daily diary:my journey from debt to freedom

[claudia715]

hello,
i have decided that if i post a daily diary entry about my frugal doings for that day and any extra money that i have found to go towards our debt, that this will help to hold me more accountable.
today my son(he is home for christmas break) and i went to town. we bought only what was on our list. we had a coupon for $3 off my contact solution and $1 coupon off his vitamins. we were both hungry but instead of eating out we came on home. that saved us about $6.
i have tried not to turn on any lights during the day today. maybe if i can continue to do this it will shave a few cents off our elec. bill.
while we were in town today we stopped by the bank to deposit my rebate checks. i was able to deposit $101. that money will be put towards debt.

claudia

[homesteadmamma]

Claudia, great job. I'll be cheering you on all the way.

[guest7]

Wow Claudia! That is great!!!
I keep an envelope of my receipts. At the end of the week- I'm going to tally up the amount I saved in coupons and rebates and apply that to my debt too!!
Today was not a successfully saving day. Went to the hairdressers and had a $150 highlight, cut and blowdry. That just blows my savings of coupons. But the good news is... I didn't get my eyebrows or my legs waxed. That saved me $70. And, I didn't eat out. $6 saved there. Now if I can only find an alternative to getting my hair done.
I have started doing my own manicures and pedicures that saves me about $30 month.
A little at a time for me. This is a major change in my life.
But I am happy for you!

[claudia715]

hi,
while in the kitchen i thought of something else that i do to save money. we have been buying 2 liters of pop instead of the cans. and for my son who does not drink much pop( he is in preschool), i buy the store brand version of sprite which costs .50 versus $1.25 for a 2 liter of sprite.
i need to start taking the money that i save from using coupons and put that towards our debt. now that money is just put back into the food budget.
2 great places for getting coupons and rebate forms are:
thecouponclippers.com
and
thecouponmaster.com
i use both places to find good coupons. thecouponmaster.com has fast shipping and they will email you when the order is shipped. they usually get the sunday coupons on sat. morning, so you can order them early.

claudia

[guest7]

Thank you! that is a great link!!

[claudia715]

12/22/05
hi,
i will try to post daily but with the upcomming holidays i may not post everyday.
today my son and i are going to go to the second hand store. i love this store but i go to often. i am going to try and go just once or twice per week in 2006. this store has some great prices. the other day i was able to get my son some snowpants for this winter for $1. my problem is i buy to far ahead in sizes for my son. if i see a pair of jeans for $1 in a size of 10 i will buy it and store it for my son. i need to figure out what i have already bought and put in the storage shed before i buy anymore items that he won't wear for a few years.

today i need to work on a menu from what i have in the pantry and freezer.in january i want to get a master menu plan done with 8 weeks of dinners,then alternate the weeks. that way we won't have to much repition of the same dinners. tonights dinner is cincinati chili done in the crockpot. we had spaghetti earlier in the week. when we have spaghetti i always cook some extra noodles. that way later in the week the noodles are already done for the cincinati chili.

having a menu plan done will help with the grocery budget. i will spend less if i have a menu all planned out and that extra money can go to debt.
claudia

[claudia715]

hi,
i am back from the second hand store. i did buy items that my son will take a few years to grow into, but in my defense the store was having .25 clothing sale today. for my son i got swim trunks for this comming summer,a shirt for me, 4 pairs of jeans ranging from a 7 to a 12 in sizes(my son is a size 6 now), a denim skirt for me,a pair of jeans for me,a pair of dress slacks for me, and a shirt for my son that he can wear now.

i thinks i did pretty well for $2.50 spent. you don't know ahead of time when this store will have these sales. it is a suprise when you walk in. i called my sisterinlaw and told her about the sale. she said she was going to go and look around for items for her kids.

i have been doing my laundry in cold water except for the underwear/sock load. that load i do in warm water. i am trying to cut down on the elec. bill. everything in my home is elec. so sometimes the bill can be high. we are on budget pay with the elec. company. we pay the same amount each month no matter what the bill is. then in july, the company adds up what our actual elec. usuage was and subtracts our 12 months of budget payments and then we either owe them or they owe us. hopefully they will end up oweing us. then i can send that money they pay us back to debt.

claudia

[PrairieRose]

Sounds like you're doing great Claudia. Keep up the good work!

Frugalfanny, I highlight my own hair (with prof. supplies from the beauty supply store and a foam cap --- easy to pull through and a crochet hook...costs me about $5 per time and I get compliments all the time on my hair, even have friends that ask me to do theirs) and then I get a $15 wetcut at the beauty shop in town. I always have my style picked out and the hairdresser is always able to do what I want. I have people ask me all the time who does my hair. It's not hard once you get the hang of it. If you have any questions on what products to get pm me.

[claudia715]

12/23/05
hi,
i have been searching the web today to try and find sites about frugal things. i have found these two that look really promising:

simplesavings.com
homeparents.aboutcom/cs/frugalliving/a/frugal2.htm

i will continue my search for more frugal tips, because the more you learn the more you can save.

i finished my menu plan from what we had in the freezer and pantry. we have plenty to last until hubby's next payday.

we usually use the third check that hubby receives in dec(he gets paid every 2 weeks and in dec there is a 3rd check) for house/land taxes. well i have decided to try and save a little out of every check he gets next year and put that towards the land/house taxes.

i am a member of mypoints.com i do their trial offers to get gift the gift cards they offer. you have to make sure that you cancel before the free trial period is up. i did one of the free trial's earlier this year and the reward was a $20 lowes gift card. i am saveing that for part of hubby's christmas.

for the free trials you usually pay $1(on a credit card- i usually use a discover giftcard, that way if i accidently forget to cancel they can't charge me anymore than what is on the giftcard). then after a few days you will either get an email or a postcard in the mail to fill out. you follow the directions on how to get the giftcard. i usually write to the companies to cancel, but can also call them.

i am thinking of using my ing account to save for christmas and land/house taxes during the 2006 year. that way our money can be earning a good interest rate til i need it. if i keep it in the checking account or in the local savings account i will probally spend it.

claudia

[celina]

re" kids clothes too far in advance

the tightwad gazette has a great system...fist off the bigger the item (farhtest away from fitting ) the cheaper you pay..so limit yourself to say 0.25 for anything size 10 and up, also take an inventory....she keeps them on 3x5 cards,,,in her purse...with

pants size 7 3 prs size 8 2 prs...etc.....

and lists all items, so when you catch a deal....you can see that oh my i have 10 prs of sze 10 jeans...so no need for more even if 10c....

i just did it and i love it...

good luck..

and wow, my hairdresser charges me 35$ for highlight cut style and dry.......wow...150.00 glad i'm not that pretty!!

[claudia715]

12/24/05

hi,
i really like the idea about the index cards for my purse with the sizes of clothes that i have stockpiled for my son to grow into. i will work on getting those filled out after christmas.

i have a question about hair do's. i have really thin hair and it is cut short. my hair will not hold a style for very long. i pay $38 every 3 months for a perm and a cut. since a cut is $15 i always wait on a cut til i need a new perm because the $38 perm charge includes a cut. my question is , does anyone know a way to keep a perm in thin hair for longer than 3 months. it would save me some money if i could get my perms to last longer. my neice has very thick hair and she got tired of her perm after 8 months of having curls and had her hair straightened. i wish my hair could hold curl like hers does.

my hubby is getting frustrated with the size of our house.it is a small house but we are lucky to have 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. alot of the small homes in our area only have one bathroom or have less than three bedrooms. we talked about why he wanted to move to a larger house. he said that our small house was not holding all the "stuff" that we had. i started thinking of ways to reorganize the house so hopefully hubby will stop wanting to move, since we can not afford a larger home right now.

i decided that i will take one day per room of the house and clean out the items that we don't use. i started in the kitchen and i could not believe the amount of tupperware and plastic containers that i had that we don't use. i bagged the ones we don't use up and have them ready to give to my mother in law. i also got my bread machine out of the kitchen and i will put it in our storage shed since i rarely use it.

i am really looking forward to the new year. i feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders now that i have a plan of action to get rid of the debt.

since the holidays are here i probally won't have the time to post again til after christmas.

i found a great tip on the web the other day, but i did not want to post it til i havd tried it out. it does work really well. you take a plastic glass and put a small amount of veg or olive oil in it. then you put your razor in the oil blade side down. this keeps the air from getting to your blade and rusting it. it will keep a disposable blade working longer. i have a disposable razor and a reg. razor with a blade. they are both lasting longer than they normally would have.

i hope that everyone has a merry christmas!!!!

claudia

[hollyhill]

Great Job Claudia!
You are well on your way to Frugaldom!
Believe me all those little things make a BIG difference!

[PrairieRose]

Claudia I only have a couple of tips on making a perm last longer than 3 months. 1. Don't wash your hair everyday (I can't stand not to but some people don't have oily hair like I do)

2. Don't color your hair, that relaxes the perm.

Otherwise I think 3 months is a fair amount of time for a perm to last. If you know anyone who can give you a perm (but make sure they really know how) you can buy the same perm. your stylist uses at the beauty supply and save yourself about $30 on one. I give my dmom perms all the time.

[Logansmom]

Hi! On the question about the perm-You my want to have your hair just trimed at the two month mark. It will remove split ends and take some weight off of the curl- that way your perm will last longer- you may be able to stretch it an extra month

[claudia715]

12/29/05

hello,
i did pretty well on my spending while we were out of town visiting family for the holidays. i did splurge and get myself two magazines and i bought my son a 50%off bathtub toy at walmart.

while we were at a relatives house i read an issue of guidepost magazine that had dave ramsey article in it. i had read one of his books a long time ago. this article brought back to my memory about the savings acount cushion before paying alot of extra to debt. i think i am going to change what i was going to originally do with my coupon and rebating money. i originally was going to use it for debt. i think i am going to use it to build a cushion in the savings account first then after i get a cushion established i will put it towards debt. dave ramsey said that if you put all extra money to debt you will fall back into debt when a financial problem(car brakes down,pregnancy,ect) happens.

my family had a very nice christmas celebration. i hope all of you all had a nice holiday also.

tomorrow i will be going grocery shopping. tonight i will go through the pantry and freezer and see what items we need.

i was given this frugal idea from my mother. when you think you have the last drop of toothpaste or hand lotion from a tube cut the end off the tube. you will find lots of product left in the tube. just be sure to put the cut tube in a ziplock bag so it will not dry out before you can use it all up.

claudia