This next month I am going to need to watch my food costs. Because my friend has not had a lot of money lately due to unemployment (a situation recently remedied), both our out to eat budget and food budget has gone high.

So, next month, I am going to see how high it needs to be for us to be comfortable because I am not sure if its just paying for the friend or if total food costs have gone up. I am pretty sure that part of it is food costs so I think I will need to adjust the budget accordingly.

I would like to cut all of our spending drastically again to see what we really need and what was just us not paying attention while keeping our friend afloat through the hard times.

Which begs the question, I seem to revamp our budget every couple of months thanks to various asundry items coming up but it doesn't seem like everyone else needs to do it as often so how often are you adjusting your budget?

So my friend checked her free credit report yesterday and discovered that one of the cards that her debt settlement company (this company is gone now of course, they caused her lots of issues)was supposed to take care of 2 years ago was never paid off. Not only that but in that time it has jumped from $5700 to $9600.

So much for her being able to contribute to an IRA. I will have to change that contribution into a debt payoff fund. They will no doubt want a lump sum.

The best part was having her tell me that since they stopped contacting her or her mother (yes mom cosigned and who do you think daughter dearest learned her bad money management from) that they thought it was paid off. What was a little ridiculous about this is that she thought they took $530 for $5k! Uggg..

But at least she is catching it now so we can get everything taken care of and this is the last of the old monster debts when she went nuts.

We were cooking fools this weekend. Our first meal included Saffron Rice, Tabbouleh (think parsley salad), Pita Chips (we had to make the pitas first since we didn't have any made up in the freezer), and Baba Ganoush (eggplant based dip).

Our second meal included homemade thousand island dressing, a corned beef roast and the rye bread for the sandwiches was store bought (we don't use enough to justify buying the flour).

Turned out excellent despite the fact that the Saffron Rice was a first time try and so was the thousand island dressing.

The funny thing is we only cooked on Sunday. Saturday we were pretty lazy and only managed to go grocery shopping.

The good news is that we will have the first meal for a couple of lunches and have the second meal for supper tonight so won't have to worry about food today. Now I just have to plan tomorrow's supper in advance so I am not tempted to eat out...

I admit, I am very excited. This means that this month is the last month that we need to help her out. Woohoo! No more worries on that score.

Obviously with a new job I will make her a new budget so that she can afford the things she needs to buy and start stashing money in a retirement account. An emergency fund and paying off her few remaining credit cards will be number one.

So now there shouldn't be anymore reasons not to be able to get a house this upcoming February. We were getting nervous that the downturn around here was going to make it impossible for her but things are finally looking up.

Couple of updates. My friend managed to get a part time retail job at night and on weekends which should help her keep her feet under her while she does graphic design contracts and builds the experience she needs to further her career.

She also looked at me this weekend as we were finishing up our chores and said (with a little shock in her voice) that she was starting to automatically categorize her spending into her budget without even trying. I take that as a good sign that the budget I made for her is working.

I didn't really accomplish much of anything this weekend like I planned but it was nice to relax. I did manage to finally order my saffron in bulk online so that I don't have to pay the outrageous cost of it at the grocery stores. Now just have to wait for it to show up this week so we can make Moroccan Lamb Stew, so yummy.

Figure I would put this here to avoid taking up a lot of space in the SA blog comments. That and I believe this is a little subjective.

I need a budget because it shows me how I am spending my money. It gives me a way of measuring whether or not I am meeting my goals and allows me to see if there is something that I need to change.

Money doesn't just buy things, it allows you to buy experiences as well. I realized at a very young age that most people like to accumulate things while I like to accumulate experiences. I like to travel, to read, to hike, to bike, to listen to music, to play video games, to eat and to watch movies.

Some of these things are more tangible than others but these are the things I truly value. Almost all of these valued experiences require material stuff so by no means am I claiming to be non-materialistic. In fact, these enjoyable activities can result in the accumulation of too much stuff if I am not careful so I work hard to keep the clutter down.

My point with all of this, is that I want my budget to reflect what I enjoy. I don't want to waste a lot of money on clothing, jewelry, transportation, housing, decorations or knickknacks. I don't care about these things, they are fairly irrelevant to my happiness and can get in the way of something I do care about.

As much as I enjoy eating out, at one point it was eating up too much of my money and not allowing me to spend on my other hobbies. I also let clothing get out of hand because I don't enjoy shopping so instead of hunting sales I would buy what I needed when I needed it. I couldn't see that until I had a budget. That doesn't mean I need to be a slave to it, but I do need to be able to occasionally look at my numbers and make sure I am still doing what I want to be doing.

My favorite poster as a child said "If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else." A budget is my way of knowing where I am going.

I have a credit card that tracks my credit score and the latest was 729, woohoo! Unfortunately and fortunately, that will probably be the last update until I go to buy a house because you have to have activity on the card for it to track the score. And since I just paid it off completely, no more activity.

My stimulus check is no longer going to go to debt. The $1200 check from the gov will go towards my friend's living expenses to keep her afloat through the upcoming month since she still hasn't found work. The good news on that front is that she has an interview on Monday for a full time job in her field. Its less money than she would like but she can't afford to be picky with her lack of experience.

Hopefully we will know more in about two weeks.

If you knew me, then you would realize how unbelievable this is. I actually went this entire week without buying myself an out to eat lunch. Everything was leftovers (even if it was leftovers from eating out at night which was bought and paid for using husband's b-day money).

I wasn't even doing it on purpose until Thursday when I realized it and then decided I would not eat out that day.

I don't even think I can remember the last time that has happened. It been at least a couple of months.

So we have saltwater tanks which runs the electricity up. We got fed up with our 125 gallon tank having sump issues and set up only our 55 gallon in its stead (no sump, so no more frustration for the moment).

My electricity bill is down to $70 and some change! Very happy, especially since gas doubled in price (literally) so both utility bills had added about $50 above normal in a very short time. My DH has been turning off phantom charge items too so he will be pleased when I tell him how far the bill has dropped.

$1700 payments make rather large dents in credit card debt.

Every two months until the payoff date, I should be getting rid of a card. Course what really matters is that the debt is gone not how many cards it is on.

Its nice knowing by this fall, the cards will all be gone and we can begin the down payment fund.

I haven't added a single thing to the debt since December which is nice because every time before I would take one step back for every two steps forward. I think this means that I have finally figured out a budget that works for us. Very useful.

Hope everyone has a good Monday!

because I was too dreadfully ill to do so. 5 days of only cereal does wonders for the grocery and out to eat budgets even when you do have to buy medication.

Oh, fyi Wal-tussin (Walgreen brand) tastes a lot better than Robotussin and its much cheaper.

Here's my little rant for the day.

Don't live solely for tomorrow! It may never come!

Maybe my background colors my view on this but having watched my mother die at the age of 36 and having had my father go through 2 back surgeries before the age of 40, I have to say, not everyone is going to make it to retirement healthy and hale.

I am all for preparing to live forever, just remember to enjoy life a little along the way. Too many posts lately have suggested having absolutely no fun and I don't understand the scrouge complex.

I get that a lot of people want everything now, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to have anything now. Balance people, balance. If spending too much is a problem, then so is refusing to do anything because it might cost money.

Frugal is being aware of how you spend your money but you become cheap when your "frugality" begins to make people miserable (including yourself).

*steps off soapbox*

I apologize, I have just encountered too many posts lately that seemed hyper critical of enjoying life's journey a little. Lord knows I am just as guilty as the next person when it comes to judging what I deem to be overindulgence (I am working on overcoming this hypocritical stance) but I can't see judging someone for wanting a little pleasure in the day to day living. So long as they are moving in the right direction, they should be able to enjoy themselves.

is about to save me a lot of money. My DH and I have recently turned into major tea drinkers and the lack of bulk tea in our area is breaking the bank. What I have been paying for 3 ounces will pay for a pound of tea.

Needless to say, this should help my grocery bill immensely.

While on the website, I also noticed they have 1/4 lbs of spices for cheaper than I can buy them in bulk locally so next time I need spices I will be keeping this in mind. Obviously this won't help most people but when you cook almost everything from scratch, you tend to burn through the spices.

Just plugging along. I did a 0% balance transfer to avoid paying the rate hike that Bank of America is doing. This brings my interest down below 7% for total credit card debt. I wasn't going to do this because I have been paying the card quickly but I can't beat 0% and it will allow me to pay them a little bit quicker.

I think I might make March an eat up what we have month since we have been over the top the past two months. Part of the issue here is trying to eat healthy by eating more fruits, vegetables and fish. The other part is feeding the friend who is struggling at the moment, especially since she has no idea how to cook and thinks TV dinners are good meals.

I didn't spend anything this weekend (noteworthy only because weekends are when I usually go grocery shopping now). DH bought us one meal at Brother's BBQ (very yummy)and the rest of the weekend we stayed home and relaxed.

Finally perfected a crusty artisan bread thanks to Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois' book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Love the fact that it takes almost no time.

Of course this means we will be spending lots more on balsamic vineagar and olive oil but there are meals that are far worse for us then bread and this dip.

Still contemplating how to adjust my clothing budget so I don't run out of clothes. Think I might have a plan so I will give that a shot and see how it works.

So I have an allowance now. Its not a big one, but its an allowance that is guilt free.

I just found out that Masterpiece Theatre has released some new Jane Austin redos on DVD and fanatic that I am I really really want them.

Only problem, is that I was already planning on buying 2 very nice pair of boots for work, one black and one brown to replace the 2 pair that are almost completely worn through. I have good reason to believe that these nice boots are almost sold out and need to be bought quickly if I really want them.

So do you know what will happen? I will buy the movies and just not get the boots. This is how I ended up with such a limited wardrobe in the first place. There is always something that I want more than clothes.

At least I only buy movies that I know I will watch obsessively, the rest I see through netflix.

I suppose I could afford 1 pair of boots and all the DVD's but then I would be broke.

Nope, my footwear will simply have to limp along and make it through the end of the season. I knew I should have had them resoled before I wore through the main part of the heel...

Vet finally called me after I left her a message asking what the status of the results were. The results came back negative for any problems. She did back off of claiming that my dog was dying and didn't ask for us to come back until 6 months down the road.

When I asked her if dehydration could affect the results since my dog hates water, she admitted that it could have been responsible for the high values. She didn't really explain why no one had asked me about that when they got the high results.

I am currently looking at a vet that does housecalls (our dog was literally shaking the last couple of times we took him to the vet so housecalls seem less tramatic). I have had a vet that did housecalls before back in Michigan and she was great so I am a bit biased in their favor. They tend to actually listen to you and learn about the animal.

My pug has cost a lot of money this month. Took him in for his shots and annual checkup. He kidney values were a little high (1/10 % off from normal) so they did a urine and blood work up. The urine was fine but the kidney value was still above normal so now we are waiting on the results of yet another urine test. (Can you see the dollar amounts climbing?)

After all this, we will need to come back in 3-6 months for yet another blood workup. If that one is still at that level they might accept that it is normal for him or they may want to go out another 3-6 months to make sure its normal.

In other words, all this may be for nothing. In fact, given that the urine test was fine and my pug likes to take 6 mile walks and then bounces around the house after said walks, kidney failure or even pre kidney failure is highly unlikely.

But this didn't stop our vet from talking like kidney failure was a foregone conclusion...As if panicking us for no good reason isn't bad enough, I saw on the receipt of our latest visit that they claimed we were overdue for 3 shots!!!

Ask them to check since we were just in for shots, the receptionist has to go to the paper file to realize, oh yes, you did just get those. At the time of the shot visit(previous week's appointment), I had to remind the lady with our paper file that yes, we had just gotten the bordetello shot and were not overdue...

The combination of not being able to keep track of the shots our dog needs and doesn't need and panicking us on something that may turn out to be nothing is not making us very happy with our vet.

I know when the vet calls today with the results of the urine test (which according to her is most likely going to be negative for urinary infection), she is going to try and get us back in 3 months from now and its not going to happen. 6 months I can see but not 3 months. If we saw changes in anything, we would bring him in sooner but nothing has changed.

Even though their prices seem to be on par and they are really conveniently located, we may need to find a vet with a better bedside manner who we don't have to constantly second guess (just ask me about the time they wanted me to pay them to pull baby teeth rather than wait for them to fall out).

This was provoked by BA's blog

My dh and I recently started making our own pasta from scratch and we have discovered that half whole wheat and half unbleached flour make the best pasta.

Its flavorful while still having a nice texture.

The best part of making our own pasta is that we can jazz it up since plain old pasta is boring. That and now we can't run out when we want to make something.

Now if I could just convince DH that we use a lot of flour. We keep running out because cooking from scratch goes through a lot of it and he looks at a half full container and can't imagine us using it up (two recipes later we are completely out...)

January was our catch up month (since we didn't let ourselves have an allowance until recently). We bought things that we had wanted or needed for the past year.

What amazes me most about this, is that we aren't behind. No credit cards got racked up, no bills had to be moved to a later date and no budget categories had to be skimped on. We simply had the money.

It sort of boggles my mind how much we spent this month and it really shouldn't because we obviously spent money to rack up credit card debt in the first place.

I think the issue is that we were able to accomplish so much with the money. There weren't any extremely expensive items purchased so the money went very far.

We spent a fair amount on clothing, bought roller blades and protective gear, bought kitchen equipment, bought crafting materials and ate out more than we normally allow ourselves.

The reason we could afford all this is that my DH paid off his credit cards early thanks to overtime and careful budgeting and we didn't go nuts at Christmas.

On top of all this, we both used our bonuses to pay down debt.

Oh and our date for final credit card payoff has moved up to September.

She was just starting to get her feet under her and then she got laid off yesterday. She is calling the temp agency today to get on their hiring list again and will be job hunting but needless to say, its going to be a bit rough for her.

Fortunately, they were nice enough to give 2 weeks severance even though they didn't have to so that should help. She will file for unemployment as of Monday since they will be paying her through this Friday.

It could be an interesting month for all of us. Uggg. I am not sure how much we should help her given that she made some bad financial choices that we promised ourselves we would not support...

Hopefully she gets a new job before that becomes an issue.

My Bank of America credit card is raising its interest rate. My current rate is 10.99, they want to raise it to 20.99 as of the 1st day after the March closing statement. Just like my Capital One when it raised its interest rate, I have the option of rejecting it and being able to pay it off over time.

Obviously, I won't do that since it would have a huge impact on my credit score thanks to losing all that unused credit limit so I am a little peeved.

Thankfully, I will have this card paid off in May at the latest which means they won't get much from me but its still annoying.

I find it to be a strange coincidence that my two oldest credit cards have now both raised their interest rates on me since you aren't supposed to get rid of your oldest credit lines. That's okay, once we have bought our house, they are going bye bye. I have two other cards right now that have much better benefits and are worth keeping.

Woohoo! This is going to be fun! As some of you may know, my dh is finally debt free so its my turn. So, my ticker is going to be dropping every couple of weeks rather drastically.

Oh, and I don't know where I would put this but my dh and I devouted pet owners. Two days ago, a slightly overweight beagle came bounding up to me and waited for me to open the door of my building. Since I figured the owner was probably nearby, I let the beagle in and went looking for the owner. No luck. So I dropped mystuff off at my apartment and started knocking on doors.

I figured she must have jumped from someone's balcony (a common enough problem for some owners there) so I went to the doors of people I knew owned pets. I figured they would recognize the animal.

Hmmm...so now I am worried. No owner outside, no owner home inside and no tags on the dog.

So someone suggests Dumb Friends League, they can check for microchips. We race over there in my friend's car before it can close and let them know what happened. I figure someone in our community lost him but we have locked buildings so I can't go knocking. The dog has a microchip and just on the off chance that she had visited there before, the lady checked the system.

Low and behold, she is in the system, they call the owner and let her know that I am willing to bring her dog to her if she would like me to (which saves the owner $45).

I get on the phone with her, get her phone number and head back. It seems she adopted the dog from the shelter and the dog had been placed in the shelter because she kept running away from her previous owners.

They had been out walking and the owner had been adjusting the leash when dear doggy ran off and refused to come back. She had gone looking but dear doggy refused to come within arms reach. The owner was shocked that I had been able to get the dog but I am one of those people that dogs follow everywhere so I had never had an issue getting the dog to go with me even without a leash.

The owner was thrilled to have her runaway back (especially since the next day had been projected for -1) so she gave me a $25 visa gift card.

I was just thrilled that I didn't have to make a "donation" of $20 to drop the animal off AND I had gotten the animal back home.

Any pet owner knows that night would have been rough on the owner.

That said, I should make sure to budget a donation for The Dumb Friends League just because I love the organization.

This post is due to a forum post about making tortillas from scratch. I feel like an idiot because I should have realized they would be easy to make from scratch.

Its amazing how many premade things we just accept in our diet because we don't realize that its just as easy to make them. Its also really important to me because we need to be cooking everything from scratch if we are to go organic this next month. It will help keep costs down which I still suspect will go up some.

Ah well, that is what I love about this place. It helps me catch those things I still take for granted.

Thanks everyone!

I will qualify this post by reminding everyone that I came from a very poor family that somehow managed to do well with what they had. I will also remind everyone that budgeting wise, DH and I didn't do poorly until we moved away after college so our current mess was a momentary blip of insanity.

Has anyone looked at various sites about what percentage to save of their income? I nearly popped a gasket when I saw some of them recommending saving the same amount I currently save (which I consider low because I am paying off credit cards)!!

Now I have always known I was oblivious and out of touch but when a savings blogger who thinks he is extremely frugal suggests that 50/20/30 goal(musthaves/ savings/wants and this was the most extreme I could find) is difficult to obtain even for him, I begin to wonder how long I have been in the deepfreeze.

Did I miss something? I understand there are times in people's lives where they can't always save alot but that is why you save when you can. I currently live on 45% of my income and that includes an allowance. Everything else is debt payments and savings. My dh does the same.

I can see why it was a struggle for someone like my father to live on a poverty level income and save (which he still did) but why is 10% the most common advice I see? Don't people want to retire eventually?

I realize that a great majority of you figured this out sooner but for me its a new concept. I see myself as a spender (because in my family I was the spender by comparison) and the concept that I could be considered an extreme saver in the near future is beyond my imagination.

Rant over, I feel better now

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. I am thinking of joining one that will provide eggs and any meat I could want (they are a heritage poultry farm but they have alliances with beef and buffalo farms as well).

Obviously this won't save me money over buying the processed stuff but it may be cheaper than the stuff from organic stores. Even if its a little more, its definitely better for all involved.

I will be doing Farmer's Markets this year as well but have to wait till May for those.

Its only been recently that all our groceries have been conventional and I only did that to get our budget under control. Now that the budget is where it should be, its time to see if I can integrate local, chemical free foods without blowing our budget.

Now if I could just find someone to deliver milk...

I have only done it a couple of times but its annoying when you are trying to pay down debt.

I paid one of my credit cards 2 days too early so now I am also coughing up a min payment for the card in addition to what I already paid on it. Not a huge deal, but annoying. Especially annoying is the fact that if I hadn't checked something else on the website I would have never known.

Of course, the other money issue annoying me at the moment is an uncashed check. I was refunding my firm the unused portion of petty cash for my business trip and its now 2 months later and they still haven't cashed it. Guess I am going to have to ask if they lost it.

So I thought I wasn't going to get a bonus this year so we worked with what we had instead. Aka, I don't need this bonus at all. Not a good thing...

I know a couple of ways of using the bonus that are responsible, such as putting it in savings for future travel, making an extra payment on the debt and adding it to the house downpayment pot.

But I got to say, my friend (shop til you drop type) and even my husband (who feels guilty for agreeing to buy me so little this Christmas *rolls eyes*) are encouraging me to spend at least part of it on me.

Now you see why I take money away from myself before I ever see it. *Sigh*

I give myself an allowance monthly, I don't need this money to splurge on myself. I have plenty in the budget for splurges so that they spread out. I think I may go with my original plan to put it on debt. After all, that will save us money in the long run...

Don't you just hate temptation?

If I am in the mood for shopping (always online since I hate stores) I can put things in my amazon wishlist without actually spending money. Then, I forget about them or wait for them to go cheaper (the latter is especially useful for new video games since paying full price is ridiculous).

Later on, I will go through the list and get rid of the things that were really just a whim (usually takes me 2 months to give something the boot) and I have no buyer's regret because I didn't buy it and I don't feel pressured to buy something because I know the list will remember it for me if I really do want it later.

I get to enjoy shopping online without spending and then later on pat myself on the back when I delete things from the list.

I know some people couldn't do it this way because it would lead them to buy more stuff but I am quite content to window shop without spending so it works for me.

I read a lot of blogs that have no spend days. For me, almost everyday is a no spend day. Its easier to count the spend days. Not that this means I don't spend any money, it just means I usually do it in batches, lol.

However, the batches have been getting smaller. This weekend we went to a play (my christmas present) and we spent $35, which included lunch and dinner. We used to spend twice that on just supper so definite improvement there.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!