MIA

Hello! So sorry for being MIA lately, had a lot going on.

Just over a month ago, my mother had a massive stroke and was taken to a hospital an hour away. She's stable and is undergoing therapy now and is doing well with it.

Three days after that, my husband was officially discharged from the military and we are still hoping a job will become available soon.

A couple of weeks ago, I also found out that my aunt has late stage colin cancer and has been given 6 months to 1 year to live.

And on top of all of this, our new baby is due any time now.

Extremely stressful month!!!

In light of all of this, our debt snowball is on hold and we have almost run through our baby emergency fund. As soon as we have a steady income again, we will have to start over with Baby Step 1 to rebuild the baby emergency fund and then the debt snowball can recommence! Wish us luck!

This Past Week

Oh man, oh man. Sticking to this budget seems to be a difficult feat. I LOVE using the envelopes to only use cash! If we could just keep the debit card in our wallets and not ever use it except where allocated in the budget, we would be doing fantastic! It's only been 2 weeks though, we'll get it :)

We've agreed on a current budget but then an unexpected charge from an account that was supposed to have been cancelled has thrown it off so we're trying to get that settled and then we'll be on our way for the second half of April!

We'll also have our first debt in our debt snowball paid off in a month! That's a great feeling! Then we'll be rolling the amount of that payment into the next debt to keep our snowball rolling!



I have put together my coupon binder and it's my current pride and joy. It's a wonderful feeling to flip through all of my organized coupons, ready for their big debut for a great deal!

I have a fantastic zippered binder that I got at Wal-Mart on clearance (zippered for fear of dropping it and coupons flying everywhere), dividers for each category, baseball card holders to put the coupons in, scissors in the front pocket of my nifty zippered binder, a pen, a pencil, and a small calculator. This will now be going shopping with me all the time! I don't cut all of the coupons out by hand though, I have a table cutter so I line up all of the coupons and cut them out several at a time and then file them away.

I have finished reading The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Budget in Half by Stephanie Nelson and I am almost finished reading Pick Another Checkout Lane, Honey by the Krazy Coupon Ladies.

I went shopping last night with my mother-in-law at Target and got 2 pairs of baby socks for FREE after I used a coupon as well as 4 packs of 42 count Pampers Kandoo Flushable Wipes for $0.42 each! So I spent about $2 for 4 packs of wipes and 2 pairs of socks! I'm loving this coupon thing!

I had also forgot to mention that we are done with Baby Step 1! We are now on Baby Step 2: The Debt Snowball! We're projecting to be finished with this step 5 years at the latest, 2 1/2 years at the earliest! Can't wait for that financial freedom!

No Shutdown! and other thoughts...

Woo Hoo! No government shutdown (for now, anyway)! That was a close one!

I wasn't sure what we were going to do if we only received half a paycheck because congress couldn't figure out how to fund a budget (namely about the Planned Parenthood issue).

Not that I can say much... we had a bit of a scare earlier today when I realized that our budget was a little off for the rest of this pay period. It's all fixed now and the projected budget for the next pay period and the month of May are both done! Thank goodness we had a plan written down, we may not have realized anything until it was too late.

Dave says that the first month you'll probably have 17 budget meetings, then the next month you might have 10, then 4 the next month, and eventually you'll be able to do a realistic budget and work it thoroughly. I can't wait for that kind of freedom! It's already a nice feeling to have a plan.


On another note, Fidelity did a poll that revealed that only 37% of husbands and 21% of wives knew the value of their partner's retirement account. That is just crazy! When you're married, it's a partnership, a bond. Everything should be shared with one another, especially finances considering that it's the number one reason for divorce in America.

I feel very lucky and thankful that I'm in a marriage where we are fairly easily able to come to an agreement on the important issues and decisions such as finances and children, even though we have such opposite personalities and temperaments.


Updates: Besides re-working the budget and plotting May's budget, I'm about halfway through Stephanie Nelson's book The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bill in Half and I found a great zippered binder at Wal-Mart on clearance yesterday during my grocery outing to use for my coupon binder with my newfound love of couponing. I'm plotting to try to host a Coupon Swap by the end of this month/beginning of next month, I'm pretty excited!


In a happier light, Maranda had her baby last night! Welcome Anthony John S. (AJ)! He was born weighing 6 lbs 6 oz at 18 1/2 inches long on Friday, April 8th at 11:01 p.m.

Extreme Couponing on TLC

So did anyone watch the season premiere of Extreme Couponing on TLC? I had seen one episode around New Year's and was hooked! I couldn't wait for this season to start! These people are kind of crazy; tromping through dumpsters, spending 6 hours or more a day couponing, asking others for their coupons, "stockpiling" in every nook and cranny of their home, etc. Not all of the show is completely realistic, but we'll talk about that in a little bit.

There is a difference between stockpiling and hoarding. Stockpiling up to 3 months worth of something until it's on sale again seems acceptable since most stores run their sales on particular items every three months, hoarding 5 years or more worth of toilet paper for a family of 4 is just wrong. One guy bought 300 toothbrushes! If him and his wife used a new toothbrush every 3 months each, it would still take them 37.5 years to go through them all!!! Why would you ever need that many?! One woman on the premiere last night bought 62 bottles of mustard while her husband pointed out that he doesn't even eat mustard. She wanted to clear the shelf and buy them all but her husband made her leave two. Shelf clearing is wrong, it leaves nothing for anyone else to purchase. How mad would you be if you were hosting a barbecue that weekend and someone else bought every single bottle of mustard just because they had a coupon? Another woman had herself, her small son, and her pregnant friend dumpster diving for coupons and sales ads.

All of the people featured on the show have a stockpile to last them a year or more in all areas whether it's food, health and beauty products, or home cleaning supplies. Most have a supply that could last their family up to five years or more. And these supplies take over the house! One woman had 2 bedrooms already dedicated to her stockpile and was trying to take over her husband's man cave. Another woman had her stockpile in several rooms of the house, including her spare bathroom, a shelving unit in her bedroom, and underneath her children's beds. I can understand wanting to buy things at the cheapest price (or free) and get enough of it to last, or have that stockpile to fall back on in case of job loss or worse in these tough economic times, but what about expirations? All of these people sort their stockpiles by expiration date and rotate them frequently, but I would still be afraid that things would expire and that would be money lost and space wasted. If you bought 200 of something on the same day, wouldn't it all expire around the same time?

Now about the show not being entirely realistic: All stores have a coupon policy in place which makes it nearly impossible to do the amounts that the show portrays. Every store's coupon policy is different, but every one of them have limits as to what you can and can't do and how many coupons you can use. You can look up your stores coupon policy here. Some stores no longer double or triple their coupons and others will not let you stack coupons anymore or will only let you stack one manufacturer and one store coupon at a time. Many stores are making their coupon policies even more strict because of this show, so please check your store's coupon policy often if you plan on using coupons on a regular basis.

How To Save Money With Coupons

There are many websites and books devoted to teaching you the art of extreme couponing. I am currently reading The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half by Stephanie Nelson who is the owner and creator of couponmom.com and will next be reading Pick Another Checkout Lane, Honey by Joanie Demer and Heather Wheeler who are the owners and creators of thekrazycouponlady.com and who have been featured on TLC's Extreme Couponing. Both of these websites are dedicated to teaching you the art of couponing as well as provide an online forum for coupon finds and deals.

There are also many coupon sites such as coupons.com, smartsource.com, redplum.com, coolsavings.com, shopathome.com, printable-grocery-coupon.com, Nifty Thrifty Savings, among many others. You can also get manufacturer's coupons if you like a particular brand from their website such as Huggies, Pedigree, Purina, Scotch Brand, Aquafresh, Arm & Hammer, Frenchs, Swiffer, Campbell's, Pillsbury, Dove, Fisher Price, Hasbro, Kellogg's, Neutrogena, Listerine, Yoplait, and Tylenol or coupons directly from the stores you shop at such as Target, Walmart, and CVS.  Don't forget about store loyalty cards like the CVS Extra Care Card or the Kroger Plus card. These cards can be used for additional in-store savings and many can have e-coupons downloaded to them that will be taken off your purchase when swiped at the register. There are also sites that give you daily "steals" like Living Social,  Groupon, and MamaPedia, and for the moms there's Zulily and Baby Steals. You have to be careful with the steals websites since you may end up spending money on something that you would not have otherwise purchased. All of these sites are free to use. Remember, any coupon printed off of the internet must have a scannable barcode and, for many stores, must say Manufacturer's Coupon somewhere on the face of it.

I also use some of the coupons off of Inbox Dollars. With Inbox Dollars, you get 10 cents for every coupon redeemed and once you feel you've earned enough, you can request a check (you get a $5 bonus for using my link to sign up). Then there's Swag Bucks. With Swag Bucks, you can earn 10 Swag Bucks for every coupon that is redeemed from their site. Swag Bucks can be redeemed for everything from Amazon gift cards to an xbox 360 gaming console. (again, get extra Swag Bucks by using my link to sign up).

I am just getting started on my "extreme" coupon journey. I have been utilizing coupons for quite some time, just not at this rate. I am currently putting together and sorting my coupon binder and have started paying attention to store sales in order to try to match up coupons with sales for maximum savings. The savings that you get out of it correlates with the time you put into it. If you just clip coupons, you will get savings at the face value of the coupon. If you take the time to research the store sales, manufacturer's offers, and when your current coupons will expire to try to utilize all three at once then you will have a much greater savings potential. I'm not saying spend 6 hours a day scouring through circulars and websites to prepare for a shopping trip like the people featured on Extreme Couponing do, but careful meal planning and paying attention to store sales could help you save big.

Last note, do not throw away your expired coupons or coupons that you won't use! These can be sent to troops overseas for military families to utilize. In order to participate, you can send your coupons that you won't use or that are up to two months expired to a certain base. Check out the Overseas Coupon Program for more information and how to do it. This is a great way to support our troops and military families currently serving our country.

Kindle Post: Dave Ramsey on the 5 Basics of Personal Finance

Dave Ramsey on the 5 Basics of Personal Finance

by Kindle Editors on 03/30/2011

Dave Ramsey offers financial advice as the host of a nationally syndicated radio program, The Dave Ramsey Show,which is heard by 4.5 million listeners each week. He’s also the author of three New York Times best-sellers, including the newly revised The Total Money Makeover.

Money’s fun—if you've got some. But the problem is a lot of people aren’t having fun. About 70 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That means if you count 10 houses on your street, seven of those families have too much month left at the end of the money. They're broke—and stressed out. For over 20 years, I've listened to their stories and tried to help families walk through a plan I call The Total Money Makeover.

The heart of the plan is behavior change. I learned a long time ago that if I can take control of the guy in the mirror, I can be skinny and rich. Managing money just takes some simple discipline in a few key areas. Here are five quick tips that will solve most people's money problems for good:

1. Get out of debt.
The average American household has a whopping $91,000 in debt. That's like crawling out of bed every morning with a boat anchor around your neck. It's almost impossible to get any financial traction, not to mention build any real wealth, if every dollar you earn has someone else's name on it! Cut up the credit cards, stop borrowing money, and get out of debt—fast!

2. Act your wage.
In his fabulous study of millionaires, The Millionaire Next Door, Thomas Stanley concluded, "Being frugal is the cornerstone of wealth-building. ... Most [millionaires] are hardworking, thrifty and not at all glamorous." Translation: Millionaires don't care if you're impressed by what car they drive. Future millionaires don’t, either.

3. Get on a budget.
John Maxwell says, "A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went." Just write out the month's expected income minus planned expenses on paper, on purpose, before the month begins—and then stick to the plan. Put whatever you want on the paper. Hey, it's your money! I don’t care what you do with it; I just want you to do it on purpose!

4. Save and invest.
We save money for three things: an emergency fund (3–6 months of expenses set aside for emergencies), purchases and wealth building. Once you're out of debt and have a full emergency fund, there's no reason why you can't put 15 percent of your income into retirement.

5. Give money away.
If all the money comes in and none of the money goes out, you get stopped up. And over time, anything that gets stopped up begins to stink! I think Golda Meir said it best: "You can’t shake hands with a clenched fist." Sure, the clenched fist holds on to your dollars, but it's also the international sign of anger. But an open hand? Even a dog understands that.

Personal finance isn't rocket science. These five things are incredibly simple to understand; they're just hard to actually do. It takes some time and sacrifice, and your friends will probably give you a hard time if you start chopping up credit cards and declaring war on debt. But there's something else I figured out a while back: If your broke friends are making fun of your financial plan, you’re probably right on track!

--Dave Ramsey

Kindle Post: Dave Ramsey on the 5 Basics of Personal Finance

Liking it so far!

So far Maranda and I have gone through the first three lessons of Financial Peace University. These lessons are Super Saving (steps 1 and 3), Relating With Money (relationships and marriage), and Cash Flow Planning (budgeting). We really enjoy it, the stories and jokes lighten the mood of such deep financial discussions.

We've made our Quickie Budget and have figured out who the "Nerd" is and who the "Free Spirit" is in our respective marriages. (I am the nerd, Kyle is the free spirit). The Quickie Budget was a real eye-opener to how much we were all spending on nothing.

Homework for now is to make a real and detailed budget using the Monthly Cash Flow Planning Form. We will implement this budget the first of April.

Step 1 is to build a $1,000 mini emergency fund. I'm currently listing items on eBay, selling stuff to friends, and we are planning on having a garage sale in order to jump-start this step and get there quickly!

We will continue our journey next week!