Creditcardfree's Personal Finance Blog

Crazy. We are thinking of going furnture shopping today. Of course, this is different than furniture buying, right?

We have a 90's mauve and green printed sofa in our front living room. It was given to us several years ago. At the time we kept it in our basement. Now...it sits in the first room visitors see. Ugh. I'm so tired of it. I tried slipcovers, but they are sloppy.

This week, I saw an ad for a couch I'm interested in. We are going to look at it. The ad states it is $499.00. Great price! But I need to see the quality.

I actually may go with it even if the timing isn't right. This couch is becoming a need. My sanity can't take much more of this crazy couch.

The couch is actually in great condition. No tears, holes, or rips. It's comfortable to sit on. It is ugly! Word to the wise, don't purchase a printed couch...it's just going to look outdated in 10 years.

go out to lunch. I went to lunch with my neighbor this afternoon. We picked a noodle place that had COUPONS!

We purchased two noodle bowls. With the coupon one was free. We opted for water, as well. I spent $3.60!!

Now, I'm off to purchase groceries to cover meals through the end of the month.

Yes, after four no spend days, I went shopping. A true planned outing of spending. Because I had coupons!!

I had two $5 off any purchase coupons for Old Navy. The girls need fall shirts. In the end, I bought four shirts for $20.14!!! A great deal.

I went with a friend. For lunch we picked up pretzels. With a coupon!! Buy 1, Get 1 Free. Total $2.75. My portion $1, since I did the driving. Yipee! Oh, that pretzel tasted soooo good, too.

I ended up with a no spend day yesterday with my Mom. She bought my lunch, bought ingredients for dinner and picked up the tab for a couple items at the health food store (items I intended to purchase).

We visited the new sculpture garden. It's so new they just took the fence down yesterday morning! The grand opening is on Sunday. I think the whole family will want to go then. I love free art. Oops, I did spend $0.75 to park my car. I guess I did spend money yesterday!!

Today, I have school activities to help with and a walk scheduled with a friend. I think today will be another no spend day! That will make 4 days if you are counting.

We still have $350 in our checking account. Payday is 8 days away. I'm positive we would have far less if DH hadn't traveled this month. There are still things to buy...groceries, gas, and a few fall clothing items for the girls. It's just nice to be in a good place!!

My husband has cash in a rollover IRA, that we are systematically moving back into the market.

Yesterday, with the market down, would have been a better day. But, I'm doing it today anyway. I'm no market timing expert, so I'm not going to pretend I am. The fund we are buying is still lower than it was several years ago. So, I think we are okay to move in and still find growth ahead of us.

Trade specifics:
$3,000 of Fidelity Contrafund (FCNTX)

I did make it through yesterday with out spending. In fact, I found a way to put a few dollars back in my pocket!

I turned in our cans and bottles to get our deposit money back. Yep, I live in one of those states where you pay a deposit at the time of purchase. So, I turned in $3.60 worth of bottles and cans. Yipee! Money in my pocket.

I checked our bank accounts today. We earned a mere $0.13 in interest on one of our checking accounts. They did reimburse us for $3.00 worth of ATM fees, too. Nice to have that money back!

Update: Turns out the sparkle fairy did not make a return visit, even though she knows my Mom is coming to visit today! Hmm. Sparkle fairy needs to get her act together! (Oh, if you don't know about the sparkle fairy, see the previous post)

Yesterday, was a no spend day for me. I'm hoping for a couple more this week, too.

I spent a good portion of my day deep cleaning the kitchen. There is still more to be done, but it is starting to shine! Here's what I cleaned:

Sliding glass doors
Kitchen sink blinds
Two lazy susans
Outside of dishwasher
Outside of stove
Outside of refrigerator
Under the refrigerator
Kitchen sink
Swept kitchen floor

I still need to clean inside and outside of the kitchen cabinets and deep clean the kitchen floor. I'm dreading the outside of the cabinets the most. They are painted white. As you can imagine, they are NOT dirty hand friendly! The cabinets were painted when we bought the home. They were the one thing we didn't like about the house. Guess what, I still don't like them!

I might play sparkle fairy some more today. Or not. Either way, I'm not spending money!!

Finally, I am pleased to report that I redeemed 1000 points with Global Test Marketing for $50!

This company begins payouts at 1000 points. And it seems to take quite awhile to get there. However, I do enjoy a $50 check once in awhile!

The check will take at least four weeks to arrive. Again, one must really have patience to work with this company.

Oh my! I have been doing many nerdy calculations regarding our debt. I'm obsessed with getting it paid off! But, I must admit that I'm getting tired of watching every penny. It's draining. It makes me feel poor, when we really are not.

My nerdy calculations show that the money for the braces will be paid back by mid October of this year!! Only one more month to go.

The calculations also show that we can have the home equity loan paid off by the end of February 2010! That's only 5 1/2 months away.

While paying the home equity loan, I decided it is important to save some cash along the way. I'm not going to send every penny into the loan, like I normally tend to do. That technique works, but it is stressful. For me. For my family. We leave ourselves without any wiggle room in the budget. I don't like saying, "Can we wait until next week to buy that?"

While we pay down the HEL, we will pad the extra checking account with savings for when life happens. We have our emergency fund, of course. This extra pad will just be available for when things come up that aren't emergencies. I guess its a way of planning for things that aren't always in the plan.

Honestly, we have had an extra pad in the checking account before. Turns out we don't have it any more. I guess what I'm really doing is setting it up again!

At any rate, I'm looking forward to February. I like that I've set up the journey there to be less stressful.

I claimed our debit card rewards in the amount of $75 last night. This money will go directly to the emergency fund!

Remember: we are paying back the money we borrowed to pay for the braces in full.

Payback Total Remaining: $2,015.00

We keep making progress! Gotta love that.

My husband has been traveling. This often works out as a financial benefit to us. While he travel the Army pays his all of his expenses, including food and lodging. Meanwhile, I don't have to buy groceries here at home for him. He also isn't buying fuel to travel locally to and from work.

I asked for this trip if he knew what the per diem was for meals. No, he did not. I looked it up. For this location it was $46 per day. The trip was for 11 days. Because two of those are travel days he will get reimbursed 75% of the per diem. My trusty calculator says he can spend up to $575 on meals for 11 days. Wow! I realize when travel meals can add up, but this is for one person!

I told him before he left it would be nice if we could make a little money on the trip. Honestly, I'd be fine with $10 a day or $100.

He says he's buying meals at the nearby Air Force base, where a soda is $0.30 and a large salad bar salad is $0.60. He's also buying a meat, vegetable and starch for all under $5! It's like he's gone back to the 1950's. Really, where in the United States can one get so much food for $5?

Turns out he's only spending about $10/day on food! Um...that's a lot left over from a $46 per diem. We may end up with over $300 extra in our pocket! It's been awhile since this has happened to us. Usually, he doesn't travel for that many days in a row. Usually, he just spends carefree without knowledge of the per diem.

Oh...I just got a great idea how to use some of the money. My husband has a birthday in October. I'm going to get him something really good. Really good! And no... I won't use all the money!

As a side note to this positive income news, I do feel guilty that we make money this way off the government. I'm sure this is not exactly wise use of government tax dollars. Right now, those are rules and sometimes we use them to our advantage.

Two years ago, I signed a contract to rent to own a flute for my daughter. I also purchased the rental and maintenence agreement, which came in handy several times.

I recently contacted the music store to confirm the remaining payments. I just couldn't read my copy of the agreement. My inquiry prompted them to offer me a discount, if I would pay the account in full!

Instead of 5 more payments that would equal about $179, I will pay them $111 next week. A nice surprise savings of $68! My daughter will finally own her own flute, which she has been looking forward to.

By renting to own the instrument, I did pay more than if I had paid for the instrument in full at the beginning of lessons. At the time, $750 seemed like so much money to lay out for an instrument my daughter had not even begun to play. I didn't know if she would practice, or even like playing it! The rental contract allowed us an out at any point in time. We could have simply returned the instrument and be free of future monthly obligations. Turns out she loved the flute! And she plays it so well.

It is what it is. Now I'll have a little more cash in my pocket each month!!

I love it when the stock markets go up! It's so much more fun to track investments that way.

I made our regular home equity loan payment yesterday. The regular payment is $118.01. The pricipal portion was $79.69.

Our new balance is $6,262.36.

Someday in the near future I won't have to write about this loan. Someday it will be paid off!! I can't wait.

Since the braces will be repaid in the near future, our focus will return to this loan. By the end of December, I hope to have made another significant dent in the balance.

Yipee!! It is payday!

I have paid all of our recurring bills and finally moved money back to our emergency fund. As you may remember, we used our emergency fund to pay for our daughter's braces in full (we received a 5% discount equal to $185).

Today, we are paying ourselves back in the amount of $1501.00. This will leave us with $2090 left to repay. The goal is to complete this by the end of October.

I received good news regarding the braces yesterday. The insurance company will pay $80 more than we were expecting. When the orthodontist recalculates our portion, we will get a refund of $76!! I hope I see that check very soon.

Today is a no spend day for me. It helps to have things to do that don't cost an additional outlay of cash! Here's what I have accomplished today:

1)Worked out at the gym
2)Mowed the lawn
3)Packaged and mailed our old cell phones for recycling. Shipping was free. They are so old, I didn't get any cash
4)Picked up 4 books at the library, while I returned one
5)Finished watching a Netflix movie
6)Wrote this blog post

This is all in addition to the tasks I do everyday! It doesn't look like much, but it was all free!

Tomorrow is payday and I have a long list of things we need! I'll be running errands all day. I better rest up!!

The weekend has been great as far as keeping spending to a minimum. We have $32 left in the checking account and payday is Tuesday. I completely expect tomorrow to be a no spend day!! I must say it feels good to be in control of the money.

Yesterday, we picked up $17 worth of items at Walmart. Only $8 of that was an unnessary eyeglass case for our youngest daughter. It is a hard case with a magnetic closure and she'll have it for a long time. The free one given with the eyeglasses is soft and has a open side. Not the best kind for a child!

Today, I ran to SuperTarget and bought minimum groceries to get us through the next two days. Much of it will cover lunches for the remainder of the week, too! I spent $18.

On Tuesday...I will make a much bigger grocery run. I think I will aim for buying for about 10 days. I guess I need to start writing a meal plan and grocery list!

Right now, I'm off to make mini loaves of banana bread and jello in case the kids need a snack! After that, I'm thinking about finding some items to list on ebay. I'm dreading that though.

Okay...since this is a financial website you might think I'm referring to credit cards! I just wanted to share a video about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. You can make your own choices after viewing

this short video.

After I wrote and posted this, I headed off to our Honda Dealership to pick up the windshield wiper and arm for the rear window of our Odyssey. The parts which cost us $48.91, came wrapped in plastic!! Ugh. In a sarcastic tone, I said outloud "It's a good thing these windshield wipers are wrapped in plastic, we wouldn't want them to get wet!"

Don't you just love how much we spent on those? We could have bought them online for half the amount, which would have included shipping. I won't go into how that may have happened.

Let's finish up with some good news. I sent the video link to my aunt, among others I know, who lives in California. She called to state that my email convinced her to go to a beach cleanup next weekend! She's going to bring friends. Yipee!! I don't live near a beach, so this warms my heart.

It's four days until payday and we have $67 in our checking account. I might need a few food items and one daughter needs an item for school.

Sometimes I feel that we are living paycheck to paycheck. But we aren't. We have cash, some of it just isn't set aside for spending. I hope to make this a very low spend weekend.

The good news, the last two days have been no spend days. Yipee!!

I'm seeing signs of abundance!! Yipee.

The first sign is in the form of tomatoes. Usually, I just walk to the garden when I need a tomato and pick a few. Last night, I went out for an onion and realized there are lots of tomatoes ready...and some that were ready last week (oops!). I came in with 31 tomatoes. It's been a good year!! I also picked three cups of cherry tomatoes. Now I have to figure out how I want to use them.

The second sign of abundance is our retirement accounts. We have reached a new high of just over $90K! We were close to this a year and half ago, but you know how things went. If the stock market hadn't tanked I'm sure we would be over $100K by now. I think we are doing pretty well considering, we only had $25K in 2003!

What signs of abundance do you see in your life?

I'm one of those people that does pretty good about getting rid of our excess stuff/clutter. In the past, I have held garage sales, sold on ebay, listed on half.com, taken clothes to consignment sales and stores. I've sold used books, and old cell phones. But right now...

I'm unmotivated.

And the truth, I have stuff to sell. The girls are always growing out of their clothes and shoes. They've recently decided to give up Barbies, Polly Pockets and Bratz. There's an extra coat in the closet. There are movies we won't watch again. There is real stuff to sell.

Right now is when I SHOULD be motivated. I have braces to pay my emergency fund back for, and a home equity loan that I want desperately to go away!!

But for now...I'm not motivated. I'm just being honest! Maybe I'll think about it more tomorrow....

Some of you may have noticed I haven't updated the ticker for the braces. The braces are the priority right now. I definitely haven't forgotten.

I currently have about $880 sitting aside to be put back in the emergency fund. I did have more, but remember the crazy airline ticket I had to pay for? Plus, I dipped into some of that money for the new cell phone.

Next week, when my husband gets paid, I should have another $657 to add to the pot! I'm also expecting that airline ticket money to come back to us near the end of the month. That was $644!!

I'm not going to update the ticker until I actually put the money back into the emergency fund account. I see a few things on the horizon and want to have some cash to handle them if necessary. Just a tad silly to put it back in, if I'm going to need to pull some of it back out!

Once it all gets put back, you will be the first to know!!

It's been a spendy few days. On Friday, we switched cell phone providers. It is somewhat of a forced move, since our previous provider was ending their service. My phone was free. My husband wanted a slight upgrade. His cell phone was $92 with tax, but we will receive a $50 rebate in a few weeks.

We went out of town for one night to visit family. We bought gas, food, snacks, beer, and wine! Too bad these visits just can't be free. Oh, but I did get some KFC for free....since I waited over 30 minutes to get our food. I don't think I will ever go there again. Ever.

Today, instead of buying a kitchen sink and faucet, we went to the zoo for just under $20. That was a good move. We stopped by a state park with a lunch packed from home for a picnic. Also another good move. We had a great conversation with the kids...love those!

My husband took the van to be washed...and lost our rear windshield wiper blade!! The part is only made by Honda since our van is less than 2 years old. That will be an expense for later this week.

I've bought the groceries for the week and wrote a check for my youngest daughter's school pictures. Here's crossing my fingers that there are a few no spend days ahead!

In my previous post, I mentioned making a payment on my husband's government credit card for an airline ticket he didn't use or request.

I checked the account today. It now shows that the travel agency finally made the adjustment yesterday...so there is now a credit for the airline ticket. We owe zero. That's good news!!

The bad news is we made the payment, too!! Ugh. It will show up on Tuesday most likely. If only I had known.

The other good news. My husband has a two week trip this month where he will use the card for travel expenses. These are always reimbursed a few days after he returns. He can request the money come straight to us rather than the card. So...by the end of Septmember we should have our money back. That's good news!

At least I know how it all is going to play out...but I still wish I had known yesterday.

I just made a payment to my husband's government credit card in the amount of $644. It's for an airline ticket he didn't request or use back in July. He has requested a refund of the ticket. Because of government bureaucracy it will take up to 2 months for the credit to be applied to the card!!

This government card does not charge interest, so in theory it would be okay not to pay it. But the Army has access to the card and can see if he doesn't pay on time. Not paying on time can result in a counseling session with a notation on his record.

It will all work out in the end(we will get the money back)...but right now it feels like I'm just throwing money away! It doesn't help that I'm trying to get these braces paid off at the same time!

---------------

Thanks for the well wishes yesterday. I feel much better today! Have a great Labor Day weekend, too.

It's been cool enough lately, that we have kept the air conditioning off. That is always a nice treat.

I'm under the weather and out of energy with a cold. I way overdid it yesterday, with cleaning and helping at school. So, today I'm on the couch. The plus is that I won't spend any money! Yesterday was also a no spend day. Gotta love those.

My water bill came in under budget by $16. Yipee!!

The utility company changed their system last month. At that time I was charged for 45 days worth of water. Today the bill covered about 10 or 11 days worth. It will all even out eventually.

For now, I'm enjoying a smaller bill.

Officially, I'm not going to participate in my daughter's school fund raisers. It's not the money. I'm just tired of the same stuff! And I don't even need the stuff.

I'm actually helping both PTO's with teacher appreciation meals throughout the year. That is something I feel good about giving.

If I feel guilty later for skipping the fundraisers, I can always cut a check straight to the PTO. I did that at least once last year.

It feels good to know where I stand...before the order forms come home. I will let the girls know the plan, too!

We've made it to payday! We spent pretty much every last dollar we had allocated towards spending this month. In fact, I had to dip into some of our extra cash for kleenex, since our youngest daughter caught a cold! Poor baby.

We did a really good job of holding out and waiting to spend only when necessary. I had a list of things that we could wait to buy. They included paper towels, trash bags, my haircut, razor blades, and bar soap.

Today, I'm writing a check for the first round of school pictures. I picked a package that is $17. The cheapest was $12. I decided to spend an extra $5 to be able to give another 5 people pictures. I'm sure they'll appreciate it.

The good news: after paying bills we should have $915 to allocate towards braces! I'll update the ticker when I actually get that money into the emergency fund.

It feels good to be flush with cash...even if it is only for a few days!!

Did you know people do this? They make a plan, a pact, a commitment for a year to not spend anything. For some of them it's for environmental reasons, for others it's for monetary ones.

Okay, they do spend money on food and health/safety items. For some of them it is okay to buy something as long as it is not 'new'. I suppose that has to do with turning against our consuming nature.

On some level, I like the idea. However, I have kids and I just don't think it is practical. I suppose I could do it just for myself. As I think about this a little more, I realize that I'm pretty close to no spending for myself. I rarely buy myself anything new. So maybe it wouldn't be so hard.

Who am I kidding? It WOULD be hard to not spend anything!! Congratulations to those who take this path or even attempt it. Do you think you could do it?