We are going camping for the 4th and taking and paying for my daughter, her hubby and three kiddies.

I love being able to do this and not charge anything and splurge a little and still not charge. I started to write what we had spent so far but I decided I did not want to think about that right now. I am putting it in my budget though. We make good money and can easily afford it.

Paying tons on our focus loan is taking a back seat this month in order to not scrimp on camping. It's all a matter of balance. And "for me" life is all about having fun. Sometimes "my fun" is paying tons on our focus loan and other times it's not scrimping on camping. As soon as we get back from camping we will jump on the focus loan again. Even with the luxury camping we will have it paid of before the end of August at the latest.

LITTLE EMERGENCIES

It sure is a whole different feeling when a little emergency happens and we have the money in our emergency fund to easily cover it. Makes the emergency seem like next to nothing. Sure brings a whole new meaning to the saying "IT'S ONLY MONEY", when you have the money to cover it without robbing from "peter to pay paul".

Beings it's a womans prerogative to change her mind.......I've done just that. In fact, I'm a pro at it....... but only two have to do with my financial situation at this point. Hence, I'm going to share those with you. We have gone back to not charging anything...I use my debt card instead. I was listening to Mr. Ramsey and he was talking about the emotional conection that goes with charging "for most".......and I decided that I belong in that catagory.....the "for most" catagory. So for me not charging is the best for my emotionally.

The other turn around is with an emergency fund. I have started building an emergency fund. Now I still believe the happy I am the less emergencies that happen to me......but at times I let my happiness guard down and things break like the washing machine and the lawn mower. And it sure helps my peace of mind to have the money on hand to cover them.

My emergency fund is $1000 at this time and keeping it there is my number one priority.

Now I just want to brag a little about how well we are doing on paying off our focus loan we have paid an extra $5,000 since FEB.......That's 50 extra 100 dollar bills we have come up with in about 5 month (who would have thought it would be so easy....not this girl......or i would have started this long ago) And we are not living on exactly "beans and rice".

Well maybe not exactly steak and lobster either......well not every night anyway.

Everything has been going really well since in last posted. It's all becoming my new way of life. Here are the catogories I have settled on that work best for me when managing my money. I do this all on a free site called ezpiggy.

house payment
discover card
Auto boat insurance
auto pymt
life insurance
Phones
TV/Cable
heat lights
sewer
(The above are all the ones that stay the same every month....next are the ones that I have a budget for but remain flexible with)
Groceries $600
Auto Gas his $125
auto gas hers $125
Intertain and rec $500
Needs and really really really wants
Savings

This works great for my needs.

I can't even put into words how much better I feel since starting this journey. There is not a part of my life that it has not impacted. It's like a rubics cube (remember those) because when i make one even small move everything shifts.

Example I usually spend tons on flowers for the yard every spring. And this year I'm really into appreciating what is there already. I spent a couple dollars on seeds which are kind of coming up. and $4 on some fake flowers for my planter.

Now I have not said no flowers but it just has not seemed very important. My yard has tons of flowers in it anyway.........but I have been really really really enjoying everyones elses flowers more than ever.

I have not bought any new clothes since my journey started......again not because I have told myself no but because I have realized I already have tons of really cut clothes already.

Had an interesting experience today. Was wondering if any others have had it.

Needed to do some OK spending but was overwhelmed with feeling of you’re blowing it..............I'm a teacher and each year we have $250 that we need to spend by June 1 or we loose it......you spend your own money first then are reimbursed at the end of July for your purchases. Guess it freaked me out because I was buying fun items that I would not have bought without the school money combined with the lag between my paying for it and being reimbursed.

I also am getting ready to pay for the classes I will be taking this summer about $1000 worth. In fact that guard part of me is making me feel like I have to justify why I am spending this money. (well guard part the classes will eventually make me more money)

The really cool part is I will be able to pay cash for all of it........where as before I always charged it. Then had to really scramble to get it paid off before interest was charged.

Another thought as to why it might be bothering me.......I am on a real roll on paying on my focus loan and accumulating savings and these expenditures will slow that down momentarily. In fact the school stuff will came out of saving and be paid back in July.

PS with alittle of the $250 I bought a remote headset for my computer so I can listen to fun things while I do my planning. I also bought little recorders so the kidos can have fun recording themselves reading..........anything to get them to read and especially REREAD.

Oh well it's all part of the Fun Fun Fun journey.

Went to albertsons and bought 20 for $20 then when you got to the register they subtracted another $8 only spent $12 for those items and $5 for a few more.

Next went to Rosauers half off sale and spent $19 for some great buys.

(Now remember I'm alergic to sugar, so most of what I bought was pretty healthy no junk but I did buy a few quick fixes because cooking is not my favorite thing.)

Then to the produce market when I got a box of scrumptious apples for 55 cents a pound and a few other things for a total of $20.

Now the plan is not to buy anymore food for at least the rest of this week and hopefully next unless its a have to have. I'll post here what I buy to keep myself accountable. I love playing the buy ahead because it's cheap game but I want to stay on or below budget also.

I definitely plan on finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I also love grocery shopping and especially getting groceries for half price or almost. My new game is seeing how close to half price I can get things, then stocking up a little. I never buy things JUST because its half price though.

We hardly ever buy sweets or snacks because we eat very healthy not veggan or anything. In fact my dh is the almighty hunter and gatherer. But I am alergic to sugar and my dh is not a big sugar eater so that makes what we buy pretty healthy. Actually right now the only things snack like we have in the house our regular doritos, chex mix, and pudding. And all of those are pretty healthy as far as snacks go.
I set up a little extra area in the basement for my stock ups. All I have down there now are two boxes of taco shells that I got for 1$ a box.

I started getting the paper on Wednesday so I could have the food ads so I can see where what we need is the cheapest. I pass by all the stores on my way to work so it's not out of my way.


I love games and I know this one is going to really bring down our grocery bill and still have us eating great.

I think I'm about ready to start playing my charging game again.

We have a Southwest card that I use to run everything I can through to get those free flights. We regularly get two, almost free flights a year (I say almost because there is a $50 yearly fee on the card (and no they won't remove it I tried but it's still a great deal)).

And now that we have our finances straighened out and a plan in place, I think its time to jump back into that game.

This is my plan for playing the charging game again .... as soon as I charge an item I will record it as if the money is already spent......(which it is duh) I use a free program called ezpiggy to record everything.

Then instead of looking at my bank account balance to see how much money we have spent and have left, I will look at my ezpiggy account for that info.

We seem to have more money to spend now that we are not spending as much. Kind of a crazy "catch 22"

Here's some place I could go on one of my free flights.

Went clothes shopping for my three grandkids. We have them a lot and like to keep clothes here for them. I shopped at the thrift store and mostly chose the yellow tagged items that were an additional 50% off. I was able to get 14 items and spend under $17. yah for me. Here are some picts of the cute things I got.


This picture is 2 outfits for Daisy she's 2.


This is 2 outfits for Drew who is 6 months


Here you are seeing jammies for the Drew and the Daisy and 2 tops for Sophi our 5 year old


Grandkids is what love and life is all about.

I find since i started this adventure I am becoming more aware of ways I can save like getting all the lights off and not over warming up my car.
I was also able to put an extra $200 on our focus loan. I also feel that I have enough clothes, at this moment anyway. I also put off getting my hair done for two more weeks because it didn't seem to need done quite as fast as usual.
I think getting the money monkey off my back is making me a more content person. So many thing seem to be OK when before they were needing fized.

I love pretty pictures....they inspire me.

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/19998427@N06/popular-interesting/