Somewhat Of A Resolution

Ever heard of Dave Ramsey? He is a financial guru that has a baby step system to get out of debt. I started reading his books last January and got the inspiration to finally get out of debt and stay that way. David and I haven't been that bad about credit card spending, but we haven't been all that smart, either. What seemed to happen to us year after year is that we would rack up a couple of thousand dollars on credit cards over the year and then pay it all off with our tax refund. We never really had any savings, or when we did, it didn't last long. So we, mostly I, decided to end the cycle. Dave's first baby step is to get a baby emergency fund of $1000, so that if emergencies come up, you don't need to get more into debt to handle it. And Christmas is not an emergency. It happens on the same day, every year. Our e-fund was easy to get quickly because we had some leftover from our tax refund.

The next step is to start a debt snowball and pay off everything else except the house. The credit cards were paid off with the tax return and the only thing we had left was the van. We started paying extra on it and were knocking it down slowly. Then Murphy hit. Our van got totaled in June and we needed to find something else to drive. We found our Uplander for a pretty good deal and financed it on a three year loan. We have been paying extra on it from the get go and are hoping to get it paid off by the end of this year. That's a resolution of sorts.

My goal for this month is to stick to my budget. We went a little overboard at Christmas and our trip to Texas at Thanksgiving, so I am having to make up for it this month. It's kind of my challenge for myself and am making it a game to see how far I can stretch things. I have cut my grocery budget down by about $100 and am meal planning and cooking out of my freezer. Who knew I had so much meat in there? Another thing I have been doing is cooking from scratch. I made rice krispy treats last week and one pan lasted three days. It occurred to me that I'm not saving any money if I make something and then consume it all in one sitting. If I exercise a little bit of will power and ration the treats more, for my kids and myself especially, I am saving by not baking every day and the kids have things to eat. We did the same thing with muffins. I have cookies in the oven right now and am going to see how long we can make a batch last. I think my hips will thank me also.