$387.64.

     So this is what $387.64 worth of groceries and super market items look like.  BUT, how much exactly did I pay for all of this?  $134.47!!!  For a total savings of $250.17.  Let me give you a break down of everything I got. 

• 1.15 pounds Perdue chicken
• 2.99/lb with .75/1
• 4 64 oz. bottles of Juicy Juice
• B1G1, $2/4
• 4 Publix Fruit Snacks
• 4/$5 
• 2 Bic Disposable Razors
• B1G1, used 2 $3/1
• 1 jar green olives
• 2 cans black olives
• 4 Emeril ravioli
• 5/$5, used 4 $1/1
• 1 Gallon of milk
• Tyson bag of chicken patties
• B1G1
• Tyson bag of chicken nuggets
• B1G1
• 6.78 pounds chicken breast
• B1G2 @ Albertson's
• 3 bags of Tilapia
• B1G1 @ Albertson's
• 18 pack of Bud Light
• $4 off @ Albertson's
• 4 Voskos Greek Yogurts
• 10/$10, used 4 $1/1
• 1 box of Tampax Pearl Tampons
• $2/1 with $2 RR @ Walgreens
• 1 tube of Fixodent Free
• $3.99/1, used $1.25/1, $1 RR @ Walgreens
• 2 Sierra Mist 2-liters
• FREE with purchase of bag of Kettle Cooked chips
• 2 bags Tostitos chips
• 2 $1/1 Publix coupon, 2 $1/1
• 4 cans of Pedigree dog food
• B3G1
• 4 Glad Oil Twin Pack Refills
• B1G1, 4 $1/1
• 4 Bags Kettle Cooked Potato Chips
• B1G1, 2 $2/2
• 8 Bic Soleil Bella Razors
• B1G1, 8 $3/1
• 4 Colgate toothpaste
• 2/$3, 4 $.75/1
• 2 bags of Pedigree Good Bites
• 2/$6, 2 $1/1
• 2 Bags of medium dentastix
• 2/$6, 2 $1/1
• 2 loaves of bread
• B1G1
• 2 bottles of Excedrin
• B1G1, 2 $.75/1
• 2 boxes of Land'o'Lakes Margarine
• $1.59/1, $1/1
• 2 Publix brand steam in bags of Broccoli 
• 10/$10
• 2 boxes taquitos
• B1G1, 2 $1/1
• 2 5lb bags of sugar
• Publix brand chocolate wafers
• nail polish remover
• 2 packages of Oreos
• 2/$5
• 2 boxes John Frieda Foam hair color
• 2 $5/1 Target coupon, 2 $5/1 manufacturer
• 2 things of Clearisil Face Wash
• 25% off, $3/2
• 2 12 rolls of Cottenelle toilet paper
• $5 each, 2 $1/1 Walgreen coupon, 2 $.50/1

     I shopped at Albertson's, Publix, and Walgreens.  And I still have $3.00 in Register Rewards to use at Walgreens.  I think i might go get some Zyrtec for Scott.  The bold items are things I got completely for free.  I saved 64% off all of these items.  Please stay tuned for my next shopping trip on May 15!!!

     Please know that I use the website I Heart Publix as my main resource.  As well, I retrieve coupons from online resources and newspapers.    

Cutting expenses.

     So I posted earlier about my trip to Germany and putting away my credit cards.  That is step 1 to saving money and getting debt free.  So beyond putting away the credit cards, I must cut expenses.  So here are a few ideas that I come up with to cut expenses and SAVE MORE MONEY.

1.  Clipping coupons.  My goal is to save $200 a month, shopping sales and using coupons during my shopping trips.  And although couponers say that stock piling is important, I will only buy what we need, unless I can get something for free.  So any cash left in my "grocery" envelope at the end of each pay period will be deposited into a bank account or locked jar that I will break prior to my trip to Germany.
2.  I am going to try to only drive 3 times a week.  I will only leave the house other than those 3 days on emergencies.  This will require planning of errands and such around those three days.  (Driving to and from drill will only count as one day.)
3.  I am going to save half of my monthly allowance every month for my own personal spending money for the trip and/or clothes for the trip.
4.  I am going to eat out as little as I can (we all know that we get those urges to go out) and save any money left over at the end of the month into the jar or bank account.
5.  Any other money left over in my envelope system (except hair cut money that must carry over for me to get a haircut) will also go into the jar or bank account.

     Do you have any other ideas that I can use to cut down on expenses every month?  I will add to this list as I figure out more ideas.

Drastic times call for drastic measures.

     So many of you may know and many of you may not, but Scott, Maggie and I are going to GERMANY for 15 days this November.  We are very excited about the trip for multiple reasons.  Mainly because it will be the first time in over 8 months that we will all be together.  Another perk is that Maggie will get to spend her 2nd birthday with her daddy, despite his deployment, IN ANOTHER COUNTRY!  We are also generally excited about spending 15 days in Germany.  A place my husband has ALWAYS wanted to visit and that I am warming up to.
     But as you can guess this trip is going to be expensive.  Even with the deals we are getting, it will still cost a pretty penny.  And I need to save as much as possible for the trip between now and then.  So you must know a few things to understand how I am doing this.
     1.  I am not working, but I am living with my parents.  I will not be working as I will be staying home with Maggie and going back to school to get my MBA.  Going back to school means I will have an income, especially once I pass my PT test in May, but it will not be much.
     2.  I will no longer have to pay my student loans every month because I can defer them because I am in school.
     3.  We still want to pay off debt.  So the more money we save, and the quicker we save it, the faster we can get back to paying off debt.
     4.  While we have a specific amount of money we want to save for the trip.  We are planning to do as much as we can over there that is free.  And if it is not free, we will try to do it as cheaply as possible.  We have a few things we want to splurge on, like renting a BMW to drive on the Autobahn.  We will take advantage of the activities our resort has to offer as much as possible, especially food.  This is so that we do not have to drive anywhere and because we get 40% off of food that is served in one of the resort restaurants.  And so, we will be as frugal as possible and we hope to come home spending less than we saved and will automatically use that money for either Christmas presents or our debt snowball.

     And so, I will admit to you my problem.  Having access to credit cards and money through several accounts.  So today I decided that if I really am going to save as much money as humanly possible, I must lock up any unneeded debit cards and all credit cards.

     These cards are in my husband and I's names, so they are not all mine, but they are all of the ones that I have access to and COULD use.  So these 8 cards went into a sealed envelope.  On the seal of this envelope I signed my name and dated it.  This envelope was then placed in my lock box with all other vital paperwork.  This will keep me accountable.  And I will do my husband proud and save the money we need and pay off as much debt as possible.  This included paying off the balances on our two credit cards before I ever start saving to go to Germany.  

     So I will do this!  I will live frugally.  I will live only on cash and for gas, my gas card.  (I have another post planned on how I plan on cutting expenses to save even more money.)  

     What drastic measures do you do to save yourself money?

Sometimes I wish money grew on trees.

While most people believe that finances are boring, I am enthralled by money and it consumes a lot of my thoughts through out the day.  Over a year ago, Scott and I decided we would get out of debt.  We used Dave Ramsey's 7 baby steps to get us started.  Once we found out Scott was deploying we stopped focusing on getting out of debt and just enjoying our family.  We obviously still paid all of our bills and everything but we used our extra money to go out to dinner, buy deployment stuff, move, et cetera.  But I am proud to say that in 14 or so months, we have paid off almost $15,000 in debt.  We have refinanced two credit cards into a loan to get a lower interest rate.  I hate saying it, but we still have a long way to go.  Over double that.  And I do not include my student loans in those figures.
But I have decided that I am going to become serious about paying off debt again.  So I have decided that from now until the end of April.  I am going to go on a shopping/money spending purge.  I am going to cut way back.  I am going to stay away from Target and IKEA and every other store that I spend money out.  While my spending recently is not "normal" I am afraid that if I don't do a purge, it will become my new normal.  That is will compensate for my husband's absence through an affair with my debit/credit card.
Included in this movement is to go back to a cash only spending system.  And right now I have $12 to spend until April 1st.  Because I spend too much random money recently that I am not going to withdraw the rest of my "allowance".  And on April 1st, I am going to take out less money than I originally budgeted for my allowance.
Because I have hit a point where I really want to focus on becoming debt free, I have made a decision on the job front.  I am going to take any job that is offered, which means that sometime in April I am employed because I received a job offer from the job interview I went to last Thursday.  I hope to find a different job, but a job is a job and it will equal financial freedom down the road (and not to mention a sure fire way to save up money to enjoy Scott's R&R at lovely restaurants, spas, and Disney World).
I hope that a purge will help me get back in the habit of not spending.  Or not whipping out my card for everything.  And I hope that I can get in a better habit of tracking everything that I spend, not tracking well has gotten me in trouble more times than I like to admit.  And so this is going to be a lifestyle change.  I am going to be shedding the bad habits and gaining the good ones.
I will answer to you.  I will answer to this blog.  I will post how I am doing over the next 6 weeks or so.  I will tell you how much I spend and how much I pay off and how much we make.  I will tell you all of this.  Because then I will have the accountability that I need to stay on track.  And I WILL STAY ON TRACK. Because I want to be free from the weight of $32,000 in debt.

So you will see me on two journeys as the same time.  My weight loss journey and my financial freedom  (or the financial freedom of my family really).  And I know I have tried to do this before.  But I am going to stick to this.  I want to go on a really nice vacation when my husband comes home after a year.  CAN WE SAY HAWAII?

Outstanding debt

Currently Scott and I are trying to pay off debt. So I am going to post our current debt tracker to let you see how much debt we are in (yikes), how much we have paid off year-to-date and from month-to-month. I will update this every month just as I update the budget.

Total Debt Total Paid off YTD Difference MTM

January- $46,811.59

February- $45,770.85 $1040.74 $1040.74

March- $43,067.90 $3,743.69 $2,702.95

April- $40,810.58 $6,001.01 $2,257.32

We have also paid of a $79 balance on a student loan that is not included in those numbers. We are getting somewhere!

And you ask how we paid off so much so quickly. We started this process January 1, and with full speed on February 1, and we were therefore able to benefit from a tax refund, a bonus from work, and my annual training pay. We are finding on average we are able to pay off about $200 in debt above and beyond minimum payments each month. After June 15th though, Scott and I have decided we are going to become even more intense and cut out even more expenses (like I already gave up my smart phone and he is doing so in June or July, lowering our cell phone bill).

Just keep up and you will hopefully see how we lower expenses and therefore increase how much money we put towards our debt snowball.

THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING!

May budget

Here is the May budget. Keep in mind we use a zero based budget, meaning we spend every penny we earn, mostly to pay off debt faster than we would without using this method. We are not paying as much toward debt this month as normal, but that is because we have my mom in town and are allowing some extra money in there for that (you know buying dinner for 3 adults instead of 2 kind of thing). But here goes.

		1st	15th	Month
Income		1455	2138	3593
	Income Scott	1455	1455	2910
	Income MGIB		683	683
	Income Carla Drill			0
	Miscellaneous			0
Housing		950	0	950
	Rent	950		950
Utilities		160.49	297.58	458.07
	Electricity	98.09		98.09
	Water	42.4		42.4
	Phone		156.23	156.23
	Trash	20		20
	Cable/Internet		141.35	141.35
Food		0	425	425
	Groceries		345	345
	Eating Out		80	80
Transportation		153	263	416
	Gas	80	160	240
	Car Fund		30	30
	Car Insurance	73	73	146
Personal		30	370	400
	Present fund	30	0	30
	Allowance		200	200
	Scott hair cuts		60	60
	Vacation Fund		50	50
	Diapers and Wipes		60	60
Debts		86.51	782.42	868.93
	Bank of America CC			0
	Wachovia CC	86.51	65.42	151.93
	Bank of America Loan		244	244
	Suzuki		229	229
	Yamaha		244	244
Miscelleneous		75	0	75
	clothes	25		25
	other	50		50
				0
				0
				0
Total Income:		1455	2138	3593
Total Expenses:		1455	2138	3593
Left over for Debt Snowball		0	0	0