Free Lunch

"There is no such thing as a free lunch" is a very common quote in  our society today.  Believe it or not, I am sitting in a school cafeteria right this minute....typing away......while my children enjoy a free lunch. Even though we are homeschoolers, our local school district offers a free summer lunch program for kids of all ages.  The food isn't fantastic, but they have their favorites (spaghetti and chili dogs).  I think they enjoy it more for the experience than the flavors.  Once or twice a week they are given apples and most of the time, we take them home and make an apple pie or crisp, so that's fun.

So is their lunch really free?  They show up between 11:00 and 12:15 and are given a tray of food by a very friendly cafeteria staff member.  (I'm not kidding..the ladies that work here are awesome.)  But is it really free?  Not for me, it's not.  We've had to bump up our gas budget to allow for the extra miles on Tina (the Suburban).  It also takes a lot of time out of my day; right in the middle of the day at that.

So why do I do it?  Becuase they like it.  We've never been able to spoil our kids with expensive dance lessons, music lessons, or costly sports programs.  School lunch is something you don't get when you homeschool so they enjoy the little cartons of milk and prepackaged cheese sticks, carrots, and entrees.  

All of that being said, today is the last day for free lunch and I am glad.  ;)

Beans & Rice

If you're familiar with Dave Ramsey and his program, then you are familiar with beans and rice. Sometimes, so eliquently put by Dave as, "Beans and rice, BAaaby!!" :)  The whole idea is to have a "beans and rice" lifestyle while you're in your debt snowball in order to be as gazelle intense towards your debt as you can be.  Everyone knows that beans and rice are the cheapest way to feed your family; and dinners with meat cost significantly more.

A lot of people don't like beans and rice.  My family actually does, except my husband.  So, when he is on night shift, I try to make some sort of bean meal at least once a week.  Beans - other than the carb load that makes them hard to swallow for diabetics like myself - are pretty healthy compared to pastas, mashed potatoes, etc. and I don't mind serving them to my kids at all.  Their favorite beans are pintos and they love some good old fashioned cornbread to go with them --- another cheap componant to dinner.  Pintos and cornbread costs about $3-$4 for the whole meal and there are usually leftovers!!

So why am I blogging about beans??  Glad you asked.  ;)  I got to thinking this morning that the hardest thing about feeding my family beans is remembering to put them in the crock pot.  I know, I know...that sounds silly.  For those of you who cook, you know that when you have dry beans they need hours......HOURS.....to cook.  Some dry beans need to be set out in water the night before so you can cook them the next day.  So what's the problem?  Glad you asked.  ;)  I seem to always forget to set them out.  It really got me thinking that you have to be intentional, even with your beans!!  The key to getting out of debt is to plan...do things "on purpose, on paper" as Dave says....even with your beans!  So my personal challenge for myself this week is to be intentional not just about money and my cash envelope system, but also with my beans.  Cheers!!

Introducing Mopsters, Inc.!

So for those of you who've been following me for a while, you know I'm just a little bit too crazy/high energy for my own good.  In the spring, knowing my piano teaching income would come to a halt, I began looking for a part time job to keep the debt snowball going.  Not having much luck, and finding a $10 per hour cleaning job as my only viable option, I decided that if I were going to clean, I'd really like to make a bit more per hour than that.  That's when it hit me:  I'm good at cleaning.... I enjoy cleaning....  Why not start a cleaning company?  So, I did.  Yep, I'm crazy.  Crazy cleaning lady!!

I found a real estate broker on Carolina Beach willing to give us a chance with three condos she manages as weekly beach rentals.  They're absolutely beautiful and we've been cleaning them for about six weeks now.  The broker we're working with is awesome and has been throwing extra jobs our way, too.  (Thanks, Cindi!!)  So far, Mopsters has replaced all of my piano income, plus some!  I've even hired all of my kids to help me so as they're earning, I can teach them to give, save, and spend.  Not having the extra money to buy them things during the debt snowball, I find it an absolute treasure to be able to give them work so they can buy things for themselves.  It's a win/WIN!!

So here's to dusting and mopping our way to debt freedom!  As the summer winds down and the beach condos are no longer rented every week, I'll need to find some new cleaning gigs, but for now, we are thrilled to be working every weekend.  Debt freedom....here we come!!

Check out the awesome Mopster Monsters my sister created for me. I ordered business cards (below) and car magnets (above). She's creating her own business doing logos so if you even need any, let me know. :)

Introducing Cash, Aaron's New Ride!

After selling Duke and sharing one car, we were on the hunt for a second vehicle. We searched for about a week and found this: 

It's a 1997 Chrysler Sebring Convertible with 135,000 miles and we paid $2,200 for it.....in cash!  I've never paid cash for a car before and let me tell ya, it's fun!  Aaron named the car Cash. :)

We live very close to the beach so having a convertible is especially fun. I must admit, it's really fun to go cruisin' in. We're going to have to keep a eye on our gas envelope. ;)

My husband rocks!

If you listen to Dave Ramsey, you know he HATES car payments.  Once we heard his debt lesson, we totally understood why.  Although both of our cars meet the value ratio he sets (values on combined motors should be no more than 50% of your annual income), we did not think we met the other requirement, which is to have the vehicles paid off within 24 months.

We have (actually had) two cars:  I drive a 2003 Suburban named Tina; Aaron had a 2008 Dodge Charger named Duke.  Ever since I've known him, he's wanted a Dodge Charger.  And not just any Dodge Charger, a black one with a spoiler!  Sixteen months ago, he bought one - a black one, with a spoiler!  Actually, to be specific, he financed one.  {enter scary music here}

In FPU we were taught that the average car payment in America is something like $457.  I thought to myself who in the world would have such a big car payment?  That's crazy!  Then, I realized that we pay $130 every two weeks on Tina and $97 every two weeks on Duke.  Yeah, do some quick math on that and guess what?  I'm around the national average.  Sure, it's on two cars, but who cares?  That's a lot of money going down the drain on vehicles that are plummeting in value.  Not smart.

Because of grasping that lesson, we realized that we needed to sell Duke.  Today we did just that.  I felt so bad for Aaron although he seemed to take it really well.  I told him how awesome I thought it was for him to put his family first and sell his dream car.  Then, I sent my mom a text to tell her he had sold it and we had paid if off.  She responed with, "AWESOME!! I'M SO PROUD OF HIM!!" I showed him the text and he just grinned ear-to-ear.  I hope he knows just how awesome he is.  I think I'll bake him his favorite pound cake as a thank you.

Now the search is on to find him something different to drive.  I promised him that if we found an old lady car, he could drive Tina to work from now on.  :)  For now, we are sharing one car until we can find something dependable for him.  Yet another adventure in our journey to financial freedom...

Here's Duke. We will miss him!

We no longer OWE Lowes!

Thanks to the yard sale on Saturday, plus a side job at Mawmaw's house (raking, raking, and more raking) we were able to knock off the barn debt on Sunday.  We were so excited about paying it off.  Our favorite cashier, Jackie, has taken our last few payments.  She is also doing the Dave Ramsey plan so she didn't mind our jars of change one bit.  :)  After I told her we were making our final payment, she said we had to come back to see her and update her on our progress.  I assured her I would be back in but never using my Lowes credit card again! :)

Progress on the Barn!

I'm so excited about Aaron's new barn!  I've talked about it before, but I wanted to share a new photo of our progress.  We were able to install the front doors and it is starting to look finished.  We still need to work on a few things, but I just love the progress!

The barn debt (to Lowes Home Improvement's Consumer Credit) is our target debt right now.  We've also made a lot of progress on it!  When we started our debt snowball that account balance was $3,735.83.  Today we made yet another payment and the balance fell to $934.26!  We've made six payments in the last two weeks!  It's fun going over there with Aaron, hand & hand, and making payments on the barn.  :-)

When we first moved here to Wilmington, I worked at Lowes as a part time cashier.  I especially loved working in the Lawn & Garden Department.  Last week when Aaron and I went in to make a payment, my old supervisor checked us out.  He told me they were hiring and he encouraged me to re-apply.  I guess they're really busy and he doesn't have enough help.  I told him I'd think about it.  I did and decided to apply.  I haven't heard anything about my application but today when we went in to make our payment, he was there again.  He immediately said, "I've got a register out in Lawn & Garden waiting for you!"  I told him I applied but hadn't heard anything.  He said he was going to talk to the hiring manager and I guess he did.  By the time I got home, I had a message from her.

I'm not sure it'll work out or not because I am only available three days a week, however I've decided if they offer a position to me, I will take it.  :)  I'll keep ya posted!