So I told all of you my plan.  Here is what I have done so far. 

All personal debt has been paid. $480

All bills are caught up. $974

I now have 6 months of medicine that I require to live.  $1,426

Gardening and preserving items $326

I still have a fair bit left that I will be leaving in the bank.  I do still need to see the doctor and my husband needs glasses.  We also need to get the geese and chickens yet.  After that everything stays in the bank.

My credit cards do have some room, which I may expand in order ot pay those automatic bills like many here suggested.  It depends how much I have left after glasses and seeing the doctor, along with chickens and geese.

I can't kill rabbits...I just can't.

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.

Now that I have a full two grocery shops under my belt, I am seeing that indeed about 31% of all of my disposable cash is going to unnecessary things.  I not only see fast food purchases, which could easily be trimmed, but also luxury goods that I really don't need like soda.  I will be cutting these things conciously.

I'm not a big couponer, because I would rather just cut out purchases all together.  Otherwise, if I can't find a coupon, I will be tempted to buy it anyway.  That's how the soda habit started.  I was buying only on sale with a coupon and then I got used to having it with dinner.  Building daily habits that aren't expensive, not looking for ways to get what I want inspite of expense is my goal.  

So my go to drinks are diet soda, coffee with sugar free flavoring syrup, and plain black tea.  To be honest, the coffee is more expensive, when you total the half anf half and the torani sugar free syrup in with the coffee, than even soda.  It also has some ill effects on my health.  So I think coffee and diet soda has to go.  I will still drink black tea for now.  I need alternatves that are low sugar and inexpensive that aren't just tea.  Our water tastes and smells like wet dog some days, so that is why I don't drink water plain.  Cutting out fast food, coffee and all the accessories, and soda will save me about $30 a week or about $1,500 a year roughly.  

I would like to take the money I save and invest it in paying down debt and a decent water filter that I can fit in the fridge to take the wet dog smell and taste away.  If I take what I save and spend even $300 a year on a water filter and filter cartridges, it would be worth it.

That's what I got so far anyway.  As far as getting a check or direct deposit, I inquired with my boss.  She doesn't do checks anymore as the post office lost too many she said.  She told me I could be without my pay for four weeks waiting on the first check to come in from the mail.  She said they are looking for other pay optons.  I have inquired about cash app and they do not do that.  

In the past when I wanted to save money, I would cut a few non-essential monthly bills, like subscriptions and make enough breathing room to put towards the credit cards.  That isn't working.  I have cut the subscriptions.  I noticed I spend a decent amount each week on things we "need", but I never actually go through to look at each item to see if we really "need" it.  I get my pay on Thursdays.  It's not much.  I get anywhere from $100 to $120 a week.  After paypal, because I get paid through paypal, gets it's fees it's $95 to $115.  So right there, I know I am bleeding about $5 a week which totals about two weeks pay over a year.  

From there, I typically buy groceries, hygene items, and pay a bill.  This week's bill is personal taxes.  That will be $50.  Next week it will be registering my car for about $58.  Anyway, sticking to this week, $50 on taxes.  I had $50 left.  I went tot he grocery store and purchased the follwing.

Bread          $1.89

Pads          $3.95

Milk            $4.89

poptarts     $1.00

Q-tips         $1.00

Sugar         $2.39

Cheese       $2.99

Wipes         $2.89

Soda          $1.67

Soda          $1.67

Soda          $1.67

Subtotal  $29.20

Tax           $1.59

Total        $30.79

It's an interesting exercise that shows me that not only do I not "need" everything that I think I do, but also that almost $5 of all purchases were spent on tax.  We grabbed some fast food which is another non-need.  So I spend $5 a week to get my paycheck, another $5 on taxes, and then I spent roughly $15 on fast food we don't need, and then another $6 at least on the grocery budget for non-needs.  All totaled $31 sent on non-necessities from a $100 paycheck.  I am literally frittering away 31% of my money for non-essential items.  

Eye opening...I do recommend writing down purchases.  That was enough for a seed order!