2010 goals

Every year I set goals, and every year around February they seem to get lost. Oh well...this is life. Things always change, but if I at least have a plan then I am not wandering aimlessly, right?

1. For 2010 my goal is to work on paying down our debt. Until DH starts making money consistently, I really cant say how much I want to pay off. Based on just our minimum payments, I should be able to get down to about $40,000 by the end of this year. That's what I am shooting for.
   
   
2. As a part of that goal, we need to reign in our spending. A LOT. For me, I need to get back to bringing my lunch to work. Going out to eat is a really bad habit I got into, and I need to stop it. One of my best friends works with me now, and I can eat lunch with her (she works in a different dept and only gets 30 mins).
   
   
3. Along those lines, I am trying to limit our grocery/MISC budget to $100/month. I am thinking about opening up a separate checking account for this, or going cash-only. I am starting to get a lot better at Walgreens, and it seems like I can really supplement my grocery budget by buying staples there. Also, my local HyVee will take the Register Rewards (usually if my fav manager is working, I have not tried it when he's gone), so I can use those to get fresh meat & produce. It would be tight, but really, there are just 2 of us here. We should be able to do it.
   
   
4. Which brings me to my 3rd goal: to not step foot in a Walmart for an entire year. Its nothing against Walmart directly, its just that for me Walmart is such a weakness. I always see some random little item that I just have to have...and I end up at the check register $100 poorer. Trips to Target will be limited too, but since I have to drive 15 minutes to get there & its really out of the way, I dont think it will be too hard (we go there once every other month or so).

So Proud!

I am so so proud of my husband. He just won a contest at work! Next week we get to go out with some other people in his office. They are picking us up in a limo, taking us to the steak house for dinner, then to the Plaza for drinks & cheesecake while we look at the Christmas lights. This is going to be fun!

But even better than that is the fact that my hubby worked his bum off for the last month! He is wonderful :) Hopefully things start turning around financially soon (I know they will).

:)

I love Christmas Baking :)

I have been in the mood lately to bake, bake, bake.  I have been making cookies, breads, chicken, etc.  So much fun!  When I got married, my mom gave me her Betty Crocker cookbook (from 1981).  This thing is a gem!  It has the easiest recipes in it.  I love the explanations at the beginning of the chapters.  Makes me feel like I can actually make some of these things.  I am not very comfortable cooking, but I am working hard at getting there.  DH and I need to cut back on eating out for health & financial reasons, so I am trying my best to make yummy meals at home.

Last night I pulled out the Betty Crocker cookbook to make my sugar cookies.  I love the roll-out cookies, but the pre-made dough just doesn't do it for me.  The recipe was super easy to follow, and it made a TON of cookies!!

1 1/2 c powdered sugar
1 egg
1 c butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 1/2 c flour (sifted)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar

Thoroughly mix sugar, egg, butter, vanilla & almond (I put in the Kitchenaid & mixed until almost fluffy).  Mix in flour, baking soda & cream of tartar.  Once thoroughly mixed, cover & refrigerate for 2 hours.

Heat oven to 375.  Take out 1/2 of dough (keep the other half refrigerated until ready to use it) & roll on floured surface to 1/8'' thick.  Cut with cookie cutters.  Bake on a slightly greased cookie sheet for 7-8 minutes.

Here's where I made some adjustments:

1. I made a "test" cookie.  I have never done that before, not sure why it never crossed my mind! 
   
2. Based on the cookie test, I lowered the oven temp to 370
   
3. I baked the cookies for 6 minutes instead of 7-8 because they were getting too brown at 7 minutes

I got almost 7 dozen 2'' cookies out of this!  I put 6 dozen away in the freezer.  I will be giving out an assortment of cookies to my co-workers for Christmas, so these will go in the cookie boxes.  My uncle works for Nestle & he is bringing me some choc-chips, so the boxes will have those too :)  I got these adorable boxes at Walgreens to put them in (not sure what the price was - I think 5 boxes for $2.50, but I used RR so I didnt really pay more than a few cents).  I figured cookies would be better than a candle, mug, or other random item that just collects dust.  And, I am really just using up ingredients I had on-hand for the most part, so the overall cost is very very low. 

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I love good deals!!

Mike needed some dress shirts for work. He keeps washing his shirts with random other things & now all but 2 have bleach spots on them (ughghg). We got some giftcards from the wedding, so I went to TJ Maxx to see if I could get some good shirts for him there.

I hit the jackpot!

Well, maybe, I dont know. I have never bought guy's clothes before, so I dont know if this was a great deal or not, but I thought it was. They had Pierre Cardin (sp?) shirts + ties for $19.99. With the $50 giftcard I was able to get 3 shirts for only $15.53 OOP :) YAY! Hopefully this gets us through until Mike starts making some more money.

And, he is under strict instructions now to NOT WASH his shirts! I plan to wash the 5 of them on their own, in Woolite, every Saturday. I dont care if its not cost effective to wash only 5 shirts - its so much cheaper to not ruin them!

Mortgage fun - more rambling about goals

Right now DH and I have a small house, 2br, 2ba in an ok neighborhood.  We currently pay $800/month for the mortgage, taxes & insurance (all escrowed together).  The mortgage balance is $88,197.24.  The actual payment is $785, but I round up.  Just for fun, I looked at the mortgage website & used their amortization schedule tool.  From this point forward, if we keep the payments rounded up to $800:

We will finish the mortgage 23 payments early (almost 2 years!)
We will save $8,361.59 in interest

So that takes our 30 yr down to 28.  Not a lot, but its nice to see that extra $15 makes a difference!  Once we get the debts paid down, I wanted to focus on the mortgage, but since we wont be staying here we will instead focus on saving for a new down payment so that our next mortgage is lower.  I would rather not tie our money up into this property - cash on hand seems so much better for us at this point.  It looks like our next house will be in the $250-350k price range based off of the area that DH wants to move to, and our desire to not keep moving. 

We could have one child & remain in the house we have, but we both want a larger family (3-4 kids).  So that puts our timeline for a new house in about 5 years.  I hope we will be able to save up $70k+ in the next 5 years!  That's about $15k per year from now until then.  I know this next year for sure we wont meet that because of paying off debt. 

Man, this seems like a mountain again once I look at it.  Oh well...you can only do it one step at a time!  And at least we have a goal.

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Lovely lovely finances...

Its been awhile since I posted, so I figured I would give a big numbers update. It looks a lot worse than it did last time, but I have added on DH's debt. This is everything except for the house & DH's student loans (still in deferral).

Ok, here is the ugly truth:

	Start	Current
AMEX	$2,840.00	$0.00
BB - washer/dryer	$739.59	$0.00
Car	$11,769.00	$0.00
Express	$100.00	$0.00
Home Depot	$967.41	$0.00
School	$3,109.69	$0.00
Visa	$300.00	$0.00
WaMu	$0.00	$0.00
Capital One	$610.24	$0.00
BoA	$2,420.59	$0.00
BB - computer - 0%	$664.77	$275.00
USB LOC	$0.00	$1,447.02
Discover	$3,063.50	$2,000.00
Citi Upromise - 0%	$3,000.00	$3,000.00
Chase	$1,681.40	$3,450.00
USB	$0.00	$4,100.00
Chase	$2,275.00	$4,700.00
Citi	$1,450.00	$7,864.48
Car - Mike	$14,871.50	$13,536.25
Student Loans	$16,226.44	$16,043.47
Total Balance	$66,089.13	$56,416.22
Total Paid off:	$9,672.91	14.64%

DH and I have a lot of work to do. This is a rediculous amount in CCs, and we know it. The Citi card is really my car (we got a 0% BT on it, so we took it). The Upromise card is DH's living expenses over the last 7 months since he has no income now. Not ideal, but it is what it is.

So far we are making all of the payments here on an income of $2,820/month. Here is how the budget breaks down...

Debts	Min	Balance:
Mortgage	$ 786.00
Student Loans	$ 135.00	$16,043.47
Credit Cards	$ 700.00	$26,836.50
Utilities
Gas	$ 50.00
Elec	$ 75.00
Trash	$ 15.00
Water	$ 35.00
Sewer	$ 25.00
Cell	$ 145.00
Internet	$ 30.00
Car
Insurance	$ 55.00
Gasoline	$ 60.00
Payment	$ 300.00	$13,536.25
Household
Groceries	$ 160.00
Entertainment	$ 40.00
Shopping
General needs	$ 100.00
Total left	$ 109.00

I am still trying to learn to stick within this budget. Hopefully we can get better at this. The CCs are gone now, but its so hard to not want to eat out all the time (our major weakness).

Anyway, we will be setting goals for the new year soon. Hopefully DH starts to get paid for some contracts. I have an extra $700 coming in from different things in the next month or two, so I plan to put it towards the BB card & the LOC. I want those gone by Feb if possible, but we will see how that goes.

**Good news, I just calculated, and at the min payments, the CCs should be gone in 38 months. That makes me feel better - we should definitely be able to do this sooner than 3 years!

Grocery Deals 11-18 to 11-24

 

Price Chopper (11-18 to 11-26)

 

• Best Choice turkeys $.40/lb
• Best Choice veggies $.37/can (limit 6)
• Best Choice cream cheese $.47
• Pepsi 12-pks 4/$10
• Swanson Broth $.47.  Use the $1/6 or the $.35/4 from the 11-8 SS.
• Cool Whip $.77

 

Hen House

 

• Fresh turkeys $1.29/lb (not frozen)
• Libby veggies $.49/can.  Use the $1/4 from the 9-27 RP, or the $.50/2 printable here. (The printable will double, making 2 cans free).
• Dole Pineapple $.99.  Use the $.35/2 from the 11-8 SS to get 2 cans for $.65 each.
• McCormick Gravy mix 4/$3.  Use the $.50/2 from the 11-1 RP to get these for $.25 each.
• Birds Eye frozen veggies $.99.  Use the $.35/1 from the 11-15 SS to get these for $.29/bag!  There are some coupons out for $.50/1, if you get these (order off eBay), they would be free.  Worth stocking up on especially if you have freezer room.  My stash from last time is almost gone, time to stock up again.
• Campbell's Gravy $.50.  Use the $.40/4 from the 10-11 SS to get these for $.30 each.

 

HyVee

 

• Dole celery $.48
• Pepsi 12-pks 4/$10 with in-ad coupon
• Buy a Hormel Cure 81 ham @ $2.99/lb, get a free frozen turkey with in-ad coupon.
• 3lbs yellow onions $.99 with in-ad coupon
• Wonder Bread $.99 with in-ad coupon
• Marshmallows $.69 with in-ad coupon
• HyVee Flour 5lb bag $.99 with in-ad coupon
• 1 doz eggs $.99 with in-ad coupon
• 2lb cooked shrimp $8.88 with online coupon
• HyVee pecans $2.59
• Bakery Rolls $1.99/doz

 

Apple Market

 

• Best Choice turkeys $.40/lb
• Sweet Potatoes $.39/lb
• Stove Top $.79
• Best Choice cream soups $.39

 

 

Hen House has several good deals this week.  I will order the vegetable coupons & head out there to buy some cheap veggies!  Time to stock up the freezer again :)

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