Debt Repayment – Student Loans

Nothing feels better than paying off debt.  It is a huge load off of our shoulders and our minds.  Debt is one of those things that nags at us, often subconsciously, throughout our daily lives.  It plagues most of us and causes a lot of strife within our relationships. 

We all acquire debt for many different reasons.  Medical expenses are the most common.  Then there is consumer debt – auto loans, credit cards, payment plans, etc.  Mortgages and student loans are big ones too. 

Student loans are a great investment in your future but they have to go.  You could spend the better part of your career paying those off if you only make the minimum payment every month. 

If you already have student loans then map out a repayment plan that fits in your budget and work your way to getting them paid off.  Even though the interest seems low and the payment as well it will look much better on your credit report if that debt is resolved rather than lingering overhead. 

If you are planning to acquire student loans remember they have to be paid back and the first payment is due six months after you leave school.  Don’t take on too many loans and watch those interest rates.  Make sure you receive those loans from reputable companies with fixed interest rates and payment schedules. 

Remember too that you may not be paying back on one lump sum but multiple loans with multiple payments due at once.  You could easily find yourself in serious trouble by owing several payments equal to a larger amount than you anticipated. 

My best advice is to use student loans as a last resort and in moderation.  Sticking with the same company will help you to work with one creditor and make suitable pay back arrangements that will work for both of you.  And always, read your paperwork thoroughly before you sign it!

Pizza Night

We made a great pizza for supper on Saturday Night and most of it was from leftovers but you never would have known it.  I think the final cost came in at about $1.50 in new ingredients. 

I started out by making a fresh batch of pizza dough, divided it in half and put one dough ball up for later and used one for our pizza.  The sauce was a ½ cup of spaghetti sauce and I used ¾ cup of sausage both siphoned off before making our spaghetti last week.  I love this budget stretcher. 

We also topped it with half a package of pepperoni (50¢) and one cup of grated mozzarella (75¢).  Then we finished it off with chopped onions & peppers and sliced olives leftover from Super Bowl nachos as well as four leftover mushrooms from our salad supplies. 

The girls and I worked together to prepare it which made for a fun time spent in the kitchen.   It was a delicious meal and certainly healthier and much more affordable than delivery or frozen pizza.

Grocery Shopping – Changing Up The Game Plan!

Despite devoting the last week of November and the entire month of December to a pantry month, amazingly I find myself doing so again this month. 

Last month I did my usual grocery shopping plan and stuck to my meal planner with gusto.  I loved making all those fresh new meals and enjoying the leftovers but I’m afraid I was a little too devoted to my menu planner. 

In retrospect I needed to be a little more flexible because we ended up with a lot of food waste last month.  More than I have had in so I long I can’t remember when.  More than I’d want to confess to over at Frugalgirl.com that’s for sure. 

After perusing the grocery list I realized that most of what I had on it was to stock up on items we already had on hand and a number of “want” items we really didn’t need.  A few “wants” is fine but this was more than a few.  So I decided to change strategies this month and I am glad I did. 

I started out by declaring February a pantry month and then purchasing only items we really needed which ended up being milk, eggs, flour tortillas, non-stick spray, cheese and fresh fruit.  It has been nice because it freed up some cash to take advantage of a couple specials I came across.  One was NY strip steak for Valentine’s Day – 4 steaks for $17 and three packages of center cut bacon for $1.99 each.  Bacon has become so expensive lately so I was really glad to find it on markdown. 

I am still using my menu planner but not quite so rigidly.  If there is something to use up in the refrigerator we are doing that first before we make something new.  So far, so good.  We have had spaghetti three times for supper as well as several times for lunch this month, much to the sheer delight of my youngest, but other than that not too much repetition. 

Last week a dear friend of mine gave me a pot of chili and a tuna casserole to take home.  I appreciate that she thinks of me and likes to give me a break at supper from time to time.  Since I have been under the weather the last couple of weeks, first with migraines and now with a cold, I have really appreciated her thoughtfulness! 

So definitely some flexibility around here.  How are things going in your kitchen this month?

Valentine's Day

I challenged my girls and myself to spend no more than $1 on Valentine’s Day gifts this year.  They could only spend $1 each on me and I could only spend $1 each on them.  Thanks to Walgreens we pulled it off. 

A friend of mine took the girls to the store on Friday for me and I stopped on the way to pick them up from daycare a couple weeks ago with a coupon to purchase six Russell Stover chocolate truffles for 29¢ each.  I left having spent only $1.85 with sales tax. 

I don’t know what they got me but I do know they are pretty excited about it.  They spent Saturday morning making their own Valentine cards for me.  I put three truffles in a paper bag for each of my girls and stapled a leftover Valentine card from two years ago on the front of the bags. 

Sunday morning I printed off my computer homemade Valentines for the girl’s to give their teachers and classmates.  They cut them out and wrote the names on them while I made greeting cards on the computer to mail to friends and family.  I’m a little late this year in getting them done but at least I got them done.  Most will be delivered on time but three will most likely be a day late.  Bummer.

I also baked four dozen sugar cookies.  I tinted the dough pink and sprinkled them with white sugar.  They turned out cute and taste wonderful.  We had to test them, of course.  I put some in plastic zipper sandwich bags and into paper bags, then I stapled more leftover Valentines from my little stash on the bag fronts.   I will be sharing with friends and a couple neighbors.

I put a container of eighteen of the cookies together for our potluck lunch at work on Tuesday.  We are ready for Valentine’s Day and with a little creativity and some elbow grease got the job done on an amazingly tight budget.  Hurray!

Sopa Seca

Sopa Seca is one of our family’s new found favorites.  I have been making it a little over a year now and we love it.  It is not only delicious but surprisingly budget friendly and easy to make 

Sopa Seca 

1 pkg. fideo pasta- 7 oz. (yes, it really is enough)

1 lb. ground beef, turkey or pork

1 medium onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. chili powder

½ tsp. black pepper

1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes

1 to 2 chipotle peppers, finely chopped (optional)

1 c. grated cheddar cheese

Sour cream or Mexican Crema 

Cook pasta according to package directions.  Meanwhile brown meat with onions and garlic.  Drain any excess fat.  Add spices, tomatoes and peppers.  Fill tomato can with water and add to meat mixture.  Bring to a bubble, turn off heat and add drained pasta.  Stir completely and pour into 2 quart casserole.  Top with cheese and “bake” in microwave for 5 minutes.  Serve with sour cream.

Our store sells fideo for 28¢ a package!  Don’t let that little package fool you either because it definitely makes enough to serve four hungry adults.  The kids may find this too spicy so you can omit the chipotle peppers.  I really like them and I used to divide this recipe into two casseroles and add the peppers to half the mixture so my kids could have the milder dish.  Now they like the spicy version so I just make it in one casserole now. 

Give this one a try.  You won’t be disappointed.

Debt Repayment – Consumer Debt

Nothing feels better than paying off debt.  It is a huge load off of our shoulders and our minds.  Debt is one of those things that nags at us, often subconsciously, throughout our daily lives.  It plagues most of us and causes a lot of strife within our relationships.

We all acquire debt for many different reasons.  Medical expenses are the most common.  Then there is consumer debt – auto loans, credit cards, payment plans, etc.  Mortgages and student loans are big ones too. 

I don’t like consumer debt and the resulting interest at all.  Aside from a mortgage you could potentially spend more on interest from consumer credit debt than any other type of debt.  In some cases even more than your mortgage interest if you have a lot of it.  I have actually seen cases where couples had twice as much consumer debt as what they owed on their mortgage.  Yikes! 

If you are able to make your monthly rent or mortgage without issue and your home is secure then consumer debt is, in my opinion, the first place to focus on with debt repayment. 

Collect all of your monthly obligations and organize them by due dates.  Then select the ones that have the lowest balances.  You will pay those off first.  The old school of thought was to attack the ones with the highest interest rates first but this isn’t always the case.  If you can pay off a smaller balance first then you will be able to free up more money faster to allocate to another debt. 

Make your minimum required payments on all your bills by their due dates and put your extra cash on the one you have selected to pay off first.  Once you have paid off a debt you will then want to apply all of the payment money from that bill to the next bill selected in addition to the minimum payment you were already making.  Continue with these payments until that debt is paid off and then all of that payment money will be applied to your next debt and so on. 

It is the “snowball effect” of debt repayment.  You will be amazed at how quickly this will begin to take shape.  You will also get caught up in the momentum of it and find yourself propelled forward to success. 

If you find yourself with two debts of fairly equal value then this is where I would suggest you pay off the one with the highest interest first. 

Don’t be afraid to contact creditors to let them know what your plans are and ask for payment arrangements and/or for interest reductions.  Quite often, especially with credit card companies, these are options available to you if your account is in good standing.  It never hurts to ask! 

Consolidate and transfer debt from credit cards to lower interest or no interest offers with caution.  There are almost always fees associated with these and if you do decide to do this, make sure you pay it off within the timeline you are given so you are not hit with huge interest charges.  I have actually done this myself and it worked really well when I needed to consolidate a couple of cards into one monthly payment.  I was able to pay off the debt in half the time and even with the initial 3% transfer fee I still saved a ton in interest which made it definitely worth it. 

Check with your bank or credit union to see if re-financing your auto loans is a good option for you.  Your personal banker can show you how much you can save to determine whether this is a good move for you.  The fees should be relatively low or non-existent. 

Debt consolidation loans can be a good option but only if the terms are right.  Watch the interest rates and associated fees and don’t allow your bank to attach your home as collateral.  If this is the only way you can receive this type of financing I would suggest passing this up altogether and find other options.  This is not my favorite form of debt repayment because I think it tends to prolong the inevitable. 

Remember:  The best way to be successful at debt repayment is to stop accumulating new debt.  Put away or cut up the credit cards, don’t go shopping and concentrate on the task at hand.  You’ll love how good you feel when your bills are paid and there is no longer a large amount of debt hanging overhead.

February – 28 Things To Do This Month

Every day this month I am going to pick one thing from the list to do and then mark it off.  Some I can do quickly and some I will need to schedule time for.

1.                   Wash all the interior doors, doorjambs, and doorknobs upstairs

2.                  Complete one task on the HOUSE TO DO LIST

3.                  Super dust my bedroom and bop the cobwebs

4.                  Clean the ceiling fan in my bedroom

5.                  Spend a day investment cooking – see plan

6.                  Make a gift

7.                  Bake cookies with my girls, share with the neighbor

8.                  Make Valentines with the girls to give to their classmates & teachers

9.                  Send a Valentine to my aunt and my grandpa

10.               Create my March meal plan

11.                Clean and re-organize the bathroom cabinet upstairs

12.               Clean and re-organize the kitchen utensil drawer

13.               Purge my closet and drawers – collect items to donate

14.               Bake zucchini bread, take some to work

15.               Try a new recipe

16.               Vacuum the inside of the car, wash inside of windshield

17.               Clean the drawer under the stove

18.               Wash the inside of the upstairs windows

19.               Super scrub the downstairs bathroom

20.              Super clean the laundry room

21.               Sew something

22.              Make new Thank You cards

23.              Bake two loaves of bread

24.              Super dust the entertainment center

25.              Re-organize CDs & DVDs

26.              Super scrub the litter box

27.              Take in the glass recycling

28.              Make new Christmas card list

What’s on your list this month?

January –30 Things to Do This Month 

1.                   Clean, purge and organize the junk drawer

2.                  Update my address book

3.                  Wash all the interior doors, door jambs and doorknobs

4.                  Super dust and straighten up my home office

5.                  Compile the information I need to file my taxes Done and my taxes filed!  1/21/12 earliest I’ve ever done that.

6.                  Create my February meal plan

7.                  Craft Project - make gift bags/tags with my girls

8.                  Bake two loaves of bread

9.                  Wash all the mirrors in the house

10.               Clean and re-organize the bathroom cabinet downstairs

11.                Walk through the entire house and make a TO DO list, room by room.

12.               Super dust the china cabinet

13.               Wash the inside of the living room windows and sills

14.               Schedule a day for some investment cooking and make a plan This was a fun one for me.  I love stuff like this.

15.               Clean the ceiling fan in the dining room

16.               Move the couch and vacuum underneath it

17.               Wipe off all the baseboards downstairs I got the girls to help me with this one.

18.               Bop the cobwebs downstairs

19.               Vacuum the lampshades and dust the lamps

20.              Try a new recipe new zucchini bread recipe – we didn’t like it

21.               Take an inventory of my spice cabinet, make a list of what I need

22.              Iron

23.              Make a gift

24.              Bake a cake my eldest daughter happily took this one on for me.

25.              Take the car in for an oil change

26.              Buy two new dish towels, make two old ones into rags

27.              Family Movie Nite – popcorn!

28.              Clean and re-organize under the kitchen sink, wash the trash can

29.              Wash the silverware tray and clean the drawer

30.              Sew something

I am amazed at how much I got accomplished just this past month and by having this list I was able to do it in such small increments that it didn’t feel like I was doing much at all. 

Did you make a list like this?  How was your progress this month?