Budget Update

Amazon portal revenue this month = $1.18.  Thank you for your purchases through our portal!

I got my last paycheck from my former teaching job a few days ago.

Today we made a budget for our time when I am between jobs.  It involved things like paying the minimum on the mortgage and not putting anything in investments.  More drastic cuts were things like 'no spending money' and trying to cut our food budget down to half of what we usually spend.  I'm now trying to drink more water and less milk and asking myself if I can afford to take my niece swimming.

The most draconian budget we can come up with still leaves us $400 short.

I did some temp work in June, and I have some scheduled for July.  And we have a healthy savings account.  However, we don't know how long I will be out of work, or if my new job will pay decently, so we are going to try to live as frugally as possible and try not to touch the savings. So it feels like we are "playing" at what it would be like to be poor.  There will be an end to this.  We won't always have to say 'no' to what we want to do.  But some people live this way their whole lives, always scraping and pinching, and saying 'no,' and still just one disaster away from wiping out.

It's been oddly thought-provoking.

Plus there is this unsettling feeling: What if it stays like this forever?  What if I can't find anything and I have to scrape by with temping and freelancing for years?  Unlikely, but not impossible.

Trusting in Divine Providence is proving most difficult right now when it is most necessary.

Garage Sale

This garage sale is huge.  Let's be honest--it's pretty much totally out of hand.

875 South 34th
Friday -9 am - 8 pm (maybe)
Saturday - 9am-???

Lots of great stuff very, very cheap!  We are in purge mode!

I've joined forces with a former teacher selling lots of stuff and a mom with lots of crafts.

Some items:

LOTS and LOTS of sturdy binders - 10 cents each.

Pillow cases for crafting - a whole bag for $5

New dress form - $75

I really didn't want to sell this--it is a lot of fun.  - $15

Thanks!

Amazon revenue for March was $1.l1.  Thank you for your purchases made through our blog portal.  Every little bit helps support Painting on the Ceiling!

Amazon Revenue

Our earnings from our Amazon Portal were $2.04 in January.  Thank you for your purchases through the Amazon Portal (the box to the right with the search box).  Every little bit helps!

We've already cut at least 10 years off of our mortgage, and we just passed a mortgage milestone this past month.  It seems like such a slow process, but we are grateful to be able to work toward our financial goals with very few sacrifices.

September Budget

This month we managed to put extra toward the mortgage and more than usual in savings, so I'm grateful for that.  It helps that utilities were nice and low because of the pleasant weather.  The grocery bill was lower than usual also, which I'd like to attribute to our garden, although I'm not sure if that is really the case.  Veggies are so cheap that it is hard to gauge how much of an effect the garden produce is having.

We'd also crossed the half-way mark on the house, counting from the sale price of the house, not the amount we borrowed, but still: progress.  Right now we have 4.5 years on the mortgage if we make bigger-than-usual payments and 7.3 years if we revert to the actual payment.  I am really looking forward to FT entrepreneurship when the house is paid off.

Revenue from the blog: $5.60.  Thanks for your purchases made through our Amazon Portal!

May Budget

Ah, May!  The school year ends, the summer begins, and the garden grows.

It's a lovely time.

Budget-wise, it's not so hot.  The Amazon link generated $1.58 work of income.  We bought new beds, so we now actually have a guest room bed and we got rid of our old mattress, which was long overdue, but that was a big chunk of change.  Plus car insurance.  Despite my temp work, we still took money out of savings.

Hopefully June will be better.  And there's still lots to be grateful for in life. 

March Budget Numbers

Amazon revenue: $2.15.  Thank you for your purchases through the Amazon portal (on your right)!  Each and every one helps.

Budget wise, March was brutal.

New microwave.  Car trouble.  (More car trouble—but that was fixed with duct tape.  Yup!  You might be a redneck if….)  Then the voluntary stuff, like the skates.   It was just not pretty and I really don’t want to talk about it!  

There’s always April… except for taxes!

Good news

The price of groceries appears to be going down just a bit.  That's a nice surprise.

January March Budget Numbers

We are more or less half way done paying off our house, if you count what is it worth.  (It's gone up in value since we bought it.)  You've got to celebrate the milestones, big and small!

My Dearest Husband is already thinking about the mortgage-burning party!  :)

In other news....
Income from the Amazon link for January was $3.40.  Thanks for purchasing through the Amazon portal--it may never make me rich, but it always makes me feel appreciated!

Life Hack #10: How much does _________ cost me a year?

I wanted to find out the cost of contacts versus glasses by figuring out how long one bottle of contact solution lasts, but you could apply this method to everything from cereal to sticky notes.  Just write the date on the item when you start using it, and then note how long you used it when you threw it away.

Budget and Amazon Revenue

December Amazon revenue was $2.62.  Thanks for your purchases through the Amazon portal--each one is like a little internet hug because someone remembered us! :)

The December budget was better than the November one, when we bought my new Mac and plane tickets for Europe.  At least this month we didn't spend MORE than we brought in.  (That's what savings are for, right?)  But we didn't put any $ in savings this month, which is rare.

(Note: This blog isn't one of those "Hey, look, we're perfect!" blogs, in case you hadn't guessed!)

January should be better.  And my husband is back from Europe safely which is worth way more than money.

August Budget

We've been able to put a significant amount of $ away in savings for the past few months.  I'm grateful for that.  Of course, if we buy the pick-up truck I want, a lot of that will go poof.... but it is better to have it when you need it.  (Which brings me to the question of whether the truck is a need or a want....)

Amazon revenue from August was $15.80. (We won't get it until the beginning of November, though.)  Thanks very much to everyone who purchased items through the Amazon portal on the right!  Every little bit helps!

May Budget

Obviously these budget updates are really exciting because it takes me two weeks to get around to posting on them, if I remember at all...

But I promised I'd let you know how much we saved from having the windows open rather than using the air.  I'd said in the earlier post that the savings were significant.  Upon actually examination, they were around $17.  Is that significant?  Not really.  My vote: Open up the house when it's 60s and 70s, but the savings are not worth being uncomfortable for.  (We weren't really all that uncomfortable, except perhaps toward the end when we were waiting to see who would crack first!)  I'd also note that fresh air is good for you!

In other budget news, our passive income from savings account interest and revenue from a kindle book = $5.92.  We aren't going to be able to live on that, even with the house paid off someday!

Which leads me to my investing for income plans. I had big dreams.... now I just have more patience!  I'd invested $250 in a conservative income-producing mutual fund February 2014.  I added another $20 in April for some unknown reason.  That's $270.  The account garnered .82 at the end of March as a dividend, and the value has been slowly creeping up, but because of the fees, I have yet to break even.  Today it's at $267.98.  My plan A is to add a little more occasionally when our total investments with that mutual fund company reach a high enough number that the percentage fee they charge drops.  My plan B is to leave it alone and hope that I get $200 after 30 years, which by that point will probably buy us a steak dinner.

I'm also reading The Prosperous Heart: Creating a Life of "Enough" by Julia Cameron right now.  I'll keep you posted!

Living Without Air Conditioning

We finally turned the AC on this week.  The savings have been significant, but the weather has finally reached the point where it is unbearably hot.  (I'll try to remember to post the approximate amount that we saved after we do the May budget retrospect.) We had been opening the windows and enjoying the breeze.  At night it cooled off enough to sleep.  Sleeping with the windows open was hard due to street noise, but much to my surprise I eventually got used to it.  (Normally I have trouble sleeping unless conditions are perfect—absolute silence, cool temp, usual routine.) 

One perk of keeping the windows open is that your body adapts and after a while you can feel comfortable in a much wider range of temperatures.  I also felt more connected to the outside world, such as the rhythms of the neighborhood, the weather, and the wake-up call of the birds.  If we had a more flexible routine where we could go to bed later and sleep in, we might have been able to go AC-less longer.  Even now, with the curtains drawn and the thermostat set at 78, the AC rarely kicks on.

It's one of my favorite parts of being human: We're incredibly adaptable. 

One of my other favorite parts of being human: Creativity!  Gotta get in some more time in my studio...

January Budget Numbers

Despite the plumber and taxes on the "new" car and The Magician's new glasses, we actually managed to put some money into savings.  (It wasn't much and it might come back out again for bills, but hey, a girl can dream!)

We had our best month ever on revenue from the Amazon link ($48.38).  Thanks to all our readers who buy stuff through the Amazon portal on the right!  Every purchases is appreciated!  (And going through the portal never increases your bill.) 

This month I'm going to dip a toe into the investing-for-income world and visit our financial advisor. 

I'm hoping for a February with no unusual expenses....

Budget Update

I haven't done one of these in a while.

But we haven't had a normal month in so long!

May - paying ahead on our bills in a huge way so nothing would come due during our trip.
June - half the month in Croatia
July - almost all of the month in Croatia
August - "Where did all this money come from?" -- the budget was still skewed from paying all that stuff ahead
September - The Magician got a new job and a "thank you" bonus from his old job.
October- His paycheck from his new job had the two days he worked in September on it so we still didn't know how much he'd be making
November - Sort of a normal month except for car insurance.
December - We had a huge expense (paying cash for a car) and a huge influx of money (the check from the insurance company for the totaled car).

Hopefully normal is coming!

Our saving account this time last year we had $1,425.83 less in it.  Yup--we are ahead $1,425.83 from last year!  That sounds pretty awful ("Who are you to blog about frugality?"), but keep in mind we took a trip of a lifetime that we'd been saving for for four years, paid cash for a newer car, and knocked $9,416.41 off of our mortgage.  We bought our house 4 years ago and hope to have it paid off in another 6 years. We've already cut the mortgage in half--if we had to resume normal payments, we'd pay it off in 11 years.

And, no, five-week vacations aren't frugal.  But we're also not going to live our lives in tomorrow, always saving and never enjoying right now.

Our goal this year, though, is no big expenses!  We want to dramatically increase our savings rate and hope to make some sizable lump-sump mortgage payments.

Budgeting: June and July

Budgeting is all out of whack right now.  We were gone from June 19-July 23.  The Magician paid ahead our bills, but took some unpaid vacation, plus obviously we used less electricity and gas not being here (we unplugged everything we could before we left), etc.  So the numbers don't provide much in the way of useful information.  Other than the fact that interest rates on savings accounts are beyond lousy, but we all knew that already, didn't we?

Two highlights, though:

• Thanks to whoever bought items through our Amazon link in July.   We had NINE purchases, our highest yet!  (We don't get names or details, so we don't know who you are to thank you personally, but we appreciate it!)
• The escrow on our mortgage went up last year even though our property taxes didn't.  Multiple patient phone calls did nothing.  But this month we got a check for $350.52... It's going to get applied to the mortgage again, but this time it will be taking an extra bite out of the principle.

Shaving Oil

 
The other day I posted about the minimalist traveler that uses a deodorant stone.  One of the other interesting items he packs on his travels is shaving oil.

I had never heard of shaving oil before.  So, it was off to Google-land to see what I could find...

Amazing.  Seriously!

Apparently one can buy tiny little bottles of shaving oil (the two main companies that produce this are Pacific and Somersets) which cost only a few dollars and last for over 100 shaves. And there are a ton of positive reviews from folks on the internet who use shaving oils (not to be confused with "pre-shaving oils").

As it happens more often than not when I'm Googling something, one link led to another and to another and before I knew it, I found an article on using extra virgin olive oil for shaving.  Yes, really.  And again, tons of comments from shavers confirming oils work and particularly that extra virgin olive oil works.

So I tried it this morning.  And it does work!  I want to try it for a while though before I can say that I'm throwing out the shaving cream can.

The Philosopher's Stone - To Stink or Not to Stink

This is post about Hygienic Philosophy. 

A little while ago I read an article by a minimalist traveler (he takes very, very, VERY little with him).  One of the things that struck me when he posted his packing list was that he uses a "deodorant stone."  Oh yeah, I initially thought, I've seen those before... stones that are supposed that replace your deodorant but don't really work because they are some sort of New Age crystal or something.  But I thought, what the heck, I'll do some research as it's always nice to find an alternative to liquids and gels when traveling so as to avoid the whole security hassle.

What I found was pretty interesting.  First, let's start with some information on your basic deodorant.  What you use might be 1) a deodorant 2) an anti-perspirant or 2) both a deodorant and an anti-perspirant.  Huh, you say?  Let me explain -

When Frugality Isn't OR Why I Should Not Attempt Math Before Breakfast

Most bloggers only write about what works.  But hey, we figure you can learn from our mistakes instead of yours.

I am fascinated by solar power.  And I'm bad at math.  So we scooped up a $1.99 solar light on clearance at the hardware store the other day.  You know, the kind that comes on the end of a stake that you stick into the ground along the sidewalk leading up to your door.  I figured we'd budget it under entertainment and see if it worked at as a night light.