Sorry that I've been a little slack recently with writing. Work has been picking up and I'm feeling so overwhelmed with all the new stuff and I'm almost done with my third week so I'm not going to be able to say "I'm new and don't know" for much longer.My current project is going okay and the two guys who work for me are nice enough, but one doesn't have much of a clue, but is very good about being consistent, and the other is smart but a spolit little a... Read Full Story

Up until the past few months, my financial situation was not quite as nice as how it is now. At least, I think it's nice in comparison to the situation I was in two years ago.I personally never ran up any debt, but my hubby came with a lot. 39k to be exactly. At the time we were both only making 35k. As you could imagine he was a bit overloaded. This was between 11k in credit cards, 15k in car loan and 19k in student loans. It took us two and a half years to get from that point to t... Read Full Story

So I forgot yesterday when I was doing the budget that February is a bit off since I am only going to get one half of my first paycheck--so I'll get 75% of normal.I really don't like how I get paid every other Friday. Everything else is months based and it's so much easier to budget when your paycheck is too. I think that we are going to keep everything in this month's budget about the same as the normal budget just sans savings. Next month is a three paycheck month and we... Read Full Story

So we know how much we spend--and we know what our goals are. Now we need to figure out a way to combine our dreams with reality. This is the first part of Stage Orange. Make a budget. As you can see, there's a food line item. Eating out goes out of entertainment. Take out goes in the food budget. Lunches packed from home come out of the food budget. Lunches, breakfasts and coffee eaten at work come out of our individual food budgets. Underages go towards our allowances.First, ne... Read Full Story

Here are the goals that P and I set for ourselves at our First Friday Financial meeting. I put the goals next to my motivators. Not all motivators have savings goals. They will come more into play when deciding how to spend my money on my budget in Stage Orange.When you create your goals, don't worry about how you are going to do it, just make goals and then we will figure the rest out, including time lines, later.Family: * Create a larger emergency fund of 10k & put it in an on... Read Full Story

The first Friday of every month the hubby and I are suppose to meet together over pizza to discuss how much we spent on the credit card (we charge everything to it and pay it off at the end of the month so that we can get points), how much more we want to pay down on the condo and how much we have in savings. We also discuss our savings goals.The reason why we picked the First Friday of the month to go over all this is because all the bills have been paid and all the pay checks have come in... Read Full Story

Now that we know what is important to us from yesterday's activity we can try to figure out how to use our money to fulfill those values/ideals instead of spending money to fulfill bad motivations.So my motivations are:Family (humans and my dog)CareerAdventure/TravelHealthComfortSome of my motivations may encourage me to spend money that contradict my other motivations (I want to travel, but I also want to help provide for my family) so I just have to balance it, which we will learn about... Read Full Story

To be truthful, I've always been a list person. I like lists. I like jotting down everything in my head onto a piece of paper. Once it's on the paper it's not floating around in my head. Grocery Lists, ToDo Lists, Goals, Places I want to Visits, Things I Want to Do. There's something relaxing on finishing a list and seeing everything that was bouncing around inside my head in one place. It's steady; it's concrete.You know who you are inside, but until it's o... Read Full Story

Yesterday I spoke about the underlying issues to overspending and under-saving. Now I want to talk about why people tend to dig themselves into a bad financial situation.If you are in bad debt, ask yourself why you kept purchasing stuff you couldn't afford? If you aren't in bad debt, but always seem to be living paycheck to paycheck, you need to figure out why you don't want to save. What does "Retail Therapy" give you that you couldn't get somewhere else? I know... Read Full Story

One aspect of not being in the best place financially that is important to address--but is usually ignored--is why did we get into the situation in the first place? What is the root of the problem?Think about it. You didn't wake up one day and suddenly make loads of financial decisions and then realize the next day that you messed up. It's a gradual process. Knowing where we are at with our money is more than just knowing how much you make, but it's also about knowing how you... Read Full Story