Sense to Save

I have a cold, ugh. And some link love

Over the past few days, I’ve been trying to get over a cold. Ugh. Being sick is no fun, and if there’s anything good that can come of it, it can force yourself to slow down a bit and just rest and recover.

Here are a few things that I like to do when I’m sick:

- Drink orange juice, tea and water
- Eat soup and other warm foods
- Rest near a humidifier or take a hot shower and let the steam work its magic. After reading reviews on Target.com, I settled on this frog humidifier. Lol. It was the same price at Bed, Bath and Beyond, but I had a $10 off $30 coupon there so I picked it up for $25. We had it on last night and it worked really well. I’m hoping it at least gets us through the winter!
- SLEEP! Lots and lots of sleep

That’s pretty much all I can do at this point, I think. It’s not a terrible cold, but its enough to make me feel run-down and annoyed. Hope you’re avoiding these seasonal germies!

Here’s some links I’ve been wanting to share with ya:

• Which cookies ship the best? P.S., I’m Cookie Monster’s Sister. Totally.
• You can be generous when you’re broke. Especially around this time of year and with the economy in the tank, it’s important for us to remember to keep on giving however we can.
• Extending tithing to what I already have. In a similar vein, you can give much more than money to people in need!
• Why charitable giving is even more important in an economic downturn. Absolutely.
• Reducing the cost of birth and babies. I’ve acquired all that I’ve intended to acquire before the birth of our son. Soonish, I plan to share with you what we’ve purchased and received and the total cost so far. It’s a large figure, but less than I expected.
• Skimp on the unimportant so you can spend on what matters. Love this post.

Preparing for a worst-case scenario

I don’t want to be a big, stormy raincloud. But, the economy has been pretty rainy lately, and it’s probably best to prepare with some version of an umbrella.

I’ve been thinking about what we would do if we had a big financial emergency, such as a massive medical expense or if Shane lost his job. We have a six-month emergency fund, but we’d want that to last as long as possible.

Immediately, we’d cut:

- Cable $23/month
- Internet $20/month (we can sort of pick up a wi-fi signal, or we could head down the street to McDonald’s, Panera, or the library for more wi-fi access points)
- Stop contributing to our insurance savings account ($110/month) and make monthly payments to the insurance companies instead to free up that savings for immediate expenses

- Eliminate all unnecessary driving to conserve on fuel and lengthen the time between oil changes (we do this already, I think)
- Cut back on our groceries to the bare minimum, spending $35-40/week on meals that will get the job done
- Eliminate all purchases beyond paying bills, gas, and groceries. No restaurants, no entertainment budget, no exceptions.

We could do all of these things on a moment’s notice, if it came down to it. I’d expect that would free up at least $350, if not more, out of our monthly spending.

If we needed to take it a step further, we could do something drastic and sell our car.

Right now, the car is a liability. We owe about $8,300. Kelly Blue Book thinks it’s worth around $9,500. If things were absolutely dire, we’d try to sell the car and pick up something for around $1,000 and pay for it in cash. That would free up our $277 monthly car payment. The drawback to this strategy is $1k cars might be more likely to break down than newer vehicles. We could be sinking more money into keeping the car running. No good.

The alternative would be having no car, and walking or using public transportation. A hassle, but doable in the short-term. And, no car means no car insurance, so that would be even cheaper.

Hopefully, we won’t have to implement this emergency plan. But, I do feel a bit more comfortable knowing that in theory, we could live on $1,200 per month if we absolutely had to. It would be tough, but it would be temporary.

What about you? What’s the bare minimum you’d need? Are there things you could cut from your budget, or are you already to that point? Would you sell your car? Move to a cheaper apartment?

Recap of November and goals for December

At the beginning of November, I outlined a few goals:

1. Pay double the amount on our car loan.

We did that, and with the regular November payment and our overpayment, we’re looking at $8,294 left. Still a large number, but I’m confident we’ll get this taken care of soon.

2. Put all extra funds in savings.

As soon as we received “extra” money, it went straight into our savings instead of being absorbed by our day-to-day spending. I know that if we didn’t transfer it into a separate account, much of it would have been spent, simply because it was there.

3. Create a budget for Christmas expenses.

We made a list of who we wanted to shop for and what we thought they might like, setting price limits on each gift. We’re planning on shipping several items, so we’ve included postage costs in this budget. If we were traveling this year, we’d also include gas and normal road-trip expenses.

Looks like we’ll meet our budget! We have our shopping almost finished — we just need to buy gifts for each other and we’ll be set.

4. Find $200 in ‘snowflakes’.

Didn’t quite make it. I don’t have an exact figure, but it was probably closer to $100. I could have been a bit more active in pursuing extra money last month. Better luck next time!

For December:

Wow. December is here. I’ve never anticipated this month so much. My son could be born this month! Zowie!

- All extra money must go into savings. Shane has two vacation days left this year, and if our little guy is born in December, Shane will use FMLA to take some time off. This will result in a smaller paycheck of course, so we’ll pad our savings account for this.

- We’ll hold off on making an extra car payment this month. As much as I like seeing our last debt dwindle, it might be a better idea to hang on to that $277 double payment until after the baby is born. That way, we can use it on regular expenses if we need to. And if he’s born in January, then we’ll need it to pay our 2008 taxes (we’re going to owe this year. Goody).

- We’re stocking up on last-minute toiletries and things for the freezer. I have a large stash of shampoos and toothpastes and such from when I was aggressive with drugstore deals. But, we still need plenty more toilet paper and things like that. There are about 15 servings of meals in my freezer right now, but there isn’t much variety so I need to add some more.

- We’re going out to eat. To “nice” restaurants. Hopefully, we’ll avoid fast-food altogether. Cuz let’s face it, I’d rather go out with Shane four times and spend $100 than spend the same amount and go to McDonald’s 10 times. We don’t anticipate going out to eat very much in the new year, so we’ll do it while we can.

Here’s to a great month for everyone!