That's a lie. I still love it. Love it too much. I daydream about what takeout to pick up. It's sad. I am an intelligent girl. Why is it so difficult for me to excersize any self control in this area of my finances? I am forcing a self intervention. No more eating out for the whole summer. Except for once at the end of each month where we will share and celebrate our debt snowball and money goal progress. Bam. I probably just saved our family about $600 per month. I think if we kept this up we could cash flow our debt payoff without making any other concessions. We could still vacation, hobby and extracurricular as we pleased if we could control the eating out. Starting June1 through August 31st we will eat out only once a month. We did this in April 2011 and it was real eye opener but clearly did not become a habit.You can read about that experience here . This time since it's summer and I really love snow cones and sonic, I am not restricting beverage purchases. The rules for restuarant beverages are: it must be during-happy hour(Sonic and Chicken Express,not the bar) or from McDonalds where all drinks are $1 all the time.
Stay tuned; this should be interesting!
How much does your family spend eating out per month?
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Monday, May 7, 2012
The Last Best Friend
Ahh. The best friend. A partner, sidekick, soul mate. This person has an invaluable role in a woman's life. I don't use the term "best friend" anymore as I have a family who my world revolves around. I have many close friends who are dear,however a REAL best friend requires attention and commitment I can no longer offer.
I have had a best friend since kindergarten when I made my first best friend Julie. She was a rock star. I recall, 26 years later, that we had the same black lace up boots. I am guessing our friendship probably grew from something more awesome like a mutual love for coloring. We would have play dates after school. Once her mom gave us some really great ice cream after school in their yellow house. Turns out her dad knew my dad through work. You can imagine my disappointment when we did not get in the same first grade class. DEVASTATION. Then she moved.....across the bayou. But to my little heart it may as well have been across an ocean. We exchanged Christmas gifts for a couple of years but she could no longer be my best friend. And it's a shame because that girl set the bar pretty high.
Second best friend came along just in time. First grade, Kristin. She was a more literal rock star than Julie. She had a spikey mullet-in the first grade. She was very cool. You know those people who always know what to say and know what's gonna be hip before everyone is let in on the secret. IN THE FIRST GRADE. We had a good little run until...she moved too.
Second grade brought my first recurring best friend Crystal. My first slumber party. We watched The Boy Who Could Fly. She was fun and just as smart as I was. I liked her so much she got to be my forth grade best friend when we were in the same class again. That was a huge relief after floating around for all of third grade with no anchor friend. We had perms and wore leggings and had crushes on boys.
Fifth grade was Jessica. We were in the same class and went to the same church. She was ambitious and adventurous and athletic. She was the first girl to join me in the G/T program after being the only girl for all of grade school. She ended up middle school dating my very close cousin which I appreciated because we got to spend all of our time together. Eventually she left for a new church and private school.
Enter the last best friend. We had gone to school together since kindergarten and were a part of a large group of friends through middle school. I wanna say it was track season of the eighth grade when the friend sparks flew. She was hilarious. Not like cracking jokes hilarious-like your walking down the hall, she grabs your hand and puts it on her stomach to show you what kinda strange motion noise she can make. She was gifted. Her handwriting was whimsical. She didn't really have boyfriends and I sure didn't have any. She was kinda different and so was I. I could list her quirks for days. She ate milk with mollymcbutter. The smell of pickles made her sick. She was 6'2". Her family was super americana and she was super unique. I don't remember spending a day without her after our best friendship was born. In high school we would go drive around after school. We would get taco bell. Her order was a bean burrito no onions. It cost 86 cents. She would pay with change from the ash tray of her chevy nova. My mom would make her fave-mac n cheese. Her parents took us to the waterpark in their suburban. If we broke curfew our parents would unite against us and orchestrate a plan to get "these wild girls in line."
She was my other half. We were honest with each other always. We never fought. We made pacts and kept them. We held onto secrets. It was such a special time in our lives. We rarely shared the same extracurriculars but managed to always be together. I remember when she broke up with her first boyfriend and it was just understood at my house that we HAD to bring another mattress into my bedroom because she was sleeping over even though it was a school night. We would definately take one for the team when it came to boys, talking the the nerdy friend while she flirted with her crush. We took our show on the road and went to college together. We had walkie talkies(this is pre-cellphone) so we could chat on the 100 mile drive to move into school. They were yellow and black. I will never forget when my mom died, all I wanted, needed to do was have her there. I called her line. No answer. I called her parents line and left probably the most awful sounding message ever. She came to me and kept me alive through those terrible days. She was my rock. She sat next to me at the funeral. She was the person I was real with. The person who I didn't have to speak to in words. She already knew.
Life took us different places after that. I had a baby.She babysat and told me that my baby might be anorexic(apparently she spit up,alot). I got married. Her life progressed as well. Things would never be the same. They couldn't be. No major falling out. No clean cut end to bestfriendom but the end of an era nonetheless.When you love someone enough to marry them, they are your best friend. Even if that means your best friend has to be a boy. That's the way it is.We can't leave our husbands and children to go run around town and get into trouble. We aren't supposed to. We had 7 years of making each other who God wanted us to be all along. We formed a bond that never goes away. When my dad died we were barely in touch. But you know who sat by me at his funeral. You're darn right. My last best friend.
I wish this for my daughter as she matures. One special person to make the good times better and the bad times bareable. I want her to be accepted unconditionally the way I was. I want her to have someone there to go through the terrors of being a teen with her because once she meets that point I surely will have forgotten what that felt like.
So here's to all of our best friends. And a special shout out to the last ones.
I have had a best friend since kindergarten when I made my first best friend Julie. She was a rock star. I recall, 26 years later, that we had the same black lace up boots. I am guessing our friendship probably grew from something more awesome like a mutual love for coloring. We would have play dates after school. Once her mom gave us some really great ice cream after school in their yellow house. Turns out her dad knew my dad through work. You can imagine my disappointment when we did not get in the same first grade class. DEVASTATION. Then she moved.....across the bayou. But to my little heart it may as well have been across an ocean. We exchanged Christmas gifts for a couple of years but she could no longer be my best friend. And it's a shame because that girl set the bar pretty high.
Second best friend came along just in time. First grade, Kristin. She was a more literal rock star than Julie. She had a spikey mullet-in the first grade. She was very cool. You know those people who always know what to say and know what's gonna be hip before everyone is let in on the secret. IN THE FIRST GRADE. We had a good little run until...she moved too.
Second grade brought my first recurring best friend Crystal. My first slumber party. We watched The Boy Who Could Fly. She was fun and just as smart as I was. I liked her so much she got to be my forth grade best friend when we were in the same class again. That was a huge relief after floating around for all of third grade with no anchor friend. We had perms and wore leggings and had crushes on boys.
Fifth grade was Jessica. We were in the same class and went to the same church. She was ambitious and adventurous and athletic. She was the first girl to join me in the G/T program after being the only girl for all of grade school. She ended up middle school dating my very close cousin which I appreciated because we got to spend all of our time together. Eventually she left for a new church and private school.
Enter the last best friend. We had gone to school together since kindergarten and were a part of a large group of friends through middle school. I wanna say it was track season of the eighth grade when the friend sparks flew. She was hilarious. Not like cracking jokes hilarious-like your walking down the hall, she grabs your hand and puts it on her stomach to show you what kinda strange motion noise she can make. She was gifted. Her handwriting was whimsical. She didn't really have boyfriends and I sure didn't have any. She was kinda different and so was I. I could list her quirks for days. She ate milk with mollymcbutter. The smell of pickles made her sick. She was 6'2". Her family was super americana and she was super unique. I don't remember spending a day without her after our best friendship was born. In high school we would go drive around after school. We would get taco bell. Her order was a bean burrito no onions. It cost 86 cents. She would pay with change from the ash tray of her chevy nova. My mom would make her fave-mac n cheese. Her parents took us to the waterpark in their suburban. If we broke curfew our parents would unite against us and orchestrate a plan to get "these wild girls in line."
She was my other half. We were honest with each other always. We never fought. We made pacts and kept them. We held onto secrets. It was such a special time in our lives. We rarely shared the same extracurriculars but managed to always be together. I remember when she broke up with her first boyfriend and it was just understood at my house that we HAD to bring another mattress into my bedroom because she was sleeping over even though it was a school night. We would definately take one for the team when it came to boys, talking the the nerdy friend while she flirted with her crush. We took our show on the road and went to college together. We had walkie talkies(this is pre-cellphone) so we could chat on the 100 mile drive to move into school. They were yellow and black. I will never forget when my mom died, all I wanted, needed to do was have her there. I called her line. No answer. I called her parents line and left probably the most awful sounding message ever. She came to me and kept me alive through those terrible days. She was my rock. She sat next to me at the funeral. She was the person I was real with. The person who I didn't have to speak to in words. She already knew.
Life took us different places after that. I had a baby.She babysat and told me that my baby might be anorexic(apparently she spit up,alot). I got married. Her life progressed as well. Things would never be the same. They couldn't be. No major falling out. No clean cut end to bestfriendom but the end of an era nonetheless.When you love someone enough to marry them, they are your best friend. Even if that means your best friend has to be a boy. That's the way it is.We can't leave our husbands and children to go run around town and get into trouble. We aren't supposed to. We had 7 years of making each other who God wanted us to be all along. We formed a bond that never goes away. When my dad died we were barely in touch. But you know who sat by me at his funeral. You're darn right. My last best friend.
I wish this for my daughter as she matures. One special person to make the good times better and the bad times bareable. I want her to be accepted unconditionally the way I was. I want her to have someone there to go through the terrors of being a teen with her because once she meets that point I surely will have forgotten what that felt like.
So here's to all of our best friends. And a special shout out to the last ones.
Monday, April 30, 2012
a couple of products I am loving right now
In the last couple of weeks I have tried a couple of new things that I ended up just adoring so I wanted share.
I am a loyal Bethenny Frankel fan. I loved her on RHNY and on her own show. I tried her Skinnygirl margarita last summer and didn't love it,probably because I am way too prudish to consume alcohol. I read A Place of Yes and was kind of disappointed with all the self help junk. I did enjoy the autobiographical parts of the book. While at Wal-mart a couple of weeks ago I picked up a sampler including her energizing lip gloss, mint facial mask, and vitamin C scrub. I love this scrub and I am not even a big scrubber. It makes my face feel good in a way I cannot describe. Bonus-it leaves my skin looking great and it's affordable. The bad- it is really hard to get out of the tube after a couple of uses. I actually ended up applying to much pressure and squirting half the bottle all over my hand. They really need to reevaluate the packaging. Overall it's a great find for your face.
I am a loyal Bethenny Frankel fan. I loved her on RHNY and on her own show. I tried her Skinnygirl margarita last summer and didn't love it,probably because I am way too prudish to consume alcohol. I read A Place of Yes and was kind of disappointed with all the self help junk. I did enjoy the autobiographical parts of the book. While at Wal-mart a couple of weeks ago I picked up a sampler including her energizing lip gloss, mint facial mask, and vitamin C scrub. I love this scrub and I am not even a big scrubber. It makes my face feel good in a way I cannot describe. Bonus-it leaves my skin looking great and it's affordable. The bad- it is really hard to get out of the tube after a couple of uses. I actually ended up applying to much pressure and squirting half the bottle all over my hand. They really need to reevaluate the packaging. Overall it's a great find for your face.
Another product that has caught my dollar is these Minute Maid frozen soft lemonades-
Remember when you were a kid at Six Flags and you got a delicious lemon or lime ice, but you never got to finish it because you needed to ride a roller coaster! You can have that same feeling at work on a Tuesday. These of course are easy to finish and only 100 calories. That is great for me because I work around ice cream, candy bars, and cookies all day. When I need a snack I just pull one of these out of the freezer instead. Everyone that has sampled mine has loved them I and I hope you do too!
What new products are you loving right now?
Monday, March 12, 2012
people who make lists
I wanna be the kind of grown up who makes lists. Not a ton of lists with categories or anything.I just need to jot down things that I want to do that tend to fall through the cracks of life. I used to post my daily goals on facebook back in the day and it was good for my accountability. Today I was off work and my kids were home for spring break. I put the list in my phone as a note.
- clean off dresser(10min)
- paint(30min)
- go through action box(5min)
- get stains out of stain pile(30min)
- something else but I deleted it and now I can't remember(see why I need to write things down)
Friday, February 10, 2012
Blogging and The Half Project
I haven't blogged in while and I'm ready to get back at it. At first it was because both computers were broken and lately it's been because I take this blog way too seriously. I feel like it has to be a days long perfect drawn out thing. But I am over that now. Also I only think of things to blog about when I am trying to go to sleep. And let me tell you, I write some doosies(in my head).
The Half Project:
I am a lousy housekeeper. No one in our home picks up after themselves including me. I only clean when I am listening to pod casts and when I do that it is fun and easy. I can't live my life with ear buds in and therefore my house is an obnoxious mess.
My solution. We all need to get rid of some stuff. Again. I am going to go through each room, pile items in the floor in groups and get rid of half of the pile. Example: If Carson has 50 books, homeboy is getting rid of 25. I do not have a large quantity of material possessions myself, but my clothes are out of control. I have about a dozen tops that I need undershirts for or don't have the right shoes to match. I want to purge and get down to a small higher end wardrobe. The dream is to have so few clothing items that I can used a laundry service because I am over doing laundry. I have friends who wear jeans over and over between washes and I need to master that. The clothing segment of my room will require a lot of planning but I am game.
So that's my plan. Anyone else on board for a major purge.
The Half Project:
I am a lousy housekeeper. No one in our home picks up after themselves including me. I only clean when I am listening to pod casts and when I do that it is fun and easy. I can't live my life with ear buds in and therefore my house is an obnoxious mess.
My solution. We all need to get rid of some stuff. Again. I am going to go through each room, pile items in the floor in groups and get rid of half of the pile. Example: If Carson has 50 books, homeboy is getting rid of 25. I do not have a large quantity of material possessions myself, but my clothes are out of control. I have about a dozen tops that I need undershirts for or don't have the right shoes to match. I want to purge and get down to a small higher end wardrobe. The dream is to have so few clothing items that I can used a laundry service because I am over doing laundry. I have friends who wear jeans over and over between washes and I need to master that. The clothing segment of my room will require a lot of planning but I am game.
So that's my plan. Anyone else on board for a major purge.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
My Dave Ramsey experience. so far.
You all know I am a personal finance junkie. I am definitely what Dave calls the "nerd" in our marriage. I like making the budget and crunching the numbers. I read Dave's book Financial Peace Revisited in late 2010.I agree with all of his methods for getting out of debt and building wealth. When the opportunity to take Financial Peace University at a church 2 blocks from my house, I jumped at it. The cost of the course :$50. The fee included the envelope system, about a dozen Cd's(audio versions of the DVDs we watched in class)in a leather case, the book:Financial Peace, and the workbook used in class. Some hosts charge up to $150 for the course so this was certainly a bargain. Members of the host church went for free.
I will not go through each class or the 7 baby steps he teaches here. But if you are interested you can learn more here. I will tell you that I was a little nervous not knowing who was teaching the class or who my peers would be. The coordinator is an alum of Financial Peace University who guides you through the workbook. Our coordinator was someone who went to my high school.My classmates were a variety of sweet people:an older couple close to retirement age who weren't sure how they would retire, newlyweds, a struggling single mom on disability, and another couple in a similar situation as ours. What is our situation? We my friends, we are people who make a good living and are not accountable for our spending. We throw our money away while people who make less than us live the life we should be living. We don't use credit cards but have no savings outside of our 401k. Loss of income would financially disable us.
We took about 60 days to get through baby step 1,$1000 in savings. Devin sold a car trailer from his racing days and pushed us into baby step 2,dumping debt. I said we don't do credit cards. Neither of us has had a credit card in about 10 years.BUT I did get one last Christmas when both kids wanted Nintendo ds game consoles. I got a Wal-mart credit card. I used it in December and then again in May to buy a gift card for a family whose home caught fire. I paid the balance in full when I received my statement but I knew that card had to go. So in week 2 of class I cut that sucker up. Wal-mart immediately invited me back with a higher limit. No thanks. Misty-1, retail giant-0.
The best part of his plan for us is the debt snowball. You list all your debts from smallest to largest. Make the minimum payments on everything but the smallest. You work extra, sell stuff, and cut your budget to throw a ton of money at that debt until it is gone. Then you add the amount you were paying on debt 1 to debt number two, continuing the cycle until you are debt free. To not have credit cards we sure have a lot of debt. I was afraid to make the list,fearful of how much my student loans would add up to and if my husband would still love me after seeing how much I owe. Most of the balances are small but the consolidation I did through Sallie Mae is huge thanks to two semesters at a private school.Other than my student loans we have a couple small medical bills and one vehicle payment. The software said we can be debt free by 2013.I can soooo live with that.
I am counting the Wal-mart card as debt one of our snowball payoff. The second was a monthly $66 payment for our fridge that we financed at no interest about 6 months ago at a local home owned furniture and appliance store. So 2 debts down.Woo-hoo. Not touching our baby emergency fund has been less sunshiney. Why do we spend all of our money? I guess 10 years of reckless spending is a hard habit to break. I will be working diligently to pump that account back up so we can keep our snowball rolling.
I have worked hard to resolve some unnecessary expenses. Our electric bill was scheduled to draft 10 days early so I called the company to see if something fishy was going on. It wasn't but while she had me on the line the rep cut our rate from 14 cents per KWH to 9 cents; that ended up saving us $110 last month. I stopped our dish network service because they would not give me the new customer rate,which makes no sense because a loyal customer should be valued more than a new one. That's $75 a month. I bought the kids 4 pairs of pants at a consignment store (that I will NOT share the name of because I get $150 jeans there for $25 and don't want anyone else to beat me to 'em) for $31. I have just generally started questioning wants vs needs. Some DR enthusiasts literally eat beans and rice and avoid vacations during baby step two. While I respect their choice, I have not chosen that route. Mostly because I don't want my kids to think they are poor.
Now for some shocking numbers:
The moral of the story is this-if we didn't have debt we could choose to work about 5 months a year and live a very comfortable life. That is what financial peace is about...FREEDOM!
Anybody else ready to put a stake in the ground and say they are DONE with debt?
I will not go through each class or the 7 baby steps he teaches here. But if you are interested you can learn more here. I will tell you that I was a little nervous not knowing who was teaching the class or who my peers would be. The coordinator is an alum of Financial Peace University who guides you through the workbook. Our coordinator was someone who went to my high school.My classmates were a variety of sweet people:an older couple close to retirement age who weren't sure how they would retire, newlyweds, a struggling single mom on disability, and another couple in a similar situation as ours. What is our situation? We my friends, we are people who make a good living and are not accountable for our spending. We throw our money away while people who make less than us live the life we should be living. We don't use credit cards but have no savings outside of our 401k. Loss of income would financially disable us.
We took about 60 days to get through baby step 1,$1000 in savings. Devin sold a car trailer from his racing days and pushed us into baby step 2,dumping debt. I said we don't do credit cards. Neither of us has had a credit card in about 10 years.BUT I did get one last Christmas when both kids wanted Nintendo ds game consoles. I got a Wal-mart credit card. I used it in December and then again in May to buy a gift card for a family whose home caught fire. I paid the balance in full when I received my statement but I knew that card had to go. So in week 2 of class I cut that sucker up. Wal-mart immediately invited me back with a higher limit. No thanks. Misty-1, retail giant-0.
The best part of his plan for us is the debt snowball. You list all your debts from smallest to largest. Make the minimum payments on everything but the smallest. You work extra, sell stuff, and cut your budget to throw a ton of money at that debt until it is gone. Then you add the amount you were paying on debt 1 to debt number two, continuing the cycle until you are debt free. To not have credit cards we sure have a lot of debt. I was afraid to make the list,fearful of how much my student loans would add up to and if my husband would still love me after seeing how much I owe. Most of the balances are small but the consolidation I did through Sallie Mae is huge thanks to two semesters at a private school.Other than my student loans we have a couple small medical bills and one vehicle payment. The software said we can be debt free by 2013.I can soooo live with that.
I am counting the Wal-mart card as debt one of our snowball payoff. The second was a monthly $66 payment for our fridge that we financed at no interest about 6 months ago at a local home owned furniture and appliance store. So 2 debts down.Woo-hoo. Not touching our baby emergency fund has been less sunshiney. Why do we spend all of our money? I guess 10 years of reckless spending is a hard habit to break. I will be working diligently to pump that account back up so we can keep our snowball rolling.
I have worked hard to resolve some unnecessary expenses. Our electric bill was scheduled to draft 10 days early so I called the company to see if something fishy was going on. It wasn't but while she had me on the line the rep cut our rate from 14 cents per KWH to 9 cents; that ended up saving us $110 last month. I stopped our dish network service because they would not give me the new customer rate,which makes no sense because a loyal customer should be valued more than a new one. That's $75 a month. I bought the kids 4 pairs of pants at a consignment store (that I will NOT share the name of because I get $150 jeans there for $25 and don't want anyone else to beat me to 'em) for $31. I have just generally started questioning wants vs needs. Some DR enthusiasts literally eat beans and rice and avoid vacations during baby step two. While I respect their choice, I have not chosen that route. Mostly because I don't want my kids to think they are poor.
Now for some shocking numbers:
- our monthly debt payments excluding the mortgage:$1329.88
- our monthly payments(utilities, memberships,etc):$551.05
The moral of the story is this-if we didn't have debt we could choose to work about 5 months a year and live a very comfortable life. That is what financial peace is about...FREEDOM!
Anybody else ready to put a stake in the ground and say they are DONE with debt?
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Soda Smackdown
Over the last 18 months I have created this nice pocket of fat on my stomach and lower back. You can call me Betty. I am aware that much of our bodies composition is determined by what we eat(I think it's between 80 and 90%, the remaining part is determined by exercise and genetics). I wish I could just kill it on the treadmill but dietary changes must be made if I want to ever see my abs again.
And no I don't want to hear how tiny I am in comparison to anyone else. This is about MY health and vanity. I wanna take action before I have to replace my wardrobe!
I love soda. It is all I drink. I even look forward to it. Man they are delicious. And the burn. Ah. I love the burn. I also drink sweet tea at work when my morning Sonic drink becomes watered down.But they are full of sugar and apparently my metabolism has slowed down. I tried to cut back once and was crying by 1:45.True story. I called my aunt next door and she brought me a DP. Don't judge me, it's not heroin. I am only addicted to it like it's heroin.
Drum roll please...........I am cutting out sodas for 10 days to see if the aforementioned pooch takes notice.What do people drink besides soda and sweet tea and water? Also, I probably get most of my energy from the caffeine so I need advice on other ways to maintain my energy level.
And no I don't want to hear how tiny I am in comparison to anyone else. This is about MY health and vanity. I wanna take action before I have to replace my wardrobe!
I love soda. It is all I drink. I even look forward to it. Man they are delicious. And the burn. Ah. I love the burn. I also drink sweet tea at work when my morning Sonic drink becomes watered down.But they are full of sugar and apparently my metabolism has slowed down. I tried to cut back once and was crying by 1:45.True story. I called my aunt next door and she brought me a DP. Don't judge me, it's not heroin. I am only addicted to it like it's heroin.
Drum roll please...........I am cutting out sodas for 10 days to see if the aforementioned pooch takes notice.What do people drink besides soda and sweet tea and water? Also, I probably get most of my energy from the caffeine so I need advice on other ways to maintain my energy level.
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