My Official "Fell Off The Wagon" Thread

**MomToTwoBoys** · 09-30-2010, 11:13 AM

So yes, I'll admit it:

I fell off of the wagon.

I think I broke a few bones and severed my purse strings in the process, but overall, it's recoverable. I have good health care.

In the process of renovating the house, we fell pretty hard. We used up all of the money that we'd been paying back to the inlaws, plus incurred some more debt on top of that. To be fair, we weren't going to fix up the house to sell it on just our hopes and dreams. Even those aren't free anymore...

So this is my official "I fell off of the wagon" declaration thread. It's also my "I'm ready to get back on the wagon" declaration thread.

How am I going to do that?

Well, it starts with going back to being on a budget. No more eating out is a starting point for us. Cutting back on groceries is another point for us. How else can I do it?

I'm severing the phone this week. I cut back on my cell phone plan. We've already reduced the energy usage in the house by getting rid of the cable TV in the rec room (which was being left on) and shutting off both downstairs PCs. My credit card (the most affected aspect of our renovations) is being reduced to use only when we have the cash to buffer those charges when they happen. I'm even getting creative with the kids' lunches. We've started getting DS12 to eat his veggies and I decided I was going to stop cooking two meals for one mealtime.

As far as the damage to the credit card is concerned, that'll be fixed when we sell the house. All of the charges that were made that couldn't be buffered with cash will be paid with the profit from the house. I know a lot of people will go, "You should have planned this better." or "You should have used cash." Well, we did... for a large majority of the expenses. We drained the secondary checking account of about $3,000 to fix the big stuff in the house. We were realistic with our situation in that we knew we were going to take some temporary debt. It's not a shocker to us. It's not like we lived outside of our means... we were just simply inconvenienced by forces that we couldn't help.

So now, from this moment on, I'm going back to my frugal ways. I'm tossing my carelessness out of the window and getting back to where I should be.

**rissimo** · 09-30-2010, 11:22 AM

Saw the house, it is really nice. It's ok if you fell off the wagon, you are doing good with getting back up on it...KUDOS to you for that.

**frugal is fun** · 09-30-2010, 01:32 PM

It happens to all of us from time to time, the most important thing is not to keep going. you spent money you felt you had to and you're cutting back in places to help free up money to pay down the new debt.

Now you just have to be diligent and do what you say you're going to do.

**StargateGirl** · 09-30-2010, 01:34 PM

Yar just gonna have to get back up on that wagon

**Palooka** · 10-01-2010, 12:42 AM

You will be back on track in no time.

**MomToTwoBoys** · 10-01-2010, 12:28 PM

I hope so.

We went this morning and cancelled the phone. We also took off a bunch of channels that we don't watch anymore. We saved about $30 a month today.

DH wants to take the kids to Drumheller this weekend for a trip to the museum, but I'm a little iffy on it. I'd rather stay at home and save the money, but this is sadly our last good weekend to get out and do anything. Next weekend, we're heading to Edmonton for Thanksgiving.

So this month alone, I've shaved $60 off of our monthly expenses. Hopefully it'll keep going down, but I have to be vigilant with it to make it stay that way.

QM · 10-01-2010, 12:41 PM

How much is the cost to the museum going to be for your family?

You could drastically cut costs by packing your own lunches, snacks and drinks and bring your own thermos of coffee with travel mugs.

Try to figure out ways not to spend a dime other than going to the museum that day. No impulse-buying treats for the kids. Bring your own cookies for a special snack when the urge to buy them something strikes.

There are many ways to cut costs. We just have to plan ahead and be creative.

**Libby** · 10-01-2010, 05:26 PM

Kudos to you for getting all sorted out on what you need to do to start saving and heading back in the right direction.

As for the museum...sounds like it may be an outdoors type of thing. If it is...I'd say go for it b/c all the kids have known is the we need to stay home to renovate and have less family time aspect. IF the museum weekend thing is going to cost a lot - then yes do not go. Like QM suggested - pack extra changes of clothes, all the food & drink necessary so you can solely focus on paying for admission and necessary costs only.

If the museum is indoors - I'd put it off til cooler weather so when y'all have cabin fever....its a nice outing.

HTH *hugs*

**mslolsalot** · 10-01-2010, 06:07 PM

You could do the walking paths at Drumheller instead of the whole museum. Maybe your kids don't go for that... there's also that little dino play place that opened up down the road. I'd imagine it's cheaper, but we haven't been there.
Frankly, unless the highway construction to Drumheller is much improved this past month, I'd avoid the trip!!

**MomToTwoBoys** · 10-01-2010, 08:34 PM

Originally Posted by mslolsalot

You could do the walking paths at Drumheller instead of the whole museum. Maybe your kids don't go for that... there's also that little dino play place that opened up down the road. I'd imagine it's cheaper, but we haven't been there.
Frankly, unless the highway construction to Drumheller is much improved this past month, I'd avoid the trip!!

I'll let DH know about the construction. I'd just rather stay at home, but it would be good for us to get out.

**MomToTwoBoys** · 10-05-2010, 10:30 AM

We ended up taking the kids to the museum and oy, the construction wasn't good at all. A detour was in order on the way back.

While the trip bit a large chunk out of our budget, it's the first trip we've had like that in a long time. I paid the bills and we both have money, but it's not a whole lot. What's worse is that we're heading to my inlaws this weekend for Thanksgiving, which will suck out another $60 in gas. I am making food before we go, though, and we will eat when we get home. I'll just get some smaller snacks to take with us (like a couple of loaves of homemade chocolate chip cookies and some homemade banana bread might be good).

I'm working really hard on separating my feelings about cash in my checking account so that I can be more vigilant on paying bills again. I've noticed I'm building a hoarder tendency when it comes to cash that I have and I have to stop doing that if I'm going to be successful with getting on budget.

I noticed that the other issue I have is that when I don't feel like cooking, I jump right to fast food. That's biting me in the rear end really hard. I have to stop doing that.

I'm trying really hard to not jump head first into overdraft in either account. I get more money on the 20th and DH gets paid on the 14th. I have school pictures to fund this month (which may not happen, considering that I wasn't impressed with how either kids' shots turned out) and a few presents to get for my niece, so it'll be a rough month. I'm hoping this house sells sooner rather than later so that I can pay off what we put on the CCs and stick a cushion in DH's account. At this rate, Christmas is gonna be rough this year.

I really need to figure out what's zapping us as far as cash goes. I took out $60 and we got $85 credit for taxes this month, but we're still floating the overdraft line on both accounts.