My Snowflake Melted!

(photo courtesy of www.stockxpert.com)

I was all excited to snowflake another $100 from my paypal account today. I checked my on line bank account and noticed that my husband had paid most of our bills today. This was as I had expected. But what I hadn't expected was two excise taxes that amounted to $115! I hadn't expected this bill and therefore this expense had not been put into our budget.

So, instead of snowflaking that extra $100, it will go to pay the excise bill. I guess we're lucky to get an extra $100 to offset that unexpected bill.

Need to make sure to plan for the excise tax bill for next year!

Today's Food Spending

$4.02 - Coffee Break (coffee and donuts, too often this month!)
$12.08 - Entertainment Food (brought daughter and her friend to Burger King for lunch)
$25.00 - Grocery Food
$13.80 - Diet Coke (3/$12 plus deposit)
$213.46 - Subtotal for March

Today's Snowflakes

(photo courtesy of www.stockexpert.com)

Just "snowflaked" a little more money towards the debt we are currently "attacking". (We are paying off our debts using the debt snowball method. We are paying our debts in order by balance, from smallest to largest. We are down to our last two debts. A credit card on which we owe $3,000 (which is the one currently under "attack") and our HELOC (home equity line of credit) on which we owe $27,000.

So, today I received a couple of paypal payments that amounted to a total of $159.51. So, I transferred the money from paypal to my bank account and then made an on line payment of $159.51 to our credit card. Our on line bank account even popped up a warning that we just sent this account $22 yesterday and asked if we were sure we wanted to send another payment. Yes! we are sure!

I really like this "snowflaking" method!

Read more about snowflaking at I've Paid For This Twice Already and The Snowflake Revolution.

The Ultimate Credit Card Cut Up Contest

The Penny Saved is holding a Cut Up Your Credit Cards Contest and is giving away several prizes, including two iPod nanos!

This was just the inspiration I needed to take the plunge! Seven cards gone, one to go! (I am holding on to the last card until we have funded our Fully Funded Emergency Fund with the money to cover six months of living expenses.)

We are down to owing just $3,000 on our last credit card (still owe $27,000 on the HELOQ), and expect that card will be paid of in the next couple of months.

I encourage everyone to get out your scissors and join in the contest!

The Snowflake Revolution

I have joined The Snowflake Revolution!

This is a great idea that goes along with the Debt Snowball.

Today I paid our Electric bill. I had budgeted to $187 and the actual due was $165, so I "snowflaked" the $22 difference. In other words, I took the left over $22 and applied it to the debt that I am currently attacking (our last credit card). This is in addition to our normal debt snowball amount (of $1,100).

Little by little, in this way, our debt will get paid off faster!

Why not give it a try?

Braces Update

(photo courtesy of www.stockxpert.com)

Thanks to everyone who commented on my Braces dilemma.

I decided to not pay in full up front for the 5% discount. The reason I decided this isn't really financial. After I thought about it for a while, I started to wonder what would happen if we were unhappy with the services we were receiving or what if we needed to relocate for my husband's job (unlikely, but anything's possible). If I had paid in full it might be difficult to get a refund of any funds. If I pay as I go I feel I have more flexibility. And, there is no finance charge of any kind, so that makes me feel like this is not a new debt.

Today's Food Spending

(photo courtesy of www.stockxpert.com)

$3.56 - Coffee Break (stopped while out doing errands this morning)
$158.56 - Subtotal for March

I did change our grocery budget for this month from $500 to $300. Part of this is just wanting to cut back but also I am not grocery shopping as regularly anymore as I was in the past. I was going grocery shopping every Monday. There are 5 Mondays in March, hence why my original budget was for $500 ($100 a week). Now that I am trying to stretch out between grocery visits and going on a different day each week, plus the fact that I am a stockpiler and have tons of food in the house, I have lowered our grocery budget to $300.

I also got rid of the $80 we had budgeted for March for pizza, as we have not been as regular about that either.

Now, we have already spent over $150 on non-grocery food this month that didn't have its own category in the budget (part pizza, part personal fun money, etc.). So, our total food for the month will probably be very close to the $580 (original $500 grocery plus $80 pizza).

May need to think about changing my budget category names.




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Read more on this topic in Your Money or Your Life (Part 1), The Daily Tracking of Expenses Experiment is Over, and Trouble With Tracking and Yet Another Attempt At Tracking Expenses and Food Spending.

Tracking Spending - Food

(photo courtesy of free images.co.uk)

Okay, as I have mentioned, beginning on March 1st I have decided to track my family's spending on food. The reason I am only tracking our spending on food and not other categories, is that I have found it much too difficult to keep track of all categories. And food is a dangerous area in our family's budget. We usually keep our grocery budget on the low side (we'll see if my beliefs are substantiated with the facts) but have more trouble with dining out, coffee breaks, convenience, and food as entertainment.

So, catching up, here goes:

Saturday, 3/1/08
$20 - Entertainment Food (I went out to lunch with a group of girlfriends, on an overnight trip)
$35 - Entertainment Food (Husband went out to lunch with the 3 kids and another family while I was on my overnight trip)
$30 - Convenience Food (Husband took the 3 kids out to dinner after dd's basketball game)
$85 - Total (Notes: very high for 1 day, especially husband and kids going out for 2 sit down meals in one day)

Sunday, 3/2/08
$0 - Total

Monday, 3/3/08
$15 - Celebration Food (bought a cake to celebrate my sister and my niece's birthdays)
$40 - Celebration Food (pizza for dinner with my family and my 3 sisters, niece, and nephew)
$55 - Total (Notes: now that my parents have moved to Florida, most of my family's entertaining takes place at my house. This could become very expensive but I don't really feel comfortable asking everyone to chip in. Two of my sisters did put in a little cash but most was paid by my family.)

Tuesday, 3/4/08
$15 - Entertainment Food (went to lunch with my sister who was visiting from out of state)
$15 - Total

$155 - Total for 4 days

This is very high for just 4 days. Will need to be careful for the rest of the month!




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Read more on this topic in Your Money or Your Life (Part 1), The Daily Tracking of Expenses Experiment is Over, and Trouble With Tracking and Yet Another Attempt At Tracking Expenses.