I haven't posted anything of substance lately because I have been doing so many incredibly stupid things. Seriously. I can't believe how dumb I have been. I've also been pouring over finance books and working on a budget and trying to figure out where the money is going and how to stop it from going so quickly. I'm a little slow when it comes to financial planning, so it's been taking a while.
So, in the stupid category. I will mention my first completely moronic issue this year. Remember how I raved about Danny Deckchair? LOVED IT! I thought I put it in the lovely Netflix envelope. Guess what? It wasn't Danny Deckchair in the envelope. As near as I can tell, it was Good Will Hunting, one of our most frequently watched movies. So I actually called Netflix, hoping to hear "We'll return that right to you." Nope! They have no idea that the wrong disk was returned. All I can do is return Danny Deckchair. So I got to thinking that they make out so much better on this deal than I do. So far, I haven't returned the movie. The next stupid thing I did is so ridiculous that I will wait the 4-6 weeks it takes to rectify it before I confess.
And in finance. I discovered that we are keeping the house 5 degrees colder than last year and paying tons more money. I don't get it, but we definitely can't afford to keep the heat at 65 anymore. We're getting used to 60 - robes are a good thing. I guess it's colder this year, and electricity is just more expensive. I also discovered we are spending too much on the home phone and internet. I am looking into either dropping the landline to local only or dropping the landline. Hubby wants Vonage, but I'll have to compare. The good news is we will soon ditch Trinks' dance fee of $59/month, just after spending $18 per ticket to see her show. I already spent $70 on the costume and that doesn't include tights. I explained to her that this is her last year of dance. I can't handle the whole routine anymore, and the expense of it pushes it over the edge. But then we have to set up camps. Ugh. I think if we pull S out of daycare and put him in camps, we won't have to pay for so many weeks that he just isn't there. My dream of sending Trinks to horse camp will have to wait. But it's not all dreary news. I am just looking for ways to cut the expenses so we can do more fun things and take more exciting vacations. I am looking forward to a 3 week trip to Greece in about 10 -15 years. I think it's plenty of time for me to learn some basic Greek.
And that's all I have tonight. Nothing substantial, but just where my mind is these days. Now I can go read a trash book. Phew!
Wanna hear God laugh?
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Tell him your plans.
Yeah, that plan I wrote about (at 5AM yesterday) is already out the window.
Yesterday, in addition to my planed cleaning of the kitche...
14 years ago
3 comments:
You've spent your entire life living one way and now you expect to change the way you do things overnight. Change takes time.
When Slick & I first worked on getting a handle on our money, we sat down at the computer w/ a spreadsheet & 3 years worth of finances. We painfully went through and honestly looked at our finances. We included all the little things that people forget like the occasional trip to the movies, Christmas presents, new video games, oil changes.
Only then could we really make the hard choices about our spending.
We then did the same thing with our stuff. We donated bags and bags of books & clothing. Got rid of old computer parts, furniture, dishes, stuff we never even unpacked from when we moved out of our first apartment into our first home.
We then did the same thing with food. The first 6 months of eating better were hard. But, most of the time we actually enjoy eating more fruits & vegetables. I get sick when I eat fast food now.
It's liberating, but it's also taken us 3 years & we're not done.
Don't be so hard on yourself. Or as my wife says, "Eat that Rhinoceros one bite at a time."
Thanks for the pep talk. The slow part is writing the spreadsheet - ALONE! Hubs has no interest in tracking the money, just panicking that we don't have enough. We have enough - he just doesn't want to look at the nitty gritty to find other ways of saving money. I found an easy spreadsheet on either Get Rich Slowly or The Simple Dollar and I am painstakingly using my lunch hour to put in figures to come up with patterns. Once I get this done, I think it will be easy to get Hubby to participate. We're in good shape, bu tI know we could be in better.
Our spreadsheet was painful. I track bills--that was easy. The hard part was going through 3 years of credit card bills trying to figure out where it all went. The end result was fairly illuminating and helped us target the best places for savings--and helped us to curb some laziness-induced spending. (Much of that was "I'm too tired to cook" spending...working on that has also helped our eating habits!)
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