Fall is here! My favorite time of year! We did ok for the month of September, following the trend from last month, we had a number of big bills that we needed to knock out, like eye exams and contact lenses and glasses for Frugal Husband and myself, we also got snow tires on the van, which were needed badly.
What this all means is that the money that we made at our second jobs that would have been funneled to debt instead went to the big bills, and will go to the big bills this week on October 5th. So the month of October will be a slim month for us, without much paid toward the debt except for minimums- we have 2 more big bills coming up because our septic tank needs to be emptied and the chimney needs cleaning… sigh… summer and fall tend to be our most spendy months because a lot of our yearly bills are due during this time.
Anyhoo let’s talk about the numbers:
- Frugal house- $208,000
- Frugal Student Loans- $161,000
- Frugal Private Student Loan- $4,450
- Frugal Car 1- $16,000
- Frugal Car 2- $15,500
- Frugal Credit Card #1- $10,300
- Frugal Credit Card #2 15,333
If you’re following along- that’s $2,676 less than last month! Woo hoo!
My goals for next month are going to be to try and keep really tight control over extra spending and our food budget, those are the things that we have the greatest control over and the food budget is were we spend the most.
I have my biggest craft fair of the year this coming weekend, so I’m slightly distracted, but once that is over, I plan on sitting down and mapping out the rest of the year for our finances. We have a budget for our regular income, but we also now know how much roughly we should be taking in from our second jobs and I’d like to get a really tight handle on it. So stay tuned, I’ll be breaking down how much we spend monthly on everything. Happy Fall!
Do you have a plan as to which debt to pay off first? When I first got out of school in 1999, my husband and I had about 150k in student loans (mostly his, I had about 30k in student loan). We paid off his credit card debt first since it had the highest interest rate, then student loan.
Next, we saved money for down payment on our house while staying in an apartment. After all bills were paid, any extra went to house payment. At the time our jobs were in high demand so we took the risk and had very little in the bank for emergency. We were able to pay off the house in 4 years (2008).
Being debt free was and still is an amazing feeling. When we lost our jobs in 2011, we were stressed out, but within a year I got the same job w/ another company and higher salary.
I started the coupon game in 2011, which helped me to save so much more. I learned to buy brand name items dirt cheap or free (tooth paste/brush, soap, detergent, ect.) Now, I rarely shop for clothes at department store unless I have coupon for free or almost free stuff. I buy clothes at Goodwill for my kids and myself base on color code of the week to get 50% off. It’s just odd that when you have more money you tend to spend less than before. I cut off cable, have cheap phone plan with Walmart, still drive our old cars, get free hair cut (and color) from Supercut training class, yet work extra shifts whenever they are available. But one thing we spend a lot on is our kids private school. If I could do it over again I would move another city where they have excellent public gifted program.
I am ready to retire but still want to work maybe another 4 years when my daughter gets to college, I can quit and enjoy life. Job is very stressful with all the metrics upper management want to see but they compensate me well.
Good luck on your road to debt free.