Tag budgeting

It’s budget grocery shopping day!

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I’ll be posting videos about my shopping if that is more your jam (food pun intended) so once I get this typed, I’ll start working on editing that footage.

For those of you who don’t normally read these posts or are new here: I’m a former journalist and the founder of Parisian Phoenix Publishing. I lost my full-time job in September, when Stitch Fix closed their Bethlehem (Pa.) warehouse. I’m hoping this might give me the chance to transition into at least part-time focus on my publishing company and its editorial services.

If you ever wanted to work with me, now is the time to pitch your project ideas. I’ve gone on a lot of interviews, and I high percentage of those led to second interviews. But none have led to a job. And I’m wondering if maybe it’s because I’m not looking for jobs in the word-related fields. I’ve been on social media marketing job interviews and business-related job interviews but none that speak directly to my deepest talents.

So, the publishing company is keeping me afloat– because unemployment compensation payments literally pay for the mortgage and the car insurance for the teen and I. My thermostat is set on 60. And we’re delaying a lot of things. But thanks to places like the Grocery Outlet and Dollar Tree we still have access to food.

I write these posts in part because I used to have a food blog where I chronicled cooking and shopping on a budget. (angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com) But I have had people tell me that I need to share some of these “tricks” because not everyone knows how to grocery shop on a budget. My daughter literally hands me her debit card and a list.

But if I had to tell you my #1 trick for saving money on food and household goods, it would be to know what you pay for things. It sounds lame, but the reality is if you don’t pay attention to what things “normally” cost you, you won’t know if something is a good deal. #2 would be to know the sale cycles. Target, CVS, and the major grocery stores all have sale cycles. Don’t feel pressured to buy something now because it’s “on sale.” That sale will be back, sometimes in as little as a month. Retailers want you to see the sale price and have an impulsive reaction to buy that product because it’s “such a good deal.” But the deal will return, just be patient and keep your eyes open.

#3. This is the one I used today. I set my expectations and my budget before I set foot in the store. I counted my money. I decided I had $20 for each store. In Grocery Outlet, I only considered items around $2.50 (or less). I really wanted the $8 gigantic bag of shredded cheese that would last a month, but that’s almost 1/3 of my budget. So I got the $2 8-ounce bag of shredded cheddar instead. The Teenager wanted chicken, but that also would have been about $8 and more chicken than I really need to survive. And right now we’re in survival mode.

Now, onto the purchases:

First, Grocery Outlet. I checked the app for any coupons. None available. I read the daily email sent out from them every day, because I’m a junkie. We’re going to build our meals based on what I find, and fill out gaps from products at the Dollar Tree in the same plaza.

  • Hunts Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes, big can. So big I may have to open it, use it, and freeze what’s left. Two cans at 2/$1.00.
  • Polar canned crab meat. It was between this and a jar of asparagus. I have some egg roll wrappers in the freezer. OR I have rice noodles in the pantry. $2.99.
  • Kale, fresh, big bag, organic. $1.99
  • Veggieful plant-based frozen pepperoni pizza pockets, two servings, $1.49
  • Green Giant frozen sweet peas in light butter sauce. I suspect I may use this as a sauce for a pasta or rice dish. $0.99
  • Half & half, quart, $2.49
  • 2% milk, half gallon, $2.12
  • 8 ounces shredded sharp cheddar, $1.99
  • 2 packs of 93% lean grass-fed, organic ground beef, $2.99 each

Now, over to the Dollar Tree:

  • 2.75 liters of generic diet cola (which even though this soda is on the shelf and not cold it rang up as taxable vs. non-taxable. In Pennsylvania, food is technically NOT taxable unless it is considered take-out, so cold, cooler beverages are usually taxed.)
  • 4 pack of cans of generic cotton candy soda for the teen (again, rang up as taxable, sigh). I wanted to get sparkling water but I can’t buy all the beverages for only me.
  • Almost 15 ounce can of Del Monte creamed corn. Every time we want to make corn bake, we never have creamed corn so I try to keep it in the pantry. It’s also a great way to thicken or even extend soups.
  • About 4 ounces canned chicken
  • About 5 ounces canned chicken and gravy
  • Tuna in water
  • English muffins
  • 10 flour tortillas
  • Olive oil and oregano crackers
  • 5 ounces of guacamole flavored tortilla chips
  • 12 ounces dry lentils
  • 5 ounces sunflower kernels
  • almost 3 ounces wasabi peas
  • 3 ounces Sunmaid raisins
  • 12 ounces frozen stir fry vegetables (peppers, snow peas and broccoli)
  • hot dogs

I forgot my darn gnocchi from Dollar Tree. Those are so good.

The $50 grocery challenge (and the first round of ‘separation’ from the Bizzy Hizzy)

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

So, once again, I find myself uncertain of what nicknames I have given my friends at the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy. My neighbor took off today, and Southern Candy (today was her last day) went to breakfast with her department when they released us at 9:30 a.m. Yes, we worked three hours today. I brought my friend, we’ll call her Gong-Obsessed, home and headed to Grocery Outlet and The Dollar Tree to buy what Groceries I could with the $55 cash I had in my wallet.

The men’s QC department is moving to our end of the warehouse on Monday and they are taking line 1, so I will be leaving my table. I’ve been at this table, 18, for about nine months now.

Farewell, 18.

After babbling about book production to Gong-Obsessed, I headed to Grocery Outlet where I spent too much of my budget on the Teenager. I am such a mom. She has an ear infection and drippy sinuses so I bought some things to make her life more pleasant.

I totally forgot to look for my Cabot cottage cheese– which was the whole reason I went to Grocery Outlet. Cottage cheese provides a low calorie, high protein, sodium rich food which is convenient for me.

One of my strategies for economic hard times is to use cash only for grocery shopping. Pay your bills and whatever is left (after gas) is for groceries. Since I got paid today, and only have one more pay check and no future full-time work lined up, I limited myself to my cash in my wallet because whatever is in the bank is now for bills and bills only.

Once I get to the store, I buy what’s cheap and versatile. I don’t necessarily meal plan as much as organize themes. Rice can be a base carb for just about anything. That same rice with a pile of beans and a small can of chili can now stretch to feed a family. English muffins can be the base for a sandwich, or a breakfast food, or with some creativity a hamburger bun or a pizza crust. Cheese can be a quick source of protein and calcium, and while peas usually aren’t anyone’s favorite veggie, they also add a touch of protein to meals, and can be tossed into rice dishes, casseroles, cheesy or alfredo pasta, or hot/cold salads.

What I did get at Grocery Outlet:

  • Honey Flavored Navy Beans, 0.99
  • Kosher Dill Pickle Spears, 1.49
  • Six Whole-Wheat English Muffins, 1.99
  • Almond Thins Sriracha Crackers, 0.99
  • Ortega Mojo Chile Lime Sauce, 1.49 (when you’re low on food, a cheap bottle of sauce can elevate a ‘struggle meal’ into something pleasurable. I’m getting ready for lean times here.)
  • Turkey Chili, two cans, 0.47 each
  • Zesta Saltines, 0.77 (can make soup more filling, serve as breadcrumbs if need be, and it’s been ages since I had butter-on-a-saltine as a snack, and with a sick kid at home, something is just soothing about saltines.)
  • Cabot Bac’n and Cheese Dog Biscuits, 2.50 (the dog couldn’t even focus on her sit-stay when I opened these.)
  • Cocoa Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal, 1.99 (The teenager loves Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cocoa Pebbles– I had to see if this would be ‘the best of both worlds.’)
  • Bananas, five, .52/lb, .94
  • Fresh blackberries (pint), 1.99
  • ‘Nano’ Cucumbers (quart), .99
  • frozen avocado chunks, 5.99 (This was the most expensive item I bought, but it’s less expensive and less waste than buying fresh avocados. I put some in a bowl, maybe 3/4 to 1 cup, thaw them in the fridge and stir them into a paste for dip, for toast, or to flavor dishes. It disappears usually within 48 hours and a bag of frozen avocado has 3-4 batches in it.)
  • Boca Chicken Patty, 1.99 (Even if you’re not a vegetarian or even if you prefer not to use processed food, fifty cents a serving and it’s a protein you can toss in the freezer and add to just about any meal in a minute.)
  • Jimmy Dean Spinach Frittata Plant-Based Egg Sandwiches, 2.99. (I originally bought these for The Teenager, because she’s going through some medication AND routine changes AND financial changes so eating has been a struggle. For 75 cents a serving, she has an easy breakfast. But now that I see they are plant-based, I might take some to work for break next week.)
  • frozen peas, 1.19
  • Birds Eye ranch-flavored cauliflower, .99 (nutritionally not the strongest choice, but add some rice and some white beans and that ranch flavor could sass up a meal)
  • Hall’s cherry flavored cough drops, .50 AND
  • Nasal decongestant spray, 1.49 (both to help get the Teenager over the hump of her ear infection and sinus congestion)
  • Goya Dulce de Leche rice pudding, four servings, 0.99 (because the Teenager doesn’t feel well and she loves rice pudding)
  • Pillsbury buttermilk biscuits in a can, two cans, .50 each (like the English muffins these can go with any meal at any time of day and be reshaped into other dough if one finds themself in a pinch)
  • Sabra classic hummus, family size, .97
  • two percent milk, half gallon, 2.08
  • shredded sharp cheddar cheese, 8 ounces, 1.99
  • Taco Bell branded “fire” shredded cheese, 7 ounces, 1.99
  • Minute Maid Watermelon beverage, half gallon, 1.49

Total at Grocery Outlet: $42.68

Technically, this gave me $12 for the Dollar Tree. Now, with all that food, why did I have to go to the Dollar Tree? Because my comfort food, especially when I am sick, is Spaghettios, and apparently I have passed that along to my daughter, because she requested Spaghettios.

Since the Dollar Tree now costs $1.25 per item and sometimes their groceries ring up as taxable, and I don’t feel like arguing with cashiers today, I capped myself at 8 items. I had enough for nine, but wanted to be safe.

I purchased:

  • Spaghettios, two cans, one with Franks Red Hot for me and one with Chicken Meatballs for the Teenager
  • A pretty nice sized bag of white long grain rice
  • A can of black olives, whole
  • Schweppes ginger ale, 1 liter, because I have a child with a sore throat at home and she ripped it out of my hands as soon as she saw it.
  • Generic diet soda, 3 liters
  • Sonic freeze pops, again, for the sick child
  • Gnocchi, because the gnocchi from the dollar store is filling and has a decent amount of protein

Total: $10.15

I still have $2 in my wallet.

Mission accomplished.

Everything Wrong with America

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I miss my more carefree days– which didn’t seem carefree, until now, when I have several appointments after each 8-hour workday in the warehouse, health issues to sort, a job hunt and debt to pay. Life is never simple or easy for most of us, but 2023 has, for me, felt like eternal optimism and hope while being bludgeoned. I get my proverbial sh*t together, and something outside of my control decides to parachute into my life.

When Stitch Fix announced closing the Bizzy Hizzy, they scheduled all sorts of guests and workshops for us as displaced employees. My separation date is September 15, so I have four more weeks, or two more paychecks, depending how you look at it. One of the workshops Stitch Fix hosted, and paid us to attend, was a visit from the state “Rapid Response” team to explain how unemployment and career services from the state work. They handed us a booklet that told us how to survive our layoff. (Surviving a Layoff: Your Guide to a Soft Landing and a Smooth Re-entry by Harry Dahlstrom. Mr. Dahlstrom, I’m sure you’re a very intelligent and likable person, but your advice is written for middle class Americans with two cars and their own house.)

“Remember that emergency fund with three-months pay stashed away…” Oh, Mr. Dahlstrom. Do you not have a child going to college this fall? Or medical debt? Or a used car that needs constant repairs? Or a teenager whose car insurance costs $500/month because of an accident? That’s just me. Others might have a disabled or unemployed spouse, student loans, bad credit that led to predatory loans for everyday items… or maybe they just recently got this job and had been using their credit cards to survive.

“Reduce your thermostat to 68 degrees.” Oh, Mr. Dahlstrom, mine has been at 64 for two decades.

“Trim your entertainment.” I don’t have cable. I don’t have any streaming services (though the Teenager has Spotify, which she pays for, and she also bought HBO Max and made for the year upfront.) I don’t even have home internet, relying on my phone’s hotspot and public connections. I think the last time I went to a movie was two years ago.

“Prepare a weekly menu” and “put back 10 percent of the things in your [grocery] basket.” Oh, Mr. Dahlstrom. I spend $250 on groceries for myself each month, that does not include the Teenager as she buys her own groceries. And I do get coffee or a donut out, which adds up to about $25 a month, which I consider reasonable as, as you mention, I search for discounts.

Other advice includes: “collect old debts,” “turn unwanted things into cash,” “change your lifestyle,” and “bring in the paying customers” using a talent or skill. Because my half-a-double home that I pay about $900/month for is full of useful items? I haven’t even had a vacation in about five years. And my talent? It brings in about $150/month on a good month.

“Unload the family jewels.” Mr. Dahlstrom, I’m so frugal I wouldn’t even let my husband buy me a diamond for my engagement ring. When we got married, we used Irish claddaghs so all I had to do was switch it to the other hand. I don’t own a single piece of jewelry or any item worth anything. My car is a 2015, my computer is a mid-range model, even my Brooks Brothers suit is 15 years old at this point.

But this is what’s wrong with our country. As a society, we assume everyone “poor” or experiencing financial trouble or unemployment is in that situation because they are irresponsible, stupid or did something wrong. And sometimes that poverty or situational bad luck is due to society’s expectations.

For example, starting with my generation (the GenXers) we insisted that our kids go to college and saddled them with loans to do it. Then, we flooded the market with bachelor’s degrees, which rendered them meaningless, and started pumping up the value of master’s degrees. For those of us associated with the arts or wishing to pursue an academic trajectory, a Ph.D. is now required and some perfectly talented individuals with MFAs are now trapped in a life of eternal adjunct status.

And the poor Millennials also fell victim to this higher education fiasco except the cost has skyrocketed and these poor kids are starting their lives with student loan payments that rival my mortgage and they can’t land a job with a living wage so they work in warehouses with the same people who skipped the education in the first place.

Now, add to that the way the medical system works. In my opinion, and this is just my opinion, more people than ever need some sort of medical support in their life. Whether it be disability, illness, mental health struggles or maintenance medication, it seems like more people than ever spend a ridiculous amount of their income on healthcare.

I have been extremely fortunate that my mathematical brain allowed me to calculate costs and I determined that the free to me high deductible health plan, when you included the employer contribution to my health savings account and a $50 contribution from me to that same HSA each paycheck, paid for most of my medical costs this year (except for my mental health therapist, who for some reason, the medical insurance company likes to pretend doesn’t exist. They just won’t communicate with him or pay him).

Now, before I continue on this rant, I don’t understand why healthcare in this country is primarily connected to employers and employment. Why is it an employer’s responsibility to provide access to healthcare? Eliminating this ridiculous practice might be a good first step to getting healthcare under control. If you meet certain criteria, you can qualify for government-sponsored insurance, which also dictates the level of care you receive, and the open marketplace for healthcare is expensive.

I just don’t understand why everyone isn’t pushed to the open marketplace OR why everyone can’t qualify for government insurance. If everyone went to the open marketplace and insurance companies had to compete for individuals instead of corporations perhaps the access to care would change. In other words– even a company like Stitch Fix– has thousands of employees. If insurance company had to court those individuals and families, they would have to work a lot harder to court them versus convincing one corporation to allow them to insure a large group of individuals.

I missed a month of wages after my hospitalization, which due to the one week waiting period, even with my employer-sponsored short term disability insurance, only provided three weeks of wages at less than 67% of my normal wage, and on top of that the company administering those payments misplaced my paperwork which meant I had to repeating submit paperwork and did not get the last week of those wages until one full month after I returned to work. And my doctor had to submit three sets of paperwork. Which, technically, costs $25 a form for the doctor to submit.

And because I have a congenital and permanent mobility disability, I always need physical therapy. But physical therapy sessions cost hundreds of dollars and insurance companies limit access to them. So I hired a personal trainer and pay him $25 a session (which bless him, he has now reduced his rate to contribute toward my fund to pay for my service dog which is another $5,000) and I bet Mr. Dahlstrom would say I should eliminate that from my budget as an extraneous expense.

But Mr. Dahlstrom, I imagine, does not live with a disability and has probably never experience what it’s like to have a leg that just suddenly stops working or a hip that feels like it’s waving to people from my butt. And since my muscles and my brain literally cannot communicate, I have to physically show them what to do so that movement is reduced to muscle memory and does not have to include the brain.

In closing, I’m going to end this long and winding blog post with a celebration that also highlights everything wrong with America. My friend Southern Candy from Stitch Fix turned 65 yesterday and she asked to go to Shady Maple Smorgasbord. That place was SO BIG, I think my whole d*mn town could have dined together. They had so much food and so many cooking stations I think we could have fed a village from a developing nation for a week.

The staff was amazing. The food was quite good. The gift shop was enormous. And in general, it looked like people were only taking what they could eat. But we all ate too much. I had three dinners and two desserts and spend several hours thinking I might vomit. The cajun catfish and the carrot souffle were my favorite. And I really wanted to punch an old man in the face because as I was reaching for the last piece of coconut custard pie, he snatched it away from me.

And the reality of how much food, how many steaks, how many excess calories we were all consuming filled me with such guilt and shame. Our culture, and you can disagree with me, is so centered on gluttony and selfishness. So while I was happy to spend time with my friend, and take a road trip with her, and laugh with her– I have to ask: how can such a place exist? I’m sure the intent, because Shady Maple started decades ago, was to provide a place where people could dine and have a wide variety of choice and not have to chose, or for families to dine together while pleasing difficult eaters. But this was insane.

CVS magic

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I am not an “extreme couponer” and I hate the whole concept of “extreme couponing.” Life experience has taught me to be frugal, but *living* life has taught me that reading 5 newspapers to get a few extra bottles of Tide raises the question of how much is my time and my happiness worth?

When stores first starting using loyalty cards, I hated the concept. I still hate cards. But customer loyalty apps are different. I already have my phone. These apps also allow me to shop and plan my shopping trips. Target Circle, like many others, combines their coupons, payment options (even when in the store), circulars, and stock all in one place. I can scan items to see if there’s a deal while in the store and, of course, they customize offers to cater to my shopping habits.

The Lidl app allows me to make a shopping list (as does Target but I like Lidl’s list organization system better) and rewards me based on how much money I spend. Last month I earned a 30% off sliced cheese coupon! So I bought extra cheese. We might be living on toasted cheese sandwiches with my upcoming job loss.

I sign up for the emails and while a lot of them get annoying, some of them alert me to major deals on my household staples.

And that is what happened with CVS. They sent me a coupon for the gallon bottle of Arizona iced tea for $1.66 cents. The teenager has a weakness for Arizona iced tea so I let her buy some as an occasional treat.

I texted her the offer, and asked her if she wanted to walk to CVS to redeem it. She declined.

CVS sent a 40% off one item coupon. I loaded it to my card because you never know when you’ll end up in CVS for a health emergency.

The teenager also loves Cinnamon Toast Crunch and had a craving for Honey Nut Cheerios. Now I view cereal as an occasional emergency snack, not as breakfast. But the teen is a convert to the cereal-to-start-the-day camp.

Now I know CVS regularly has regular cereal sales.

Yesterday they sent me a coupon. “One day only! General Mills Cereal! $1.99!”

And the photo featured Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Honey Nut Cheerios.

I texted the teenager.

She came downstairs. When I told her that I would buy both cereals, she volunteered to walk to CVS. I handed her my debit card. She refused it. “Mom, it’s $4.”

I asked her if there was anything else she needed. She said no, but she might buy iced tea. I thought, “drats. We missed that iced tea offer.” I told her she could use the 40% off coupon if the iced tea was full price.

She came home with the gallon of iced tea, the two boxes of cereal, and a bag of Doritos. I asked her how much she spent.

“$7,” she said, “but that doesn’t make sense. This is $14 worth of stuff. At least.”

Apparently I also had a snacks/drink coupon I forgot about that also saved us 85 cents.

So we talked about it, and I asked her if she was starting to get my system. She said no. Not at all.

As far as she understood, she merely said she wanted to go to CVS, I looked at the app and put coupons on, she randomly grabbed what she wanted, and told the clerk at the register to use all the coupons.

Magic.

We have a jumper! (This post jumps around)

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

I’ve been allowing myself to sleep in a bit and these days I’m waking up between 6:15 and 6:30. I lay in bed sometimes until almost 7, but I’m always dressed, with pants and everything, and at my desk with a hot cup of coffee by 8:30.

I’ve enjoyed sharing an office with my birds— three budgies and a Goffin’s cockatoo—all of whom must be enjoying the electronic swing I listen to at my desk and the bird playground I have assembled for them.

Yes, that’s the teenager’s kitten who refused to get out of the cockatoo’s cage.

Now, when Nala the cockatoo destroys toys I save the salvageable pieces and put them in these spare dishes and she plays with them and throws them at the cats.

I think I have some new toys coming for the parakeets, and I also need to order them more ladders and perches because they have suddenly destroyed everything in their cage.

Work passed easily, I feel like I was quite organized and productive. And I’m off tomorrow. I took an unplanned paid time off to take care of some health issues. So it will be part trip to the pharmacy, part virtual doctor visit and part mental health day.

There’s a contact we have at work at a local company that is the point person for a rather large food drive that benefits our agency. Because of the state lockdown, they can’t host this food drive so the employees contributed cash instead, but she didn’t want to mail it and our offices are closed.

So the teenager and I took a road trip. It’s strange when a 25-mile round trip to the next town and back feels like a major outing. I donned my mask, put on my gloves and we exchanged an envelope of cash in the parking lot.

That might be the closest I will ever come to feeling like a drug dealer. Nope, scratch that. I’ve driven around with a trunk full of Girl Scout cookies.

My teenager and I have the best conversations while in the car. We talked a lot about financial responsibility and budgeting and how important it will be for her to determine her own style of fiscal management. She admires my discipline, chicanery and creativity with making my money work for me.

I taught her about different ways to trick yourself into putting money into savings. The first of course is to set up automatic transfers. Another is to have a portion of your paycheck direct deposited into savings.

The easiest is to always, as soon as you take a new job, decide on a number of how much goes into retirement if your job offers a retirement plan. That way before you even see how much your take home pay is, the money goes into your future.

And if your job doesn’t have retirement options, go to your bank and contribute to an IRA. Every year. Because money saved when you are young goes far.

That motivated me to go ahead and take the plunge and use that last $1,000 of my stimulus check that I had put into savings and use it to prepay for 400 gallons of fuel oil for next winter’s heat at $2.199.

That was painful. But at least it’s over. Next I need to contact the dentist about the $859 bill they sent me for my crown. My insurance company didn’t cover anything but $17. I’m annoyed because the dentist thought they’d pay 50%, the tooth still isn’t right AND the bill they sent didn’t include the credit for the $394 I already paid.

But paying for the fuel oil was enough adulting for today.

The teenager made an amazing steak dinner.

And Nala loves onion rings.

The teenager discovered, because I sent her an Instagram post, that The Attic thrift store has an online sale and bid on a red dress. That she won.

I love the ingenuity our local small businesses are showing. I hope it continues after the lockdown ends.

Go follow AtticClothes

Last but certainly not least, I tried this Cascara tea which is supposedly full of antioxidants and it tasted really good.

Budgeting, part 2

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

Part one is here: Budgeting

Today I will discuss my budget worksheet.

Ideally, I sit down once a month to work on my budget and I usually budget for two to three months at a time. This helps me plan for the quarterly utility and life insurance bills and the twice a year car insurance. Plus, in late June I typically pre-pay my fuel oil for the winter.

That is a financial gamble, but honestly I don’t even look at the oil prices once I pay. For me the convenience of not having an unexpected fuel bill or an extra monthly commitment is worth it.

So even though I have just paid March’s bills, I am planning April and May and trying to find money to hoard for summer as once I get that fuel oil bill paid, the teenager will be headed back to school.

As a salaried employee who gets paid every other week, if I plan carefully I can use the “extra” pay period twice a year to pay those larger bills. If I had myself on a strict four-week budget, that money could be used to go on vacation or pay down my mortgage but alas, I am not that good.

But what I do do is sit down with a blank sheet of graphic paper, jot the current date on it, and write “start balance” on the top. That is the balance of my checkbook rounded down to the nearest $25 increment.

Last night it was $508 and some-odd cents. So I rounded to $500.

Now, bills, regardless of how it seems, come in predictable cycles. So let’s just start with the concept and not continue with the budget I started last night.

I would start writing due dates and who I need to pay in a chronological list.

3/1 car payment

3/5 mortgage

3/7 electric

3/10 American Express

3/13 PAY

3/15 life insurance (quarterly)

3/20 water (quarterly)

3/20 sewer (quarterly)

3/24 cell phone

3/27 PAY

3/28 savings

3/28 Discover

My first pay day in April is 4/10 so that means not only due I have six months of car insurance due before that check, but I also have car payment, mortgage and electric. This is why I plan so far out.

So when I budget, I also estimate my bills, rounded preferably to $100 increments so when they come in under budget that gives me wiggle room and extra money for groceries. In my March budget for example, I budgeted $100 for electric because February is usually cold and dark and I have electric hot water. It was $80 when the bill came in.

And I do the same with my credit cards. I often use my Discover for groceries so I budget $200 a month to pay that card.

My American Express is my card for everything else, like medical bills or an order for the pets at Chewy.com or Petco. I budget $350 for that. Right now, because of my medical bills, I’m dropping $300 on it each pay period. But the point is, I look at not only what I spent on the card so far but what I anticipate needed the card for in weeks to come.

And again, I round. So I might write phone bill ($115) in the first column, but when I subtract in from the balance, I subtract $125.

Then when the teenager hits me up for lunch money I have it.

Budgeting

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

For the first 15 years or so of our marriage, I used Quicken to do our household finances. We have always been one of those households just making ends meet, sometimes saving up, only to have something happen to suck our savings away.

When Quicken went to a subscription based cloud product, I groaned but paid the piper because I had almost two decades of financial records in that software.

And then, in late 2018, my 2013 MacBook Air died.

I developed a system to keep my finances organized—

using graph paper.

Each square is $25 in expenses I spent in a month not part of the regular cycle of bills (mortgage, car payment, electric, fuel oil for heat, water, sewer/garbage, car insurance). That is just so I know where my moment went for future planning.

I keep one column for “cash” and one for “credit” above the graph to detail the spending.

95% of my credit expenses go on my American Express, and I keep a Discover in my wallet for those places that don’t take American Express. I typically pay off my entire balance each month (which is where all that tallying and calculating what I’ve spent comes in handy) but recently I used a free trial of American Express’s “plan it” feature to pay some medical bills and for Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo.

Preparing to Budget

I keep a sloppy register of my checks also in the budget book, and I compare balances against my budget for the month or quarter at least once a week.

But here’s my big hack. I am known to take my credit cards out of my wallet and I never carry my ATM card.

Yes, you heard me.

I don’t carry my ATM card in my wallet. I keep it in a drawer at home. If I want to extract money out of my bank, I have to plan it. Or run to Target and use my Target debit card. This keeps those little expenses from adding up.

There is no “let’s run out and get a sandwich.” That kind of thing.

But, you say, what if something unexpected happens? Well, I do have what I call my discretionary spending card.

I have a Capital One online account where I put whatever money I think I can spare after I pay the bills. Honestly, that’s usually the grocery money. Right now there is $12 left in that account. No, make that $8. I forgot I stopped at DQ for Buy One Get One for 80 cents Blizzards. That is the ATM card I keep in my wallet.

If I get impulsive, if I drop it, if it gets stolen, if it gets hacked… it’s not the account I use to pay my bills.

Plus, I have a savings account in Capital One, so if I get really stuck, I can transfer money between those accounts on my phone. And money between my main accounts and my Capital One accounts also takes a few business days, so it does require planning.

But I’m good at planning.

So right now I’m going to update the budget as I had some more large bills come in (dental crown $400 out of pocket; furnace maintenance agreement $250) plus car insurance is due in two weeks.

I pay for six months at a time and it’s due on the same day as the mortgage.

Speaking of mortgage, when we were 12 years into our 30-year-mortgage I refinanced the house from 5.5% down to 3.25% in a 15-year loan. Too many people want to lower their monthly payment, whereas I focused on shortening the term on the loan.

I borrowed enough money to pay off the car and some credit card bills (an unexpected household repair and my daughter’s euphonium had us in for about $5,000) AND cut two years off our original mortgage length for the same payment as our original mortgage but we were saving an additional $300/month not having a car payment.

I also had them add an additional $50/month for principal curtailment to my mortgage payment. So if I ever need to I can have the mortgage company drop that and I can have a lower mortgage. In the meantime, my principal is dropping.

I do something similar with my car—once I calculate my budget for the quarter I pay anywhere from $50 to $200 extra on my car payment. I think I financed $15,000 less than 18 months ago and already my pay off balance is about $9,000.

My other tip is to have an automatic transfer into a savings account. Most banks encourage this and will waive fees and offer overdraft protection if you do it. I transfer $200 a month into my savings account and sometimes I have to transfer it back to checking the next day. Normally I can live without it, and when a shortfall happens I have that back-up.

Budgeting and financial planning when you’re in a low-to-moderate income household is hard. It’s a puzzle. Knowing what it takes to run your household is key. Planning is a must.

PS— yes that is my credit score