North Georgia Gal's Financial Awakening

I am preparing to do a fiscal fast. I got the idea from the show Extreme Cheapskates. I am planning on starting tomorrow and going through Friday. The only money I plan on spending will be for gas, which has already been budgeted for.

I explained what I am trying to do to DD and she is on board. So we will see how it goes.

I have had a very good day at work. I cleaned out my in basket. I did some billing. Sorted the mail. I have been a busy beaver. I also got rid of all the boxes in my office. No one told me we were out of trash bags and apparently we are! So I emptied my trash and have nothing to put in my can! URGGGG!

I picked up DD about an hour ago. We are heading to Tumbling.

We splurged and got sandwiches for lunch today. So it isn't a NSD.

For my DD 16th birthday she wants to go to New York. So I have begun to plan this trip for next July. I should be able to save enough for it. We will drive to my sister's house outside of DC and then take the train/bus to New York. We will be there two days, so only one night in a hotel. She is looking into what things she wants to do while there. I want to go to the WTC memorial but other than that I am open to whatever she wants to do. I am looking forward to spending the time with her.

I am going to try to do a fiscal fast next week. No spending what so ever. We will have to get by with whatever we have. It might be difficult with DD because she doesn't plan ahead and might need something like hair bows. We will see how it works out.

I went to the doctor this morning to inquire as to why I have been on my period for 2-3 months straight, with some days be so heavy I Have to change pads every hour. I heard about this prescription that could help with that. The result is that I have to have an ultrasound done on Thursday to see if I have polyps on my uterus. She also had my blood drawn to check my thyroid.(took three sticks to finally get blood!) The copyay was $20 at the doctor's office. I also picked up my monthly prescriptions while I was there. $55. I didn't pick up my thyroid prescription up in case there is a change in dosage.

I have decided that instead of borrowing money from my mom I am just going to wait and pay the mortgage on the second. It won't be too late and I can get it back on track next month.

I have no plans for today. I will relax and watch the football games. Since I have no where to go today will be a NSD.

Tammy asked me on my last post how much I have spent eating out this month. It was quite a high number at $173. I had no idea. Most of it was $4 at a time. I can't believe how it adds up! That was the jump start I needed to get my spending under control.

I wanted to spend under $50 at the grocery store. But then looking at the list I felt it would be more like $100. Well it was $140. I only had $100 budgeted for it. I am now short $109 on the 1st of November. I will probably borrow it from my mom. I get paid on the second so it would only be for one day. I could transfer it from savings account but I am more likely to pay my mom back than myself. I just don't have that much will power.

My sister gave me the $10 for the milk I bought her last week. That will help. I also have two $20 checks that my mom gave my daughter to deposit. I have already given her the money. I took that into account for my balance on the first.

Settling in for a quiet night watching Georgia football. GO DAWGS!

I took today off for doctor's appointments. I had an appointment with my psychologist this morning. Then I drove DD to Kennesaw to have an x-ray done of her stomach area. Still trying to figure out why she has such bad stomach pain. Kennesaw is about an hour away. I stopped to fill up my tank half way there for 3.49/gallon. Still took $54 to fill it up. So my gas budget for this week will probably go over. I also had to pay a $35 co pay at the clinic.

Today was payday but everything has already been allocated. So I have nothing to do. We are going to go to the grocery store tomorrow. I was hoping to spend less that $50. But the list is kind of long so it will probably be closer to the $100 I have budgeted for it.

I have recorded this show after someone on this site mentioned it. I was blown away by how some of these people live. One lady, a cpa, dumpster dives for food. She hasn't bought food in quite a long time. She also doesn't use toilet paper, which seemed to be a common occurance among all the people. One family used fabric that they washed for toilet paper. It is usually the man that is the cheapskate and the wife just puts up with it. Another family made a $96 purchase at a restuarant with loose change. They only go out once a year and use the change each time. This same guy won't buy furniture for his house. They have a card table in the living room and the tv sits on the floor. But he also has close to $200000 in the bank. Another guy bought goat heads for $7.50 from the butcher complete with eyes, teeth and brains and ate every bit of it(except the teeth). I had to fast forward through him eating it as it made me sick.

I did get a good idea from one of them though. About five times a year, they have a fiscal diet. That means that they go a week without spending any money. They live off what they have and just make due. I think I might try this in the future.

Income:
Paycheck 986.00
From DS: 295.00
child support: 339

Total Income: 1620.00

Expenses:
Medical 360
Gas 150
personal loan 200
Mom 150
water bill 67*
rental checking 550
credit card 50
car insurance 271
savings account 100
groceries 100

Total Expenses: 1998.00

Checking account balance: 271.13
Plus Income: 1620.00
less Expenses: 1998.00

Shortfall ------ 106.

*water bill includes water, sewer and trash service

Will try to make up this shortfall by only spending $50 at the grocery store and my prescriptions shouldn't be the full budget amount.

I was looking at my budget this morning and discovered that I failed to include a payment to the credit card this Friday. I only pay $50 a month but that put my shortage on this paycheck to $100. I am going to try to make some of that up with groceries. I plan to stay under $50. We really don't need much. And I think I can make some of it up with my prescription budget. I budget $100 but I think it will be more like $50. Now if I could just get my spending under control. I think I am going to leave my debit card at home unless I have to get gas.

I woke up late this morning and had to rush to get ready. In my rush I forgot to stop and get milk to make my oatmeal. I stopped and got breakfast so I could make it to lunch. I will get my milk this evening so I don't have to worry about it in the morning. I did remember to bring my lunch though.

Our email at work has apparently been shut down due to spamming. Apparently someone got ahold of our email account and has been sending spam. We had to change the email passwords on all the email accounts, scan for virus and spyware and let them know that we had done all of this. It could take 24-48 hours for them to get our email back working. My boss is livid. Fun times.

I ate one of my frozen meals. It is not what I wanted. I wanted a sandwich and salad from Longhorn's. But I resisted the urge and ate my ravioli instead. It didn't hit the spot but will get me through until dinner.

We just discovered that our work email isn't working. I called the hosting company and they are aware and are working on it. I wondered why I hadn't received any response to my emails this morning.

I guess since my email is down I will work on my budget for December. Been putting it off because of Christmas. I am not planning on spending much this year.

I am going to try to get out of the grocery store on Friday for $50. I think it can be done. I have $100 budgeted but really need to stay under that since I am short for the next two weeks by about $20.

Went to the grocery store just to get oj to last until next Friday. I also picked up some milk for my sister. She usually gives me the cash when I deliver it but she didn't give me the cash this time. I know she is struggling right now.

My sister is on disability and never opens her mail. It is spread out on the floor of her apartment. Apparently she was sent a letter in July to renew her doctors statement for her disability. She never got it. So she didn't get the $3000 deposited into her account in September or October. She just discovered it. I would have missed it the day it was supposed to be deposited. She just doesn't keep up with things like that. It is very frustrating. I think she needs to see a psychologist but I doubt she would go.

Since I had to get that prescription yesterday it threw a monkey wrench into my budget. I will only be able to give my mom $150 this payday. Hopefully nothing else will come up.

I filled up my gas tank yesterday for $49.04. I read alot of posts where the gas is over $4/gallon. I feel lucky that gas here is $3.52 per gallon.

Even the best laid plans can fail. I cut myself down to $8 for the week after gas. Then DD calls me to tell me that she has a yeast infection. I have the money in the rental checking so I guess I will have to rob peter to pay paul. I will have to make it up next week.

I took a long hard look at my budget today to try to squeeze out some money to give my mom each month. The only thing I could come up with was to cut my grocery budget to $100 per pay day. It will be tight but I think I can do it. I also adjusted my gas allowance. I have only been using $75 and putting the extra in my savings account, about $30 a week. So i changed my allowance amount to $75. By doing all this, I am able to give my mom $200 a month. Not as much as it should be but I just can't squeeze any more out of it. Maybe in January I will be able to do more.

I have been thinking and it is pretty sad that I can't even pay for the roof over my head. If it wasn't for the kids renting the house, I wouldn't be able to make that payment. So even if I sold the house I am in and moved back to the trailer, I still couldn't make the payment. I have got to get these medical expenses under control. They are killing me.

I got a call from the bank that has my rental checking. It seems that I tried to do a internet transfer to pay my mortgage and there wasn't enough money in the account. I was stunned since I deposited enough money in there yesterday. After some investigation it was discovered that the deposit didn't post. The machine mis read the account number. So that has been fixed and the payment will be applied.

I finally opened the box of clothes that my sister sent me. There must have been at least 10 pairs of jeans/pants. And they all fit. They are two sizes smaller than the jeans I have. Saves me from having to buy more jeans. And most of them don't need to be hemmed either. SCORE!

I just couldn't get myself motivated this morning to get going and out of the house. I didn't sleep good at all last night...couldn't get to sleep. So I decided to work from home today. Been pretty busy so that is good.

I made the deposit today and paid the past due mortgage payment. That is completely caught up and I already have the money for the payment on the 15th.

The children's hospital called today and I set up payment arrangements. I was paying $100 per month on one bill but now I am paying $200 for both bills. It will take forever to get the $3000 paid off, but at least they are taking payments.

I have to take my sister some milk when I pick up DD from school. Otherwise it is a NSD. She should give me the cash for it when I take it to her. But I think her checking account may have been frozen by the IRS again. I thought she was taking care of that but apparently not. So glad I have always paid my taxes and taken care of that.

I caved yesterday and turned the heat on. It was 64 degrees in the house so I turned it to take the chill out of the house. I also put the heating blanket on my bed, which made me to hot last night. I won't turn it on tonight but it will be nice to have that extra blanket on.

Today is a NSD. I haven't left the house. I took the day off work. I just needed an extra day to get ready for the work week. Since I didn't use any gas today I probably won't need to fill up tomorrow. Will have lots left in my gas budget to transfer to the online savings account.

Not too much to report here. It was almost a NSD until I needed to get $10 for DD. She got a check from my mom for $20 and she needed me to cash it for her. She owes me some money so she only got $10 of it. But unfortunately you can't get $10 at the atm so we went to Food Lion and purchased a kit kat bar and got $10 back. We are now back home and I am watching a football game. Love my football. Falcons won this week making them 5-0 for the first time in their history. Georgia lost miserably to South Carolina.

My mom gave me the money today to get my mortgage caught up. She was worried that she only has 3 checks left. I suggested that I just go to the bank and take out the money but she didn't want to do that in case some of my siblings(brother) looked into her finances she didn't want them thinking that I did this without her authorization. It is sad that when she dies there is going to be a fight with my brother. My parents have provided him with a place to live on I think 3 acres and he still wants more. My mom has some land to sell and he thinks that she should give it to him. I just can't believe how ungrateful he is.

Anyway...Since I made a mortgage payment yesterday I only owe one past due. So I will use the rest of the money to cover the health insurance for DD since my child support will be a day late due to the holiday tomorrow. I will then transfer the money back to the rental checking. It will all work out.

I resisted the urge to go to Taco Bell for dinner. Instead I came home and ate a PB&J.

We only spent $96 at the grocery store. Don't feel like we got much groceries for that. We had to get cat food and laundry soap. Plus some other expensive items. The cart wasn't even full. Pretty discouraging the price of things these days. The laundry soap used to be 8. I can't believe it is now 11.

I got the rest of the rent from the kids in the other house. I did a transfer online to make the mortgage payment. First time I was able to do it like that. I usually have to make a deposit into the rental checking and write a check out of the rental checking for the payment. This time...all the money was in the bank and I was able to just do a transfer. So simple.

I am having a pitiful me day. I broke down and asked my mom to help me get the mortgage caught up. I told her that I would pay her $50 a payday to get it paid back but she told me to put that money toward DD insurance. I just feel like a total failure that I can't take care of myself and have to rely on my retired mom whose income was cut in half when my dad died. Don't get me wrong I am grateful for everything she does for me. I just wish that I was able to contribute to my own well being more.

It seems that every year around this time is when I hit rock bottom. Not sure what it is about fall...maybe I have just scraped by barely keeping my head above water and the fall is when it catches up with me.

Income:

from DS for Car Payment- 90
salary - 1079.09
From DS for Rent - 100
Child Support - 339.00

Total Incoming - 1608

Expenses:

Loan from MIL - 100.00
Dentist for DD - 174.00
Cell Phone - 379.24 *
Gas - 200
Groceries - 200
Medical- 546.46
School lunch - 50
Tumble for DD - 55
Savings - 50.00
weight watchers - 42.95

Total Expenses: 1754.70


beggining balance in account - 83.87
pls income - 1608.00
Less expenses - 1754.70

Short $63.83... Will make this up through the grocery and gas budget which I always overestimate.

* ExDH is supposed to pay this but as of today he hasn't. I have it set up to pay tomorrow. I have told him that I am close to cutting the phone off. It would be cheaper to just pay the $10 monthly access fee for the next two years instead of paying for the overages he has caused. He isn't working right now. Not my fault or problem.

The monthly charge for my car insurance came out today. It is $30 more than usual. I called to ask about it and was told that there was an across the board increase in uninsured motorist. I don't want to drop that so I guess I will just pay it. I also asked about taking ExDH off the policy. It would raise my premium by almost $1000. So for now he is staying on it.

Didn't stop for breakfast today. So that is day 2 of not eating out.

Called to get an estimate on how much it is going to be to remove DD's wisdom teeth. It starts at $405 per tooth. Plus the office visit of $90 and the anestia(?). So we are looking at about $2000. I am going to change my direct deposit so that $100 per pay day goes into my online savings account. Right now I only have $50 going into it. It won't give me all the money but it will be a good start.

DD had her dental cleaning today. Somehow it has been 2 years since her last one. Not quite sure how that happened. Anyway, she had no cavaties! And her wisdom teeth don't need to come out yet. At the next visit he might decide that they need to come out but right now they are still too far below the surface. I need to call the oral surgeon and see roughly how much it is to have 4 wisdom teeth taken out so I know what I am up against.

We filled up the car today and it was $41. More than usual because I made two trips to Morganton and a trip to Blairsville for the dentist. I had $74 in the budget so I transferred the remaining $33 to online savings.

I didn't stop for breakfast this morning! That was the first step to not eating out. The first day is always the hardest.

I got a nice surprise in my check this week. They didn't take out my health insurance or disability payments. I found out why and there is a long explanation about 3 pay periods that I can't really explain. But for me it means more money in my check. YEA!!

I have been playing around with the budget feature in Quicken. I love my Quicken and would like to start keeping up with how much over/under my budget items are. I have discovered a few disturbing things by putting my budget into Quicken.

I have found that my grocery budget is pretty close to what I spend. Although the big grocery trips have been less than I budgeted for I end up spending the rest of the budget on fill in items. I will need to fix this. According to Quickn, I spend 10.5% of my income on groceries. I would like to get this number down but I don't know what an acceptable number is. Any suggestions?

I also discovered that I spend a whopping 17% of my income each month on medical expenses. I don't know how to make that any less. This is followed up by my mortgage which is 14% of my income. I think that is high for what they say your mortgage should be. Of course this is covered by my rental income.

The bottom line according to Quicken is that I am $400 short to be able to pay all the budgeted items. That is if I have entered everything correctly. It is a pretty bleak outlook...very depressing. I don't know how to dig myself out of this hole. Looking at the numbers I can't even figure out how I have managed to keep my head above water.

At least by looking at it this way I can tell where I can make improvements and what I need to work on.

Income:
Salary - 1960
Child Support - 679.
sale of stove - 400
Transfer from Saving - 200.00

Total Income: 3239

Expenses:

Tumbling for DD - 55
Student Loan - 323.28
Amy - 83.83
Fuel 252.75
Eating Out : 142.33
Entertainment - 17.99
Groceries - 363.4
Car Insurance - 247.87
medical - 898.01
Cell Phone - 28.53*
Utilities: 188.71
personal loan - 200.00
loan from MIL - 100.00
transfer to savings: 85.30

Total Expenses: 3239

* There was a credit issued on my account bringing the payment down.

After looking at the numbers last month, I vow to do better this month. I was horrified at the amount of money i spent eating out. I am apparently not the type of person that can eat out once in a while. It just leads me down the road to more bad habits. My grocery spending was down this month by about $100. I will post the full results for last month shortly.