House house pymt 942
Loans discover 250
Automobile Auto Gas his 150
auto gas hers 150
auto pymts 749
auto boat insurance 290
Utilities Phone 115
TV/Cable 130
aol. 15
heat lights 200
sewer 38
Food Groceries 500
Family mom 50
Other life insurance 120
Intertain-rec 400
church 50
misc. needs 500
Total 4649

Income me $3,400
his 2.000+ overtime
Total $5,400+

we have three loans

-$11,000 CC at 0%interest for next 10 months with large possibility of keeping it 0% until paid off
-$8,000 car loan at 6.24% (paid $50 in interest this month and last month)
-$18,000 car loan at 6.99% (paid $100 in interest this month and last month)

my dh and i are divided on which loan to apply it to.........

he wants to apply it to the $8.000 one because that will cut it almost in half and we will see results sooner and free up its payment to apply to the others.

i think we should pay on the larger one because we will save more interest.

It looks like we might flip a coin to decide and let the universe make the decision.

If I get what I want that's ok........if he get what he want that's ok too.

We have decided to apply the $3000 to one of our loans.

I am very into the LAW OF ATTRACTION. And because of that i believe for me keeping an emergency fund would be telling the universe i expect an emergency, which i don't. Now for some of you this concept may seem crazy but if you are into the LAW OF ATTRACTION like i am you will understand where my thoughts are coming from. (For those rolling there eyes We do have cc's with room on them just in case a teeny, tiny, miniscule emergency might pop up in the very far distant future)

we have $3000 in saving right now and i wasn't sure which way to go. so i asked in the forum and it sounds like there is backing for either.

for now we are keeping the money in saving because i like having it there and now that we are only buying what we need and really really want we have lots of cash to pay down the debt. this sure is an exciting journey. i get excited just thinking about it.

decided we needed to have a budget amount for recreation. now recreation is very important to us. we snowmobile, boat ect. so we/i decided that for this month our recreation would be $450 which we already used $375 for our weekend snowmobile trip so i went and got $80 cash and told my DH that that was what we had left for the remainder of this month recreation. we were going to go snowmobiling today but i am getting over a cold and did not want to push it so i am enjoying staying home and watching part of a movie and playing on the cp while my husband went to play with logs...........and the grandkids are coming over at 3 ish so that is how we will spend our evening.

Here is a picture of me enjoying my snowmobile

had a slight melt down this morning. i felt overwhelmed with the how to of balancing having a life and saving. i had been reading many article about living beneath you means and they had me feeling maybe i needed to become extreme....... like get rid of my high speed internet and cable which i enjoy a lot. then i realized the article are just that articles someone elses ideas and they dont have to become mine unless i think they would enhance my life. also i thought i would be best if i were to define my goals in this new adventure.

so here goes

-pay off $11,000 cc debt while keeping it on 0% interest CCs.
-only pay cash for cars from now on
-focusing on enjoying the one we have instead of daydreaming about a better on (ie snowmobiles, boat
-having all my CC with 0 balance
-having lots of fun while only buying what we need or really really want
-being able to have tons of fun and travel and still pay with cash
-being very aware of where my money is going
-and having a budget
-paying cash for almost everything

Now it’s the end of February and my husband got paid again and so did I. We used my husband check to pay off the rest of Visa. That’s the first time in I don’t know how long since we have not had to use all the extra in my check to pay off Visa. I have it so that most of our bills come due on the first. This is how ourk budget looks for now in phase one. i have also labeled if the item is a want or need.

House $950 need
Heat 200 need
Phones 115 both
tv/cable 130 want
aol 15 want
sewer 38 need
church 50 need
life ins 120 both
gas his 150 need
gas her 150 need

Extras
Beings this is a Living within our means and loving it journey, I did get my nails done because I felt I really needed and wanted to get them done, one had broke and they just did not look nice. The appreciation thing I mentioned above kicked in mega because I had to give up something to get them done. I have a been extra excited and appreciative about them all week.

We are really finding out what’s important, now that we are not spending money on every whim. Like our grandchildren……….We always knew they were important but it just seems different now.

Next I’m going to talk about delayed gratification the ability to wait in order to obtain something that one wants.
We are finding like any good habit delayed gratification can be learned, and that is what all this is teaching us. Studies have been done on the benefits of delayed gratification and some of them are a more positive, self-motivated person. Being able to delay gratification, builds more thriving marriages, greater career satisfaction which leads to higher incomes, and better health. Who couldn’t use more of all that.

Extra money
Our income tax return came. We normally would have spent it “whatever” way and would not have been able to tell you where it went two week later. But this time most of it is in saving with just a little spent on extra food.

Tempted
I was tempted to go buy the groceries on my list and use my debt card, knowing my husband’s check “should” be here today. Then I thought twice asking myself is there anything we need today and the answer was NO! So I will wait until I cash the check and have the cash in my hand.

Loving it
I’m really loving this journey to living beneath our means. It’s like a game that I know I can win and as long as I think twice and remember when in doubt don’t.

Week Two
Again we kept half in cash for the week. We used that money for snowmobile, gas and food……..not going over the cash amount we had kept out. I transferred what was over the $200 in our checking to pay on our Visa.

Appreciation………. I find myself reveling at the heightened appreciation I have for the things I’m choosing to spend my “easy earned “ money on. (I call it “easy earned” money because I have the most wonderful job anyone could have I get paid to play with kids all day . (I am a reading teacher!)
When I was buying tons…… rather I could afford it or not I did not appreciate it anywhere near what I was experiencing now. I did not realize that until now. (Hindsight is 20/20)

Week three
Again we took half out in cash and put the rest in our checking account, transferring everything above the $200 to pay on our Visa. This week we decided to check the miles on our vehicles to see how many we were using and if we could cut back there. We found we could indeed cut back some.

We decided that the first move in our new game was to start living within our means: so we could latter move to living beneath our means. So we took all our credit cards and put them away. In fact I was going to go to Walmart and charge the food I thought we needed. I did not go to Walmart I went home instead and put all our cards away. I had under $20 in my wallet, so we decided that that had to last until my husband’s check came in in a few days.

We sat down and decided what we absolutely had to have between now and when he got his check. We decided all we really had to have was food items that totaled a little over $5 which I had in cash.

We had planned on going snowmobiling that weekend but postponed it until the next weekend when we could use cash. When my husband’s check came I cashed it, taking half out in cash and putting the rest in our checking account because I like to keep $200 padding in our checking account.

I spent most of the cash on food, and gas shopping from a list and only buying what we needed to eat healthy for that week. The week went by very smoothly and I still had a little cash in my wallet from when this journey began just in case. Ok fast forward a week.

This is the beginning of my journey to Living Beneath My Means and Loving it..

And we’re going to approach this like a game because I love games and it will be more fun. I will have to back track a bit to catch you up. For the last few months I have been working on living within my means by watching what I spend………..didn’t work……..everything just stayed sort of the same. Our biggest problem was having to use all my check to pay bills and all the charges on our credit card from the month before. Our situation was not dire but I was tired of always thinking about money.

So I read some on line articles about Living Within and beneath Your means, most talked about the importance of switching to using mostly cash. So we decided that was what we needed to do. This was about February 8, 2008. Hence I will start my journey on that date.