Where the $ goes?

Have I ever told you that I adore School House Rocks?

New Roof!



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 Thank you for your kind and supportive comments over the last few days. I’m still having issues with Blogger allowing me to post on some blogs and not all (including my own) this week. Today started with a racket as our roof is being worked on today. They’re calling for snow/freezing rain staring tomorrow so we need them to finish by this evening.

No pressure guys…no pressure.

Since we’ve started stockpiling money for the new roof (100% of it coming out of pocket…lucky us), Mr. M and I are having a little bit of snowball reduction withdrawal. In our bedroom, we have a small white board that I update numbers on so we can see daily where we stand on taking down our snowball. The number was aggressively moving until a few months ago when it screeched to a snails pace. However, having Mr. M complain to me is a positive sign as it shows that he’s still in this battle 100%. Cross your fingers today that we get the roof done!

Really?

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I began this morning’s post telling you that my stomach was in knots as we planned to meet with the bank this afternoon concerning our mortgage. Then, my husband sent me a text stating that the bank had cancelled on us.

REALLY?!?!

Originally, wehad this meeting and our meeting with the Reproduction Endocrinologist on the same day. Then the bank moved up our time and we cancelled the appointment with the RE.

I simply could scream. The beauty of getting a new job is a chance of pace and new challenges. However, I will be uninsured for the month of December. This means no trips to the doctor, RE for anything. So we’re trying to get this appointment in before November 30th.

Trust in obey…trust and obey…I keep saying these words over and over in my head.

I don't always agree...

I don't always agree with Nancy Giles but I thought her point this week was pretty dead on with BOA.

Thought of the day.

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"Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes. ..."

- Little Men by Louisa May Alcott

It’s Alive!

In May of this year Mr. M and I purchased a few tomato plants in hopes of starting a small urban garden on our back deck. The problem was that nothing grew……

Today!!

Here is our first little tomato from our tiny city garden. It’s not much BUT it’s a start.

How to say goodbye?

In a few short weeks I will be handing in my resignation to a place that I’ve spent 51/2 years of my life. This wasn’t a decision that I took lightly as it truly fell out of the sky back in late July/early August and I want to make sure that I leave on a good note. It would really upset me if I feel in November when I leave that the time and dedication that I gave this place was for nothing.

So I’m trying to set the best exit strategy that I can as I transition from this position to my new job. Since my job is in the public sector (and in the public eye), I know that my leaving will be scrutinized so it’s important on my end to keep my emotions in check and not do what this girl did even though it's a little funny.

I’ve mentally worked on an e-mail that I plan to send as soon as I turn in my notice. Due to the joys of social media, e-mail, etc., I have found that people are not hyper-sensitive in finding out the “breaking news” from their friends and feel that they should always know before the general public.

For some reason I am becoming more anxious as November 2nd approaches. Maybe it’s because this is a giant leap out of my comfort zone. I keep repeating the mantra of Trust and Obey over and over again as I do believe that this move is in God’s hands.

Small snowflake!



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Sold another book on Amazon! Yeah for a little debt snowball help.

This is hard.

I know that if it was easy to become debt free then everyone would have already achieved their goals many, many moons ago. For Mr. M and me, we have hit our two year mark this month of our debt free journey an anniversary that I’m not proud of celebrating. Even though I know that at the end of this journey I’ll be able to “live like no one else”, I still face many temptations.

Mostly superficial things (like clothes) that I for some reason feel like I need to have even though designer clothes are truly wants not needs. I know…its childish…I should be a grown-up and be thankful that I even have clothes but sometimes there is a tiny little person inside of me that whines – “It’s not fair!”

How do you handle days like this when you’re faced with temptations? Do you give yourself a pep-talk? My current solution is to listen to the pod casts of Dave Ramsey and read your blogs as it helps me realize that those with the clothes that I want are probably up to their eye balls in debt. Mr. M reminds me from time to time that we could be debt free or like Stanley….

Well said.

I saw this on Facebook today and had to share. 

Kudos to this college student - who ever it is- for making wise decisions.  

Shampoo Challenge

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Last December, I found a great deal on Hip2Save on how to get Herbal Essence Gift Packages for free (yeah for rebate $) and ended up buying several. Mr. M and I used them until June of this year and decided to challenge ourselves to see if we could go rest of the year without spending any money on shampoo.

So far, as Charlie Sheen would say, we’re winning. Since we had a small container of little hotel bottles and a few great coupons for free products, we’ve made it all the way to the middle of October. With two and half months left, we still plan to see if we can do this all the way until the end of December.

This may seem silly to you but it has helped us (ahem..me) reduce our shampoo usage and I feel like we’re helping our debt snowball by coming with creative ways to save money.

How are you being creative in saving your money?

Your Liberty

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When you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty.

-Benjamin Franklin

Goals

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This week I received my goals for 2011 at work…in October. My boss joked during our meeting that she was sure that I would have time to finish them by the end of the year. The joke will be on them in a few short weeks when I give my notice.

Really – who gives yearly goals to their team with only three months LEFT in the year?!?

Cold Cuts

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I will forever associate cold cut sandwiches with infertility.

As I mentioned earlier this week, I was attending an infertility seminar to see what options we had at our nearby clinic and to get the $250 gift certificate. A dinner of cold cut sandwiches were provided by the pharmaceutical reps of the expensive fertility drugs which I found ironic – provided an infertile a meal that a woman who is pregnant can’t enjoy.


The doctor was very informative and told everyone the cost of the different options at the clinic: IUI - $400 to $800, IVF - $12,000…and so on. I sat there (by myself mind you since Mr. M had to work) surrounded by a packed room of couples with the same issue as me but felt very much alone.

Later in the evening, when I was retelling my experience to Mr. M about the session we somehow got on the car conversation. He wasn’t thrilled at my suggestion to not use Bank of Mom as we saw that the used car that he would like is in the $20K range ($20 K!?!? Can you hear my hand hitting my forehead on this one?)

Normally we’re on the same page with money until this hiccup. It wasn’t until that I pointed out that his “new” car could be the money that we need for treatments until he finally got off the car kick. Thank you to Out of My Window for pointing out the increased insurance costs. I'll have to used that if the conversation comes up again.

New car?




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This morning I had the inspiration to actually get out my warm bed and go for a run before work. Mr. M decided to join me and we talked about the subject of a new used

car for him. Goldie, as we affectionately refer to his 2004 ride is showing some major signs of wear. The coolant light never turns off; one of the doors is missing a handle among other things. My MIL has offered us a loan from the “bank of Mom” as she put it to get a new car and we need to decide by December 1st. Thus began a very interesting conversation on getting a "new" car for Mr. M. Can I be honest here? I don’t want to borrow any money from my In-Laws. They’re great people and raised a great son but I’m not a fan of owing anyone in the family money. We still owe them money on the house since they helped Mr. M with the down payment and I want to be done with owing anyone anything. I feel guilty saying this since a new car would mean than my husband would be safer driving to and from work. Does guilt outweigh pride?

Snowflake!

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I admit it – I’m a huge Dave Fan and typically repeat everything he says on his weekly show to my husband at night. The topic that has been a hot button for us in the last few weeks is our mortgage. I want to refinance it and Mr. M did not since we didn’t have the $400 to pay the appraisal fees. Finally, his boss (who Mr. M thinks very highly of) mentioned that he refinanced his mortgage and everyone at work should do the same. After a quick conversation, Mr. M discovered that we could roll the appraisal fees into our total mortgage amount and reduce our payment by $184 per month. Attacking that debt snowball one snowflake at a time!

Feels like Fall

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It’s finally feeling like fall with the crisp cool weather in the morning, the beautiful blue skies and gorgeous colors of the leaves. October is truly one of my favorite months as the weather is always close to perfect.

I am also excited about this month as we will have some changes going on in the M household. The first is our roof which should go on this weekend. We’ve saved at least 50% last month for the payment and will only need to tap into our emergency fund for the other half if the money is due this week. If we’re sent a bill, then we’ll save more from this coming paycheck and less of our emergency fund. Bottom line- the less of the emergency fund we use, the less we have to save up before attacking our Debt Snowball.

On the family front, Mr. M will have another test done to determine what our next steps will be this month. Tomorrow, I’m attending a financial session for the local infertility clinic here and was told by a friend that I should receive a $250 treatment voucher for giving them an hour of my time. $250 is still $250 which can help chip away what could be a $40K medical bill.