Living Frugally with Thousands in Student Loan Debt on 1 Income....

I am both grateful and frustrated with being a stay-at-home mom.  I am grateful because I am the one raising my son along with my husband and not someone else.  I get to watch him grow into a smart, compassionate person.  I have been able to watch him crawl and walk for the first time and teach him the alphabet and numbers.  Being home with my son has been one of the greatest adventures of my life so far.

But...yes there is a but.

Between my husband and myself, we have many thousands of dollars in student loan debt.  With my husband being the only one with a steady income, I find myself frustrated that I am not directly contributing to paying down our loans.  I know I am contributing financially in other ways.  Daycare is expensive and essentially I am free daycare.  I am the one who balances our checkbook and keeps us on the straight and narrow as far as spending goes.  Despite this I have the occasional freak out moment, probably once a month and my gracious husband talks be down from the ledge.  We talk about our situation often, and have come up with 6 ways to alleviate any anxiety about money that help for the most part (except for my once a month freak out.)

The Pollington/Pratola Household Money System:

1) Create a year long budget on an excel spreadsheet and stick to it.  This is harder than it might seem but with living frugally in mind, it can be done.

2) Create a monthly budget using and excel spreadsheet.  This tends to be more detailed than the year long budget and includes how much money we can spend on food, gas, miscellaneous...  We currently have a $350 food budget each month which includes going out to eat.  Being that we live in a town with only two restaurants and one has very strange hours, we don't go out to eat much.  Like VB stated in one of her recent posts, eating at home saves a lot of money and is healthier too. :)

3) We have a savings account, but right now we are using it as a savings for our quarterly taxes.  Yes, we pay our taxes quarterly and since we only have one income, we put the money we need for them into our savings and then transfer the money over when we have to pay them.  So right now, we don't have a savings that we don't touch and let the money accrue.  We are working on figuring that one out still and it will probably take a while.  But we do have a savings account for when we are actually able to start saving money.  Many people don't even have that, so I think we are heading in the right direction.

4) Weekly checkbook balancing.  I balance our checkbook once a week so then we always know what we have in our account.  Not only does it ease my mind that we aren't spending more than we have, but it makes me an active participant in our finances.

5) If we use our credit card, we pay it off right away.  We use our credit card for things that Jason can be reimbursed for through the church so once we get the reimbursement money, we pay our credit card off right away.  It just makes sense and makes both of us feel better about life.

6) Breathe and be grateful for what we do have, which unfortunately is a lot more than many people have these days.  We might not have a lot of money, we might not have all the new gadgets or the newest vehicles, but we have a warm place to live, clothes on our backs, good healthcare, food in our bellies and wonderful family and friends.

So yeah, I still freak out about our student loan debt and our small household income from time to time, but these 6 things, especially the last one have been extremely helpful for us, our marriage and our family.  I hope they help you too.

Child Organization, Box Gardens and More....

My son Preston likes to organize things.  It doesn't matter what it is either.  If the refrigerator is open, he'll take out all of the bottles on the bottom door shelf and either organize them on the kitchen floor, or put them back on the shelf where he thinks they should go.  He does this with his toy animals

bowls, his books, and pots and strainers.  Basically anything he can get his hands on, he will organize it.  It is hilarious.  It is fascinating to watch him think it through and put something exactly where he wants it.

So we finally got our acts together this year and bought a small box garden kit.  We then bought a seed started kit and started seeds inside for tomatoes, egg plant, and various peppers.

All of the tomato seeds, most of the egg plant and only two of the pepper seeds survived.  In our box garden we decided to plant this year: peas, cucumber, yellow and green zucchini squash, acorn squash, spaghetti squash, egg plant, the two various pepper seeds and tomatoes.

Note to self, get a second box garden kit dedicated to squash.  And maybe cut down on how many peas and tomatoes we plant too.  Craziness is abounding here folks.

It has been fun to watch our small garden take off and go crazy.  I hope we get a bit of everything this year, but as you can see above, the squash plants are taking away sun from the cucumber, egg plant and peppers, so we'll see what ends up being able to grow.  We got a late start this summer, planting our garden, but hopefully more things will begin to produce before we have to start covering the garden at night to protect the plants and produce from the chilly nights.

My son keeps me on my toes all day long except when he is napping.  During nap time, I crochet while streaming netflix, journal, nap myself, work on revising my theses so then someday I can maybe find someone to publish them (fingers crossed), blog, speed walk on the treadmill when I can for exercise, check facebook once a day or every other day depending on what is going on around here and play in the garden.  I clean house every once in a while but only when I can't put it off anymore.  These are things I do to pass the time and fight the occasional feelings of loneliness.  I tell myself, that this too shall pass, and pass it does.

Family Fun Summer Adventures...

(There are a lot of photos in this post, but not as many as I think there should be. :) )
Where did the summer go?!  Wasn't yesterday Memorial Day?!  Labor Day is coming up in a few weeks?!  WTF hommies!

We have had a lot of family summer adventures this year.  Here is the litany of traveling, adventures and daily living we have done since Memorial Day and some photos to go along with each adventure.

Over Memorial Day weekend we traveled to Rapid City, South Dakota to celebrate our nephew Grayson's high school graduation.  It was a packed weekend.

Between Memorial Day and our next traveling adventure, we had Vacation Bible School, which was a blast, but a very busy week.  The Monday after VBS finished, we got on a 6am 1-stop flight to Boston to spend the week in New Hampshire visiting my sister and her family.  We stayed with my parents in a one bedroom condo in the White Mountain region of New Hampshire.  We were there from June 23rd-June 30th.  We traveled around the White Mountain region and took side day trips to the beach in Maine and Boston.  It was an awesome trip!!  It was hard to come back to Fairfield after that.

After we returned from New Hampshire, etc... we had two days to do laundry and repack to go spend the 4th of July with Jason's family at Fresno Reservoir.  I went up a day later because I wasn't up for going on Thursday.  I drove up on my own on the 4th and we left on the 5th because Jason had to be back to preach in church on Sunday.

After the 4th of July, we actually had a couple of weeks where we just hung out at home and got back into our normal routine.  July 17th-20th was Fairfield's annual town celebration, Swim Days.  It was a busy weekend but we didn't do any traveling, just stayed in town and participated in some of the activities that weekend.

The following weekend, July 25th and 26th we traveled to Bozeman, MT for a wedding Jason officiated over.  Bozeman is about 3-3.5 hrs away from Fairfield.  After the wedding on Saturday we had to head back so Jason could preach on Sunday.  It was a very quick trip and the wedding was lovely.

We had one day to do laundry and clean the house before my parental units and brother arrived for the week.  They were here from July 28th - August 4th.  While they were here, we went fishing in the mountains on the Sun River and also at Pishkun Reservoir.  We also drove down to a place called The Gates of the Mountains and traveled up the Missouri River on a tour boat.  During that time we celebrated Preston's 2nd Birthday too.  A lot happened that week, a lot!  Lucky for you, blogger isn't allowing me to post any more photos, because I would have posted a lot more.  Anyway....

My family left us on the 4th of August and the next day we headed up to Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp from August 5th-8th.  It was so much fun.  Now, here I wish I could post more pictures because I have the cutest picture of Preston with his friends Hannah and Harper.  Boo blogger...BOO!!!

Now we are home for a while.  I am traveling to Minnesota by myself on the train at the end of the month for 6 days.  It is the only time I will be able to get there for the rest of the year, so Jason and I made it happen.  My mother-in-law is staying with us during the week while she does her radiation treatments in Great Falls and she goes home on the weekends.  I have a lot of cleaning to do before she gets back on Monday.

I guess I answered my initial question, Where did the summer go?!  It flew by while we were traveling, adventuring and living daily life.  It went away in the blink of an eye, brilliantly away.

Fighting the Lonelies

In my mind this should be a Berenstain Bears story: 'The Berenstain Bears Fight the Lonelies'. Megs and I have been battling this foe for over a year now...the lonelies...

After my very blue, longer then expected winter suckfest, I spent a lot of time reflecting on solutions to fight the lonelies. I still can't say I have any friends here. I know a few people. I have some acquaintances. But I don't think there is anyone I can call up and invite to do something or call when I am having a rough day.

So...I decided a few things I would do to try to meet people. I took a French class, and plan to sign up again in the fall. I started volunteering to teach English as a Second Language classes a couple times a month. And, very recently I found a group of older folks to play string quartets with.

I still am on the hunt for some friends, but for now at least I have increased my social circle, get out of the house, fill my days a little and am getting exposed to new people and places regularly.

I also am trying to fill my day with gardening, yoga, some cooking when motivated and too much internet browsing. I putz with my creative hobbies now and then too. I just made a neat vest out of two thrifted scarves. I think it's pretty neat but still need to wear it out of the house to see how people react.

Any tips for fighting the lonelies? We'd love to hear them in the comments! 

10 Tips for Winning at Being Frugal

"Got my mind on my money and my money on my mind." - Youngbloodz

Yup, I just quoted old school rap lyrics. That's how we roll around here. Anyway...my last post was a long winded essay on why budgeting is worth your time. I thought since we've been at it for over half a year now, I'd share with you some of our best tips for being frugal and making your money work for you. The art of telling every penny where to go (in my pocket of course..."find a penny, pick it up, then all day you'll have good luck" and an extra penny!).

1. Generic brand food actually tastes the same on the majority of products. Try it, you'll be surprised and save a bunch of money on your grocery bill. I avoid generic tuna, am picky about hotdogs, prefer real maple syrup (or at least some large % mix) and have a couple of brand name cereals I really like (because I make a serious midday meal out of cereal...I need it to stick to my bones longer...and I'm picky). That said, we buy pretty much everything else generic. In fact, we are lucky to live near a store that sells SOOO many products in bulk bins, we save a ton of money shopping there and just store in our own containers.

2. Math is your friend. When you are shopping always compare price per unit of measurement. You are looking for the best ratio of most unit of measurement for lowest price. Some stores post this on the labels on the shelves. If they don't, do a rough estimate in your head. Does math hurt? Use a calculator (your phone probably has one).

3. Sell anything you can part with and you really don't need. When you start evaluating things, how often you use them, if you use them, if you are tired of them, if they are valuable, if you can easily replace them etc. you will start to realize you can live without a lot of the stuff you've been dragging around for years. My husband and I are constantly selling stuff. It is really satisfying to get a little money for something that is no longer useful to you and taking up space. Especially in a small apartment with no storage. Have a yard sale, list in the online classifieds. Post it on your facebook. Easy! We just made $150 at a yard sale this weekend and still have lots of stuff left to sell. Use this money to pay off debt! Good way to get the snowball rolling.

4. Cook! Making meals at home will save you so much money. It's also healthier and a good way to have some family time without everyone realizing that's what's going on :) . We go out to eat maybe once or twice a month. It comes out of our regular food budget and means that we get to buy that much less in groceries if we eat out. Also, bringing your own food for lunch is a huge way to save money! Leftovers reheat really well, cut down on waste, and are an easy way to have a healthy, filling lunch.

5. Look for free entertainment. We save so much on entertainment by looking for things that are going on for free. Our local art museum offers a free admission night once a week. Many museums do; check out their websites. Summer is a great time for free music and outside festivals. We have been going to as many of these as possible. We also try to get out and just enjoy the small things more too. An outing to feed the ducks? Sitting outside at the local coffee shop people watching?

6. Volunteer. You may be surprised that volunteering will actually save you money. It is entertaining, it is social, it feels good. And in some instances, if you volunteer for an event, for example a music festival, you can get free admission. My husband and I volunteered for the local folk festival. I will be doing site cleanup and he will be bartending and we will save $100 on the event!

7. Follow your budget. Don't cheat yourself. Once you have spent your valuable time, energy and brain cells on planning a budget, stick to it. This seems obvious, but it can be harder than it sounds. Don't forget to budget in some blow money for yourself. It helps. We each get $25 a month to spend on anything we want, no questions asked. My husband has a hard time limiting himself on this, but I feel like I am doing really well and sometimes have extra money left at the end of the month to roll into the next month.

8. Use envelopes with cash to manage things like food, entertainment, gas and your blow funds. We have noticed a huge difference in the months we used the envelope/cash system vs. the months we used debit. We let $1000 walk away one month using debit because we told ourselves "oh we're fine, there is plenty in the bank account." Sure there is plenty in the bank account, but on our digital budget spreadsheet, that money is actually being saved for things like the dentist, medicine and gifts. In a sense, we were stealing from our own savings. Sad.

9. Talk about money! Many people we know with money problems and debt hate money. They are angry about it, they don't want to talk about it. Once you allow yourself to get past that, and openly talk about it with your partner, your family, your friends, whomever. It is a lot easier to feel in control of your money, your expenses, your debt and your savings. Yes, we still argue about money, but I will say our conversations are much more productive and we are mostly on the same page.

10. Shop thrift shops and yard sales. This is a frugal, budget conscience person's best friend. In many instances "gently used will do". We buy as much as we can second hand right now. Of course we'd love to buy new, but on our just above poverty line income, we can't afford new on most things. I find name brand, designer clothing all the time. Watch for holes/snags/stains/general wear and tear but otherwise you can often win at thrift shops for clothes. We also buy a lot of kitchen items at thrift shops - dishes mostly. Pots and pans we buy new because the non-stick stuff does wear out. It is amazing what soap and water can do. Facebook has lots of local buy/sell groups. Search for your town name & buy/sell/yard sale/garage sale etc. Also shop online classifieds like craigslist. Plug your nose, dive in and you will be surprised and impressed at the treasures you will find. I have found Coach, Bottega Veneta and Gucci among other brands at thrift shops. Treasures people and more pennies in your pocket!   

Have some more tips not mentioned here? We would love to hear them. Please share in the comments! 

Revisiting Budgeting and Surviving (and Succeeding) Just Above the Poverty Line

A few months ago I mentioned I had been starting to follow the Dave Ramsey budgeting and financial planning method. I am pleased to report it is working really well! I traveled in February and March and my husband and I couldn't figure out how to keep up with the budget we had started in January. We noticed a difference. Money walked away...about $1000 wandered off into stupid, unplanned for purchases. That money could've been used towards paying off my car loan.

Lesson learned. We need a budget! Not only do we need a budget, through trial and error trying to find or rhythm with this program, we found we need the envelope system. The good, old fashioned, "there are $500 for food this month, $500 goes into the food & household envelope at the beginning of the month and when it's empty, it's empty" method. We run the following budget line items off of the cash only envelope system: food & household, gas, bus, entertainment, VB blow money, and my husband's blow money. The rest is debit and we reconcile the books at the end of the month (cuz I am too lazy/distracted to reconcile as we go).

Facts: my husband and I are living on 1 full time income (I just this month picked up some part time work that will cover 1 bill/month). We are living at only a few thousand dollars a year over the federal poverty line. But, with this considered, we have successfully paid off $5000 in debt since January. We have no credit card debt, and we are nearly finished paying off a car loan (on a 2012 I bought in 2013!) and after that will follow Dave Ramsey's "debt snowball" concept and apply all of the car loan money towards the student loan to pay that down too! That means within the next 12 months we will be 100% debt free and can start saving for a down payment on a home and retirement!

This has been challenging, it has caused arguments. But now after 7 months, I can say we have a really good system in place. Our finances are in check and we even have extra money every month to throw at debt. This is after we have put money towards saving for gifts, saving for travel, saving for French class tuition, saving for car repairs, saving for dental, saving for medications, saving for clothes. You get the idea. I highly recommend you give this method a try if you are having trouble managing your finances or if you find yourself with a lot of debt.

Even if you aren't much of a reader, Dave Ramsey's radio show is broadcast for free from his website. It's not a bad listen (if you can ignore the 3% of the time he spends on his extreme right politics) and you can learn a lot about winning at money. Here's his website. "The Total Money Makeover" and the workbook were what we used and found it to be enough information.

Edible Gardening

I have been filling my spring with growing things. It is very satisfying, except when the neighbor's naughty cat does her business in my garden box and destroys the entire crop of spinach...jerkface. I am ever tempted with the idea of sustainable living in which I grow as much of the produce that I can that we consume. I think I should probably own a place with a more substantial yard. Someday.

Meanwhile, the landlord has allowed us to put in a 3' x 6' planter box. I've got 4 strawberry plants, several heads of garlic, some lavender, some bergamot, some chives and the evil cat ruined the spinach patch. Also, immediately outside our door, we have a 5' x 10' green space that I have lots of pots of other stuff in. Also, put some sunflowers in around the border for fun and hopefully seeds.

I am growing only edibles, less the pansies I bought to dress up the stoop when my parents came. (My mom always has flowers on the front steps...have to keep up the expectations ;). I have several herbs and LOVE cooking with fresh herbs whenever possible. I'm also drying and preserving some as the season progresses.

Edible plants list includes:
-strawberries
-chives
-garlic
-bergamot (for tea)
-mint
-basil
-cinnamon basil
-oregano
-cilantro
-dill
-sunflower
-lavender
-chamomile (for tea)

Earlier this spring (in a month I consider summer). I experimented with dandelions. I made battered dandelion blossoms, dandelion jelly, dandelion cookies, dandelion syrup (best kind was infused with oranges!) and roasted dandelion root for tea. Here are several good sources for dandelion recipes. I was very satisfied with all of the yield and happy to have such an abundant free ingredient!
http://www.eattheweeds.com/dandelions-hear-them-roar/
http://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/dandelion-flower-cookies
http://www.almanac.com/recipe/dandelion-jelly-0
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/fried-dandelions-appalachian-style/detail.aspx

Here is a tour of my garden for the curious:

Drying oregano, mint & dill for winter (on a vintage tie rack)

Non edibles, pansies and some wild violets I found in the weeds in the back yard. Just stormed so leaves everywhere

Lavender, chamomile, bergamot, the tea herbs

Cinnamon basil, basil, mint & oregano, the sauce herbs

Mini sunflowers that came in a $1 kit at Target-boutique, next year I will plant jumbos!

I started lots of herbs in pots in the window when I thought it should be spring already, I am gradually transplanting some of them into larger pots and soil as I see fit. Leaving some here too as they are quite sweet! 

Dill bolted recently, going to bloom soon, I will harvest the seeds for pickling. 

Strawberries! I've pulled about 20 berries or more off these plants so far. Tart first year growth but should be good next year.

Free garden box planter. This is a junky particle board book shelf a neighbor was throwing away. It won't last forever of course but is good enough for now. Frugal gardeners unite! The other half has garlic, lavender, chives, bergamot and 1 surviving spinach plant.

1 of many spiders in the garden. I like them. They eat mosquitoes and other jerks. 

Some of the yield from my dandelion experiments. Dark large jar is syrup, smaller jars jelly, and brown stuff is roasted dandelion root. 

Chamomile blooms I have picked and am drying for tea. I think I may have enough for 1 cup. Le sigh.

Fresh chives I have freeze dried for later. 

Checking in...after a LOONGG Hiatus

Well folks, I survived the never ending winter. The trees did not leaf out until very late June/early July...eek. Very late spring for my taste and compared to what I am accustomed to. Summer is finally here, the weather has been perfect, my parents came to visit, I picked up some part-time internet based work and I have finally had enough with my excess cushioning and am trying a new fitness routine.

A horrible bout of the blues kept me from...everything for too many months. I have been wanting to run away from my life. Many days I have searched for the cheapest airline fares from this city to any other city in the world that sparked my interest in that moment. I don't have the money to purchase one of those tickets, but I can dream.

The 20-minute walk project fizzled out very quickly once I realized winter refused to end. From there I did nothing. I tried to rollerblade once the snow melted, an activity I used to love, but found I have lost so much muscle I felt too unstable on the rollerblades and was afraid I would hurt myself. So then I did nothing for a while again.

In the last month or so I have been extremely lucky to pick up some part-time, work from home computer work. After each block of time I complete I am doing a session on my yoga videos. It helps the posture and pain issues I am feeling from sitting at the laptop for several hours, and it is helping build muscle...with the goal of burning off some of this squish I and my pants disdain.

So new goal is to maintain the daily yoga practice, contribute to this blog more regularly and generally feel like I am accomplishing more than I had been before. Game on!