Simplifying Life

. . . . aaaaahhh . . . . this is always one of my goals for the New Year - to simplify my life. Well, this year is no different. In fact, I think I need it more than ever!

I feel like my head has been spinning for the past several months. Trying to keep up with the schedules and activities of my three daughters, run the household and the budget, and keep my Scrabble Pendant business going - it has been busy, busy, busy.

I often feel an underlying stress pulsing through my body, when what I really crave is peace.

I don't have a set of goals outlined yet, to achieve this simplified life. But I know that I will begin by reading up on the subject.

Here are some of my thoughts in no particular order:

1. I need to improve my Calendar system. I am not prompt in recording things on the calendar and this results in things slipping through the cracks. (And causes much stress!)
2. I am not proactive enough. I leave too much for the last minute. I am overly confident about how much I can accomplish in a certain amount of time, usually resulting in frustration.
3. Frustrated and stressed is probably how my family would describe me a lot of the time - and this is NOT what I want. I want to be a source of peace for my family.
4. My Scrabble Pendant business has been a great source of pleasure and income for me, but I must put limits on the amount of time I spend on it and be sure the needs of my family are met.
5. I must plan carefully which craft shows I will attend, and more importantly, how many craft shows I will attend. Balance is essential.
6. I spend far too much time returning items, or organizing things to be returned. It is fiscally prudent to return items you don't want or need, but this is a time consuming and stressful process that needs to be weighed in terms of costs and benefits. Many returns result from things given to us by others (gifts, etc.) but many are self induced - and I must refrain from making purchases if I am unsure. I want to change my habit from "I'll buy it and return it if I decide I don't need it" to "I'll think about it and come back if I decide that I want it".
7. More attention needs to be paid to planning and reviewing the Budget!
8. Planning meals and grocery shopping regularly will help relieve Dinner Time Stress!
9. A clean (and organized) house goes a long way toward putting me in a peaceful mood. I need to make the time to clean (and organize)!
10. Less stuff means less clutter, less cleaning, less stress!

Well, that's a list that should keep me busy for most of 2010!

What are your goals for the new year?

Hello Blogging World

Happy New Year Everyone!

Sorry I haven't posted in so long. I really can't believe that it's been since November!

Things have been going pretty well. 2009 was a really good year for my Pendant Business. It was very enjoyable and profitable. I am looking forward to growing the business even more in 2010.

My record keeping hasn't been the best during this busy time of year, but I'll post the details when I get all my financial records in order for taxes.

I'd like to keep blogging and hope that I'll find (make) the time to do it. My finances will most likely revolve around my business, so I hope I'll have interesting things to share.

Many of you know that we became debt free in 2009. We are now working on building our Fully Funded Emergency Fund. Our goal is $30,000 and right now we are at $22,500. There is a chance my husband will be getting a very large commission soon that could boost us right up to our goal - but I'm trying not to count my chickens before they hatch.

With all the money I made selling at craft shows over the holiday season you would think that we could have contributed more to our FFEF, but my husband received very little in commission over the past 9 months - so my extra income largely just replaced the commission we had thought he would make.

I think 2010 is going to be a great year! Look forward to sharing it with you all and catching up on what you have been doing.

:)

I WAS ALMOST NORMAL . . .

My it has been busy around here!

I have been super busy with a Craft Show every weekend, and it is only getting busier in the weeks to come when I often have more than 1 show a week - yikes! The shows have been going terrific and I am now averaging over $1,000 per show - yippee!

Unfortunately, we have not seen a great impact with all this extra cash. This is definitely in part because the busier I have been, the less I have paid attention to our money, and unmanaged money has a way of disappearing . . . The other reason is my husband's job. Times are tough there and he hasn't seen a commission in months. So, this extra money in a way has just replaced the commissions we are used to my husband receiving.

We even had to dip into our Emergency Fund this month because my husband mistakenly paid our mortgage payment (online) to our old mortgage company, instead of the new company that we refinanced with. This was a huge hassle and I'm hoping won't affect our credit negatively given that our new mortgage company didn't receive the payment on time. So, in the meantime I took $2,500 from our EF to pay the mortgage while we waited to get the money back from the other company. The check finally came, so I'm hoping to take a look at our budget for November and then transfer the $2,500 back to the EF. Ugh!

Anyway, the reason that "I was almost normal" has to do with my oldest daughter's 13th birthday. She has been wanting a new cell phone and I started to think "well, it is a milestone birthday" and "she does study hard and get straight A's" and "all her friends have fancy cell phones", etc. I actually went as far as making the purchase of the phone with a 2 year contract to the tune of $70 a month!!! and as I was driving home I realized how crazy I was being. (Luckily I had checked and made sure that I had 30 days to return the phone with no charges or penalties.) So, I returned the phone without ever telling my daughter about it. And we ended up getting her plane tickets to fly to Florida to visit her grandparents over winter vacation. She was thrilled and we paid cash up front and won't be adding $70 a month to our bills for the next 10 plus years!

It really is hard to NOT do what everyone else is doing! Score 1 for Financial Peace! :)

The Prioritizer

I learned about this great tool called "The Prioritizer" over at I've Paid For This Twice Already.

The Prioritizer is a calculator that helps you rank a series of goals or options which are most attractive to you.

Here is a list of my goals that the Prioritizer put in order for me:

1.	New Hood for Van	100
2.	New Windows	85.7
3.	New Heating System	71.4
4.	Re-do Bedroom	57.1
5.	Tie: Paint House New Deck Deck Furniture	32.1
8.	New Roof	0

I'm looking forward to using this tool. You should check it out!

Craft Shows

I signed up for 19 Craft shows between now and the end of 2009!! (This is a photo of my booth.)

I paid a lot to be in these shows and hope that I get a really good return on my investment.

I better get really busy getting enough product ready for these shows.

Update

Hello! I don't know why but lately I feel like I don't have much to blog about.

We have increased our Emergency fund to $17,000 - so we are on our way to our goal of $30,000.

I spent the day filling out applications for craft fairs. I hope to do about a dozen of them by the end of the year. It's a bit hard committing to dates this far in advance, and to shell out the booth fees (usually around $100) - but every show I've done so far has been worth it, so I'm hopeful.

I received a payment from Associated Content this week. It was for $6 and some change I think. I really do like getting that passive income, even if it is small. I have been thinking about starting to write a little for them again. I also noticed that several people signed up using my referral link (thanks to anyone who did!) - but many of those people haven't written any content yet (start writing! lol!), although one person has written 39 articles - wow!

I had some fun playing around with this calculator:

You can play with the numbers and figure out hold old you will be when your income from investments will be greater than your income from your job. It's kinda cool.

That's about it. I'll try to update my totals and post some more this week.

Hope you all are well!

P.S. I have been going on the llnoe.com forums a lot lately. Gets addictive!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Just wanted to wish all my blogging friends a Hapy Mother's Day!

We just got back from spending the weekend in Newport, RI. My mother in law has a time share there. She was planning to go but couldn't at the last minute, so she asked us if we would like to us it. I wasn't about to pass up a "free" weekend in Newport.

Well, it's true that we didn't have to pay for the hotel (time share condo), but the weekend certainly was not free. We let my daughter invite one of her friends, so it was me, my husband, our three daughters, and one friend. We brought food for breakfast and snacks but did eat out one meal each day - and it adds up fast! Then we took my Mom out for dinner for Mother's Day today. So, between Friday and tonight (Sunday) we spent $400!! Yikes!!

Also spent a little time discussing money with the hubby over the weekend. I reminded him that we are doing so great and that in another couple of months we will have our 6 month emergency fund fully in place. He said that's fine, but we NEED to replace the windows in our house and "we are doing it this summer!". Um, we can do it once we save up for it I said. Why can't we just finance it he said? UGH!!!

Over two years we have been doing this and he still doesn't see why we shouldn't finance the new windows. sigh.

I can probably stall him on the windows until we have the cash, but it is so frustrating that I can't seem to get him fully on board. Now that we are finally debt free (except for the house) - I never want to get in debt again.

Do any of you have a spouse that is concerned less about being debt free than you are? Any advice for how to convince a reluctant husband?

Grade Your Finances

Check out this cool calculator at CNN Money. Answer some questions and get a grade on your finances. (I got a C+, but this should improve drastically over the next few months.)

How We Divide The Financial Responsibilities

In my family - I am the nerd. I like making spreadsheets of our finances. I like looking at different scenarios of how our savings could grow. This gives me a sense of control and security.

My husband hates looking at the big picture. Or talking about it. Or thinking about it. As long as he has a bit of spending money in his pocket - he feels fine.

I guess he's the "free spirit" - but he is not a big spender. He rarely buys himself anything (where I have been know to splurge on clothes for myself, etc.).

He is also more organized than I am. I don't think he has ever paid a bill late (and I can't make that claim).

So, after 20 years of marriage - we finally figured out what works for our family:

My husband handles the paying of the regular monthly bills.
I handle the long term financial planning (yearly budget, projected savings, projected home payoff, etc.).

How do you handle it in your family?

6 Things About Me

I was tagged by Won't Go Down Without A Fight to share 6 things about myself, so here goes:



1. My husband was my high school sweetheart! It's almost embarassing to have met your husband in high school, but we did. We dated for six years and got married when we were 23. That was 17 years ago!



2. I love amusement park rides. The scarier the better! I never get tired of the theme parks in Florida. We are going in April and I can't wait!



3. I am a self help book junkie. I am always reading books about how to improve myself. I read fiction too and belong to a book club, but non fiction self help is my favorite.



4. I can speak French and Spanish. I spent my Junior Year of college in Paris and spent two summers in Spain.



5. I am one of those crazy Black Friday shoppers that stands in lines at 4 o'clock in the morning. I go with 2 of my sisters and it has become sort of a tradition. The sales aren't usually even good enough to justify the early hour and crazy lines, but it is realy fun in a weird way. Only 4 days away - I can't wait!



6. I am a Diet Coke addict. (Many of you probably already know that.) And I drink anywhere from 6 to 12 cans a day (I am embarassed to say!).



I tag:

Paid It Down And Moving Forward
Nine Circles of Debt
No More Spending

I Like Some Money More Than Others

I have been feeling down because my jewelry sales have been very slow lately. I do have another Craft Show this weekend, so hopefully that will pick things up.

I was thinking about some of the things on my To Do List. I have several items that I need to return. This will put quite a bit of cash in my pocket (or back in the bank), yet I can't seem to get around to doing it. These returns are worth $60+, so I really need to do it.

I was thinking about how much happier I would be with $60 in jewelry sales. I would be psyched. Now, $60 is $60. But it's funny how different it can feel.

Thinking Through A Large Purchase

A few weeks ago our dishwasher broke. It is very old and was beyond repair.

The most frugal thing to do would be to not replace the dishwasher and to wash all the dishes by hand. A very good friend of mine voluntarily lives without a dishwasher. She built a new home about 5 years ago and actually chose not to put a dishwasher in her new home! She says she has always hated emptying the dishwasher and finds it easier to just wash the dishes by hand. So, I guess it can be done . . . just not by me. Although a dishwasher isn't an actual necessity, I personally feel that it is very close to being a need (rather than a want).

So, we had decided we would purchase a new dishwasher.

We just had to decide how much we were going to spend.

If you haven't shopped for a dishwasher in a while, they vary greatly in price and generally range in price from about $250 all the way up to $1,500 and more.

The way I saw it, we first had to think about our kitchen and decide if we would ever do a major kitchen renovation before we could decide which dishwasher to purchase.

Although we have no immediate plan to renovate our kitchen (as much as I would like to), I do dream of a new kitchen. In my dreams, we would enlarge the kitchen (extending into our large back yard) to include a large area for a table (making it an eat in kitchen) and get all new cabinets and appliances. Given our current financial situation and the fact that I would like to pay for my 3 daughters to go to college, this kind of a kitchen renovation is probably unlikely.

More likely, we would update our current kitchen keeping the existing floor plan. We would update all the appliances, the counter tops, and maybe new cabinets (or reface the existing cabinets), and get a new floor.

Deciding on if and when we would ever renovate our kitchen as well as to what extent we would renovate became crucial as we contemplated the new dishwasher.

Basically, we had 3 options to consider.

Option 1 - Real Cheap Dishwasher
My mom was for this option. She felt that we should get a real cheap dishwasher. Then, when we renovate out kitchen (someday) she advised we could just get rid of the cheap dishwasher and put in a nice one.

I thought about this but decided that ideally I would like to do some upgrading to our kitchen within the next 5 years and it would not make any sense to throw out a dishwasher that was less than 5 years old.

Option 2 - High End Dishwasher
My best friend felt we should purchase a dishwasher that would be able to be "integrated" in our kitchen once it is renovated. This would mean that it would be like a regular dishwasher now but when we get new cabinets, the front of the dishwasher would be able to be covered with the same cabinetry as our cabinets (making it integrated). Though I love the look of this, when I really thought about it I came to realize that I don't think this kind of a very high end kitchen is really realistically in my future (given the other financial goals that I would like to achieve). So, I decided against spending over $1,200 on a dishwasher for this reason.

Option 3 - Mid Priced Dishwasher
Ultimately, I decided to get a mid priced dishwasher ($550 after $150 rebate) in stainless steel. I think I will eventually upgrade all my appliances to stainless steel, so getting a dishwasher now that we can keep even in our renovated kitchen seemed to make the most sense to me.

It's funny how much a simple dishwasher made me think about our future financial goals and plans. A renovated kitchen of varying magnitudes has always been a far off dream. Even though the high end dream kitchen was fun to fantasize about, I actually feel more excited about a modest kitchen renovation that could actually happen within a decade.

Contemplating Christmas

I would like to keep the Christmas budget low this year. Actually, I'd like to keep our total Gifts Budget a bit lower than it has been - but I'm finding it difficult.

The problem I am facing is that our friends and family spend too much on gifts. This puts pressure on me to spend too much in kind.

This past weekend I had a joint birthday party for 2 of my daughters that have birthdays close together. The average gift for each daughter was $25, including actual gift cards and cash in that amount.

This puts pressure on me to give birthday gifts and Christmas gifts back to these people in the amount of $25. (Actually, some of my friends have argued that I should be giving more in some cases. They believe that if my cousin, who has 1 child, gives each of my 3 children a $25 gift for their birthday, that I should give that cousin's child a $75 gift on her birthday! This is completely outside of my budget, so I don't even get in to considering this. I would prefer that my cousin got my kids an $8 gift - but how do I do that?)

On the surface, everything seems fine. They give my kids $25 gifts. I give their kids $25 gifts. And everything is equal. The problem is that I can't really afford to spend this much money on gifts. It's not like I take the cash from my kids (even when the gift is cash). The truth is that all the kids have too much money tied up in lots of toys and stuff that they don't need (including my kids). All these $25 gifts add up to a lot of money. Money that I would rather spend paying off debts, putting into savings, paying for my daughters to go to college, investing, etc.

I have tried, especially with my 3 sisters, to get them to give less expensive gifts, but it hasn't had much of an effect.

I know I should just give what I feel is appropriate and that I can afford, and not worry about how much they spend on my family - but that is easier said than done.

C'mon - Win This!

I am doing another pendant give away! And I would LOVE to give it to one of my blogger friends! Won't you guys leave a comment on this post for a chance to win? It would make a cute holiday gift for someone on your list. C'mon! :)

Win This Breast Cancer Awareness Pendant

Hello my blog friends. Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month I wanted to give you all the chance to visit this blog post at Sarah's Surprises for a chance to win this Pink Ribbon Breast Cancer Awareness Pendant.

Just leave a comment on that post. A winner will be selected on the morning of October 13th. :)

Surviving An Economic Depression

Yes, I'm in a little bit of a panic.

I spent the past several hours reading about preparing for an Economic Depression. I know this may be a little premature, but let me tell you, do a google search for "preparing for economic depression" and you will get pages and pages. Many people think this is going to happen.

So, here is what I am thinking about doing to prepare:

1. Stop extra debt payments (as mentioned in my last post). Although many articles I read suggest paying off debts as quickly as possible, I am afraid of being cash strapped. (Of course, if the dollar loses all value, cash won't be worth anything anyway.)

2. Stock my pantry. When I began paying attention to my finances I started with stockpiling groceries. It is a great way to save on food and be prepared for the unexpected. As I have gotten busier I have not stockpiled as much. I plan to start now and fill my pantry with as many non perishables purchased at the lowest price possible. I am thinking: rice, flour, sugar, salt, oatmeal, pasta, tomato sauce, soap, shampoo, toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent.

3. Stock up on water. My husband will think I'm crazy but I'd feel better with 25 gallons of spring water in the garage. I'd also like to look into getting water purification tablets. Can't hurt.

4. Keep some cash in the house. I'm not talking about taking all my money out of the bank, but I think I would feel better if I had $1,000 to $2,000 in cash in the house.

I think those will be my first steps.

Do you think I'm crazy?

Hello!

Hi Everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I have been very busy with the jewelry business!

Check out my guest post on Craft Tutorials for a chance to win a free pendant!

(I start my Financial Peace University class tonight, so I'll keep you posted!)

My New Financial Goals

I have spent the last few days analyzing the financial mistakes I have made over the last few months and coming up with ways to avoid making these mistakes again.

Here is a summary of:

My New Financial Goals

1.- become more aware of dangerous financial situations (i.e. being with sisters)
2.- plan ahead better (especially for next trip to Florida)
3.- start an exercise and diet routine (feeling better will decrease urge to spend)
4.- become better at budgeting
5.- start next year's budget now (and include this years unexpected expenses)
6.- re-take the Financial Peace University class (already signed up - yeay!)
7.- commit to focusing on finances at least once a day
8.- make debt payments at the beginning of each month


To keep these goals in the forefront of my mind, I am adding this list to the sidebar of my blog!

Hello!

We just got back from a trip to Banff Canada. It was lovely. It was a reward trip for my husband's company. If you surpassed your yearly sales goal you got to go with your spouse. It was a very nice 5 day trip. We got lots of gifts and nice meals and even got to spend an entire day at the Spa complete with massage! I felt sooo spoiled!

Then I got a phone call from my sister. (She was nice enough to come stay with my kids.) My 9 year old daughter had a mosquito bite that got infected. They had to bring her to the emergency room because it was Saturday afternoon and the doctor's office was closed. They ended up having to put her on iv antibiotics and even considered keeping her over night! I was so stressed out I just wanted to come home. Luckily they ended up not keeping her overnight, but we wanted to come home. We tried to get a flight on Sunday but it would have been an extra $1,900. As much as we didn't want to we stayed and came back on Monday as planned. I was so happy to be home! My daughter is doing well and the infection is healing.

I'm so happy to be back home with my kids!

Revolution Money Exchange

One of the (few) things that I have done right lately is to sign up for Revolution Money Exchange.

They are running a special where they will give you a free $25 just for signing up! It's great!

If you haven't heard of RME, it is very similar to Paypal (but without fees). Basically it is an on line payment service.

With their special, you sign up for free and they transfer $25 immediately into your RME account. To sign up you need to give them your email address, name, address, phone, and social security number. That's it. Then you get the $25 in your account which you can use to buy something on line immediately! Or, you can give them your bank account information and have the money transferred into your bank account.

I signed up and had my husband sign up and we each got $25. Then I had the $50 transferred into our bank account. A nice free snowflake!

And if you use the RME link in my side bar when you go to sign up, I will get $10 for each person I refer.

I think it's a great deal!