Thursday, April 7, 2011

Time to Act

Wow, I haven't posted on this blog in forever! Well in the short and skinny I had my daughter on September 13, 2010 and time has flown! She will be 7 months next week and 5 months of her life I have missed out on a lot. I work a FT job because my bills are way too much and I have to provide my daughter food, shelter and clothing. Unfortunately, I can not raise her on love alone - that would not make her a happy baby. I have sacrificed my happiness to make sure she is happy and taken care of - but I'm over it.

Time to Change - My - Life! So I am going to blog my progress or not progress depending how life rolls with me. I am going to blog how I am cutting down on expenses and the struggles with that, taking up coupon-ing to save money on the necessities of life and making life a happier place for me. I am giving you a peek inside the life of "MommaT" so sit back and I hope you enjoy the ride with me.

I decided the end of March after a stressful week at work and the weight of being a FT working mom that something needs to change. I have lived in a fog for the past 5 months and my bills have gone haywire. They have gotten paid, but when I live in my "fog" I just do what I have to do and hell with a budget. I would play with my daughter and space out thinking about other things and blink back to reality to see her staring at me. (Smiling of course! Love her smile.) This is not fair to her or my family and after a breakdown, I decided to change things.

First Challenge - Bill Accessment

  • We bring roughly (without overtime or bonuses) $2400 per month.
  • My bills and necessities are about $2200 per month! How does this happen?

Two car payments (3 years on them yet)
Car insurance for the crazy drivers mean higher car insurance payment
Rent that does not include utilities (so worth it though)
Utilities - Water/Sewage, Electric, OIL HEAT (my God!)
Phone/Net (Cut out cable when I attempted this cutback and failed earlier this year)
Hulu/Netflix (to replace cable)
Groceries
Gas
Pet stuff
Baby stuff (Formula is free - thank you WIC)
Other Bills and Odds and Ends

I also racked up a tasty bill with FAST FOOD!

Second Challenge - Cut Backs

My Thoughts to Remedy this situation and cut out $1200 worth of my budget
  1. Sell the PT Cruiser - bad on gas and the car that we still owe the most out of
  2. Cut out a non-needed bill
  3. NO MORE FAST FOOD
I still need to cut out over $500 monthly!

So I added this to my plan:
  1. When I sell the Cruiser I am going to take that payment, savings from car insurance, money spared from budget and dump it into the Neon. I owe about $5,000+ and I think I can pay it off by fall if I try
  2. Take bonuses and Overtime and put it in a savings acct. Just in case!
I will still need to cut some other things back - so I will once again monitor my electricity use and water use. I will also consider cloth diapers once again - but only if I can put a FT commitment to it.

Why am I doing this? To stay home with my daughter - but cutting back and budgeting is NOT ENOUGH! Why is life so expensive! Lets up the challenges.

Third Challenge - Income Changes

My husband has to be the breadwinner of this family so he is going to try to get a better position and go to school to get an even better position. What a rough year we have ahead!

I am a PT PartyLite Consultant - so I am going to work on making that more successful.

Fourth Challenge - Couponing!

Yes, I always forget I have them and I am going to buy my printer some ink to clip away! I got inspired by watching clips of Extreme Couponing. I am going to start small and going to start this weekend. Keep watching for those blogs!

Sounds nice and all right? Well I know what you are thinking - what if it does not work out? Well we will just have to wait and see. Wish me luck - I'm off to my adventure.

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