A Childhood Dream Came True and I was so Mad

Every since I was a little kid, I have wanted a fireplace.  I remember asking my parents to put in a fireplace.  We already had a chimney so I thought it would be easy to do.  Well, we never got a fireplace.  The only time I ever got to enjoy a fire was going to my grandparent's house in the winter time.  I loved it!

Ever since my in-law got an electric fireplace about 10 years ago, it sparked my interest again.  So, I have hinted to my husband several times over the years about getting a fireplace, and let's just say he didn't get the hint.

This year, I decided that with my Christmas money, I would purchase a media center fireplace. I love Menards, and that was the first place I looked to scout out models and prices.  I found a model that I really liked, and their website said that they had one in stock.  Come to find out after calling them, it was the display model.  I was bummed, but they steered me in the direction of another model.  It was a little more pricey but after comparing the two the more expensive heated 1000 sq. ft. vs. 400 sq.ft. of the other model.

So after visiting the store and seeing the different models in we came home with the model the Menards employee told me about over the phone.  Even though it was a little more expensive, Menard was having their 11% storewide rebate, so I will be getting a little of that money back.

So you are probably wondering why I was mad?  Well you see, while Ryne and I were working on putting this bad boy together,  the kids got in the packing styrofoam.  All we hear is its snowing.


Not only is the toy room a disaster, but they broke up the styrofoam and were throwing it in the air.  Keelie was making snow angels.  They had it ALL over themselves.  I was on the verge of tears.  I had worked so hard to organize their toys and cleaned the floor, and then I see this. Tears!

So instead of enjoying
my fireplace when it was all put together.  I have the joys of cleaning all the "snow" up.  Let me tell you it is not easy because those little buggers have static cling.  So I had to blow on all the toys to get the "snow" off and then vacuum it all up because it would just cling to the broom and dust pan.

To make matters worse, while I was vacuuming I sucked up a sock.  Typically with our Shark vacuum I can take it apart and have no problem getting out whatever got stuck, but with this sock, it got stuck in the handle.  So, Ryne spent like 15 minutes trying to get the dang thing out.

After a hour and a half of cleaning,  I finally got to sit down and enjoy my fireplace.  The girls that night had to fall asleep by the fire.  Jeter like to sit and watch the flames.

Christmas Financial Recovery

Ugh!  It is that time of the year when the fun and joy is over, and those credit card bills are coming in.  If you are like me, you are probably thinking,"How in the world am I going to afford this?" This adds a whole new stress of cutting back on some life's luxuries to be able to pay off the Christmas expenses.

I have created our monthly budget.  One area that I added to my budget is Christmas.  I had a Christmas budget, but it was stressful coming up with those funds.  What I am doing this year (2017), I will be pulling money out every month to help cover the cost.  If you are curious how much to set aside, well, look at home much you spent this Christmas and divide it by 12.

Today, I set up my budget.  Oh golly,  it took me a couple of hours to do.  I use Every Dollar to create my budget and track my spending.  I was flipping back and forth between credit card websites and Every Dollar trying to input my balance of each card, and the minimum payment for each.  Then I was going back and forth between my bank account, Every Dollar, and my online credit card accounts trying to make payments.  

I feel the more I blog about my financial goals and help others.  It motivates me to be on the straight 'n arrow.  I am still looking for areas in our budget that we are will to cut.  The sacrifices that we make to live the life that we want in the long run.

Financial Fitness Workout #2- Creating a Budget

Our Financial Fitness Goal is living without credit cards, loans of any kind.  We want to feel comfortable living within our means and end the feeling like we are living paycheck to paycheck.

Finding your Financial Budget Form is like buying a new pair of tennis shoes.  You don't commit to buying it unless it looks good and is the right fit for you.  If you are unsure of a Financial Budget Form that could fit you, check out my previous blog post, Finding a Budget Form   If one of these forms are not the right fit for you,  you can find other budget forms on Pinterest.

But now that we have our "new pair of shoes." It is now time to look at what type of workout we are going to do?  Walk? Run? Zumba? P90X?  The workout you choose has to be whatever you can financially afford and what you are willing to give up.  If you want to get out of debt quick, it may mean sacrificing a lot of "extras."  If you feel like there just isn't much to give up, then getting out might feel like a walking pace.  

No matter if you choose to walk or run,  IT IS POSSIBLE TO LOSE THAT FINANCIAL WEIGHT!

Let talk about how to create a budget. This is part is hard.  I am not going to lie.  This will give you a wake-up call of how financially unfit you really are.

With your budget form, Write down your income.Then, we start with the MUST HAVES.  These are the items that are not negotiable.   These are the items, for the most part with few exceptions, that are a fixed price.  The cost will not change much.

1. Mortgage/rent
2. Electric/Propane
3. Water/Trash
4. Insurance
5. Car Payment(s)
6. Daycare

Write down how much each one costs per month.  Even if you only pay it quarterly, what would you pay per month?  Subtract those costs from your income.

Next, let's move to the next items that we use to live, but prices can vary.  We can upgrade or downgrade if we need too.

1. Cable
2. Internet
3. Phone Home/Cell
4. Gas for Transportation

Write down how much each one costs per month.  Even if you only pay it quarterly, what would you pay per month?  Subtract those costs from your income.

Debt is next.  Ugh!  Here we want to write down the bare minimum payment of your debt broken down.  Do not clump credits together or student loan payment.  Separate them out.  For example, I have one student loan payment.  But when I look at my summary, I probably have 15 loans that are being paid on in that one payment.  I will explain in a future post as to why I do this.

1. Credit Card 1
2. Credit Card 2
3. Credit Card 3
4. Credit Card 4
5. Student Loan 1
6. Student Loan 2
7. Student Loan 3
8. Etc.

Write down how much each one costs per month.  Even if you only pay it quarterly, what would you pay per month?  Subtract those costs from your income.

FINALLY, the leftover money! Yahoo!  This money you can mix around a bit and decide how you want to spend it.

1. Savings
2. Giving
3. Groceries
4. Fast Food
5. Entertainment
6. Doctor Visits
7. Membership Fees
8. Toiletries
9. Personal Money- His 
10. Personal Money- Hers
11. Home Repairs
12. Car Repairs
13. Buffer Money (The money for things when they unexpectedly pop up)
14. ETC.

Write down how much each one costs per month.  Even if you only pay it quarterly, what would you pay per month?  Subtract those costs from your income.

Are you spending more than what you are a making right now?  If not, good!  You are sitting pretty good.  But if you are, take a look at how much you are spending and cut how much you are spending in some of your negotiable categories or completely eliminate them altogether.

We are not done quite yet.  We have one more category, and that is the Overage.  The Overage is the amount you are going to put towards your debt so you can eliminate your debt quicker.  Obviously the more you put toward your debt, the quicker you can get out of debt. Maybe this overage is $50.  You will put this $50 towards the one debt that is the smallest debt.  Here we are going to do the Snowball Effect.

Remember, our goal is to live within our means and to completely eliminate the use of credit cards.

Our News Years Resolutions is to get Financially Fit- Finding a Budget Form

Becoming financially fit is just as hard as being physically fit.  Getting paid once a month poses as a great challenge when it come budgeting money.  . Our New Years Resolution has to come early because we get paid in the middle of the month.  If we wait until our January pay day, it won't fee like much of a resolution.

The best way to start managing your money is to create a budget.  EveryDollar is a great website to create a budget online.  This is a free tool that allows its users to create a budget.  You are able to put in your own income, create different categories and to set up your budget.  On the side, it shows you percentages of categories to how and where most of you money is being spent.

Every Dollar has an app for iPhones and Androids to help keep track of your spending as your spending.  For example, you go grocery shopping, you can keep track of your spending and will show how much money you have help in that budget.

For a small monthly fee of $8.25 or $99 annually, you can link your bank card to your account.  Shortly after your bank processes them, they will show on your EveryDollar account.  You then can click and drag your spending in your budgets and it will automatically withdrawal from your budgets to show how much you have left.

I use EveryDollar, but I also like to use paper and pencil method as well.   You first want to find a form that is going to work for you.  Here is an example of good starter for creating a budget form.

Clicking on this form will take you to Frugal Fanatic.

For me, this form is not broken down enough.  It does not have debt broken down.  If you are like Ryne and I we have more than one credit card and student loan. We started the Snowball Effect on our debts.  This has helped us pay down on Ryne's student loans to the point where the rest will Federally be forgiven.  I, on the other hand, have a way to go to pay off my student loan debt.

Clicking on this form will take you to Debt of Life

This is a great form to work with and if you click on the form the creator of Debt to Life has offered this free template to use.  You can download it in Excel form and can modify it for personal use.

Not only do I like to keep track of my expenses monthly, but I like to keep track of them annually.  This allows me compare from month-to- month how much I am spending.  Utilities can vary so if you save your forms, you will be able to see how much you spend from year to year.

Clicking on this form will take you to a pdf file created by me.

Christner Gingerbread House Making

Last night, the high school basketball games got canceled due to weather.  Roarie was so excited in the thought of going.  She kept asking the kids in her preschool class to raise their hands if they were going to go to the basketball game.  The preschool teachers didn't have the heart to tell her that game was canceled, so they left that up to me to do.

When I broke the news to Roarie, she got a bird perch of a lip.  I told her that if she asked daddy real nice maybe he will let us go to Dollar General then get a gingerbread house kit.  Her face lit up like she would rather do that anyway.

We ended up going to DG to get a couple of kits.  I decided that I might as well get two just to eliminate the fighting, plus, I thought that Keelie would eat the candy and there wouldn't be any left to decorate.  The kits cost $10 each.  

Both kits had five different candies, one large bag of candy, 2four walls to the house, two pieces for the roof, and a piece of cardboard for the house to sit on.  I didn't think that there would be enough frosting, but when we were finished, I actually had some left over.

Roarie and Keelie had so much fun.  I was the one to put on all of the frostings but they helped put the walls and roof pieces together, and they put on the candy where ever they wanted too.  I was very surprised that Keelie did not eat any of the candy.  She licked her fingers a lot because she would get frosting on them.

The frosting was pretty good in consistency thickness ( and taste) It really didn't take long for the frosting to dry up to get the walls to stand and for the candy to stick without sliding off.
The girls did a great job with their gingerbread houses.  The whole project took us about an hour and a half.  Keelie's is on the left and Roarie's in on the right.

Finiancial Tools to Budget Money

My husband, Ryne, and I are on a journey to get out of debt.  We cannot do this alone.  Helping track of out financial situation is hard.  With the access of online financial tools and this has helped make our journey a little smoother.

My husband and I have been studying up one Davey Ramsey's budgeting plan.  He has several resources for people to use.  When my we first began our journey, I purchased The Starter Bundle.  I think when I purchased the bundle it was $50.  But there are times when Dave Ramsey hold sales, especially around the holiday season.  This bundle includes 2 books, an audio book,, envelop money system, cash flow and dump debt DVDs, and a couple of ebooks.

The package when I purchased is was a little different but are great resources to refer too.   This has made me consciously aware of my budget and some of the mistakes that we have made along the way.  Ramsey answers a lot of common questions and gives reasons as to why or why not it is financially healthy.

Several other resources can help you develop and make you consciously aware of your budget. Please note that following tools financial advisors.  Everyone will have a different budget because everyone has a different lifestyle and life circumstance, so what will work for one person will not work for another person. But this tool can help you set up your budget and keep track of finances.
There are several tools out there to help you budget your money:

If you have not already, you need to download you bank app on your phone.  I have two different banks that I work with. One is a big change that is nationally known and we have a private small town bank.  Both have apps so at anytime, I can log on to them and see how much money we in our accounts at all times.  I also have my bank accounts set up so that I if my accounts fall below $100 I receive a text message notifying that I have limited funds in my account.

EveryDollar: 
EveryDollar is a budgeting to provided by Dave Ramsey.  This is a free tool that allows its users to create a budget.  You are allowed to put in your own income, create different categories and to set up your budget.  On the side, it shows you percentages of categories to how and where most of you money is being spent.

Every Dollar has an app for iPhones and Androids to help keep track of your spending as your spending.  For example, you go grocery shopping, you can keep track of your spending and will show how much money you have help in that budget.

For a small monthly fee of $8.25 or $99 annually, you can link your bank card to your account.  Shortly after your bank processes them, they will show on your EveryDollar account.  You then can click and drag your spending in your budgets and it will automatically withdrawal from your budgets to show how much you have left.

Change: 
Change is a service that sends our a text message to notify you of your daily spending.  Not know much about this app when I signed up was a large leap of faith for me in hopes that I would suffer from identity fraud.  Even when I reviewed their site I told them of my skeptism, and they assured me that my information was secure.  I have utilized this too for about 6 months and haven't had any problems with it.  It is nice to be informed how much money in my account, so I am not tempted to spend my money and is a great reminder of my ultimate goal.

Prosper Daily
Proper Daily is an app available for iPhone and Android.  This app, when given you account information for bank account and credit cards shows the balance on each account,  What purchases were made, a monthly spending tracker.  This great reference when trying to figure out how much money you have in all of your accounts and a compilation of how much money you have spent in total for them month and then compares it to previous months

All of these resources are secure sites.  They have personally kept my information safe.  I am not paid for these reviews, they are tools have helped me become more financially aware.

Fridged Cold

It 's December 15, and I am ready for winter to be over.  I am tired of being cold.  Our house is cold, minus my bedroom.  The vehicles are cold when we get in, my high school library is cold.  I am ready for Spring.

For this first time in an as long as I can remember,  I will not be going up to Minnesota for the Reed family Christmas.  It is suppose to -22 for a low and my dad called me to say that he did not want us to come up the because it was going to be so cold.  He would hate it if our vehicle got stranded somewhere in our 3 hour long drive.  If three kids, your priorities change a little bit.

Polar Express Mount Pleasant, Iowa

The Polar Express Train Ride in Mount Pleasant, Iowa was a trip well worth it.  It was a very cute trip for the little kids.  We for a trip today we went to the North Pole on the Polar Express.  The temperature was a 33 degrees.  Jeter, 1 year old, was the youngest child in our group,.  Even though it was cold,  a winter jacket and a hat did us just fine.  They had a little train station that we could sit inside or outside.  Most people stood outside because they were waiting for the train to arrive.

Once we got on the train,  there was no heat.  The car was insulated very well that my kiddos eventually took off their hats and gloves because it was very warm.  In our car, there were two seats that sat very high.  We had to climb a ladder to get to the seats.  The windows were frosted out so no one could see outside the windows.  This made for a  more magical experience.

We rode on the train for maybe 10-15 minute.  We could have been riding in circles for all we know.  The train did have to make one stop because there were reindeer on the tracks.  But once we got to the North Pole, the train pulled into a shed because the North Pole is just too cold.  Within the shed, it was cold, but we were our of the wind and elements.  The coats and hats were needed once we got out.  They did have heat lamps throughout the shed to help keep it warm.  I get cold easily but I did not shiver at all. 

We were given about 45 minutes to complete all the activities within the North Pole.  It was the perfect amount of time.  The first activity we did was the crafts.  In the craft room, which was very warm, each of the kids got to decorate their own paper ornament.  Then we had to stop off for some hot cocoa and cookies.  We decided to head down to go see Santa.  Along with our way down to the other end of the building, It snowed!  Well actually, they had a bubble machine, so it looked like it snowed.

We stopped to get a group picture.  The first picture was free.  If we wanted any extra pictures, it cost $5 per print.  Which if you think about it, really isn't bad when you pay $30+ to stand in line for an hour, sit on Santa's lap for 10 seconds, and get poor quality photos.  

We waited in line about 15 minutes to see Santa.  We took our own pictures with our phones, the kids told Santa what they wanted for Christmas, and when they left the rail car Santa was in, we all received a big, metal, silver bell that is really cool.  On the ribbon, it says "Polar Express 2016".  This is an AWESOME keepsake and kept Jeter entertained for the rest of trip.

Would I do this again?  Absolutely!  It was an activity that kept the kids entertained.  They did not get bored.  They were so excited to ride the train and see Santa.

To find out about this Polar Express Check out their link:
 http://www.mcrr.org/PAGES/northPoleExpress.html

.

Christmas Budget

I don't know about many of you, but we created a Christmas budget. Last year, we spent about $1,200 on Christmas, everything from a new tree to presents. We decided to put everything on credit cards instead of pulling it straight out of our bank account. This was not the smartest things for my husband to do considering the interest rates to accumulates. So in the long run, we ended up spending more than $1200. This ended up taking us 4 months to pay off. 

This year we created a Christmas budget. Every month we set aside $100. We put it in a place where we would not be tempted to spend it. When November came around, we had $1,100 dollars that we could dabble with. This was nice because when it came to Black Friday shopping, I didn't have to stress or have the guilt that I was spending money that we didn't have, which in turn would get us into debt in the long run.

 Well, this Christmas, it was nice having $1,100 to work with; however, my daughter broke one of our iPads. So this was an added expense that we wanted to replace. So on Black Friday, we ended up getting two new iPad Airs to replace our Apple iPad IIs. This consumer $600 of our Christmas budget. With them being under the age of 5, they don't understand the concept of money, so we ended up buy more gifts, smaller ones because of the amount we have already spent. But purchasing these, made us go over our budget. So, back to our credit card debt...ugh!

 Four changes that I will make to our Christmas Budget for next year:

 1. Set aside $125 every month. This will hopefully help eliminate any overspending based on the amount that I spent this year.

2. Make a list of everyone that I need to purchase for. I will make a list of everyone in my family, family grab bags, teachers, co-workers who have made an helped me throughout the year.

3. From this list, put a price of how much I am going to spend on each person and budget it to my $1500.

4. Lastly, when I go Black Friday shopping bring a cash, which is a risk but in my area, there aren't many muggings. Another option is to get a pay-as-you-go charge card (caution: most of these have some type of monthly fee).

 I am not saying that there won't be flaws or that this will work for everyone. This is what I plan on doing with my Christmas budget for next year. Hopefully, it works because there is nothing that I want more than to get financially stable and pay off out debts.

Roarie's First School Winter

Tonight, Roarie had her first winter concert at school. The school put to get her their concert in the manner of 4-year-old Preschool school thru first grade.  Being a small school they have all three grades singing all at the same time and all the same songs.  This makes it convenient for the kids, parents, and teachers.  The concert from beginning to end lasted about 25 minutes.

I curled Roarie's hair.  We borrowed a dress from a friend.  And of course, we had to wear make-up.  When I was a little girl, the only time my mom would let me wear make-up was when I had a concert and sometimes when we to to church.

If you give a Roarie some make-up, a Keelie is gunna want some make up too.

Make Money Blogging

If you are looking to get earn some extra cash without having to pay anything is to blog.  While I was in college I started my first blog and I got paid to write and review products.  Now that I have entered a new phase in my life with a family, owning a home, working full-time, working on my Master's Degree, and financial trying to survive, I have started another blog.

Blogging is a free and easy way to make money.  Many companies pay bloggers to write reviews about different products.  My favorite blogging advertisement marketplace it PayPerPost.  This is a completely free site that I enroll my blog, I put in my target audience, and the marketers come to me.  Sometimes they will either say, "I will pay you $5 for a 100 word review with the link to our site."  Or sometimes, I can bid as say, "I will write a 100 word website or product review for $5."  

There are a lot of ways to make money out there. PayPerPost has been the most honest, convenient, and best place for me to make a little extra cash.  Selling things on ebay or Amazon.com but the thing is, that takes money to start up.  Trust me I know, I have tried it.  The one thing that I learned is there is no guarantee that your items are going to sell, so it is a gamble.  Getting paid to is one legit way where you don't have to pay anything to make money.  The only thing it costs is your to write the review.

Snowball Effect- Debt Reiief

My husband and I have been wanting to get out of debt, more so me than him because I sit close to $60,000 in student loan debt and am still taking graduate courses.  We have dabbled with the Dave Ramsey plan of getting out of debt.  The cash budget, is very hard for us.  This is a challenge in it of itself.  We now have two separate bank accounts and one account is our daily living money, and one is strictly just for bills.

Some piece of debt relief that we have done is the snowball effect.  For those of you who unfamiliar with the snowball effect it paying extra on one loan.  When that loan is paid off, you take the what you paid over and the payment from loan that you paid off and put it toward your next loan.

For example:

Loan 1:  $1000
     Minimum payment $50 +$50 over pay means you can have this paid off in 10 month opposed to 20 months.

Loan 2:  $2,000
      Minimum payment $50.  You start paying $50 for 10 months until Loan 1 is paid off.  Then on month 11 you will pay $50 + $100=$150. After 10 more months, this loan will be paid off. This loan should have taken 40 months to pay off, but instead using the snowball effect will take 20 months to pay off.

Loan 3: $3,000
      Minimum payment $50.  You start paying $50 for 20 months until Loan 1 and Loan is paid off.  Then on month 21 you will pay $50 +$150= $200.  After consolidating the payments, it will take 10 more months to pay off. This loan should have taken 60 months to pay off, but instead using the snowball effect will take  a total 30 months to pay off.

This $6,000 of debt should have taken 120 months by paying the minimum  every month to pay off got cut to 30 months.

My husbands student loans are now paid off, now onto focusing on mine!

Student Loan Debt

I don't know about you, but I made a lot of mistakes when I was a young adult.  That would include thinking that while I was in college, I needed to take out the maximum student loan every year.  I played college softball, so time did not allow for a part time job.  I am regretting taking out so many loans. After being a college for almost 10 years, and no I am not a doctor, I have accumulated close to $60,000 in student debt.  Some of you may think, that isn't that much, but when you are a teacher in the state of Iowa.  That is quite a bit.

Things I wish I would have done:

1. Took out the minimum amount of student loans to pay for classes, room, and board.
2. Found time to have a part-time job.  Though I played softball, a couple of hours a day would not have killed me.
3. Lived in the dorms for 5 years.
4. Completed college in 4 years instead of 5. I had one year left of eligibility to play softball and I wanted to use it.
5. Ate the cafeteria food.  Where I lived in the dorms or not, I still should have eaten the cafeteria food.  I was a lot cheaper, I didn't have to cook, and there were actual meals beside Spaghettios.
6. I wish I would have saved money to put toward my future.

Some mistakes we don't learn until we are paying them back.  I could have been close to paying them back if I would have done the things above.  But now, my husband and I are working on paying back close to $70,000 in credit card and student loan debt.

Disclaimer

Some of this content on this blog is paid advertisement.