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Thursday, September 18, 2008

Money on my Mind

Hubby and I have exactly $12.26 in our checking account until I get paid on Monday morning. We have food, we have gas, bills have been paid. It's just depressing.

This is my first month with a really strict budget and some pretty aggressive debt repayments. Our minimum payments for all of our consumer debt total $756. We have essentially doubled that to get out of debt as fast as possible. That leaves little money left over for food, gas and fun.

I have come to the realization that eating organic is not that easy on $100 for four people for a week. Granted two of those people (my hubby's kids) don't live with us during the week. So, we will have to rely on Costco and Fred Meyer (a local grocery store I don't particularly care for but has good prices) to get us through the week on our food budget.

There have been some positives though.

1) I have not given any of my money to Starbucks this week with the exception of my Sunday morning treat when I going walking with my friend. For those of you who know me IRL you know I love my Starbucks in the morning.

2) Hubby and I have been packing our lunches the night before and bringing them to work.

3) Hubby and I have not gone out to eat this entire month.

4) I went online to the library website and placed books on hold. Tonight I picked up eight books on the way home from work. That was really huge for me cause I love my books. They are my friends.

This weekend we plan to get some unfinished projects around the house completed and go to a neighbors for dinner. We might even start getting out the Halloween decorations.

It's hard looking at how far we have to go in regards to our debt. I want to have some fun along the way too.

Here's to a great weekend. My hope is to be resourceful and have a good time even if we don't have any money to spend.

6 comments:

small town city girl said...

Monday is right around the corner. Great job on sticking to it!! I'm impressed!

Anonymous said...

Hang in there! You're doing the right thing, even though it's tough. I've been there before and keeping busy with no-cost stuff is the key.

Sallie's Niece said...

You can do it! Eight books sounds like an excellent weekend to me!

paisley penguin said...

Thank you for all the encouragement! Hubby and I did get coffee this morning at Tully's because he found a $5 gift card. We had to pay a $1.57 out of pocket but that is OK as we still have fun money left over.

I had a 50% off an iced drink (I drink those) but it was only good afternoon - bummer.

KrisMrsBBradley said...

It's hard to go all organic -- it's just so darn expensive! At least the local chain stores are starting to get a lot of organics in.

For a while we bought almost all organic food, but it just got too darn expensive. Now we try to at the very least hit the top foods that end up with the most pesticides/hormones: milk, meat, apples, tomatoes/ketchup, potatoes, corn and peanut butter.

Hang in there! You'll be glad you did when you're debt free!

Anonymous said...

You are doing great with your goals! I agree it is difficult to go all organic.