Savin' Moolah!

Hey All,


Okay this post is going to start with some financial goals! We have moved into the house and spent quite a bit of money and I hate to admit but put a quite a bit on credit as well. We love our house but with me dropping down to part time and moving into a house with a lot of projects we have noticed we are a bit strapped and I hate feeling that way! I have always been a saver since forever! By then time I was out of high school I had saved up a few grand with paying all my own bills, counting the fact that I still lived at home...but I also worked at Taco Bell making only a little over 7 dollars an hour. So needless to say I have been in charge of the budgets and the money for the most part in our household. I love my husband with all my heart...but like most guys (not all guys) he didn't even know what a budget was and as long as he had about 20 bucks in his pocket he was happy. So we were pretty much complete opposites when it came to the financials in our relationship. For the last 3 and a half years I have handled the financial goals and budgets..but for some reason it never really worked for us...it was hard to save and it seemed like we were never really getting anywhere. Well it made sense because it was all one sided. I knew what I wanted and what we had to do to get there but never really included him in it. Or would tell him what I wanted to do but never asked him what he thought. Well in a marriage everything should be together...there can't be a marriage without a partnership and without both people working towards the same goal it's hard for that goal to be achieved. So it was time...to sit down and have the financial goal talk. I not only wanted to talk about it but I wrote everything out that we talked about it in steps and put it on our refrigerator to remind us every time we look at it that it's what we both agreed on.

So we sat down and stared at the blank piece of paper I sat on the table...I struggled with starting because I had never really included Ryan in my plans and he was blank because well I had never included him in any financial planning....So I came up with a question that we both answered individually and came up with our financial plan.

What do we need to do to be where we want to be financially?

So we put down 3 different big things that we need to do and then put bullet points of things we need to do to achieve that goal. It looks something like this...

1. No Reliance on Credit
       a. Stop use & Lock em' up!
       b. Change spending habits
       c. Save back that money that we aren't spending anymore

The first idea seems pretty easy...and for us it shouldn't be too bad since we only have one credit card but for a lot of couples out there this will be the hardest hurdle to jump over. A lot of people play there bills with cash and then use credit to do everything else! This will be okay at first but it will catch up to you and probably push you to bankruptcy, something that Ryan and I don't want to ever have to do together. So instead of getting in deeper into credit card debt we are choosing to change now before it gets too bad. The big way to get yourself out of this rut in my opinion is our second goal we made...

2. Start a Savings Plan
        a. Change spending habits
        b. Write Lists Before Leaving the House
        c. Use Cash (other then bills paid online, groceries, and gas)

Change spending habits came up again...because it's the first thing that all couples must do to achieve financial bliss. One of the things that came up for me was garage saleing and The Goodwill and for Ryan it was vending machines and fishing tackle. I always say..."I can have as many pairs of shoes as I want because I buy them for $3 dollars a pair from The Goodwill." This is a bad thought because even though they are only 3 dollars because I'm thrifty its still an over abundance and sometimes a waste of 3 dollars because some go back to The Goodwill. I say people who thrift shop are awesome and it saves you TONS of money...but ONLY if you are buying things that you would normally need or go to the store for. Otherwise you are just spending money for the sake of spending money. Ryan is bad with vending machines he will go through 20 dollars every week or so in vending machines and gas stations. That is not how I want to spend my hard earned money and I found out that he doesn't want to either! So after venting to my wonderful mother a couple weeks ago she told me that she used to have the same problem with my Dad so she would buy the little packs of chips at home and send them in his lunch. The individual packs of chips are more expensive than a giant bag...but WAY cheaper than 75 cents a bag in the vending machine.

How many times have you walked into Target, Meijer, or Walmart, only needing butter and you walk out with...butter, 2 dvds, a new shirt, 2 bags of chips, and a Slim Jim. The total should have been $4 (we buy organic butter) instead it was $45. A $41 dollar difference...for stuff that you didn't even need! Do that a couple more times a week and you could have racked up well over $100 dollars on stuff that you would have never needed to buy. So hopefully the writing AND most importantly sticking to the list will help us with that little problem we have.

Last for this topic is the CASH factor. A ton of people have done and been very successful with Dave Ramsey the envelope system, this is said because scientifically we think more about cash leaving our hands then sliding a credit or debit card. I love using cash...I think about it more. When we are in a store getting something and all I have is cash, I think well I only have $20 dollars so I have to only get what I need and not all that extra crap I DON'T need. Cash=Good. Credit=Mindless Spending.

ACTUAL SAVINGS PLAN: Any excess money before our next paycheck gets deposited into our account will be put into a savings and we will revisit this plan once we have roughly 2 months of emergency fund built.
We both came up with this plan together and that's is why I truly think that is the reason it will be successful.

3. Change of Spending (Habits)
            a. Group Spending (set amount)
            b. Writing Lists
            c. Both people have to be in agreeance for any purchase above $5.00....yes you read right...$5.00
            d. Any large SPONTANEOUS purchase must wait and be revisited in 24 hours before purchase

The changing of spending habits is so important that it ended up being its own main category for our financial goal. You don't change the way you are spending your money...you won't change the financial situation you are in....bottom line. We went with the group spending because neither of us spend money at work (Ryan won't spend any at the vending machines) and it makes you think..if I pull out 5 dollars to buy something that's not fair to Ryan or that only leaves him a set amount to be able to use. Again writing lists....It's just soooo smart....in for one thing...leave with ONE thing! Next, we went with a $5.00 limit because it will start making us think about every purchase we are making instead of just the big ones...and honestly we are a nickel and dime couple not a big purchase couple. Then every once in a while we go CRAZY and buy some huge unplanned purchase when we went in for something minor...this is BAD really bad...if you don't plan for a big purchase it usually means that you aren't aware of your financial situation and you know you have the money now so you buy it not even stopping for a second to contemplate what it could do to you in the future.

So that is that. We aren't hoping that this will work....We know that it will work because we have a set goal and we are going to support each other when the other is feeling weak.

I believe that money can't buy you happiness but having no money and being broke and in debt doesn't lead to happiness either. So we all have to make a choice. What's yours?



----Simple Rose