Everyday Randomness

It’s All Coming Together

Man when I said I was cracking down on the finances I didn’t realize how much good it would do us.  Over the past few weeks I’ve spent just about every night looking over bills, debts, and the rest of our finances trying to cut corners and pinch pennies at every angle.

We’re not hurting, but we’ve still got way more debt than I would like.  Heck I won’t be happy until we have no debt, but then again who in their right mind likes to be in debt.  I do however feel a great sense of accomplishment because we’ve been struggling with our finances since before we got married.

It seems like the second I get a hold on things something happens.  Someone loses a job, hubby has a motorcycle wreck, hubby wrecks my Saturn, hubby wrecks my Blazer, hubby wrecks something…yeah you see where this is going.  Something always happens to put us a month behind on our bills with credit cards maxed all over again.

Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m older now, and I’ve actually stepped up and told hubby he’s never touching the finances again, but things seem to finally be going my way.  When hubby is in charge of paying the bills, nothing gets paid.  When hubby’s in charge of the money, it disappears.  He finally faced the music a few months ago and admitted that he just can’t handle money.

Me on the other hand, I grew up in a household where every penny was pinched.  Hell my I can’t remember a single day of my life when my dad wasn’t wearing one of those little calculator watches.  It amazes me to see him punching away on those itty bitty little buttons, but the man makes it work!  Numbers are his thing, and he made sure his daughter’s knew how to handle their finances.  That doesn’t mean I always listened, but at least when my money was being flushed down the toilet I knew it!

Anywho, I just spent a couple hours going over all of our finances from the past year.  It has officially been 1 year since the day I decided I wasn’t going to work a normal job anymore.  I’ve had my little side business going since I was 19, but last year I finally up and decided I was making it my full time job.

Between that and the income I earn from my blogs, I still don’t make as much as I did working a full time job, but you know what?  For once in my life I’m happy with my job situation.  I’m happy with our financial situation, and I finally have a handle on things.

When I worked a full time job I was stuck in a manufacturing plant at least 6 days a week, and there were many many months where I worked 21 days straight, had 1 or 2 days off, then worked another 21 days straight.  I barely had enough time to think let alone take care of the finances.  Now I can actually devote the time to taking care of everything.  Hell I realized we spent over $1500 last year just in late fees and reconnection fees because our bills were always a month behind or things were getting disconnected.  A $15 reconnection fee when my cell gets shut off might not seem like a lot at the time, but it’s $15 per line, and I can’t tell you how many times it happened.

The truth is together hubby and I may be bringing less money into the home now, but overall we have more cash now.  We have way more in savings, and we have way less debt.  We have things to show for all the hard work we do now.  Before I was mindlessly working my days away watching every penny we earned get sucked up by this credit card company or that collection agency.

Never again will I allow us to get into that situation unless something well beyond my control happens.  At 26 years old I’m no longer sitting around looking at the houses and cars and toys my friends and family have wishing that could be me.  Now I look at those things, and I tell myself next year I’ll have that piece of land I’ve been dreaming of.  I’ll have that new bike I want.  For once things seem real.

Alright I’m Up!

Good morning everyone…err afternoon. Yes I did just crawl out of bed at 2:30pm, but this time I can say Hubby slept all day, too. We had so much planned to do today, but we woke up at 10 this morning to the sound of a storm rolling in. When I checked the weather last night they were just calling for a bit of rain, but it’s ended up storming most of the day, so we just went back to sleep.

So much for our pretty sunshine and temps in the high 70s. It’s 58 today, and it’s only supposed to get up to 47 tomorrow. Dang it I wish the weather would make up it’s mind!

Anyway Hubby crawled out of bed about 30 minutes before I did and decided he was going to play Frets on Fire. Bless his heart he tried to be quiet. He put on his headphones so the music wouldn’t wake me up, but my god I would have rather heard the music. The constant clicking of the guitar carried all the way to the bedroom, and I finally jumped out of bed and said “Fine! I’m out of bed!”

I’m up, but that doesn’t mean I’m fully awake yet. I’ve got a big cup of caffeine, and I hear the shower calling my name. If I can get this grogginess to go away soon enough we might still make it to our movie date today. If not we’re just going to postpone it once again until tomorrow.

I just hope the little store that carries all the homemade bath and body stuff I like to go to in Anderson is open on Sundays. I really need to pick up some more of my favorite acne wash, but I don’t want to have to make two trips that far.

Getting The Finances In Check

I’m actually glad we didn’t go to the movie tonight. Hubby didn’t get home until a little after 9, so I forced myself to go through bills to get them out of the way. He called before he left work, so I made sure I found out how much his check was this week. I normally know, but because of the weather I’m not sure how many hours he’s worked this week.

His raise wasn’t supposed to show up in his check until next week, but his boss went ahead and gave him .50 of it this week, and he’ll get the other .50 next week. We got our state income taxes back this week, too, so that will really help. We owe federal, but we ended up almost breaking even if we pay the feds with the state money we got back. I only have to add $60 to it, so that leaves the other $600 I had set aside for other things.

Now I’m just debating if I should send it by money order like we did last year or if I should pay it over the phone with my debit card. Paying it over the phone I’ll get the confirmation number and at least know they received it. There’s no way it can get lost in the mail that way.

It’s a good thing I set aside that $600, too. My home business has been a little slack lately. It normally is this time of the year for the simple fact everyone’s buying a new computer with their tax refund instead of crying to me because their computer broke and they can’t afford a new one. By summer things speed back up, and I end up with at least a ton of people needing their systems cleaned up if nothing else.

Anywho, With hubby’s check and the $600 I had set aside I ended up knocking out the water bill (yay I won’t forget about it this month), cell phone bill, car payment, bike payment, car insurance, power bill, and made 2 nice sized payments on a couple of his medical bills. I ended up with $50 left over not counting the cash I set aside for basic living and gas this week. (And yet again didn’t have to touch my Paypal)

I think I might just buy myself a little something to celebrate my new crackdown on bills. I might just take another look at the wholesale fashion jewelry I was checking out earlier. I don’t wear a lot of jewelry, but when summer rolls around I do like to have a couple cute necklaces I can wear.

Then again I’ve already bought myself a couple things this week, but both of them were pretty cheap. I mean when a girl sees a seriously cute tankini already on sale, and she’s got a coupon to get 40% off plus free shipping, she takes advantage of it! Now I just need to buy a new sarong to go with it!  See I don’t hate shopping.  I just hate shopping in brick & mortar stores.  It takes too much effort!

No Movie Tonight…Bummer

It looks like I’ll have to postpone my movie plans until tomorrow. I’d prefer to go to the 4:20 show anyway. That way we can watch the movie and eat at Cracker Barrel before we head home. Plus, it’s over $2 cheaper per ticket.

I mean I really did want to go see Stop Loss tonight, but hubby got held up at work. He still isn’t home yet, and the movie starts in about 30 minutes. It takes 45 just to get to the theater. The next showing starts at 10:25, and I know doesn’t want to go that late. He’d fall asleep in the movie theater.

It’s just as well. I finally did get some sleep, but I still don’t feel like getting dressed to go out. I’m just kind of blah right now. Hopefully if I jump in the shower hubby will be home by the time I’m out. I’m starving, so the sooner he gets home the better.

Then again I could procrastinate like usual. Maybe I’ll sit here until he gets home looking at some really pretty luxury watches that I know I can’t afford.