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How I intend to change the way I handle money to save money

February 23rd, 2022 at 12:25 am

Oh dear lovely folks!  

I am in such a good mood this morning.  I did find we will be getting a tax return inspite of having child payments and me working a 1099.  Last year we owed $600 on taxes instead due to both my husband and I being 1099 workers.  Oh that was a rough one.  This gives me some much needed breathing room to look at what we can apply it towards so we can make it through the rest of the year.  

I have already filed, been accepted and approved.  I anticipate around six thousand back after fees from turbo tax.  That said, even if we have half that it will help to pay some of the bills we got behind on.  So first is getting up to date on bills.  This means paying the truck payment we are a month behind on, paying my doctor that I owe $200 to, paying my daughter back the $200 we owe her for an emergency, and the $150 we owe our son for car parts he bought.  After paying all the bills we owe and all our personal debts, we might have three to four thousand left.  I am still doing the calculations.  Once I have a good set, I promise to put them up.

Then we will put aside at least 1 week worth of pay to just sit in the bank to cover if we might have an over draft.  Over 1.5K went to overdrafts last year and I hope to avoid that this year.  So we will just have $500 sitting in the bank at anytime for whatever might slip through my radar.  I hope to build on this through out the year, but have no real idea if that is possible with our current income/expense ratio.

With what is left, we will fix or maintain things around the home, starting with our truck some new brakes and a new hub assembly.  My husband said he can do the work, so we'll see how much that is in the end.  Then we will move in towards working on the garden. 

No major things this year for the garden and homestead, just some ferlizer, one or two varieties of seed I still need, a hoe or two, and a good fork.  We do need a new back deck, but I'm going to see if we can just repair it with a small handful of things.  I have all the major tools I need for any repairs I think.  I will probably be adding some canning jars and lids to the mix also, but that is iffy.  We will be getting some chickens and geese for home food production.  I wanted quail, but can't justify the cost.  They are three times as expensive as chickens, very hard to hatch out, very hard to make home grown feed for, and so much more.  So chickens it is and geese for the fat.  I will have to fix up the chicken pen area, but that should be easy enough.  I will also be getting an inexpensive incubator to hatch out chicks a few at a time.  The only other addition I am toying with is a piglet or two in order to have fresh meat over the winter that isn't just geese and to save the dessicated thyroids just in case for medical reasons.  Pigs are a lot of upkeep feed wise, so on the fence.  Between the truck and the garden, it is no more than a full thousand dollars even if I get the pig, which I am on the fence about.

We will buy a ton of feed at a time as it is cheaper...for the price of half a ton we can get a ton.  That is one thing I do want to impliment immediately.  

I will also be getting three months of medications.  I will die without my medication.  So I will be getting at least three months although I would be thrilled if it were possible to get a year at a time.  I have a special fridge for it and a generator, so I might get gas for the generator too just in case.  I am also going to pick up a few herbs that help to treat what I have wrong with me as back up.  These are very inexpensive and doesn't even have to come out of the taxes.  I can pay for them from my weekly pay.  

I will be going to livestock auctions, just in case I find a steal there for a nanny goat or a lamb, just something to put milk or meat on the table since I already have the experience and room for them.  However, not the main focus of what I want to do right now as eggs, chickens for meat, and geese for meat and fat are enough to survive.  Also that is only after, I have everything else I need.

 

Hubby's first week of work done!

July 4th, 2014 at 02:23 am

This is his first week and he survived. It is a very physically demanding job. First I noticed his pudge is a bit less in just three days. I also noticed he is eating twice as much. He is actually losing weight while he eats more. He comes home in pain and sore. It's worth it though, he says.

He is making $9 an hour before taxes. He drives only 7 miles to and from work. He works 10 hour shifts four days a week. According to http://mustachecalc.com/ his real hourly wage is $6.84. That is a lot better than my measly $0.24 an hour real hourly wage.

We plan to pay off the credit cards. We have already paid off the care credit card from buying my daughter glasses. It was a small amount on there. We also added an extra $60 to our Amazon card. We want to pay off the Matrix card completely and get rid of it in the next 4 months. We just hope that he gets hire done full time at the plant instead of as just a temp.

Good news!

June 15th, 2014 at 08:23 pm

Well first, I got my medication, at least the most important one. I couldn't afford the rest. I did a little job for a client that normally has me work. The extra cash was just enough to get one medication.

I sold one more book. The first one of Bringing Up Baby, I believe. That or the second one. Either way, I was super ecstatic.

Work picked up a little more. No where near enough to make up for the $800 dollar short fall, but that's ok. I found another way to make up for it.

We happen to have a lot growing in the garden now.



Our beet bed.



Our turnip bed after we pulled about 5 pounds of turnips for the weeks dinners. We chopped the greens and froze them for our soups.



Our onion haul two days ago. We chopped up all the green onion bits and froze it for soups. The little onions are being used in everything from Mexican food to caramelized onions for snacks for the kids. It's basically onions fried in very little oil to caramelize the outside of it. A very tasty snack. We also made eggplant Parmesan with our onions. We didn't have Parmesan though, but it tasted fine.

I have been pulling from the garden a lot to supplement our food budget so I spend less. Well I went through everything we had in the house and made a meal plan. I believe, at least for the next month, we should get by without buying any food. It will be tough. We will have to eat beans a lot when the garden doesn't bless us. Beans are good anyway though. I usually buy more butter and things when the goat isn't producing a lot. This should free up more money for about a month. After that we will have eaten down every last store and only have what we produce, so hopefully money picks up soon.

Unfortunately we do not produce enough to live on exclusively. It does make up a lot of our diet in the summer, but until the green beans take off and the okra is setting and the tomatoes are ready to drop we will just won't be able to do it. It's awfully cold here now, so they aren't wanting to grow like usual. My peppers are dying. My tomatoes are beautiful, but only 3 of the 22 plants are setting. My okra are growing, but slowly. The green beans had to be trellised already, so they may take off soon. My squash and cucumbers all came in, but aren't setting fruit yet. We should have some potatoes soon and that will be fine. Other than that, we have fields of beans. They take 90 days and they have been in only 30. Plus no guarantee they will set right also. The weather has been so weird. I like it, I just need to learn to grow better I guess.

I found a few things to sell on eBay, but none of them are doing well. I assume the items I chose are not that popular.

Now we are set back even further

June 11th, 2014 at 08:35 am

I was making progress. We had money coming in. I was working a little as a writer. I got sick and missed a days work, but that isn't the worst of it. The worst is we just lost $800 a month in income. It's complicated, it's likely to be temporary, but it's going to sting.

I have been on edge all day. I went to the doctor and got my medication prescribed, but haven't been able to get it filled. I take blood pressure medication, thyroid medication, and blood sugar medication. I'm not really worried about any of them except the blood pressure medicine as it gets really high without it. Like 205 over 95 high. Really high. It's partially due to my thyroid still not being in check. My stomach is doing back flips. If I don't get my medication soon, I may have some serious issues. How can I find the money when half of our income is gone, just like that.

I am doing everything I can to replace this lost income. I know we can make it. We have before, but man if the world doesn't have some crappy timing. I'm looking for things to sell so I can raise a few dollars before I run out completely. I am hoping something comes through on my writing gigs...but that money is slower. It takes 2 weeks for it to clear.

I have a husband. He has been employed regular like 9 months out of the past 6 years. I have had a job more than him. Sometimes I get frustrated. I imagine men that work for a living must feel this way. How many working men have to cook, clean, menu plan, grocery shop, garden, sew, and home school their kids though?

Let me stop right there. Complaining will do nothing. I love my husband even if he does not rise to the challenges that life hands him like I do. Perhaps that is why I am his wife, to keep him from drowning.

An opportunity I can't afford...and I can't afford to miss.

June 9th, 2014 at 07:18 am

My daughter Aukxsona was one of five children selected to go to a special camp for children with disabilities.



She has transverse myelitis.



Transverse Myelitis is a rare condition where the spinal cord has pieces missing. As you noticed in that picture she is standing. She can walk too now. She is a miracle in so many ways. When she was a baby she didn't walk and until she was six years old she hopped around. She fell down so much, it scared me to let her walk so I had to hold her hand as she hopped about. She had trouble toilet training and just recently got out of training pants. She couldn't walk well enough to get to the bathroom and her pelvic muscles were to weak to retain the urine. She now walks with braces that hide under her pants and goes to the toilet like a regular girl. She still can't feel her feet, but thanks to Shriner's she is getting better every day.



She is even being sponsored to go, the Transverse Mylelitis Association will sponsor her costs to go. However, they require a caregiver to go and the caregiver must pay $1200 to go. I thought the care giver might be sponsored as well..since it is a requirement for the child to go. Unfortunately it is not.

Does anyone have any idea how I can raise this money to go with her before August 9th? I know it seems so frivolous, but this is a huge opportunity and I really do not want her to miss it. She will be with other children like her, horse back riding, kayaking, zip lining. She will also have a chance to meet the director of the international Neurorehabilitation Institute and the assistant professor of Neurology from John Hopkins.

Annual Budget

May 7th, 2014 at 07:15 am

Today, after my husband lost his job and my hours were dropped, I decided to remake the annual budget. I found that we have more month than money and more year than money too, but luckily I have ideas to make that work.

First we owed back taxes on our house, so I junked my old truck that was falling apart and worth less than it would cost to replace just one part that needed replaced. I got $407 for it. I took the $407 and paid my tax bill for my house. Now I just need $110 more by June 1st to pay off the tax bill for the year. I anticipate being able to pay that off.

Second, I joined a gig site called fiverr.com. I have made $44 in the past 9 days. That's not a lot of money, but considering we are in the negative here, it was worth it to me.

When going through our expenses, I found we haven't been using what money we do have to the absolute best of our abilities. Part of my motivation for selling the old junked up truck was to reduce my annual tax bill by $20, to eliminate the $28 a month for insurance, and to make sure I didn't have something lying around going to waste.

I also found that we pay a heck of a lot more for electricity than most people in our area do. I assume it is due to the amount of usage, so I will be looking into dropping that.

I think, if I implement everything I am planning, we will have enough money for the month and maybe a little to set back.