Tomorrow we are going on a spending freeze. Scary but necessary. We will of course pay our bills, buy groceries, gas, all essential things. We will not go out to eat, make any unnecessary purchases, go out for date night, etc.
Looking through our bank account the majority of purchases after bills, groceries and gas are little purchases at gas stations. Pops, snacks, energy drinks, waters. The next biggest purchase are clothes for the girls. The have tons of clothes so why they need more I have no idea. Well both of those things are going out the door!
Right now we are giving it 30 days. We want to start small and whether we continue after the 30 days we will have to wait and see! Also to help keep track of where our essential money goes we are going to start writing down where every penny goes. We need to get on a budget but it is hard to do that when you have no idea where you are spending your money or how much you are spending.
Wish us luck on the big freeze and pray that we are still married after these 30 days lol!
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Goals for 2012
Our family goals for 2012!
1. Buy a new car. We just added our 3rd child this past July. The car I drive on a regular basis can barely contain the 3 carseats we need. And when we turn the baby forward facing in the future they will not fit at all! Plus my car is a 2000 model with over 170,000 miles on it. My ABS light is on and after looking into replacing the ABS system it would cost upwards of $1000. The car is only worth $1500 lol! I am fully expecting to drive this beast until the wheels fall off but I have a funny feeling that the wheels falling off is not too far in the future. And when I say new I mean a new to us car. Not a brand spanking new car!
2. Buy a house! This is obviously our big goal! Right now we are basically renting from my inlaws. They are awesome landlords and we can do whatever with the house. It basically is our house with their name on the mortgage. But it is not our home if that makes sense. We want to live in something that is ours, all ours! We want to be responsible to no one except the bank. Also the area we are in is not our desirable area. The schools are mediocre and the neighborhood is the same. We luckily live on one of the "better" streets but we still do not feel safe with our kids playing in the front yard. Plus there are no other kids around. Our goal house will be 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths. At least 1600 sq. ft. A nice sized back yard for the kids to play in. The husband would love to have some acreage. I also think that would be nice but of course I am thinking of the upkeep of all that land. We are simple and are not asking for much lol!
3. To have an emergency fund. As embarrassing as it is we have no emergency fund. If something major would go wrong today we would have to rely on our parents to help us out. We don't want to do that anymore! We are adults and need to act like it lol! We want to have at least 1 years salary saved up. I stay home with our children so if anything were to happen to the husband we would be up crap creek. We need to have some kind of emergency plan in place.
4. To have a savings account. We also have no savings account. Yes it basically is the same thing as an emergency fund but we would like a savings account for the fun stuff. Right now we do not take vacations or make big purchases. We never have that much money at one time. We would use a savings account as basically a savings for insert whatever fun item we want to do as a family.
5. Disney- We want to take our kids to Disney. They want us to take them to Disney. The fact that we can not take them to Disney crushes my soul. Probably a lot more than it should. When my 5 year old finds loose change sitting around the house and she takes it to her piggy and tells me she is saving it for Disney I have to hold back tears. I know not every child has to go to Disney, heck I never did. But I really want to do this for my girls. I want them to have this memory. We will make it happen for them!
6. We want to instill good money habits in our children. We want them to know the value of money. We want them to realize that you can not just swipe a card and then that item is magically paid for. We want them to save their money instead of spending it. We will be setting up each girl with a savings account and requesting instead of family getting them tons of gifts for Christmas and birthdays to make a deposit into their savings account. When they turn 16 they can choose to use the money for a car and the expenses that a car comes with. Or they can keep it in and when they turn 18 it will be signed over to them to do as they wish with.
7. College. We have talked at length about this. We expect each girl to go to some form of higher education. Whether it be a trade school, a 2 year college or a 4 year college they will go to school to better themselves. We will not be able to afford each girls full college tuition. Nor do we want to pay it all for them. We want them to learn early how to be responsible for their own bills. I know that sounds like a catch 22 for them. Making them go to school yet telling them they have to pay for it. Hopefully by that time we will have instilled good money values in them that they will not even blink an eye at what we are asking them to do lol! What we will do though is set up a college fund for each of them. We will put equal amount of money in each one. When they graduate high school whatever is in that account can be used for college. It can only be used for college. Hopefully there will be enough in each account that it will cover the first few semesters of school where they can then save up their own money for the rest of the semesters. We haven't got as far as what will happen to the money if the child chooses not to go to school. We are just praying that we will never have to think about it because they will all be going!
I am sure many more small goals will be creeping up as we go along but for right now those are the major ones. And I know the big one of being debt free is not on there but to accomplish everything else that one goes without saying lol!
1. Buy a new car. We just added our 3rd child this past July. The car I drive on a regular basis can barely contain the 3 carseats we need. And when we turn the baby forward facing in the future they will not fit at all! Plus my car is a 2000 model with over 170,000 miles on it. My ABS light is on and after looking into replacing the ABS system it would cost upwards of $1000. The car is only worth $1500 lol! I am fully expecting to drive this beast until the wheels fall off but I have a funny feeling that the wheels falling off is not too far in the future. And when I say new I mean a new to us car. Not a brand spanking new car!
2. Buy a house! This is obviously our big goal! Right now we are basically renting from my inlaws. They are awesome landlords and we can do whatever with the house. It basically is our house with their name on the mortgage. But it is not our home if that makes sense. We want to live in something that is ours, all ours! We want to be responsible to no one except the bank. Also the area we are in is not our desirable area. The schools are mediocre and the neighborhood is the same. We luckily live on one of the "better" streets but we still do not feel safe with our kids playing in the front yard. Plus there are no other kids around. Our goal house will be 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths. At least 1600 sq. ft. A nice sized back yard for the kids to play in. The husband would love to have some acreage. I also think that would be nice but of course I am thinking of the upkeep of all that land. We are simple and are not asking for much lol!
3. To have an emergency fund. As embarrassing as it is we have no emergency fund. If something major would go wrong today we would have to rely on our parents to help us out. We don't want to do that anymore! We are adults and need to act like it lol! We want to have at least 1 years salary saved up. I stay home with our children so if anything were to happen to the husband we would be up crap creek. We need to have some kind of emergency plan in place.
4. To have a savings account. We also have no savings account. Yes it basically is the same thing as an emergency fund but we would like a savings account for the fun stuff. Right now we do not take vacations or make big purchases. We never have that much money at one time. We would use a savings account as basically a savings for insert whatever fun item we want to do as a family.
5. Disney- We want to take our kids to Disney. They want us to take them to Disney. The fact that we can not take them to Disney crushes my soul. Probably a lot more than it should. When my 5 year old finds loose change sitting around the house and she takes it to her piggy and tells me she is saving it for Disney I have to hold back tears. I know not every child has to go to Disney, heck I never did. But I really want to do this for my girls. I want them to have this memory. We will make it happen for them!
6. We want to instill good money habits in our children. We want them to know the value of money. We want them to realize that you can not just swipe a card and then that item is magically paid for. We want them to save their money instead of spending it. We will be setting up each girl with a savings account and requesting instead of family getting them tons of gifts for Christmas and birthdays to make a deposit into their savings account. When they turn 16 they can choose to use the money for a car and the expenses that a car comes with. Or they can keep it in and when they turn 18 it will be signed over to them to do as they wish with.
7. College. We have talked at length about this. We expect each girl to go to some form of higher education. Whether it be a trade school, a 2 year college or a 4 year college they will go to school to better themselves. We will not be able to afford each girls full college tuition. Nor do we want to pay it all for them. We want them to learn early how to be responsible for their own bills. I know that sounds like a catch 22 for them. Making them go to school yet telling them they have to pay for it. Hopefully by that time we will have instilled good money values in them that they will not even blink an eye at what we are asking them to do lol! What we will do though is set up a college fund for each of them. We will put equal amount of money in each one. When they graduate high school whatever is in that account can be used for college. It can only be used for college. Hopefully there will be enough in each account that it will cover the first few semesters of school where they can then save up their own money for the rest of the semesters. We haven't got as far as what will happen to the money if the child chooses not to go to school. We are just praying that we will never have to think about it because they will all be going!
I am sure many more small goals will be creeping up as we go along but for right now those are the major ones. And I know the big one of being debt free is not on there but to accomplish everything else that one goes without saying lol!
Introduction!
Well every blog needs an introduction post so here it is.
We are 30 somethings with 3 young kids and we are trying to climb our way out of debt. We both made huge money mistakes in the past that we are paying for now. There are things we want to accomplish in the next few years and until our credit and debt are taken care of there is no way to do it. We also live paycheck to paycheck and there should be no reason for it. We are not accountable to where our money goes. If you ask we both really have no idea!
I am starting this blog to make us more accountable. Also so we can see it all laid out on "paper". Also this is the blog world so hopefully we can gather others tips and inside views of saving and paying down debt.
Join us on our journey to become debt free with money in the bank!
We are 30 somethings with 3 young kids and we are trying to climb our way out of debt. We both made huge money mistakes in the past that we are paying for now. There are things we want to accomplish in the next few years and until our credit and debt are taken care of there is no way to do it. We also live paycheck to paycheck and there should be no reason for it. We are not accountable to where our money goes. If you ask we both really have no idea!
I am starting this blog to make us more accountable. Also so we can see it all laid out on "paper". Also this is the blog world so hopefully we can gather others tips and inside views of saving and paying down debt.
Join us on our journey to become debt free with money in the bank!
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