And then life happens.....

So, if you have read one of my earlier posts, not sure which one right now, then you will know that life loves to throw us curve balls. All I can say is at least it waited until tax time. Now we don't get a huge tax payout because I think it's silly to let Uncle Sam "borrow" your money all year for free but we do get a little. Enough to cover an unexpected plane ticket and a cat who needs unexpected surgery.

Anyway, on to the good news....drum roll please! I actually almost did not go over my grocery budget (otherwise known as I did go over it but not by too much). I pretty much expected that because this month had some great sales and couple that with some great coupons and I was pretty much doomed to fail. I actually blame Kellogg's but that's another story.

While I stood at the stove tallying my receipts, and then re-tallying my receipts three more times because I didn't trust my numbers, I noticed a pattern. I was paying only 10-50% of retail at most. And if you really must know why I did all this standing up at the stove it's because my two year old can detect when I sit in front of my computer from a mile away and it doesn't matter how enthralled he is in whatever he is doing, it's like a shark to blood and he attacks. So, I stand to fool him, which by the way, only buys me a little extra time.

Alright, back to numbers. My grocery budget is $400 and as far as I can tell I went over by about $25ish. The "ish" comes from the fact that I also have SavingStar deposits that I am not accounting for and I know my husband bought me newspapers but I am not sure how much he spent because he didn't give me receipts and used his debit card! So, $425ish this month. The retail value of what I bought before coupons was over $1385.93! The savings is actually a lot higher if you figure in that I bought a lot of things on clearance, like four sleds for $1.00 each that retail for over $10 a piece or 4 light bulb packs that also retail for over $10 a piece for $1.49 each. Now I did shop at the military commissary a few times this month and while the products there are usually priced about 33% below the average retail, you still are charged a "surcharge" on the pre-coupon amount so this adds up and sucks up the savings. Regular retailers cannot charge you tax on items that are free or pre-coupon price in my state, currently.

I won't even go into my eating out budget because my dear husband came home and we ate out more. I don't understand this because we have such a huge stockpile but nonetheless, I have yet to asses that damage.

TTFN!

Working from home....through the Zombie Apocalypse

In a perfect world we would be able to work from home and our children would never have to go to daycare unless we wanted them to, you know, for that much needed break. But for most of us this world just isn't perfect.

I have tried a number of the "work from home" things like selling Tupperware, toys (kids toys that is), a music program and I realized I am just not cut out for them. Either that or I haven't found the perfect one. And no, I am not interested in selling make-up. Please don't ask! I have also tried earning money from doing surveys and mystery shopping. Those weren't too bad, if you didn't mind waiting more than two weeks for your pay and if you didn't mind driving around. Sometimes that costs more than what you get paid so keep that in mind.

Nonetheless I "make" money from home, and no, I am not copying it on my copier. I am couponing. Spell check doesn't like that word by-the-way and neither do some grocery stores. I started a year ago and have saved my family a lot (read A LOT) of money.

I am the type of personality that when I get into something, I get into it hard core. Good and bad I suppose. I researched like crazy and came upon a few websites, www.livingrichwithcoupons.com , and www.thekrazycouponlady.com and a forum www.weusecoupons.com . They are my favorites and the ones I go to prior to stepping out the door to go shopping. They are also the ones I subscribe to on my Facebook page. There are a few blogs I follow but I only subscribe to them by email feed so I get a daily update of what they posted.

So, how do I "make" money with this? Well, it's simple. Our grocery bill for the 6 of us used to be over $1000 a month for groceries, personal care, etc. When I started couponing I really didn't see the savings in the first few months but what I did see was a stockpile growing. It just so happened that I started couponing when my local grocery store had their best sales. It was about 3 months before I saw the "savings". I didn't have room in my pantry for the foods I had bought and I didn't have room in my upright deep freezer for them either. That's when I really started seeing the savings. I wasn't going to the grocery store as often and when I did, my savings were over 60% every time.  We used some of our savings to buy the wood to make more shelves and another upright deep freezer.

Now I budget $400 a month for everything grocery and personal care. And yes, that is still for 6 people. What that means is I basically "make" over $600 a month "working" from home. I get to sit in my pj's with my hair going every which way. I get to drink my coffee and eat my breakfast while working. I get to have my two year old at home with me. I can work when I want to work or when I can work, mostly nap time and bedtime, and I don't lose half my pay to childcare and gas. I get to see his firsts and be there when he is sick. And that goes for all of my other kids as well.

My final advice, buy the newspapers every Sunday that there are coupons and buy multiples at that. I usually buy 4-8 papers depending on what coupons are in them. My papers run about $2.00 so that is about $7-$15 a month (one I get on subscription at half off) and that comes out of my grocery budget. Or, the other option if you hate getting all the papers or coupons you don't use/need like I do, order online from either eBay or a coupon clipping service. Yes, there is controversy over that and no I am not going into it but until it's definitively said to be illegal, I will do what I need to do to feed my family and save money.

My stockpile is big and growing weekly. As my 17 year old says, if there is ever a zombie apocalypse, we can just board up the doors and windows and live in the basement on our stockpile for over a year.

Cash Envelopes

So it may be a little crazy of me to think that we can only spend cash on our everyday expenses but I sure am determined to try. So here is my cash plan for this month, notice I said this month because who knows what drama, trauma, or incident is waiting to happen.

• Groceries: $400 (yep, for 6 people, this is where couponing helps)
• Eating out: $150 (really almost unrealistic for my family since we have caviar tastes on a shoestring budget but it's what I feel the max we should spend is)
• Haircare: $48 (I am really bad about getting everyone a haircut and they typically look like they have tumbleweeds on their heads by the time we get around to haircuts but we usually go every 2-3 months)
• David's Money: $50 (someone has an addiction to soda and snuff, he also gets haircuts every two weeks so this has to cover it all)

So here is what we put in savings: (we do this because these expenses we only access every 3-6 months so to have cash just lying around in an envelope in our house would not be good, just sayin')

• Gifts: $180 (for Christmas and Birthdays...we do have 5 kids)
• Clothes: $100 (again...5 kids, well 4 at home and we do pass down clothes a lot so this is the emergency fund disguised to look like our clothing fund)
• Oil: $150 (to heat our house, took all the bills from the last two years added a few hundred for inflation and averaged them...)
• Vehicle Maintenance: $93.00 ( we averaged out our oil changes and other misc things we need to have done routinely)
• Chiefs Dues: $17 ($200 a year, will not get in to this now)

That's it. Well, we do have other monthly bills but those stay about the same and are just that, monthly.

So far, so good this month. We are on track except for eating out. We have blown most of that. Might be in part due to my husband being away for the past few weeks and I am too exhausted to cook. I also have incurred some scouting expenses that were not planned for. These I took from my grocery budget since I don't need most of it this month but I will repay it. I need to re-evaluate and add those into our yearly budget as well and since they don't happen every month they can also go into savings.

It's all in the name...

So not only is my blog called "a year of change" because I hope that it will be just that, a year full of positive changes and movement forward, but, it's also called that because I am determined to see how much actual change I can save in a year. I call it my "passive savings account because we have no savings".
Anyway, it's gonna be a bit harder on the cash diet because we are only using money out of the envelopes for their intended purpose however I think that if I have change left at the end of the month, I will buy it off myself. It sounds kinda silly but as an example, if I have $10.00 left in my grocery envelope at the end of the month and it just so happens that $5.00 of it is left in change, then I can replace the change in the envelope with dollar bills and then put the change in my jar....seen here:

Yes, there are "little hands" trying to get into my jar!

This is some from last year and it's about $108 or so...minus the one roll the "helper" stole.

So, that's it. My "passive savings" plan. Someday I will get to Dave Ramsey's recommended minimum of $1000 but for now, we are at $10.00.