Work is crazy busy and has been for a while. & will be for a while.
Of course, January through April is our most profitable time of year. Too busy to spend, and raking in the overtime. Then I generally have the rest of the year to relax and enjoy.
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This is our January discretionary spending, to-date:
$134 groceries
$ 34 fuel
Exciting stuff!
Actually, about $20 of those groceries were a "Christmas Redo". I was sick on Thanksgiving, and Mom and dh were sick on Christmas, so we got together last weekend to spend some time with my parents. My parents are generally pretty easy and very happy to eat anything we cook, or even just leftovers. But my mom was really looking forward to our "Christmas Pizza".
Dh was going to pick up cat litter on sale today, and pick up a gift for a birthday party.
I did charge $200 for school lunches, on the reward credit card I am working on. (I charge every January, so did nothing different for the reward). I charged up some insurance also. I've got about $350 left to spend. I was expecting a $140 Sprint bill (100% my parents and they will reimburse), but Sprint didn't bill us this month. Ugh!! I thought that charge would be perfect since it isn't even really mine. I checked last years' January and February expenses and can't come up with anything else foreseeable, and so will probably just pre-pay some health insurance this weekend. That reward is going to be $580.
Unfortunately, I have no exciting plans for the $580 but to "clean up the checkbook". After the year we had, it's a miracle I did not have to dip MORE into savings, and so I am happy with the outcome. Could be happier (would make a nice snowball!), but happy enough.
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I am not participating in the savings challenges. We save very aggressively with a "pay ourselves first" mentality. (Literally, 43% of my regular take-home salary goes straight to savings. Plus, we tend to bank and snowball the extras). The idea of having anything extra leftover to save = harharhar. We keep it pretty tight. This doesn't mean we can't make spending decisions out of our savings. It just means I will never ever ever spend less than we budget, in a single month. Has probably never happened. Absolutely nothing leftover to increase savings. I guess my approach is more to "oversave" up front. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
Saving coins is like nail on a chalkboard, to me. So I have to go get more money out of the bank so I can throw it in a jar and let it earn -0- interest? I don't get it and I never will. Even in the early days when we had to use cash more, we'd just spend the cash (change) we had before we'd go and get more. I am reluctant to waste a single penny. If I don't need it right now, it gets saved or invested.
{My kids are big change savers and if I ever find change I give it to them. I think for their age it is appropriate - they are learning that small amounts add up}.
Of course, in regards to the challenge, having to save a certain dollar amount (different) every week, just gives me a headache.
I don't fault anyone who thrives on the games or for who any of the above works. I just blog to say that these things do nothing for me. & so I am sitting it out. (Really and truly - it's important to do whatever works for you).
The declutter challenge? I was excited to see that post yesterday.
Again, I am not really interested in finding a specific amount of items to purge each and every day or week. But, I am embracing the challenge as far as keeping it front of mind and breaking it down into smaller pieces. Trying to make a little progress each and every week. Instead of complicating things with some fixed number, I will just do whatever makes sense.
I personally can not imagine purging 1,378 things from my home, but I have an open mind and will see what we can come up with. We regularly purge trash and broken items so I am not counting anything that I would toss under normal every day circumstances. I've got better things to do than to count every trash item and junk mail item that I always toss anyway. Looking to see what I can improve on, so will only count the "out of the ordinary" purges. We do also regularly purge outgrown clothing, toys, games and kids' things, so not sure how much of that I will count. Will see how I feel about it. I mostly want to acknowledge going above and beyond "the usual". Wondering if I will ever really feel on top of my "stuff". I have been on major purge mode for well over 10 years. I ramped it up last year because we are planning to downsizing our home in another decade. I want to pick up and move what we have and need - and to have the excess long gone by that point. (Why 10 years? I think our house is *perfect* for 4 people, but would prefer a smaller space for when it is just two of us. Kids will be on their own in another decade or so. Dh and I were more than content when we used to live in half the space).
One thing that makes decluttering hard for me is that I detest throwing things in the landfill. We try to freecycle, donate or sell anything possible. This is my "declutter" achilles heel, but I will stick to my guns. Once I get on top of it, it should be easy to keep on top of, know what I mean? It's the "stuff that I didn't know what to do with 10 years ago," that is driving me crazy at the moment. When I stop finding THAT stuff in my house, I will find some peace in this area.
Oh, and I printed up the challenge for work, too. Today I tossed a small trash bin full of old seminar and tax reference books. (Like 2009 - 2011, which is all obsolete by now). I found a fan in my office and no idea why, so moving it to the common area in case anyone has any use for it. I've been here 12 years and I haven't moved offices in a long while, so it's probably time for a good cleanup. {Oh - since we deal with large amounts of paper - we have a recycle dumpster - so everything I purged today will be recycled}.
At home I have done nothing, but dh just gave me two pairs of pants to purge. I've at least got two items for this week.
SavingAdvice Challenges
January 10th, 2014 at 04:20 pm
January 10th, 2014 at 05:49 pm 1389376185
I'm excited about the declutter challenge. I'm just going to count as I go along, and I'm not including trash that I toss, unless I pull it out from the depths of a closet or bin!
Take care during this busy time!
January 10th, 2014 at 07:03 pm 1389380608
January 10th, 2014 at 07:07 pm 1389380863
January 10th, 2014 at 07:26 pm 1389382017
Great philosophy on the reuse instead of trashing stuff. There are so many needy organizations that might be interested: a few new ideas if you need? animal shelter, foster children, transitional homeless groups, high school, arts.
January 10th, 2014 at 07:41 pm 1389382882
January 10th, 2014 at 07:50 pm 1389383452
January 10th, 2014 at 10:15 pm 1389392154
43% is indeed amazing! I just checked (because I lump savings and extra debt repayment together and don't really know what we save) and we're at 16% of our take-home pay (about 10% goes to retirement & 6% to EF and other savings). Could use some work, but once we're done with college tuition & student loan debt (hopefully by the end of this year), that number could jump to 26% overnight!
I'd say I'm jealous, but I know we could do it if we stretched. We're uber-frugal in some ways (no car) but not so thrifty in others (travel/vacations).
January 11th, 2014 at 12:20 am 1389399628
January 11th, 2014 at 02:27 am 1389407221
January 11th, 2014 at 04:15 pm 1389456924