Jds77's Personal Finance Blog

A few months ago I came up with a budget and a plan for the future. Since then there has been so much that has not gone according to my plan. I thought it was coincidence at first but now I’m realizing that it’s because of my new credit limit.
I spent years without credit cards. I screwed up big time years ago but I’ve been working hard to pay everything off until recently. Now that I got the balance transferred and I am not paying interest I’ve lost all motivation to get things paid off as quickly as possible. I’m also remembering how easy it is to whip out the plastic without thinking. So what that means is that now instead of getting things paid off quickly, which was my original intention, my credit card debt has gone up by about $500. Granted it is at 0% but still.

These are my new goals to get me back on track:
1. I will not use my credit card only my debit card
2. Work extra hours to get that extra 500 paid off
3. Revamp the budget

When I was an 18 year old college student with no real income I had 9 credit cards with around $10,000 of available credit. I was responsible for awhile at least then life got in the way. I ended up dropping out of school working crappy jobs supporting a boyfriend who was supposed to be supporting me but that's a whole other story. Anyway, I am still paying for those mistakes but now I am paying for them at 0% interest. Yay!

I finally have my motivation back to save and pay off my debts. I went through this blah period for a couple of weeks where I felt like I just didn’t care how much I spent. I kept up with my coupons and grocery shopping but we were eating out a lot more. Plus we had to buy a few expensive things like a new mattress. I think I am back on track now.

Earlier this morning I realized that I had already met my goal for this pay period so I am taking the day off. Ok not the whole day but the rest of the day. I worked a couple of hours this morning. I’m setting some goals to accomplish today to take advantage of this new found motivation.

1.Plan menus through Sunday.
2.Inventory the basement pantry stockpile.
3.Figure next month’s trip to Pittsburgh into the budget.
4.Have homemade dinner on the table when bf comes home from work.
NO TAKE-OUT!!!

My new food challenge is to actually eat the food I buy before I buy more! I have been doing a great job stocking up and paying next to nothing for it but my pantry is about to burst. I have some pretty crazy things in there like 12 bottles of mustard and 6 bottles of hot sauce. They were all free after coupons. Oh and pickles, man do I have pickles. Good thing I really like pickles. lol Oh yeah, should I mention my 60 cans of beans? I paid about 5 cents each for them. I guess that’s a lot better than my challenge last week of fixing a hole in the ceiling of a closet caused by a leaking roof and cleaning out all of the stuff that was destroyed. Ugh. Not a fun week.

I started using grocery coupons a couple of months ago when I happened to find one for something I was going to buy that day anyway. It turned out to be on sale and the store tripled the coupon. Ever since then I have been hooked. For the life of me I can’t remember what I bought that day though. lol

Anyway, where I live there are 6 grocery stores and 2 super Wal-Mart’s all within 10 miles. There prices are ok. Not super cheap but not bad. Where they get competitive is with coupons. At least 2 of them do.

I’m not sure if Wal-Mart even takes coupons. I’ve had too many bad experiences so I don’t even shop there anymore. One of the other grocery stores is a Wegmans. Their prices are ok but I’m too tempted by their specialty cheeses so I had to stop shopping there. Mmm specialty cheeses.

Of the 5 remaining stores 3 are of one chain (Weis) and the other 2 are a different chain (Giant). Those two directly compete with each other even though they say they don’t. Meaning they don’t compare prices to each other but they both compare their prices to Wegmans. Kind of silly really.

Weis and Giant both double coupons everyday up to $1. So if the coupon is for $1 they will give you $2 off and every couple of months they run triple coupon promotions where you can triple up to 6 coupons with a $15 purchase.

Grocery shopping has become a game instead of a chore. I actually love it now. Ok well not love but it can be fun standing there watching my bill drop with every coupon scanned. We have saved so much money and I’ve gotten so many people into coupons by just telling them about my savings. On my best trip ever I got about $50 in groceries and paid $1.17 but I usually save between 50% and 80%!

My name is Jamie. I am 29 (for the first time, seriously lol) and live in the middle of nowhere. Ok actually the middle of Pennsylvania but that’s the same thing as nowhere.

After some rough patches and frivolous spending I managed to get myself over 10,000 in debt on my credit cards. I have that down to about 3,000 now, give or take a hundred or two. I’m also working on a massive student loan for a bachelors and masters degree that I am not using. D’oh! But that will change once I get to a city that actually has a real economy (hopefully).

I have a LONG way to go but I feel I’m making better progress getting my financial life in order.