After two days of spending what seems like WAY too much money, we’ve finally gone a day without spending anything.  Unfortunately, the biggest reason we aren’t spending any money is because we simply don’t have any!  That’s right, living paycheck to paycheck is THE LIFE FOR ME!  (that’s sarcasm if you couldn’t tell) 

The wife is really getting onto me about wrapping up the taxes, which I’m doing tonight.  Getting that refund to us will allow us to seriously apply the cash-envelope system and not feel so strained with the timing of our bills vs. our paychecks once we get our budget buffer in place and our starter emergency fund put together.

Here’s to a late night of taxes!

Today’s Progress:

• Earned - $0
• Spent - $0
• Debt Reduced - $0

I took my first shot at doing my taxes today.  It was quite an eventful morning for me.  Let’s just say I’m kind of excited, but I won’t let it go to my head.  One thing I’ve discovered about paying WAY TOO MUCH interest on our mortgage is that it ends up beefing up my deductions a LOT.  To the point where there’s an extra few THOUSAND dollars that are going to end up being refunded to me.  It’s one of those YAY moments followed by the gross realization that I’m still throwing away a ton of money to end up with such a large refund.

I’ll post more about the tax results this coming week.

As for spending, it’s yet another reminder that I’m dumping over $400 in interest into my second mortgage.  This was a consolidation of a bunch of credit cards I had that were out of control, but it’s really just sitting there not making any progress.

Needless to say, it’s very depressing and motivating at the same time.

Today’s Progress:

• Earned - $7.56  (interest & rebates from checking account)
• Spent - $605.12 (car insurance, cell phone, 2nd mortgage, groceries)
• Debt Reduced - $32.83 (2nd mortgage)

Today I was a nervous wreck.  We’d just finished the whole cheap Valentine’s routine where we didn’t really spend any money on anything.  But the biggest concern was waiting for the mortgage check to clear right after my direct deposit showed up in my account.  Maybe I should post some more about all the skills I’ve gained in timing things just right while living paycheck to paycheck.  I’m amazed at how well I’m able to pull it off, yet disgusted at the whole idea of being just one day from a late mark on my credit report every month.

So, today our mortgage payment went through just as the money showed up.  Nothing bounced, nothing late…all is well again and we can rest our minds yet another payday.  I really need to get on the ball with our taxes so we can get our budget buffer in place.

Here’s another disgusting thought:  I’m paying over $2000 in interest every month for that 1st mortgage.  WTH were we thinking!?!?  What a waste, I’m so ready to be rid of this debt.

Today’s Progress:

• Earned - $2562.39
• Spent - $2137.41 (1st mortgage)
• Debt Reduced - $110.92

I’ve seen a lot of posts about people trying to figure out what they’re going to do with their money.  I really liked seeing a couple say they planned on spending some of it.  It just made them unique.  :)  (PaidTwice for example.)  The thing is, nobody I’ve seen really plans on splurging and getting something they weren’t already going to try to get anyway.  Medical, house fix-ups, etc seems to be about it.

Me?  Well, I’ve got SIX kids…so we’re going to get $3000.  That’s right THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS!!! 

I typically get a bonus check each year for about $3000, but it ends up being less than $2000 after taxes.  This is a full 3K!

So, to make this a little more fun, we plan on splitting this up into a few categories.  As much as I’d love to just dump the entire thing on a credit card balance or something, we’re going to compromise as a family. 

We have a vacation planned for next summer to drive cross-country for a small family reunion we already agreed to last year.  Since we don’t have a vehicle that fits the whole family, the wife is going to fly with the baby while I drive the van with the rest of them.  The trip expenses are probably going to be about $600.  This was going to kill our budget, but we’ll just allocate some of the 3K toward that.  In fact, we’ll make it $1000 and have some extra fun on the trip to make it as memorable as possible for the kids.  (We don’t plan on doing much for vacations for awhile.)  So there’s our "economy stimulation" right there.  We’re going to purposely spend extra money on our trip.

The other $2000 will probably get applied directly toward a credit card.  I just wouldn’t feel right if we didn’t do this.  I’m still paying for all that economy stimulation I’ve been doing the last 10 years, time to put a stop to it. 

So how much of your check do you plan on spending?  Anyone else out there planning on splurging a little?

One thing I’ve noticed the last few years is how much it costs to ship something.  As in a box full of clothes, or an oversized valentine card, just anything.  We shipped a couple of boxes today to some family to put the hand-me-down system into effect for some of the kids.  It cost us $30.34!  For two boxes that aren’t even that big!  Wow.

To top it all off, today the USPS announced the penny increase in the price of stamps from $0.41 to $0.42.  Talk about convenient timing for today’s topic.  ;)  Maybe I just never really knew how much it all cost because I never really did a lot of shipping, but it sure seems expensive to me.

Today’s Progress:

• Earned - $0
• Spent - $30.34 (shipping)
• Debt Reduced - $0

Well, as much as I’d like to say this is a great milestone for me, paying off the $6.09 on my Menard’s card just doesn’t seem to feel like I’ve made much progress.  LOL!  It does feel nice to have yet another 0-balance card though.  The less distractions and clutter the better.

So the rest of my extra money this week goes toward another credit card.  I don’t really have a snowball set up, but I’ll have one set up once we get our tax refund.  I have 3 credit cards all with about the same balance, but we’ll see where all of our balance floating to 0% offers takes us first.  So for now I’m just paying over on each card as much as I can.

Today’s Progress:

• Earned - $0
• Spent - $272.93 (Menard’s, cable, credit card)
• Debt Reduced - $103.48  (Menards, credit card)