Good Morning World!
And it is a good morning. For several reasons :)
1) The sun is shining :) That's always a reason to feel better.
2) I'm not at work :D I took a sanity day and got to sleep in (yes, 8am is sleeping in for a kindergarten teacher) and I'll be getting my hair done later. That's always a reason to smile.
3) Mr. Music just left. I'd forgotten how nice it can be to wake up to someone, and smile, and joke, and hug. Also, he wasn't too traumatized my most awfulest terriblest secret!! (I snore)
I talked to my brother Eric last night. Dad's surgery will not be until *next* Wednesday, which means it's a good thing I went ahead and came back to Atlanta. Eric'll fly back to CA tomorrow, and at the moment I don't know if Mom will stay a week in Tampa, or spend some of that time back at home. I can honestly say that I'm glad I'm not in the middle of all that stress.
And speaking of stress, I may be able to get a hold on the financial stress. Mr. Writer came over yesterday, and I asked him about what he does to keep track of his money.
He doesn't have a debit card. He uses cash. I think this is a good thing- makes it more real about how much I'm spending. With a debit card, it's just invisible.
He also uses online banking to pay his bills. He can see his payment history, due dates, and so on. I feel like sometimes I don't have a notion where the money is going to (well, except bills) but that it's defintely flying away.
I'm also going to open one of those 0% balance cards to transfer my CC debt to, so that I am not paying $70 a month in fees.
I'm going to talk to my cell phone company, or look up on their website, and find a cheaper plan.
So let's see- plan of attack: Get online banking. Total up bills v income. Put $100 of leftovers in savings. Divide leftover of that by 4 to get Weekly Spendable Total. From this must come gas, food, entertainment. Take out a smaller amount in cash than the WST, and see if I can live on this cash.
Welp, at least it's a plan. Afterwards, Mr. Writer gave me a nice compliment. He said that if I were ever single again, to let him know. He sounded a bit melancholy, but sincere. I reacted with disbelief and gruffness by saying "what, you're into relationships now?" Probably not the most sensitive thing to say, eh? (We never had sex since he wasn't at a place where he wanted a relationship) He seems to be in the middle of some soul searching with regard to his life, where it is now, how the past has affected it, and where he wants to be. And he seems to genuinely want someone to share time with. Beyond the physical aspects. And that touched me. Too bad his timing is off.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Good Morning~
Posted by Raene at 9:22 AM
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2 comments:
I'll have to ask my husband what he did to save money when we were in a serious financial situation (one was out of a job, etc). He said that while cable companies don't advertise this, by law they are required to provide just the bare basic channels if you ask for them. This means like twelve channels (2 to 13) available to the public. It's a lot cheaper this way and you have to demand it. They kept trying to talk him into adding more channels and making us pay more, but it was the law so they complied. (We added more channels later on when we finally had better luck with our jobs.)
I did my part by being really frugal with groceries. We had more hamburger helper nights than we'd have liked, but there were times when I only had $30 to feed the both of us for the week. Had to cut out meat often. I brought a pencil and paper to the store and just added up the cost as I went along. I would make sure that if I bought a loaf of bread, that I planned meals around it to use it all up. (Sandwiches one night, grilled cheese another night, etc.)
And there's also the dreaded coupon clipping. It all sucks because it's so much more work, but you do get through it! And we still ended up being able to set money aside in savings, however small the contribution was, because it was important for that to grow in case a car broke down or something or if one of us didn't earn enough in a month to cover the rent.
Also power-pay a credit card if you can. (Pay the minimum on the others and focus on one credit card as much as you can so you can cut it up and be done with it faster.) We got rid of two cards and kept just one for emergencies.
It does sound like a good plan. One thing I did when I was in financial trouble was to make a written-out budget.
I put down everything I spent money on, including gas and food and even entertainment allowance. I didn't have much entertainment allowance because I only allowed myself to do something fun once every month. (Now I know I'd just pay for a monthly game sub. and not go to the movies.)
Writing that stuff down made it more real for me. Then I re-wrote it in chronological order of when bills got paid each month. I taped it up to my refrigerator and whenever bills came in I'd either pay it right away if it was one that was due soon in the mid-month, and for the others I had a little station where I'd put them in order until I got paid. (I got paid once a month.) You can also call the businesses and get your due dates changed sometimes. That can help a lot!
Yes, change all your CC bills to the 0% promotions and as soon as that promotion wears off, switch it to another one. I did that too and it saved me oodles of money.
If you have to have multiple CC bills, if you can, pay the minimum payment + the monthly interest to one of them, and more if you can, even if its 10 bucks more. Keep doing that until one of them is paid off. Then, pretend like you still have that bill.
I mean, you've already figured out how to live on what you have left by that point, so keep paying out the same $$ amount. Since that payment is gone, just pass the amount you WOULD have paid to it, to a different CC. Soon it will get paid off too. Then do the same thing, sending more now to something else.
After a while all those debts will be gone and when all you have left is monthly living expenses, then you can finally put some of that money into relaxation and savings.
Good luck hon! You know I'm here for ya. :) *hugs*
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