Mackybethsmommy's Personal Finance Blog

I started really making an effort to stick to my budget in November. Today I was working on it and totaled up our balances due on everything but the mortgage and realized I had paid close to $3000.00 off my debt in a month. It's no where near being gone but it's a good start and I'm psyched about it. Now with my brother starting payment on the trailer and land I'll really be able to see results. I pulled my credit reports two weeks ago and saw a bill that I had forgotten about from 3 years ago. It was only 120.00 but it was negative on my reports. I am happy to say that I paid that off tonight! The agency said they will update my report within the week to say it is paid in full. It's not much but it will definately help my score. Sticking to my budget will get everything paid off in two years not counting my brother's payments. With my brother's payments I can be out of debt except my mortgage in a year. I am still budgeting as if he's not paying us so that I can just throw that money at debt and savings and not become dependent on it for other things. It's like a big old weight has been sitting on me and somebody lifted up just a little so I can take a breath. I can't wait until it's gone and I can breathe freely.

I was talking to my mom about wanting to be debt free and being tired of living paycheck to paycheck. I told her how hard it is sticking to a budget and how I wished digging myself out of this hole would go faster. She looked at me and said why don't you sell your trailer and land? Ummm duh!
Before we bought our house 3 years ago we lived in a town about 20 miles from here. I had bought a half acre piece of land and a mobile home when I was 18 and lived there until we moved in the house. Well when we moved my brother was having financial problems so I let him and his girlfriend move into the trailer for barely any rent. He has since gone to Iraq as a contractor and gotten himself out of debt and also broken it off with his girlfriend. She is still living in the trailer with her son. I never really thought of putting the place up for sale and giving her notice until my mom brought it up. If I sold the land I could have enough to pay off everything but our cars and mortgage and still put a big chunk into savings. We bought a For Sale by owner sign this week and I talked to my bro's ex and she said that she was already looking for some place to live anyways. I hope it sells quickly but if it doesn't it'll be okay since it's not really costing anything but taxes and insurance right now anyways. That's only 200.00/yr. I've had people inquire about it before but didn't sell because of my brother. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and hope that it goes quickly.

I have received 2 different offers from insurance companies this month and each time I called them for a rate quote. I'm happy to say that so far the company I've been with for years is way cheaper than both of them.
I was almost disappointed because I thought hey if I can save even 20 bucks every six months it would be worth switching. My insurance is 200 bucks cheaper than Met Life and 250.00 cheaper than State Farm. It almost makes me wanna kiss the lil gecko from Geico! LOL

I have been doing laundry all day and DH was helping me hang our clothes in the closet. He handed me a pair of cargo pants that I have only worn once this fall and in the leg pocket was 21 bucks. I have no clue how it got there since I don't usually put things in my leg pockets, but I'm not going to complain. This may not seem like much but we were down to $2 for the rest of the week and it's nice to know I won't have to stress about small items I might need. I'm gonna consider this a gift from the laundry fairy. haha

Okay I stuck to my budget this week and now I'm broke. LOL.

I know things have to be tight in order to get caught up we have to tighten our belts. It just sucks.
I keep telling myself it's only a couple of months and then at least we'll be caught up and things won't be so rough. I just don't like it when hubby gives me a look when I say no we don't have the money to go out to eat or whatever. He's being good about it, but I can tell he doesn't care for it so much.
My feeling is I want to be able to get everything paid up and then down so we don't have to worry about our futures. I don't want to be one of those old ladies who have to eat tomato soup because I didn't have the money to pay the electric bill.
Okay I think I've whined enough. I'm proud of myself for sticking to my budget and my guns about not spending money. So...go me!!

I just called the phone company to ask them why they were charging me more for internet services than it says they should. Online it said our internet services should have been 45.99 and we were being charged 55.99. When I asked about it the lady said yes the price had changed and they would update it and I complained that I should have been informed that there was a better deal she not only fixed my bill but gave me and additional 10.OO discount. 20.00 savings per month! Wooohoo!!!!
I will be sure to keep checking up for newer deals from time to time. Never know when you can save money.

From the time I moved out on my own at the age of 17 I have struggled to pay bills. We have been in debt and behind on bills for our entire marriage. As soon as I think we are getting caught up something happens that slaps us right back behind in payments. Not that we are way behind but I can't seem to get bills paid on time. It's more like I am a few weeks behind instead of months.
Today I made a budget that seems to be doable and should get us all caught up in 2 months. I am going to stick to my guns and once we are caught up then I will begin seriously throwing money at our debt. I hate not having money for emergencies and stressing over how I'm going to get the kids shoes.
It's crazy that I should have to worry about this since we make more than enough money to pay all our bills and still have extra. It just seems that trying to get caught up keeps us broke. In reality it's the wasting money on things we don't need that hurts us.
My hubby isn't big on budgeting and doesn't help with bill paying. Today I'm showing him our budget and how much money we waste every month and pushing him to help me get motivated.
With or without him I am going to do this. I know he'll stand behind me all the way though so we'll be fine.