So I haven't updated here in quite some time, at least since February. We finished paying off our credit card debt and are still working towards paying off Hubby's car and are actively looking for our first home. We are looking into buying a townhouse. It has been a slow-moving process. But I think we've finally found a place we like. Unfortunately, the bank won't even process our pre-approval until we have $10,000 in the bank. Right now, we have $8,300ish, so we're going to have to buckle down and save to get it up. But we'll probably be too late for this particular townhome by the time we save all that money. We save about $600/month give or take.

Anyways, we've looked at our budget and cut a few things, but I think we're finally ready. Thank God because I am sick of driving 45 minutes to an hour to work every day!

Hubby and I realized that our budget was not working. I mean, we weren't really trying and we both needed to cooperate in order for it to work. So, during the month of December, we created a new budget. We use YNAB and did a "fresh start". And we are really doing well! The month is almost over and the only thing we've overspent on was medicine, because we both got sick. Our personal funds were dropped from $100 per person per month, to $30. We cut a few things, and it worked out perfectly.

Now, with everything going on, we are very close to paying off our debt. And we are closer than ever to getting our own place. The new budget has been a challenge. I input all our transactions in the software, and it gives us these reports. Basically, we are living within our means now and saving more than ever.

And after I input all the transactions, it automatically updates our budget. And then I email the leftover amounts to Hubby. It's full disclosure. I can't hide any overspending, and he can't claim that he didn't know we didn't have the money in the budget. It's going to work out really nicely. After we pay off the credit cards, we'll finally be able to apply that extra money to saving for our own place. And I'll start putting money away for a new car for myself. In a few years, I expect to be able to buy a better car.

As of right now though, I'll take the little victories.

We're down to paying off our last credit card! I'm so excited!!! After this, we'll be saving a lot more per month and able to go out if we'd like, as well.

Just one more credit card!

My boss and I are going to have a competition to see who can spend the least amount of money throughout the month of September. Unfortunately, my finances include both myself and my hubby and my boss's only account for his actions so we'll need to be extra careful about spending.

I think it's just what we need to get serious about our bad spending habits. We were able to pay down some debt from August to September, but I know we could have done more had we just buckled down and kept at the low spending. The winner gets 100 gold in World of Warcraft. (Yes, I play. Yes, I'm a nerd.) It's less about gold and more about the stimulation of competition for spending less. I'm a competitive person, so this might actually work out for me.

We're doing well saving money lately. But we were really bad and spent money on our credit cards and it put us two months behind. I'm really upset about it. But, we aren't giving up.

We are going back to not using credit cards and only spending money we have and paying off the credit cards. One bad month isn't going to stop us. We are going to continue paying off credit cards. It's just going to take us two months longer and that sucks.

Unless, Hubby can find a full-time job any time soon. Fingers crossed!

Regular payday savings today. I didn't get paid that much, :-/ Hopefully next week will be better for savings. I added $54.54 from my paycheck + $1 for the stock market rise today.

$414.79
+ 54.54
+ 1.00
-------
$470.33

It's been the number one reason I contribute money to savings. So even more money today!

$412.79
+ 2.00
-------
$414.79

Almost there...

Hubby got paid today, so we added money to our savings account.

$350.47
+ 62.32
-------
$412.79

Feels good to see that number climb.

I didn't have the chance to update very much, but I'm happy to report that my savings account is up to $350.47! I get paid this Friday and I'm not expecting to have to buy anything, so that's kind of awesome.

Our original savings was at $176.19. My dad paid me back $160, so I put that into savings. Then, $1 for stocks yesterday, $1 for stocks today. $1 for undisclosed reasons And $3.61 for gas. And another $2 for stocks that I apparently forgot to record. Stocks have been so crazy lately!

$176.19
+160.00
+ 1.00
+ 1.00
+ 1.00
+ 2.00
+ 3.61
-------
$344.80

$176.19
+ 1.00
+ 1.00
+ 1.00
--------
$179.19

Two days of a good stock market and we had a no-spend day. We're looking good now

We've been funneling money into savings like crazy the past few days. I just checked the stock market and it was up again today! So there's another $1 into savings.

$176.19
+ 1.00
-------
$177.19

Added money to savings for gas & stock rise.

$171.54
+ 3.65
+ 1.00
-------
$176.19

Got gas. Added the amount per gallon to my savings account.

436.51
+ 3.73
-------
440.24

We were able to pay all bills from left-over money from this week. Which means all of Hubby's paycheck (most anyways) was put into savings. This is my dream come true!

$231.79
+204.72
--------
$436.51


I love that number!

I've seen so many of you using the $20 challenge and it seems to really work for you, so I did one of my own today! Adding it to my current savings.

Current Balance: $96.75
Addition: + 3.79
New Balance $100.54

I got gas and added how much it was per gallon. Woot woot.

We went and bought clothes with the extra money from my paycheck this week. We needed clothes. The hubby's were full of holes and his jeans were soft. We got him a couple pairs of jeans, a belt, and plenty of shirts. Then, we went into our emergency fund and bought a mattress that we needed. We've been sleeping on a twin-sized mattress together and it's horribly uncomfortable. So, we're happy with our purchase. I'm unhappy spending so much money.

But we've done well with saving and paying off our debt, so I think it's okay. I hope so, anyways.

Our emergency fund dropped $550. But, I'm hoping it'll still be okay.

Paying off our debt has proven easier than anticipated. Quite frankly, what makes it so easy is the burden that is removed each time we pay off a credit card. So we paid off citibank today. We finished saving for the car yesterday and are just waiting for the money to be deposited in our checking account.

I'm interested to see how much we can pay off now that we are down to 4 bills a month.

We've made some serious progress the past couple of weeks. We've saved nearly $200 in the past two weeks alone and we saved a little more that than all of last month. Also, we've got CitiBank almost paid off! And the car fund is almost done. The emergency fund is coming along very nicely as well. I can't wait to see our progress in debt at the end of this month.

We have officially paid off our BP card!

And our debt is down from $4801 at the beginning of April to $4322 to date! I'm very happy about the accomplishments we've made this month.

We are trying to pay off our debt and save money at the same time. We're looking into renting an apartment too. So, hopefully we'll have time to pay off debt and save a decent amount of money too.

Also, we're switching back to using our debit cards. The cash thing didn't work out. We spent even more money than usual. So, back to the cards we go.

I'm am loving my new job. Today was a great day. I'm exhausted though. So, today I made $29 in tips! I added it to my stash, so I'm up to an even $40. I also found $0.12 in total today, which is awesome since I've been hitting a dry spell in finding change lately. I found a dime and penny at the gas station and another penny in the back of the club lounge tonight. I'm still a little nervous about getting through these next couple of weeks without dipping into savings, but, with the way things are going, we should be okay.

I had to buy some work shirts today. I bought some before, but they turned out to be completely see-through. So I have to return them tomorrow before work or Hubby has offered to do it after school tomorrow. Either way for a refund. I also got gas and paid a bill.

We've paused on the snowballing until I get my first real paycheck so we don't get ourselves into too much trouble. I get the last paycheck from my old job tomorrow. We'll be okay this week, we just have to keep it cheap.

We'll see about next week. At least Hubby still gets paid.

I started my new job yesterday. I ended up busing tables at the lounge. It was fine, hard work and I'm tired. I'm doing it again today. Anyways, I'm getting paid $9 an hour, working full time, and now I'm getting tips for busing tables in the lounge. I made $5 in tips last night. Which sucks. I'll aim higher tonight. I'm not sure what to do with the tips. For right now, I'm keeping them in a jar in my room. Any suggestions?

It's being counted separately from the money I find on the street. I'll keep adding the tip money in that jar until I can think of something completely awesome to do with it.

We are halfway through March, here's where we stand on overspending:

Overspent on restaurants by $31.73.
Overspent on miscellaneous by $218.96 (I owed my mom money).
Overspent on pets by $14.


That's it. Restaurants was definitely 100% my fault. I twisted some excuse and realized later. So I can improve on that. I owed my mom money, so that $218 couldn't be avoided, but it's in the budget because it's spent money. And the pets thing was also 100% my fault. I bought my bird a new toy and a water feeder since the vet told me way back when that he's dehydrated and probably just not drinking that much water since it's always available for him. So I bought that stuff, but ended up going over budget.

We've also managed to save $175 this month so far. Yay.

I'm on my second payday while on this website. Put $57.50 towards the emergency fund, which we had depleted last week. Also added $57.50 to the car fund. Paid some debt yesterday: $11.48 to the Chase card that we're currently snowballing into oblivion. So here are my totals for this week:

Car Fund:
2032.68
+ 57.50
--------
$2090.18

Emergency Fund:
0
+57.50
-------
$57.50

Chase card:
194.73
-11.48
----------
$183.25

So this week, we failed. We overspent. And I feel so guilty! We spent through our emergency fund. I told Hubby that we need to have more self-control. I don't want to have the emergency fund in a separate bank because if we need it, it needs to be available ASAP, but we can't continue to spend it. He agrees. We are still not good at this. We have been getting progressively better, but it's a work in progress and this week, we failed.

As far as paying off the credit cards goes, we're doing well. As for the rest of the month, we'll just go on like usual. One date a week. And be much stricter on emergency fund disposal.

We failed. But, I've forgiven myself just enough to sleep at night, but we absolutely cannot let this happen again. It was so irresponsible. This journey is not easy.

One way we're trying to overcome our failure in coming weeks is to have our date nights in the middle of the week instead of directly after payday. We get so excited about payday that we always do dinner the same day or the next day. We will wait until Monday night this week. Hopefully it's in between enough for us to hold off. I guess we'll see.

Every payday, I assess what I need to buy and put the rest into savings, leaving myself with the bear minimum. This week I was able to put away $60. I'm currently doing halfsies. I need to build up my emergency fund, but also need to build up the car fund because hubby's car is crap. So, $30 went to each of those goals.

I love payday and I hate it too. Just as quickly as my money arrives, it disappears. *sigh* Hopefully I'll be debt free soon!

We've decided a number of things. First, we are going to do the snowball method for paying off credit cards. The first card has a very small amount on it. $237.23. It's not going to be easy. I don't really like defaulting to minimums on the other cards, but it'll definitely be faster than what I was going to do. And it makes sense. My husband isn't happy with the idea that we have to pay minimums on a credit card with nearly $3000 on it. That's the last one we'll pay. For the record, I'm a student, which is the only reason I haven't paid off this credit card yet. I bring in, currently, about $600 a month.

The great news is that I just landed a full-time job doing exactly what I want to do! My income will nearly double. My husband brings in the same amount. So, once I start working at this new company in two weeks, I'll start looking at raising the amount we can spend in bills every week.

The other thing is that I want to go on vacation. Since I just started this job, it looks like I'll have to go on vacation next year. Sucks! But I don't want to mess this opportunity up by leaving town for a week. So we will be starting a vacation fund after we get the emergency fund where it's supposed to be this month ($342).

Lastly, we will be starting a retirement fund. I'm going halfsies on all these savings goals. Everything is divided in half with the car fund, which we need to build up as quickly as possible. Hubby's car is pretty awful. My car is fine. After we build up the car fund and buy a car, then I'm at a loss of what to do.

Do I create another car fund? Do I save for a house? Lots of potential in that money, you know? Anyways, those are the strides we've made in the past couple of days.

February was a difficult month, financially. It was tough because we spent so much money. Izzy's car is falling apart, so it's been expensive on that front. We also switched phone carriers, and that was expensive too. At least we can put February behind us and get back on track in March.

March, I'm sticking to the basics. Once a week, we're going on our date, but not eating out other than that. Gas prices are on the rise, so we'll see what happens there. Hopefully, it won't affect how much I have to put aside for gas every week. But let's be realistic. If it keeps going up, I'm going to have to. Sunpass stays the same. Groceries stay the same. The rest of our income is pure savings. Which will be great since we have to buy Izzy a new car soon. That scares the crap out of me.

We have $2k saved so far. Hopefully, we'll be able to get at least another grand before his car dies. We'll see. Right now, he needs a new alternator. And we need to keep an eye on his oil level. There is supposedly a leak. I just don't know how accurate that is.

I'll be looking into saving for retirement too. Izzy has a retirement fund through his job. I don't though. We'll see. We are also down to $4900 (more or less) in credit card debt. I feel pretty low that I can't afford to go out and do the things I see my friends doing.

But I know that at the end of life, I'll have a nice savings, and they won't. So...it is what it is.