Saving vs. Penny Pinching

I've learned lately about myself that while I am really good at pinching pennies and stretching a dollar I am really bad at actually saving that money and putting it to work for me. I wouldn't call it a "lightbulb moment" it was more of a "duh" moment. I've realized that I can look all I want through books and the internet to try and find ways to "save" money, but if I am not actually putting that money into an account, I am just bargain hunting.

My husband and I are taking the Dave Ramsey "Financial Peace University" and reading Financial Peace Revisited.
One of his first steps is to put money into an emergency fund. This is not new advice to me, I've read it and seen it a gazillion other places before, but I haven't put it into practice. I guess now that we are taking the class together and it is sort of like homework, I feel more empowered to work towards that goal.

I've been getting some extra income doing work for my mother. My father recently passed, and I am working on cleaning out his office and I have been doing some "mystery shopper" stuff to get a little extra cash. This month I plan to sell some more things on Ebay and Amazon and hopefully I will be able to post how much cash I have actually accumulated towards my goal.

More about the groceries...

So last week we did great with our "grocery challenge" this past week, I spent about $75 on groceries. That being said, I got some great deals and I figured since I was under budget by about $25 the first week, adding it to the next week's shopping wasn't a horrible misstep.

One of the really cool things that I did this week was negotiate with the manager at the grocery store. I had read about doing this before and thought I wasn't the type of person that would do this, but it happened quite serendipitously. I was walking by the freezer case and the store manager said "we really need to move this stuff that has been marked down." I told her that I had bought two of the items that were on clearance. She told me if I bought the other two, she would take and additional dollar off each one that I bought. I knew it was something that I would use, and it was already deeply discounted, so I saved myself $4 there. Then she went through the case and negotiated with me some of the other items. I got 4 2 packages of seasoned frozen steaks at .99 a piece. They had been marked down to $1.99. So I saved another $4 there and got the steaks at an unbelievably low price. It's not like they have meat of this quality at the dollar store.

So far, we have been doing really well about eating at home and staying within our budget. Knowing that I have set this limit for myself also prevents me from making impulse purchases like those "Snackables" lunch things that my son loves, but are a ridiculous waste of money.

Update $50 Grocery challenge

Well I succeeded the first week. I did one more trek to the produce store and spent a little under $10 and we purchased two soft drinks at a gas station. Some of the produce I bought included: spinach, broccoli, strawberries, and apples.
I had planned to write out all of my menu plans to share, but it just didn't happen. Here's some of what we did to be able to manage staying at that $25 level for the week.

I had a frozen turkey breast (actually a gift from my mother who bought two because it was BO GO free at her local grocer.) We cooked that up one night, and we used that for sandwiches, and I also made a noodle casserole with it in the crock pot which was enough for dinner one night and lunch the following day. The basic recipe was similar to tuna noodle casserole- Egg noodles, can of cream of mushroom soup, turkey, chopped carrots, celery, and onions. I also threw in some of our leftover vegetable soup that I had made earlier in the week.

My husband made salmon cakes (like crab cakes) using some canned salmon we had on hand and a recipe he found on line. So that was our dinner another night.

Some of our breakfasts included: milk & cereal, spinach omelet, sausage and frozen waffles.

For lunches with the kids, we had some of the turkey sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches, and some chicken nuggets (already in the freezer) with fresh fruit.

Some of the things that we were able to learn from this: 1) we did the challenge at half price 2) I need to do more planning ahead of time to make sure I had enough snacks while on the road with the kids 3) baking from scratch is way cheaper, but makes for a lot more dishes 4) $25 was probably too low and we felt a little deprived.

$50 Weekly grocery challenge Day 1

So, today we ate a lot of things that were leftovers in the fridge and the pantry for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
DH had leftover brats and kraut for lunch,
kids had chicken nuggets and carrot sticks w/snack of "fruit snacks"
I had Soy sausage patties for breakfast/lunch and a snack of fruit snacks

Last week when I was at Aldi, I picked up something on clearance- it was a "Soy Ginger Noodle" thing for .79 inside was: the seasoning packet, the noodles, and some sesame seeds to put on the top of it. The directions recommended different vegetables and/or protein to complete the meal (about 3/4 a cup.) I chopped up one Spanish onion, three carrots, and added a can of mushrooms. I also prepared two chicken breasts which were already marinated in a terriaki sauce. It came out great and there were no leftovers. I have another flavor, same type of "Asian Meal Starter" and I plan to add (from my fridge and freezer) carrots, fresh mushrooms, green beans, onions, and (depending on what DH says, some scrambled egg for protein.) I really liked making this type of dish because I only really had to use two dishes and the meal was totally prepared in maybe 20 minutes.


I had made a list up and my husband went to Aldi and didn't stray from the list here's what we got:
Waffles $1.15
Whole Milk 2@ $1.49 ea
Whole Wheat Bread $1.69
Unsalted Butter (for baking) 1.99
Hot Dogs .75
2 pkg Brown and Serve Sausage @ .89ea
Ham Tub Lunch Meat $2.49
Hot Dog Buns .79
Total including tax: $14.66

A couple things about the above- I know hands down that Aldi is the cheapest place here to buy any of these items. If I were to go to another grocer close by I could expect to pay twice or three times what I paid for these items. IE. When I was at Target, they had Milk for 2.49 /gal and Waffles on sale for $2.49 the waffles being almost twice as much.

My breakfasts for this week will probably include:
Waffles, sausage, orange slices
High Fiber Cereal (in pantry from Trader Joe's or Target) w/milk
oatmeal
yogurt
apple slices
eggs

Tomorrow I plan on making a hearty vegetable soup,
And Wednesday's meal is more involved as I plan to make a turkey breast I had in the freezer

The $50 Grocery Challenge

I have been distracted lately and haven't been focusing on my budget. I've overspent in some areas, and it has annoyed me. My husband hasn't been working this past month, and we are trying to budget based on what we think he will bring in the next 5 weeks or so, so that we have some left over.
I'm trying to tackle one thing at a time, and since grocery/food is usually where you can do the most cost cutting with some creativity, I am going after that first. We've already set an "eating out budget" for the month which is half of last month's expenditures. I hope we can stick to that.
With some "guesstimating," we think that on average, I've been spending about $100 a week or $400 a month to feed our family of four. I know I am overspending, because I haven't been planning every meal- and I have a surplus in our pantry. So we've decided to try and spend $50-$75 a week on groceries. I am not counting diapers or cat food in that approximation, but everything else counts. We'll be keeping track of random soda or coffee purchases at the gas station, because, let's face it, those can add up fast. I head to the store tomorrow, so I'll keep you posted on the damage, I mean my progress.

Bill time and Quicken

I mentioned the other day that I thought it would be helpful to plot my income and bills on a calendar. I still haven't done it yet. But I did sign up for Quicken and there are a lot of bells and whistles that can help you get a visual picture of things. They have a tool that pulls all the info from your bank accounts and automatically charts pay days and when your bills are due. Of course it isn't 100 % accurate- you have to check the details, but it did a pretty good job on mine.

I plan to use Quicken in addition to an actual tactile calendar to keep track of what is coming in and what needs to come out. Right now I feel as though I am barely treading water- I hope to get to a point where I have my Emergency savings and other savings set up so that I can do home repairs, or vacations, etc.

2008 Taxes, Turbo Tax and Quicken!

I got all our paperwork together and did our taxes. I used Turbo Tax and I am so glad that I did. Obviously, the main motivator for me doing our taxes now was to see whether or not we would get a refund (yay) or have to pay taxes (yuck.) As I mentioned in my earlier posts, we've been very disorganized with our money and so I am trying to face my finances and get everything straightened out. The good thing is that we had all our documents in a file folder. Here are some of the reasons why I'm glad I used Turbo Tax and did the taxes online, rather than trying to figure everything out for myself.

1. Our income situation changed- I had a W-2 from my wages and severance pay, my spouse had a new employer, my husband received jury duty pay, and I had to claim my unemployment benefits. Trying to figure all of this out on my own would have been nightmarish to try and figure out which schedules I needed and what documentation I needed to provide. TurboTax walked me through this step-by-step.
2. We decided to itemize- we did some charitable giving this year and TurboTax has a very cool feature which allows you to get an estimated value of things that you donate. I donated a lot of clothes and books this year, and was able to write that off with documentation to support that. This feature is called Itsdeductable. (More about this later.)
3. I have small children. What does that have to do with anything? Well instead of going to a preparers' office and having my children climb around like monkeys or have to pay for childcare, I was able to prepare my taxes in the middle of the night while they were sleeping.
4. I messed up. Even with all the support they offer, I was tired and not paying attention. I overlooked one of the many forms I needed to submit for income, and had to file and amended return. Turbo Tax didn't charge me again to file, pulled the necessary 1040X IRS form and filled it out, plus recalculated our tax refund.
5. I am broke. Turbotax has a feature (for an added fee) where they will take the cost of filing out from your refund. How convenient is that?
6. They offer a year of Quicken free for people that file (with the version I purchased.)
7. I was able to e-file and should be getting my refund in a few weeks. My refund was less than last year because we made more, but we were smarter about tracking our donations and allowed deductions and our refund is going to be equal to two months of mortgage payments.

So some of you savvy folks might be saying to yourself about number 7, "If you are getting a big refund back, you are just loaning the government money." That's true, but I believe some of the stimulus package or recent tax legislation loosened things up for people like me. My husband had very little withholding this year, and I was actually worried that we would end up owing money. Our state allows you to withhold state and federal earnings from unemployment, which I did. I am thrilled that we are getting some back.

Here are some things that I learned from this:

• Keep a file folder for the current tax year. For example, it's 2009, so you should have a folder with tax information for this year. That way, when next year comes around and you get those W-2s, and 1099s and whatever other funky forms you have to fill out, you will have a place to put them. When you sit down to file it will all be where you need it.
• I am not a tax professional. Now that I am a homeowner, married, and have children, my tax situation is more complex. I need to rely on the help of either a tax professional or software to help me do my taxes.
• Do your taxes early! I saw some post on yahoo that says you are more at risk for an audit if you do your taxes early. I don't know how true that is, but I didn't bother reading the article because I can sleep better at night knowing my taxes are completed and that my refund check is on its way. Additionally, when I have filed late or very close to the deadline, I have had to wait longer to receive a refund.
• Getting rid of your clutter can help you free up space and money. Our refund increased because of our donations this year. A friend of mine gave me a great tip early in 2008. She said, "Whenever I go to donate items to the Salvation Army I have a notebook and any thing I throw into the box I write down in the notebook. Then when I get my receipt for donating, I attach that to my list. I use Itsdeductible on TurboTax after I've made the donation so I know how much I can claim."

The clock beat me.

I caved- I got some money from my parents to keep us "afloat" with this car insurance premium coming up. We don't want a handout though, so my husband will be working off what we received today in the next few weeks. I could have asked for more, but I got just enough to help us along.

I went to go sell some books at a used bookstore which on their website claims they will pay you cash, but instead they gave me store credit. I didn't want to make a big deal about it, and I was happy to get something for VHS tapes and books we won't use anymore. So I basically traded a bunch of crap that we don't use for 2 books that I wanted to read and a book that my kids picked out. I still have some store credit, so the next time I am jonesing for a book purchase and I don't want to check something out of the library, I can use it there.

They gave us some items that they wouldn't take and so I put the ones I could for sale on Amazon

I plan to do our taxes over the next couple days, I am hoping since I was laid off this year, and our income was spotty, we will get a refund back. I hear all this chatter about the stimulus package- but it all seems rather murky to me. Some things say that if you received the stimulus check last year, you don't qualify for this year, and then other things say that there are additional tax credits for families. I am hoping that is the case.

I also plan to sell some of the kids old clothes this week sometime, I probably won't get much for it, I think I made $15 the last time I did that, but that is $15 more than I have right now.

With a little help from my friends and the internet

A friend of mine recommended an awesome blog about getting yourself together financially. There is a great suggestion on this site to put your income and expenditures on a calendar. This is a great idea since I am a visual person. I am hoping that it will give me some ideas of when money comes in and goes out. Here's a link to that in more detail http://financegrrl.com/blog/2007/04/01/get-ahead-introduction-to-cash-flow/

I'm feeling defeated

My husband was able to bring in some extra money doing some handman jobs for my folks, but we are still in the hole. I have an automatic debit going to hit on Monday for our car insurance which exceeds what he was able to make and what is in the bank.

Part of this is because I went to the grocery store to buy a few things, and didn't check the balance before I went, and I over spent when I was there. I think I am going to have to ask to borrow some money to tide us over. This is very discouraging. To get some extra income, I had planned on selling somethings online, or selling some of the kids old clothes to Once Upon A Child, but both of those endeavors take time and I am racing against the clock here.

I really don't want to have to borrow money from family, but I think right now we might have to.

If anyone has any tips on selling things on Craigs List, I'm all ears. I've gone the ebay route before, but I think I need money sooner than later right now.

About that extra income

I thought that maybe hubby and I could earn some extra income by helping out my parents. We've been helping them out, but not in a employee-employer situation this week. My dad has been really ill and has been in the hospital and we have been running back and forth visiting, and I have been making lots of phone calls to try and secure him a place in a decent rehabilitation facility. Obviously, family comes first, so I am glad that our energy has paid off, but I am worried about how we are going to catch up.

I think my hubby will do some handyman type work for them this week, and that should help us pay off some of our essentials. Also, we heard from his job that he will probably be back on the project next week, so we'll be seeing some paychecks coming in soon. In the meantime, I am going to try to pull money out of my ears.

With the way the economy is, there have been all sorts of news stories and articles on how to save money and cut out non-essential expenditures. But, I feel like we are already doing a lot of that- ie. no cable, not spending a lot of money eating out, etc. I'm going to "sleep on it."

Cool Budgeting Tool

I found this on Bankrate.com today. I intend to play around with it after Jake gets home tonight.
Budgeting 101: A tool to start your budgeting process

It worked! (For now)

Today after I got home from the Y and doing some grocery shopping with the kids, I called ComEd, and they told me that at this time I am not in jeopardy of being shut off. That's a relief! I still need to pay them $200+ for current charges and some past due, ASAP. Once my husband gets back from his trip and we deposit his check I will send them some more.

I still owe the gas company a lot, so I will be pushing them up on the priorities list as well.

I am thinking to make this work, I am going to have to try and generate some extra income. I've considered part time work, but right now I'd have to get a babysitter to cover some of the hours between when my husband comes home and in the end I don't know if it would be worth the aggravation.

As far as that goes, I've signed up for some mystery shopping assignments. The money isn't anything great right now, but they do reimburse you for things, so that has been nice. I am hoping to get some restaurant type shops so we can have a meal out for free.

Also, I am going to see if my father will pay me to help him with his office. His health is failing and he has a one-man brokerage office, but will need some help getting the books together and getting the place cleaned up. I was working for him a few weeks ago, but he took a turn for the worse health wise, and it didn't seem right to push the issue right now. My parents have also offered to pay my husband to do some handyman type work for them either on the weekends or when he is in between projects at work. This has worked out in the past for both my parents and me. I know most people don't have this option, but I guess when you are in a tight spot, it is good time to be creative and look at all of your options.

Disorganization = lack of money

Here's a short article on how being disorganized can cost you. http://www.stretcher.com/stories/09/09feb02f.cfm
It's from one of my favorite tightwad websites www.stretcher.com

Latest crisis

Today we received a phone message while I was taking a nap with the kids from our electric provider. It said that we needed to contact them immediately. When I listened, a shot of anxiety rushed through my body. I was fearing the worst, that our service would be terminated. We haven't received a disconnection notice to my knowledge, but as I mentioned before, we are so disorganized that it's possible it came in the mail and I haven't seen it yet.

I was able to locate one of the most recent bills (from January still not paid) and called ComEd. The office was closed and there were no customer service reps available. Also, I couldn't find a prompt on the automated service where it would allow you to arrange payments or extend a pay-by-date. So I went online, checked my bank account balances, transferred some from savings into checking and made a payment online. Not the full amount, mind you, but at least half of what is due and the total amount past due. I plan to call them tomorrow morning to beg for mercy and hope that this will buy us some time to figure it all out. It looks like I have enough to pay the whole darn thing right now, but I have some automatic debits coming out of my checking account soon and I don't want to be hit with overdraft fees or the stress that involves. So I am hoping that this will give us another two weeks or so, because my hubby will be getting another check in the meantime, and then we'll be able to fork over more money. Whew!

At least the scariness of no electricity has helped me to "prioritize" my bills. While it is a reactive move, at least it is a step in the right direction. Keep your fingers crossed for me that we'll be able to keep the lights on for a few weeks.

What got us into this mess?

I've mentioned that our finances are "backwards," but I haven't elaborated yet on what exactly that means. We are terribly disorganized. When it was just me, I knew how much I needed, and was able to budget pretty well. Add a husband, a cat, a rickety old house, and two kids and there is a bunch of confusion. And when you are disorganized, it is easy to get hit with late fees and other unnecessary expenses like overdue book fines. It all adds up, and it adds to one's stress levels. I find that it can be easy to become overwhelmed.

Our situation is not completely dire, but we are very disorganized and that has led to a lot of grief and frustration. My biggest stumbling block right now is getting a handle on all the bills that need to be paid and prioritizing things. A few things brought this to a head this week and that's what's really motivating me to get serious and bite the bullet on this problem of messy finances.

First, my husband needed to fly to California for a funeral, second, our cat had to go to the vet and we incurred some steep vet fees there. Plus, my husband works on contract and won't be working for a few weeks until his project starts up again. So a bunch of emergency expenses and (gasp) no real emergency fund to handle the blows. Couple that with a lack of income and we find our selves in a bit of a pickle.

The good thing is my husband is a supportive guy, and was willing to go along with a super cheap itinerary for his travel to California. I found a hostel that only charges $28 a night and we researched the heck out of public transit so that he didn't have to rent a car. So he's there now travelling cheap with a bunch of other folks that are doing the same thing, and he's enjoying himself. He's glad not to have to crash on some relative's couch and he's not out in the suburbs where there is little to do.

The vet bill, was pricey, but I worked with them at the animal hospital to get the cheapest "package" if you will, to make sure that the kitty was well taken care of, but without a lot of additional lab tests.

Now some of you might be thinking, why don't you just charge this stuff and pay it off later? Well I have one credit card with a very low credit limit that I rarely use. Everything that we do is primarily paid for with cash and debit cards. But I am proud of that, I can't imagine worrying about skyrocketing energy bills, real estate taxes, student loans, AND some large credit card debt. One of my short-term goals is to pay of the small balance I do have on the card.

Another thing I am doing, is re-establishing our emergency fund. In the past I always found this a daunting task because it seemed that I was supposed to have a set amount saved up- a lot of folks recommend 6-8 months of expenses. When you are just scraping by to begin with, that can seem like a Herculean task. So as lame as this might sound, I'll be depositing our spare change into my savings account every few weeks and building up my account that way.

My immediate goals are:
1) Prioritizing existing bills
2) Paying a portion of the existing bills
3) Building a small emergency fund
4) Dramatically cutting out unnecessary purchases and expenses

I am trying to get us back on track.

I called this blog Windy City Cheap Skate, because, well I live in Chicago and I need to be a cheapskate. I've always been pretty good at being frugal and stretching a dollar, but now that I am married and have two kids, I have other people depending on my dollar stretching abilities.

I had thought about calling this "Out of the red" or " Into the Black" because right now my finances are really backwards. I was laid off a year ago, and I have enjoyed spending time at home with my children, and not trying to balance work outside the home with my family. I am not planning to go back to work right now, but the income that I was receiving is gone, and I must find some creative ways to offset that imbalance.

Initially, I am going to focus on how I am getting our family back on track financially. I figure having my business out in the open will motivate me to be more serious about that, and give me a chance to vent or try out new ideas along the way. Eventually, I hope to help others who are in similar situations find their way out of the abyss.

But, for my own sake, I will list some things that are in favor for me right now (not in order of importance):
1) My cars are paid off
2) I don't have daycare expenses
3) I have an amazing husband who will work with me so that we can get over this hurdle
4) I am relatively healthy
5) I have a mortgage, but I got into the market at a good time and I don't owe more than the house is worth. Also, it's a fixed rate loan, so I am not in the position of trying to come up with an insane new monthly payment. (That's not to say that my real estate taxes and insurance costs haven't gone up)