Last Financial Update of 2020

 You may recall that my husband and I have been trying to get out of debt for some time now. It started with  $152,852 in debt in January of 2018 which is when we decided that was enough. You can read about that here. 

We have made some progress and had some downfalls, but we are on the right path. As of today, December 30th, 2020 we are down to (insert drumroll in your head) $85,575. That means that THIS year alone we have paid off ( drumroll again please) $38,269. That's HUGE for us. So how did we do that?

1. COVID helped. 

Covid forced us to stay at home, and I tried very hard to stay out of stores, my husband and I both started working from home around March ( my husband full time) I went to work 1 day a week most weeks, but the gas we saved from his commute was fantastic. We weren't of course vacationing or taking day trips or traveling for anything really. We stayed. at. home. And I rather enjoyed it. I have a few posts from our "early" social distancing days here on my blog if you want to see what we were up to:

Social Distancing Day 20

Social Distancing Day 11

Social Distancing Day 10                 

So all of that did help save us money. 

2. All EXTRA money went to debt. 

We had a few "snowflakes" this year- meaning money we weren't planning on. In the past, we might put half to debt and half towards something else, or half to debt and half into a kid's college fund or something. But this year- it was GAME ON. All extra money went towards our debt. That helped of course with the balance quite a lot. 

3. I picked up some extra work. 

Not a ton, as I still have a full time job, and a family to take care of, but the opportunity arose for me to teach an online course for a Christian University and I applied for it and started in October. So I only taught one course for them this past year, but it went to our debt, and I'm hoping ( and praying) that I get more courses next semester starting in January. I'll know about mid-January if they are going to need me or not. I also have been working on another project ( editing some test bank questions for a textbook published) which I won't get paid for until February. But again- that helps. My husband used to fix personal computers for people he worked with for some side money, but since he has been at home, he hasn't been able to do that. 

4. We stayed on budget!

Cute picture of our rooster for fun. 

For most things... Christmas was budgeted with cash we had saved, and we stayed within budget. We stayed on budget with our groceries and our other spending as well pretty much each month. It's amazing what keeping to the budget will do. 

5. I amped up my Swagbucks and Bing rewards. ( read about those here)

I made more concentrated efforts to earn gift cards, which I saved in our Amazon account and used for things like birthday gifts, school supplies, and things we needed for the house ( exciting items like batteries and light bulbs). So that was super helpful in keeping our budget on par. 

I'm excited for this new year and what it holds. We have been blessed beyond measure and are looking forward to 2021. I do want to add ( and please don't think I'm bragging) that throughout this time we have continued tithing 10% and just have prayed for wisdom with our money and have asked the Lord to help us be good stewards. I feel like he has certainly blessed that prayer and our faithfulness to tithing. 

Debt Free journey update

 Hello friends, 

Just to rehash, my family and I started with $152,852 in debt in January of 2018 which is when I decided that was enough. You can read about that here. 

Since then we have paid off a total of $59,810 which brings our new total to 

$93,042!

We are under the $100k mark which is fabulous and I'm hoping to get below $90k before the end of the year. 

We are still only spending $400 per month for a family of 5 which includes all the toiletries, food, personal items etc. That's my husband and I, three kids ( 14,13,8)- and we are good eaters! I have posted many of our recipes on the blog and you can find a list on my Recipe page. 

We are very pleased with our progress and wanting to see more progress of course! 

I also have finished my Phd!!!! So will have more time to devote to my blog and I hope to start updating more regularly. I'll post more on that soon as well. 

Please let me know how you are doing. It's been a busy time with the virus and shut downs and my graduation, and several other things but I'm excited to get back to the blogs I follow and updating regularly. 

A note about my freezer and pantry and $100 grocery challenge

Yesterday I posted about my challenge to spend only $100 in January on groceries for my family of 5. I just wanted to expand on that a bit. I'm hoping to keep my spending down in January to jumpstart our debt payoff for the year, but also to eat up some of what is in my pantry/freezer so I'll know what I'm running low on for this gardening season and to be able to defrost my small chest freezer as it's time!

1. We live in an area where I have Sam's Club, Kroger and Walmart available. I prefer not to go to Walmart as it is in an area of town further from my home, it's always super crowded and it's kind of shady. I do go to Sam's Club sometimes but do the majority of my weekly shopping at Kroger.

2. We eat meat, mainly venison (deer meat ) and fish that we catch ourselves. We also occasionally get a wild boar and make sausage from that. I do buy turkey bacon and chicken sometimes, but we don't have any at the moment and I don't see myself buying any during January and my low spend challenge.

3. We were gifted a turkey at Christmas from a man in our church, and although we typically don't buy a turkey, we may smoke it during January and enjoy turkey this month.

4. I can and freeze a lot from our garden during the year. I have a pantry full of pickles, relish, jelly etc. It's hard to make a meal though with pickles and jam/jelly even though they are nice. I can other items as well like pasta sauce, green beans, soup etc. but am running low of most of those. I'm sure I'll use those items up during the month.

5. We have blackberry and blueberry bushes and along with eating them fresh last spring/summer and canning some, I have quite a few berries frozen. I'll use that for just eating plain, muffins, smoothies popsicles etc.

6. We have chickens so will have a supply of fresh eggs all month.

End of the year update: Finances, debt, family and more

Happy New Year's Eve!

I did want to just give an update on a few things going on in our life, and I would love to start updating the site more often. I've tried to clean up the site a bit ( I removed the AdSense for one thing, as I didn't understand how it worked and it looked to clutter up the blog). So as we approach the new year I wanted to share a few updates:

                                                                      Finances:
One of the things I've been open about here is our debt. Which is ridiculous. The last time I posted about it was in October of 2018 which you can read about here.  At that time our non mortgage debt was $144,798. Since then we have paid off $20,484. Bringing our debt down to $124,213. I'm glad that number is going down, however, it needs to go down further. I'm still being frugal, I'm sticking with our budget, but it just seems with 3 growing kids, a home to maintain and my tuition ( more on that in a minute) we did not have a ton extra to save. So for this next year, my goal is to get that number under $100k. So walk with me as we get that number lower!

                                                                    Family: 
We are doing so well. My kids are now 14, 12 and 8 and man are they amazing kiddos. They are doing great in school, and the older two are active in our church youth group, while the little guy is still in the Children's group at church. The 14 year old and 8 year old are taking piano lessons this coming year, the 14 year old has been taking lessons for a while but January will be the first month for the 8 year old. The 12 year old is doing great in her sewing classes- they aren't monthly lessons, but she does take a class here and there when there is one that tickles her fancy. Last night she hemmed a pair of jeans for my uncle and he gave her $3. So she's pretty excited about that.

                                                                   Animals:
We still have a ton of chickens ( not a ton, but maybe 25?) I haven't counted in a while. The chickens are really my 14 year old's thing and she knows their names, keeps tabs on them etc. We are getting some beautiful eggs each day and we enjoy fresh eggs. We still have 3 goats but are out of the rabbit business.

Throwback of my daughter when she was little, but she has always adored her chickens. 

                                                              My school: 
Thankfully, I am about to finish my PhD. I am on the dissertation phase and have collected my pilot data and am about to go into full scale data collection. I hope to be finished by the end of the Spring Semester. I may have to extend my graduation into the summer, but bottom line is that I only have about 3 more hours of tuition to pay, and most of that is paid for with a scholarship. I've tried really hard to get scholarships throughout this process, and anything I've owed, we've cashed flowed. We vowed for no new debt for my PhD- which we stuck to. So after my next tuition bill we will be finished paying for that and that money can be put somewhere else. I've also had to travel pretty often to the university, which was costly for plane tickets, hotels etc. So after one more trip ( to defend my dissertation) that expense will be finished as well!

I am starting a Pantry Challenge tomorrow, with my grocery budget being only $100 for the month of January ( and I haven't bought groceries in almost a week already) so that will help clean my freezer out and plan for what food(s) we need to plant and put up this gardening season. Read more about that in the coming days.

How has your year been? I'm excited to get back to visit with you guys!

This is the post I hate to write.... how much debt do we have??

Oh. My. Goodness.

If you have followed me for very long you may recall that we are up to our eyeballs in debt.

I've debated putting out here how much we owe- but I have a feeling someone else may be struggling with debt as well. I hope it's not to the magnitude that ours is- but I have a feeling some of you may be struggling yourself.

So on December 31, 2017 we started with:

$152, 852 worth of debt.

$152,852


This is NON Mortgage debt people. Sigh.

Even though I thought we were frugal  over the last few years - we weren't seeing any progress. So starting Jan 1st 2018 we did a budget ( www.everydollar.com) followed it and did not buy ANYTHING at all we did not need. I have another post coming up about that soon, but just know that as of today January 31st- one month later we have paid off $1662!

$1662

That brings our non mortgage debt down to $151,378. It seems like only a drop in the bucket- but we have paid off more in one month than we did all of last year. That makes me both nauseated and hopeful all at once.

$151,378

It's our first month and I realize that 30 days isn't that big of a deal but it does give me a glimmer of hope.

Some of you may be saving for a trip, or trying to pay off a loan of some sort, or saving for your kids college- but please feel free to join me on this journey. I'll be updating you monthly on our budget, our debt, etc. It is way outside of my comfort zone to put it out there- but I think I'll be more accountable to you guys and also maybe someone will find some encouragement through this blog.

Follow along guys! It's going to be a journey for sure around the homestead!

January- No Clothes Shopping- complete (almost)

So I have written about our financial distress, and how even though we have nice jobs and nice salaries, we also have a lot of debt. A. LOT. We also got caught up in the cycle of spending money on this we didn't need. I slacked on the grocery budget, I slacked on the clothing budget.
SOOOOO...

January 1 I implemented a NO CLOTHES BUYING MONTH. I actually hope that I can go the whole year without buying myself anything. Not even stuff from the thrift store!!
The kids are a bit different because they are growing. Literally growing like little weeds. So with them I will just try to be extremely frugal with their purchases.

My husband has a super plain wardrobe anyways, and I'm thinking he may need a pair of shoes soon, so he's not going to be in on my little experiment. I do plan on documenting what I actually buy for him though as well.

So even though it's only January 26th so not technically a whole month. But so far this year I have bought NADA. No underwear, no socks, no shoes. Nothing. For some of you that is not a big deal, but for me and my family and me trying to get back into a super frugal habit, it's something. So we'll start with that.

I don't want to be restrictive or have lots of rules. I don't want to wear ugly things that don't fit or aren't comfortable. But what I do want to do is get back into the habit of really examining our purchases. Contentment! Yes I should save money in the mix, but I also want to learn to be content with what we have and not feel the need for more. I want to teach my kids that contentment also.

So what changes are we making?

The last few days I've talked about the Debt pickle we're in, how it happened and why we are trying so hard to get out of it. Today I wanted to just kind of go over the things we are doing to help remedy the situation.

We made a budget. We've "had" a budget before but it was pointless because we never used it. Laughable actually and a waste of paper. So we have a budget for September and so far ( a few days into the month) we are doing okay with it.

There are certain things we can't do anything about; like our childcare. Our son is 4 and has the most amazing babysitter ever. She watches him 4 days a week and my father in law watches him on Fridays. We have to pay her of course what she asks, which is comparable to day cares in our areas and she provides breakfast, lunch and snacks. She's just awesome. We'll pay her until Fall of 2017 when little man starts school...

We got rid of cable years ago, but right now have Netflix, Hulu and Amazon prime. Netflix I think we will keep and I've already paid for Amazon prime for about 9 more months (it's a yearly fee). I checking into cancelling Hulu though. That would save us 11.99 a month.

I've budgeted $450 a month for groceries with NO eating out. I haven't been to the store yet this month ( September) but will have to go soon. Although it wasn't too many years ago I was feeding our family on about $280 a month, but all the kids are bigger now and the costs have went up, so I think $450 is fine. Looking back we were spending at least $600 a month on groceries ( gulp) and between $100-$150 a month on eating out. We didn't even eat out much but with 5 of us, it added up quickly. The sad thing is that if you would ask me how much I am spending a month and I would probably have said oh about $400..... Man I was clueless.


So point being,now we have a plan. We know what we were spending and have ideas and thoughts on what to spend going forward. We also have a plan for saving for my tuition in the Spring which will be due in January and we won't have to put back for the summer since I'll be getting paid all summer now.. We'll need to build up some savings for other expenses like emergencies and such though.

Anyways, it feels good to have a plan. It feels okay to have a start.

Our reasons to get out of debt

So the last two days I've posted about our financial distress situation. I won't rehash that. We've made some super bad decisions....

So what do we really want to do with our lives? With our money? With our family?

My husband and I have always wanted to buy some land up in the mountains. We have a specific little town in our state about 3 hours from where we live currently that we have fallen in love with. The town, the people, the landscape. It's where our heart is. We go there several times a year hiking and such and dream about having land there. Maybe just to camp on, or put a small camper on. Maybe to build a home on one day. But we want some land there.

We want a small creek, and it needs a well, and acreage for the kids to play on, and room for a few animals. We want to be remote, and not see another person or home from our place.

There is a small college about 30 minutes from there that has the program that I teach in, so it's possible that I could get a job there and my husband does computer-y type stuff so he might be able to work from home. A lot of ifs but it gives us something to think about. Perhaps we just weekend up there, and the kids and I say there in the summer and my husband come up after work on Fridays. We've talked a lot about this imaginary piece of land we want. But I think it energizes us. It gives us something to look forward to.

We were hoping to be able to buy some land within 4-5 years but I'm thinking now it may be 7-8 years. The problem is that it will be a big fat never though if we don't do something about it today. We have to get debt paid off and get some savings built up. I honestly think if we work super super hard and stay focused it could still be within 4-5 years. I hope that motivates us to really get moving on this debt needle.

Besides that dream, we need to be better role models for our kids. They aren't super greedy or materialistic, but I also don't think we've taught them about money as well as we could have. They don't know that we are having trouble right now, they still have food and snacks and clothes so all is well. But we want to be able to leave them a legacy and to help them be successful.

So what happened? How did we get so far into debt?

Yesterday I talked a bit about our family being in financial distress. It's a hard realization. But I think it's like other problems: until you realize that you really do have a problem, it doesn't seem real to you.

So we have a problem with money. Not necessarily with making money; my husband and I both work hard and have good jobs. We just aren't spending it wisely, and not saving it for rainy days.

We have debt. We have student loans, 1 car payment ( thankfully one is paid off) a mortgage, 2 credit cards, medical bills and a mortgage. Dave Ramsey would say we "are normal". He also would say normal people are broke. Ugh. We are.

The problem really happened this summer. My last paycheck was May 15th. I wouldn't get paid again until August 31st. We had put a little money back for summer, but not near enough for what we needed. I mean what was I even thinking? Why did I not sit down and actually map out how much money we would need? Lesson learned. We were way way short.

Early on in the summer we went on vacation with my husband's family. We do this every other year. My father in law rents the house, we pay for everything else. Although we didn't live it up on vacation, there was the extra expense of gas, groceries and eating out. We spent money that we should have been saving for the rest of the summer. I'm just being honest here guys, we messed up.

I took two classes towards my PhD this summer, and we paid out of pocket. Although, I'm thankful we had that money we could put towards my education without additional debt, we should have saved more.

Things like our mortgage and electric bill needed to be paid, but we didn't have enough to cover it from my husband's checks, so out comes the credit cards that we haven't used in sooo sooo long. Ugh.... again I'm thankful we were able to pay, but we are just in a mess.

So we are going to stop digging. That is what it comes down to. We have got to stop getting further into debt.. We have to start making progress and get some savings built back up. Tomorrow I'll talk about our future goals, then I'll talk about things we are doing to hopefully help. After that I'll get back to just posting on the regular happenings around the homestead with some updates thrown in every so often.

Happy Homesteading Y'all.

Financial Distress

Financial Distress; typically you hear that term when describing a school, company or business. However, that is where my family is at this point. Since I do about 90% of the spending in our family, I'll take blame for it, but it's here and it's bad.

I mean we're fine. We just have been super dumb about our finances. So here is the thing; on most things I'm super frugal. I mean we grow a ton of our own food, I can a lot, we have chickens for eggs, we don't buy a ton of extra wants. I thought we were doing good.

But I haven't gotten paid since May 15th ( I work for a university) and even though we had put "a little" back for summer, it wasn't near what we needed, so we got behind on stuff, we used credit cards and it's just a mess. A few things popped up that needed fixing, a few medical bills and doctor's visits came around, my middle daughter broke her glasses and we had to pay out of pocket for a new pair, and we just overspent.

You may or may not recall that I'm about 3/4ths of the way finished with my PhD program and we are paying out of pocket for that. We did have enough to pay for that, as we had a separate account set up for it, but that's just an extra expense we have right now. We both though agreed that I'm so close, that if we buckle down and just save that the small amount I'm paying out of pocket is worth it. Thankfully I receive scholarships for most of it.

So on September 1st ( yesterday) the hubs and I chatted about it. Actually it was quite a discussion for quite some time.... and I think we are both very very committed to getting things under control. We laid out every single bill and payment that we have and discussed. We talked about things we are both doing that are not conducive to the goals that we have. We talked about financial behaviors we have that aren't good for us. It was actually very therapeutic.

So here we are. On Day 2 of our journey. The first thing that I think is helpful is that back before July 1st started I opted to start getting paid all 12 months instead of just 9 months. This is the first year that our university has offered that, and although that means my check is smaller each month, I will get one all summer.

Tomorrow I'll write more about "What happened?" also known as " How did we get here?". It's a mess folks.

Others are no doubt dealing with a realization that the debt is overtaking their life, and I welcome you to follow along on our journey. Some of you have gotten out of debt years ago- good for you! Others may never have bitten the debt ridden apple- even better. I think we can all learn from each other!

Happy Homesteading!