Coupons Finally!

It has been WEEKS lately where my local Sunday paper has not had coupons, for the past 3 weeks nothing. But today finally coupons, Yeah. My coupon case has become very light so I'm looking forward to coupon cutting today.

Cooking the Debt Away

Ok here I am once again trying to save money through the families food budget. So again no eating out, so far so good, but with getting used to the new school schedule it seems harder than before.

DH just called asking what to bring home for dinner, he knows we have cut out the eating out. Guess old habits are hard to break but I really need him to try a little harder or maybe I need to try harder to not be so frustrated with.

Dinner last night was flank steak so tonight is chicken with a tandoori sauce. Night before last was grilled jerked chicken. Trying to Kees the meals switched up so husband does not get board with having the same meat each night, hope I can keep the cooking juices flowing. Any ideals?

Debt Ups and Downs

So far this week has been good for debt ups and down, lets see the goods:

• DH has not charged anything this week (I'm impressed)
• Both cars still running
• DD decided she did not want to order team photos (really she forgot about it)
• No ordering out
• I did not give in to any labor day sales; this is usually when I get a few pieces to round out my work wardrobe for the year

Now for the bad:

• Still purchasing school supplies, cost another $44.
• DD who is learning how to drive, drove over glass with my brand new tires (today) but so far it looks ok.
• Need to write checks totaling $145 for school (this is public schools)
• Refrigerator still not working properly since Hurricane Irene and our extended warranty is up.

Guess you can only control what you can and work with the rest.

Debt so bad I'm lost

My family's debt is so bad and I don't know what to do.  Tried everything I could think of but we can't seem to make any headway. That is not totally true, we make headway but we loose it 3x faster then we make it. And I am pretty sure the main culprit is my dear husband, he is AWFUL with money. We both believed that if I took over the bill paying (after years of arguing) it would fix the problem. That was a big joke, instead of fixing the problems it seems to have just delayed the downfall and removed my husband from the reality of it and increased my stress so much that my some times tick has turned into an all the time tick. At the same time I am no angel, since my husband seems unable to curb his spending I have been spending a little more than I need.  Getting super depressed again, will write more later....Happy savings

It's Been a long time

But I'm back. It has been over a year and every time I thought we were making progress in a few months we were worse then before. I took over the bill paying a little over a year ago, for a while we did ok. Even started a savings account, we got up to nearly $3,000.  Well all good things must come to an end over the past 3 months I have had to deep into the savings to cover the monthly bills and I can't tell why.

That is not totally the truth, one month we had to make some car repairs about $600. Over all it seems to be a lot of little things and I feel like I have lost an uphill battle that has finally rolled down hill and can't get up.

This is so depressing, I will write more later, I promise right now I need a hot cup of tea.

Cooking to save money

At first it was hard getting use to cooking every day. It was not only the cooking but figuring out how to balance prep time, cooking time and still have time for everything else.

It took a couple of weeks but I think I have finally started to find a balance between finding new recipes of things my family will eat, using crock pot cooking and prepping meals before hand. Tonight I will prep for a meat loaf, it is one of my families favorites.

Medical Benefits and the Budget

It is that time of year again, open enrollment for next years medical benefits. There use to be a time that I could just leave my choices from the current year and not worry about it since the only difference from one year to the next were the premiums. This has not been the case in the past few years. Each year there have been significant changes to the medical benefit options my employer offers, this year is no different actually I think it's more confusing then ever.

Medical Benefits changes - the ones that affect the money
1. cost of monthly premiums
2. Now there is a deductible
3. There is a healthy incentive premium credit

The issue is that my husband and I work for the same company and typically he covers himself and the children and I cover myself, this way we save about a dollar a month. Now we don't know what to do. If my husband covers every one we will be paying more in premiums then if i cover myself (factoring in the premium credits) but we will have a lot less in the deductible area that we are responsible for and a smaller stop loss.

I have been thinking about this for a week and I guess I will be thinking about it for a few more days before we decide what is best.
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Will we survive this credit card debt?

Yesterday we argued again, I have been trying to keep track of our spending by using the online bank account to track discretionary spending. Both my husband and I work for the same company and we each get paid once a month on the same day. This has made tracking expenses, especially for spending extra hard.

Well it seems my husband feels I am nagging him about his spending, in reality I was trying to figure out what the ATM withdrawals he made and check card purchases were for. All I want to do is set a budget before pay day so we can determine how much we can afford to put towards paying down debt. This is the issue we had when I handled the finances in the beginning of our marriage. I figured we would each get an allowance and we would never need to have this conversation again; we just need to be able to determine what we need for what.

After a 20 minute conversation that got got every one upset and totally made me feel defeated and like giving up, my husband looks at me and says that he likes me doing the finances because it makes him think about every dollar before he spends it. Really??? How do you hate it and like it at the same time. I am so tired right now and it has only been a couple of weeks. I feel like throwing in the towel but I know that is giving up on my family's security and future.

Weekend slip I mean trip...

About 3 months ago my husband announced that he wanted the family to travel out of town for the weekend. He was running a race in another city and thought we could have a family weekend and see the sites.

At first I was like OK but once I found out how much we are in debt I was no longer interested in spending the money for a family weekend. At the same time I wanted to support my husband and did not want ANOTHER money argument. So we went on the weekend we did get a great rate on the hotel but had to pay for parking and eat.

I cringe at the amount of money that was spent, not because it was a lot(it wasn't) but I feel in our situation any amount of money is too much. I have decided to swallow this one and be quite, since the trip was planed under 'old management'.

I must say that as a family we have been doing better with our spending in the past week. It has been harder for my husband but we have decided to do allowances, hoping this helps. Will keep you posted.

Moving Forward after Discovering Credit Card Debt

OK we are attempting to formulate a plan for going forward and tackling the huge amount of debt we are in. $100,000 is forefront in my mind everyday ALL day. I feel like a failure and am embarrassed to discuss or tell friends or family. I can only discuss with my husband for a few minutes at a time or he becomes defensive. I feel so lost and alone, really hope keeping this blog helps to keep me sane.

We have attempted to do a budget and I say attempted because it turns out my husbands records are basically non existent. His process was to pay the bills and then shred them, there are no records of anything that was not a set bill, no record of the credit card charges or debit card use or bank withdrawals. Of course there are records of the charges or withdrawals themselves but no records saying what the charges and withdrawals are for.

So we have been able to say what are major bills are such as mortgage, utilities, anything with a monthly bill. But we are unable to determine anything else. At this point I am very frustrated but I do think we will be able to start to dig our selves out of this $100,000 hole...

The $100,000 Credit Card Debt discovery

3 days ago my life changed or better yet 3 days ago I discovered my real reality. My family is $100,000 in debt. That's credit card debt ONLY. Not including student loans, car notes, mortgage or home improvement debt; just credit card debt.

My husband and I both work full time. We have been married 15 years and have two children. On Thursday I was home on furlough and decided to check the balances on the credit cards, just too see what kind of shape we are in. I knew we had some credit card debt but thought we had worked out a plan. My plan was to make a couple of calls and feel good about the progress we were making on paying down the debt. Imagine my shock to discover we had nearly DOUBLE the amount of debt I was expecting.

As I checked the credit card balances and it began to dawn on me how much trouble we were in I went from shock to anger to fear. When we first got married I handled all the finances, while I had nearly no credit my husband had awful credit. But after a couple of years we had cleared up his credit, built up mine and we brought our first home.

With the purchase of a home, my new job of shift work and my husbands new Accounting degree we decided it would be better if he handled the finances. Really he decided and I agreed in order to keep the peace. My way of paying bills and saving had caused SOOOO many arguments and so much bad blood. My husband felt that he was being treated as a child, a poor child at that. I figured he had an accounting degree was very good at what he did so a household budget should be no problem.

Just writing about it is upsetting, I think I will stop for now and try again later.