A few steps taken...

I have finally taken a few steps toward lowering my expenses and I wanted to share those in hopes of inspiring others that may be going through the same thing.

First I looked at all my bills on one page. Actually, I looked at the them online on a really cool, free budget website that I found. The website is called Mint. This website is amazing! It allows me to import my bank information, credit card information, retirement account information, loan information and create a budget. (Don't worry, it is completely secure!) Seeing all the information together really helped me get an idea of exactly how much debt I'm in. It also shows your net worth. I'm at a starting point and accepting it for what it is. I looked at all my expenses and managed to cut a few things out. Below is a list of adjustments I have made so far.

• Cancelled my Netflix and will now use Redbox whenever we want to watch a movie. $1 a night movies and they have locations all over the place. This was a no brainer for me, but still hard to cancel Netflix because I have had them for over 4 years now.

• Cancelled my water delivery service. I have replaced this by buying a Brita Aqualux Pitcher (Amazon price $29.22) for keeping cold drinking water in the refrigerator and a Culligan Faucet Water Filter (Amazon price $18.81) to filter bulk water used for things like making tea, cooking, etc. I heavily researched the best and most affordable options and found those two from Amazon at a great deal. (The links for each item are for the actual items I purchased.)

• I shopped around auto insurance quotes using a quote search engine (of course it was irritating getting all the phone calls but worth it). To my surprise, Allstate gave me the cheapest rate for the same insurance coverage I already have! Two years ago I got a quote from them and they were higher. I will now save almost $200 a year on my auto insurance and get better service from what I hear.

• I'm still working on my cell phone bill. This is a frustrating one because we are still under contract with our cell phone carrier and my husband and I both have a BlackBerry. He really does need his for work but I could do without mine. I'm trying to see if I can purchase a regular phone off ebay and switch it so that I can take the $30/month fee off for the data plan. I'm also looking into trying to get a lower minute plan but I don't think that's going to be an option.

• I have started keeping the heat/air off and dressing appropriately for the conditions in my house. There is no need for me to wear shorts and a tank top in my house and to have the heat on. Duh! I am also the electricity Nazi right now. I'm on my husband and my son about every light on in the house and the t.v. (They really love me right now!)

It's really hard giving up some of these things but it has to be done. I was lucky enough to be able to cancel Netflix online and not to have to deal with the insurance company. The water delivery company was a different situation though. I called them up and told them I wanted to cancel my service and they start giving me the script that they have memorized to keep you from going. "I'm sorry to hear that ma'am. Is there a problem with your service?" I told them no and that I'm just trying to cut back my expenses. He starts telling me that they will allow me to receive only one cooler bottle instead of two a month and this will save me 50% and is a really good deal. I don't remember what else he said, but I'm pretty sure that it was something that hypnotized me because I just said "okay". This is not like me! LOL It reminded me of the episode of FRIENDS where Chandler tries to quit the gym but he just can't. So anyways, today I have to call them back and try to "quit" them again. A lot of these companies make it so hard to close your account! It really is frustrating! I'm not going to let them wear me down though. I will succeed today!

Let me know if anyone else has any suggestions on how to cut your expenses.

Finances

I used to be the financial person in our household. I paid the bills, transferred money to savings accounts and managed our money. I enjoyed doing this. Since being laid off, even the thought of our finances makes me nauseous. It's like they say "ignorance is bliss".

Ignorance is not smart, however, when it comes to your finances. My husband has taken over as the finances person of our household. I don't ask how much money we have in our bank account, savings accounts and what bills are due because I didn't think I could handle it after the stress of being laid off. After a month and a half now, I'm finally at the point where I can and need to handle our finances. So I'm going to sit down and look at all of our bills, figure out things we can do to decrease or eliminate any of them. I'm also going to redo our budget and make sure everything is paid to date. My husband is really trying and I don't know if he is doing a good job with the finances or not because I haven't checked up on him. I know in the past he has not been very good with them. I've always been the financially smart one in our household and have had to give him counsel in that area.

So I'm really frustrated with myself. It's so stupid to just not deal with things like this. I'm an adult and need to start acting like one and stop throwing myself a pity part. It's not going to change the situation we're in just because I don't know about it. I might even be able to figure a way to save us money.

To Homeschool Or Not To Homeschool

In my previous blog I mentioned that our only option for school is the private school that my son has been going to and that financially this is going to be hard on us. That's not really my ONLY option. My other option is homeschool, something I never wanted to consider but it makes the most sense right now financially with me not working. We could probably manage to pay for school next year but it would be extremely stressful and uncomfortable. I don't know how I could honestly fit it into my already busted budget.

He is our only child and very outgoing, social at school. I found out that there are homeschool organizations though, so I can be involved in one of those and he would be able to socialize with other kids that way. He is also in soccer for both seasons every year, will be in baseball again and takes piano all year round. So, I don't think he will be lacking too much on in the social area. Homeschool would probably only take us four hours at the most to do and he would learn more than he currently is.

I just feel bad for him. He has so many friends and I feel like I'm robbing him of that. I have to think realistically though and it's just not smart. How are we ever going to be able to save money to move, if we can't even afford to pay our current bills? I'm going to have to sit down and figure out how to save money by eliminating or decreasing some of our bills.

Anyone else have any advice or personal experiences they can share with me about homeschool?

Autism Speaks

I just saw this Autism Speaks ad with Toni Braxton. I don't think people realize how high the odds are for children getting autism, I didn't realize it either. More research definitely needs to be done for this. 1 in 110 children will be affected by autism. 1 in 70 boys. This is a 57% increase from 2002 to 2006. I'm blessed that my child is healthy and free of any kind of sickness or disease. We need to get the awareness out about this!

I'm Back!

So I'm back. I never had a lot of time to blog before between working full time at an extremely, demanding, stressful job, and doing my wifely, motherly duties. As of February 1st, I no longer have to worry about the crappy job I had because I was laid off. It's a funny thing. You hear about all these lay-offs and feel bad for everyone but it always seems like it won't happen to you. The company I worked for I helped start from the ground up and had a verbal contract (I know...stupidest thing I could've ever done). I left a perfectly good job to start up this new similar company because I got a pay raise and "there was going to be so much opportunity for growth" for me and a couple of other people. Yeah, which is why I'm sitting at home right now telling this story.

Thankfully I was laid after my husband finally found a job after being out of work for six months. I know in a blog before I mentioned that he was going to be going to work out of state to make a bunch of money, so that we could move. That never happened because they didn't end up starting that job until just recently. It would be stupid to send him there right now, since he has a job and we can't afford to take any chances with me not working. Before my job was always a safety net.

So yeah, I'm living the American dream. Staying at home, getting unemployment of a whopping $244 (after taxes). Not even 1/3 of what I was making when I was working. There are hardly any jobs around this area, unless I want to go to work answering phones for $8/hour. Even those crappy $8/hour jobs have a lot of competition for them. People that are way over qualified are having to lower their standards drastically. I'm growing tired of living here and have now seen my dreams of moving across country being put on the back burner. When I was working, I was taking my paycheck and putting it directly into our moving savings account. Now I've had to actually take money out of that account to pay some bills. My husband gets paid only by commission (he works for an insurance company), so you really never know how much money you have. My son is in a christian private school, which is not really an option because of where we live. The public school in our neighborhood is horrible. I have to pay a lot of money for him to go to a decent school. The private school probably isn't that great but it is better than what the public schools have to offer. I just received the enrollment package from school last week and have to figure out what to do. I really can't afford to send him to school there but the violence and lack of education are too much for me to even think about sending him to public school around here. Rock and a hard place!