (I mean I love to shop... what girl doesn't?). Well Steve was easy, and really I wasn't surprised. He usually agrees with most things I say/do. He accepted the "proposal" although he wasn't "excited" like I was, but he knew it was necessary and he seemed happy with the idea.

So now it was time to begin Dave's steps to financial fitness... Step 1 was to cut up all the credit cards. Step 2 was to put aside a $1,000 emergency fund, and Step 3 was to create a budget, debt snowball plan, and an envelope system for cash spending. We did all three of those steps that night (I've attached a picture below as evidence) and it felt great!



So... it's been over a week and I'm happy to say that it went by pretty easy. I was slightly tempted earlier in the week by my co-workers/friends... First with a jewelry party catalog, then with a Thirty-one catalog, and today with a run to Starbucks, but I easily swayed from all of that. We'll see how I am after one month. Tammy (my co-worker/friend) stated today that she was going to start a pool to see how long it will take before I cave. Thanks Tammy :) Actually, she's going to be the one by my side reminding me not to spend if I'm tempted... she scares me, so it will be easy... all she'll have to do is give me "the look" or "the tone", and I'll know I'm in trouble :) I'll be thanking her later when I reach my goal... New Year's Eve... 12/31/2011!

The Journey Begins

So to begin... I'm 30 years old and I consider that to still be a pretty young age. I mean I could still go to college and start a whole new career before I'm 35 (but the last thing I want to do is go to school). So what do I want to do? What do I want to accomplish in my life? To answer these questions, I'm going to list my goals and dreams that I hope to fulfill in my future.

1.) TO BE DEBT FREE
1.) TO OWN MY OWN BUSINESS
1.) TO BE A FAITHFUL CHRIST FOLLOWER
1.) TO BE A GREAT MOTHER AND WIFE
1.) TO GET OVER MY MANY FEARS
1.) TO LEAD A HEALTHY LIFE
1.) TO MOVE TO MICHIGAN SOMEDAY (15+ YEARS)

As you may have noticed, I've numbered all of the above as '1' as each of these things are equally important to me and I really don't have a particular order as far as importance goes. And yes, I have several more goals and dreams to list, but those are the "biggies"! Sure the Michigan goal will happen later down the road, but if I don't achieve certain goals along the way, the Michigan dream may not come to life.

As I continue this journey, I will touch on each of the goals and dreams listed above (as well as some little ones I did not list) and I'll go more in depth into how I'm trying to accomplish each.