Oh Happy Day

Today I payed off my credit card. Sadly nothing fun was ever purchased with this card except school stuff and large purchases that were inevitable and had to be payed. Now we can start paying even more on Brent's card (more school) and school loans and our tax return will go towards Brent's card. That means there will be no vacays for us this year, but that's life and part of being a grown up and the closer we can get to being debt free besides the eventual new cars we will have to purchase and our mortgage the less stress there will be on our little family. 

You Belong To Me

It's official!

We have to get to keep her!

I just payed our very last hospital bill for my delivery and we are closer to my goal of 0 debt! I am working on our taxes right now and thankfully we will be getting money back this year. We could use it to go somewhere fun, but like the responsible adults we are we willbe paying off credit cards. Thankfully we only have school debt on them and soon 1 will be payed off and 1 will be a little closer to being payed off. Hopefully we can save the $200 we would be paying on medical and credit card bills.

Next month I will officially be starting the envelope system for most of our purchases. I will keep our bills on direct payments because if they aren't I would forget to pay them and since they are connected directly to our bacnk account I will just make sure to keep track of what is spent. I will be creating envelopes for  groceries, babysitting, car, dog, and other expenes. I will put certain amounts into each envelope weekly and use only what is in the envelope and whatever is left over will remain in there or be put into savings. I know this will take a lot of organization on my part but what is adding banker to my title of wife, mommy, dish washer, diaper cleaner, vaccumer, toilet scrubber, sweeper, lesson planner, chef, dog mama, crafter.

 Just add it to my list of things to do.

And 10 points to the first person who can tell me who sang my post title.



My Grownup Christmas List

It's funny now that I have an offspring my Christmas wishes have changed so much. The ONLY thing I want this year for me is a new fangled Crock. Preferably programmable. Something like this.

The only other thing I would like would be the ability to pay off all of our debt and a new job for my husband boyfriend (he shall here on out be referred to as my boyfriend since that is what my babies call him or my lovah because that makes him very uncomfortable). If I can find a way in 2012 to at least pay off my credit card and Brent's card that would the best gift ever. I know we aren't disciplined enough to use the envelope system, but I am going to find something that works! Over Christmas and Summer Break I am going to save up all of the money we won't have to pay for childcare since I will be home and use that money to pay off my credit card first and then we will start working on Brent's card. I just keep telling myself one day we will be debt free and we can't make any less money then we already do and whatever Brent's next job is has to pay more then he makes now so we can do totally do this. 

Money, Money, Money, Money (Think Donal Trump The Apprentice)

If you know me well you know I hate money and I hate spending money! This past month I decided to challenge myself and not spend any unnecessary money. I thought by doing this I would save us so much extra money and have all of this money to place in our savings account for baby love. Well imagine my surprise when I wake up this morning and we are so close to going negative. It is just so darn frustrating to work so hard and try to save and you still wind up with nada. I know we will never be financially ready for life and children (we can't back out now), but I don't want to always be worrying about over drawing our bank account. I want to feel secure. This is the one area in life that makes my blood pressure go up. We always have money in savings that we can use, but we need to keep that money in savings. I know things will get better and both Brent and I will both be making more money this next year, but I want to feel good now. I guess all I can keep doing is watching every penny and continuing my no spending. There area  few things I need to get before Baby Love gets here so I will have to budget those few things out. Thank goodness for gift cards to buy the big stuff and thank goodness for friends and family for helping prepare us with all of the baby stuff we will need. I don't think we could do it without you all. I am off to save some money!

Baby Birdy

I don't think nesting should start this early, but it has definitely hit me. I have been cleaning literally all day since I woke up. I told myself I would hold out until this summer when I really had nothing better to do, but I have cleaned things I have never even thought of cleaning. For example, I cleaned the inside of the dishwasher, the outside of the fridge and I reorganized the magnets and stuff on the fridge, I cleaned out a shelf in the bathroom linen closet for Baby Girl's stuff, I put a new bed skirt on the bed, washed all of the pillows in the house, hung a new shower curtain, So on and so forth. There is still so much more to do and clean before B-Day (Baby Day) so I am not worried about not having anything to do this summer.

Besides cleaning the house I have also been planning something for the month of May. I want to try to spend absolutely nothing except for utilities, groceries, and bills. I am really good about spending money, but I want to try for a month to not spend any extra money. There is a lot going on this month (showers, trips to Nashville). Now how will I not spend any money even going out of town you ask? Well since this was a preordained trip I will give myself a trip budget (how much damage can 2 super pregnant girls really do in 1 weekend?) and I will stick to it. I basically know what we will be doing (baby showering, eating, laying around) so we really should have to spend too much. If I do good in May then I will also be doing this challenge in June. Now July may be another story since Baby Girl will be here and I figure there will be a few last minute things we will need to purchase (probably a few things left over from our registry that we might need). I know I can do it because I am the cheapest person ever. There is nothing that I am desperately in need of and most of the time when I buy something it is not something I actually need. I feel like I sometimes buy stuff just to buy stuff and it always makes me feel so wasteful.

The best part is I have finally gotten all of our diapers so the main thing I have been spending money on is complete. I will take some pictures of all of my fluff later when I am not exhausted from waking up so early because of the darn thunder. I think God is trying to get me ready for when baby girl gets here. This pregnancy has been so easy and I have been sleeping so good he wants to make sure I know what it's like to wake up a few times at night.

I can't wait to have my own little fluff covered butt!

I have been playing on this website The Baby Cost Calculator this morning and if I breastfeed, cloth diaper, and make my own baby food we will probably spend around $6,000 for Baby Love's first year. I also calculated the cost with using disposable diapers and formula feeding only and it would cost us over $7,000. The best thing is I am sure I can find other ways to be cheap thrifty.