This week, I discuss what our financial goals are for the year- and how I plan to meet them.
Mr S and I don't exchange Christmas gifts, but we do enjoy treating ourselves to something instead. This year, Mr S spent his gift money from his parents on a Blu-Ray player. Thanks to that, we just got rid of cable today, and I am switching our phone and internet provider as well to reduce our total costs by $100 a month. Even if we had paid for the new player ourselves, it would have paid for itself within 4-5 months.
For myself, I indulged in a few books. The Veganomicon, chock full of vegan friendly recipes my dairy-allergic son can eat, and this starter kit from Dave Ramsey. The mister and I don't have credit card debt, but we do have my car loan, student loan, and home equity loan to pay off- all while paying more than our mortgage in day care a month ($1500!!!!) once this new baby is born. In order to pay these off within 18 months- and then buy a needed new truck for my husband- we need to tighten our belts even more than we already do. To that end, I have instituted a cash-only system starting this week, which means that today, despite falling asleep last night without baking bread for this morning's french toast, we ate oatmeal instead of running out to the specialty store for a loaf of fresh baked bread. I now have bread baking and we will eat the special french toast tomorrow. It just isn't in the budget for extras with guests in town this weekend. And I have to admit- I enjoy the thrill of the challenge to stick to $70 a week in groceries- including organic produce, milk, and meat, formula, soy milk, and almond milk.
A few more frugal fixes we are instituting this year:
* Once I have the baby, and restart my fibromyalgia medication, I will drop the massage therapy I get to manage my pain to once a month only.
* I will take advantage of the free gym and wellness center at work, exercise videos from Netflix, or the good old fashioned outdoors to get well after the baby comes.
* I have scoured my friend Diane's post on saving gas money to help reduce our gas costs a smidge. I finally found a nearby gas station that gives a discount using my Kroger rewards, and am taking advantage of my work's generous gas discount at Speedway stores- it gives me $0.06 off per gallon when I use their prepaid discount card. If I transfer my prescriptions to Kroger, I can get $1 off per gallon there as well.
* My husband's truck can only safely hold one child in it- and I am making the sacrifice of doing both the day care drop-off and pick-up for the next year, until the car I bought 9 months ago is paid off, as well as our home loan. I can do this for 8 months, right?
* My in-laws generously bought our daughter's furniture, and a friend donated all of her daughter's clothes to us (we are set until age 4!), so we only really need a mattress, gliding rocking chair, and a few decor items for her room. My Babies R Us rewards card just sent me a 20% off coupon for furniture, and I have saved $95 in gift cards I've won this year to use towards buying the glider. With these, my chair will be $200 less than it would have been. Anyone know an easy cheap way to make letters spelling her name for her wall?
* We are not vacationing anywhere this year.
* I have been getting a lot of deals on amazon.com lately, for organic foods and diapers. I plan on learning how to use Swagbucks to earn free gift cards from amazon.com to pay for these and help me save the weekly money I've earmarked for food, entertainment, and kids' items.
* We are planning a garage sale for the spring- and have loads of stuff in the basement to sell. Hopefully enough stuff to make a few hundred towards our goals.
What about you? What are your financial goals, and what methods are you using to meet them?
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