Saturday, March 12, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Paying off Credit Cards
I am on a painful quest. Besides my mountain of student loan debt, I (read this as we) have a mountain of credit card debt. This year, as my husband started talking about retiring, I took a long look at our assets and liabilities, including the amount of credit card debt we have. I joined a site called www.sparksavings.com. It is free and provides a fair number of tools for budgeting and tracking expenditures. One of the things that I like about it are tools for savings dreams. That trip to Europe is now a concrete plan with a savings plan attached to it. On the site as well are calculators that will help determine how long it will take to pay off specific debts. You inut the amount of the debt and the percentage interest as well as the amount you are paying monthly on the debt and it will tell you how long it will take to pay that debt off. By playing around with the calculators you can determine how much extra to add monthly toward that debt to pay it off within the time frame that you desire.
So, we are on track. I signed up during December which is the worst month to start tracking expenditures, but so far, so good. We are on track with the plan.
Check it out.
www.sparksavings.com
So, we are on track. I signed up during December which is the worst month to start tracking expenditures, but so far, so good. We are on track with the plan.
Check it out.
www.sparksavings.com
Friday, November 5, 2010
Budgets!!!
Budgets are fun! Budgets are playful! Budgeting can be a challenge, but not necessarily a chore.
Here is a challenge for you. Write down everything that you spend money on for 1 week. Find a notebook hanging around the house somewhere, preferably one with ledger lines. Just enter every receipt for a week. A pain, yes. But I must say I found it to be a very revealing one. I lumped my groceries all together for this chore. But there were also coffee, lattes, gas, a trip to the drug store, and a couple of nights of take-out.
I found that take-out (though I loooove it!) put a big dent in my budget at between $20-30 each. (I live in the Bay Area--food is expensive) I was spending between $80-$120 a month on pizza, burritos and Chinese take-out.
The next day, I went to the local used book store and bought a couple of exotic cookbooks. I decided to try cuisine that I liked but had never tried cooking. So I choose a middle-eastern cookbook and a rustic Italian cookbook. Each book cost me a dollar.
I tend to cook pasta and love it, but am always short on sauces after the traditional marinara sauce. I found a wonderful olive oil, garlic and basil sauce. I harvested squash from the garden and tossed it with eggplant in olive oil.
I found that I loved garbanzo bean (chick peas) in all kinds of permutations. I learned how to make the rice stuffing in cold dolmas and stuff artichokes with it. (Pretty yummy by the way.) I have had a blast exploring some new cuisine. And best of all, the tab for my take-out bill dropped in half this last month.
So, I took that extra and applied half to a credit card and half to savings.
Eat hearty! Eat healthy! And save!
Here is a challenge for you. Write down everything that you spend money on for 1 week. Find a notebook hanging around the house somewhere, preferably one with ledger lines. Just enter every receipt for a week. A pain, yes. But I must say I found it to be a very revealing one. I lumped my groceries all together for this chore. But there were also coffee, lattes, gas, a trip to the drug store, and a couple of nights of take-out.
I found that take-out (though I loooove it!) put a big dent in my budget at between $20-30 each. (I live in the Bay Area--food is expensive) I was spending between $80-$120 a month on pizza, burritos and Chinese take-out.
The next day, I went to the local used book store and bought a couple of exotic cookbooks. I decided to try cuisine that I liked but had never tried cooking. So I choose a middle-eastern cookbook and a rustic Italian cookbook. Each book cost me a dollar.
I tend to cook pasta and love it, but am always short on sauces after the traditional marinara sauce. I found a wonderful olive oil, garlic and basil sauce. I harvested squash from the garden and tossed it with eggplant in olive oil.
I found that I loved garbanzo bean (chick peas) in all kinds of permutations. I learned how to make the rice stuffing in cold dolmas and stuff artichokes with it. (Pretty yummy by the way.) I have had a blast exploring some new cuisine. And best of all, the tab for my take-out bill dropped in half this last month.
So, I took that extra and applied half to a credit card and half to savings.
Eat hearty! Eat healthy! And save!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
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