So the weekend is going well thus far.  Yesterday was another slow day at the shop, which was fine.  The highlight of the day was going to lunch with my mom, grandmother and aunt.  The sleepover went really well and I even managed to get maybe 5 hours of sleep.  Not the most comfortable sleep.  And it was interrupted at one point around 3am by girls running and screaming down the hallway… but I wasn’t too surprised. 

So after reading some of the comments on my last post with the financial updates I realized I had one more update to give….

We have acheived the FIRST Baby Step of Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps.  We have $1,000 in an Emergency Fund ( And it’s in ING so it can grow through there!).  Next we’ll be looking at our Debt Snowball plan, starting out with some of our smaller debts and getting them payed off and working up to the larger ones (Jeep and house).

Ok those are my updates.  Still plugging away at work today.  We’ve already had two customers today…  oh and now the mailman! 

So usually thursday nights i’m looking forward to friday.  End of the week, pay day, no more work til Tuesday.  But not this weekend…  My crazy weekend begins with a junior high girls overnight being followed up by working at the shop from 8:30am-1pm Saturday.  I don’t normally work saturdays… but it just so happened that Mr. Judd and two of the guys in the shop that work saturdays are in Hershey for the pmea state conference.  So i’m working instead.  If it’s anything like my 8 hour day today… it’ll be a dozen phone calls and one real customer.  Yeah that’s right.  It was a slow, yet nice, yet slow day.  

So if you run across me this weekend and I’m zombie-ish or in a bad mood… my apologies.  It’s not you, It’s me and my lack of sleep.

I’m waiting for some brownies to bake for tomorrow night… so I feel I’ll be up a bit longer.  I thought maybe I’d update you on our financial battle… eventually I don’t want it to be a battle… but right now it’s still feeling like one.

Jeep pay off spectacular update:  We’ve colored in the whole top of the vehicle!  Windows and Windshield included… 

1030 Louisa St. pay off spectacular update:  Ok… since I just made this one and I started from the beginning I filled in quite a few boxes last time with my green marker.  Reality kind of hit though when I saw our most recent mortgage payment and where the money went.  I only filled in 1.7 squares… darn you interest and escrow!

Money Envelopes update:  Well we’ve been trying to stick to $100 grocery and $100 out to eat cash envelopes.  The groceries are going pretty well… though some how we always end up losing some of the money somewhere when we “need cash” and all we have are our envelopes.  Maybe i’ll start making a miscellaneous envelope of $25 or $50 for each month so that we don’t dig into our food allowance.  Anyway, I’ve been pretty good at spending $20-$25 at the store each week.  Unfortunately it doesn’t really allow for much extra.  It normally covers lunchmeat, cheese and bread for the week, plus milk, eggs, a weekly breakfast choice and any other little necessity, and maybe even some meat to cook for dinner!  So maybe I’ll look to up that amount a little bit.  Eating out often bites us in the butt.  Somehow we always get down to about $10 about half way through the month.  That’s not good planning because then we get hit up to go out to eat with friends or have a night where neither of us wants to cook (cough like tonight).  So maybe some reassessment is in order for next month.  

Ok that’s my update… and i’m pretty sure the brownies aren’t done yet… it’s another late night.

So today is the middle of June (aka pay day) (aka $25 more for groceries day). I went to the store and bought the essentials…
toilet paper: we had one roll left
2 boxes of cereal: each were $2 or under (Karl and I have different tastes when it comes to cereal)
spinach: for salads… my attempt to eat healthier
eggs: cause you just need them and we were out and they were only 85 cents today
hamburger buns: to make meatball sandwiches with some leftover meatballs
bread: cause we’re almost out and white bread is dirt cheap at walmart (67 cents)
milk: a HUGE essential in our home

all that for just under $20… and you know if it weren’t for that necessary toilet paper i could have kept it under $15 today. It’s ok though, we needed it. I love to see the low prices that you can pay for food sometimes. My steals today the bread, the eggs and the hamburger buns (94 cents). I think I just seeing that I’m paying under a dollar for something I need.

So I’ve started reading The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton. I used some of my Birthday Borders gift card towards it and I’m quite happy! I’ve read through the first couple of chapters so far and I’ve already learned lots. The first suggestion given is to pay yourself 10% of your paycheck first, instead of saving what you have left at the end of the month (which is often nothing). He suggests putting this 10% into a mutual fund that you can add onto monthly and that way that money is put away for many years down the road. I found it interesting that in the book they talk about how you won’t even notice that the 10% is gone… and I agree, at least with tithing I never notice that money being taken… I know where its going, and I don’t spend it. So we need to start looking at another 10% of our funds and how we can put that away for years to come.
So now comes the time to shop for a mutual fund and really discuss and look into this idea.

It will be interesting to see what this summer holds for us financially especially with my income. Though it’s small, it may get smaller with many students taking vacations and my taking July off for vacation time.

We got our food box last night, and though we left most of it at the church by accident… but its lookin good!a

Well I must admit that I probably haven’t touched Lost Puzzle #2 since the week I got my wisdom teeth out. I just haven’t been in a puzzling mood. But last night with the help of friends we got a good chunk of the puzzle done. So who knows if I’ll touch it again in the next month and a half, but it’s definitely looking better!
An update on life… it’s been pretty good, busy, but good. The best parts:
Seeing my mom twice in the past week.
Having lunch with my grandmother yesterday.
A successful car wash on Saturday for our kids going to LIFE.
Checking out the new Christian Bookstore in town: Cornerstone.
Hearing Karl speak at youth on Wed night.
Eating hot dogs and hamburgers with friends.
Talking to Sarah and knowing that she’s now addicted to LOST.
Spending fun times with friends last night, puzzling and gaming.
Laughing at Scrubs and Office clips with Karl and Jill.

Update financially: We’re trying this month to have our own personal spending cash ($80 each) so as not to use the credit cards as much and to cut down on what we buy. I think we’re both going kind of low with our disappearing cash and our out to eat envelope is empty. I notice we tend to spend more when we travel… Looks like the rest of May is going to interesting!

It’s a typical Tuesday for me though, cleaning up from the weekend. I tend to get so disorganized during the weekend, which drives me nuts… so I’m back on track. Maybe I’ll look at the puzzle a little bit more before my lessons show up!

So I’m trying to get this budget together that is more detailed then the one we’ve been using. Making sure we know exactly where our money goes. The hard thing is we’re having to pay things off so I can’t exactly put the money where I want it to go! It would be so much easier if we just didn’t spend anything for the month… funny huh! I know this takes time… and I guess thats what I have to keep reminding myself. But so often I want to see the results now. I know that money is not the most important thing in life, but I just want Karl and I to be in a position later on in life where we can really give to others financially. I love the whole annonymous giver thing, and I want us to be able to do that without worry.
Anyway back to the budget to try and make it work!