What was/is your battle plan?

**Momof4cats** · 10-05-2007, 10:30 AM

Plans, plans…..lots of plans, but I haven’t set up plans for ALL of them yet. I’d get overwhelmed, so I’m taking baby steps there too. Right now the plans are: get out of debt, rebuild credit, purchase a house. For those things I’m getting my emergency fund set up and snowballing my debt, plus getting some new credit established. I just got through rehabilitating my defaulted student loan. In about 6 months I should be good to go on a house.

Another thing I’m looking into is a possible promotion at work. If I’m able to secure that, I would be looking at a $424 a month raise.

After I make the house purchase, I’ll have to sit down and refigure the budget, since right now I have a roommate and we share expenses. A biggie I’ll be having to do is save for a wedding (I’ve already started buying stuff on sale).

I would love to have a house out in the country and raise chickens, goats, etc., but I know myself well enough that I wouldn’t be able to kill and eat them. Plus, with the price of gas, I don’t want to have a long commute (have a 62 mile one-way now). Plus, my fiancé is more of a city boy than a country boy. So I’ll stick with suburban homesteading: raising a garden and living as frugally and self-sufficiently as possible.

**Jaded** · 10-05-2007, 11:26 AM

Originally Posted by frugalfarmwife

Giggle, no I got it too, but they just look to much like rats for me. And this out of the girl that just ate squirrel and frog last week

kj

Country rats are really pretty much disease free, and are just as good as squirrel. In Indian, they are a staple food. The people actually go out to the fields and catch them for food. Good for the grain farmers, good for the people.

City rats, now are a totally different animal. I would never eat one of those. Eck! I have heard of people in NY city eating pigeons. The city encouraged it for awhile, because of the overpopulation of pigeons, but then they were afraid of liability, so they stopped.

Personally, I couldn't even eat my own chickens when I had them, so I sold them and bought chicken from a guy down the road who butchered, cleaned and sold them. LOL

I feed my squirrels.

**lwlynch** · 10-05-2007, 11:32 AM

Becareful with the guinea pigs.. I actually felt soooo bad for ours years ago.. I kinda cut back on the heat and they looked soooo cold being separated.. That I put them together...dumbyyyyyyy... we had 14 for years.. I actually had to check and divide by the sex (yucky ).. The last one finally died this summer.. weee... now my motto is nothing but one. We are animal friendly around here too.

**Judi Dial** · 10-05-2007, 11:41 AM

and we all go at the speed we're comfortable (if we can). I have all 3 tightwad gazette books and didn't know about Dave Ramsey until I found frugal village. I'm looking to read the Ramsey book as probably my next step. I'm also considering budgetmap (although I've pretty much made my own) and americasaves (americasaves.org) but they don't have an office where I am.

Good luck!

Judi

**Nada.Leona** · 10-05-2007, 02:37 PM

Originally Posted by steve-in-kville

1- Get organized. Remove clutter. Either throw it out, ebay it, or give it away. Also, organize my financial stuff. Need to know exactly what I got, what its worth and where it is. Keep my desk from looking like a landfill!

2- Enter a debt management program. Did this already.

3- Start an emergency fund.

4- Trim utility bills down, cut back on groceries and start a garden. A little green house sounds interesting...

Am I missing anything?

to the Village to you and your wife!

Sounds like you're doing great! If I may suggest something to add, especially for the purging of clutter and organizing, check out FlyLady -- she's a fantastic inspiration and mentor to those living in CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome). And don't let the mostly women bother you, the advice is great for everyone (though I can't see why it would, since you're here at FV with mostly women!) -- and just like our The Shed, she too has a place for men, called Hey Tom.

There's lots of great programs for getting your finances organized. My partner and I have been using the envelope system for several weeks now with great success -- we are both attending school, and are still able to live off his modest income and my part-time income.

An emergency fund is a great idea. I think the basic idea is to have enough in reserve to cover three months of expenses. I know it sounds like a lot, but it's a very important resource -- you'd hate to lose everything and have no cushion to fall back on.

As for bills, there's only so much you can do with some payments (mortgages, car payments, cell phones, etc.) but things like electricity, water, groceries, etc. can seriously be trimmed down. My partner is a chef with very expensive tastes, but we still manage to live on between $80 and $100 a month for groceries.

Get those creative juices flowing, and ask us for any answers you need!