Organizing our finances. Bleck.

I discovered how frivolously we have been living the last few years. Sure, we’re not decadent, but we had both been working decent jobs and now have nothing to show for it! We’re scrambling, now, trying to figure out how to live off one income. Trying to accept that we should supposedly be able to buy groceries for $100/month/person when we were spending $600. Accepting that our individual “fun” money each month is $30 and includes magazine subscriptions, domain names, and clothes. Thinking ahead to save for fixing the heater in the car, a chest freezer, and putting off the fancy touch-screen computer. The scariest part? It’s totally do-able! It’ll be tight, but possible. There’s not enough (yet) to save for a down payment on a home or a new car, but once we get caught up on the medical bills we’ll be able to. I also know, once we get used to our new frugality, we’ll be able to cut back a little more here and there and that amount will be able to be squirreled away. AND, once I go back to work, all that income will go towards those big savings goals! Yay!

So, for our finances, we gave a budget and a way to easily track it (we’re using www.mint.com and it’s accompanying apps). And we have started using my Ing Direct checking account for bill paying. Nearly everything has been automated and set to paperless. I move the monthly bill-budget from checking (earning .015% interest) to the savings account (earning .8% interest). The day before a bill is set to be paid, the allotted amount is transferred from savings to checking. We used the largest bill in the year to budget the power and gas bills, so, when the bill is less, the “extra” money is left in the savings account along with the semi-annual bill savings. I’m pleased with the set up. We’ll only earn a few cents off the interest, but keeping it not-so-visible is the key.

I don’t have a pretty picture for you, but my mind is a little easier knowing I have those essentials taken care of.

I haven’t given up following the chapters in Organize Now!, I just got distracted with some side projects. My husband and I are working on chapter 6, 7 and 8: finances, bills, and taxes. We’ve made some progress (I have started taking over the bill paying) but today I am going to work on budgeting and filing. Although, of course, this will take a while.

My big meal prepping experiment was motivated by 3 parts health and 2 parts cost, so revisiting it now may be appropriate.  It took us a while to eat the meals I made, but we do still have some left over curry. We still ate out, but not as frequently, so it was partly successful but we need to do better. And while we ate everything, I didn’t really like most of them and they could have been healthier.

So, part of my financial task this week is planning another freezer meal extravaganza! I’ve recently been looking at the blog Momma and Baby Love and think I’ll mostly use her recipes this time. I feel the same way she does about getting maximum vegetables in the meals because my husband (and I) don’t usually eat veggie side dishes. Plus, I’m lazy and making rice or noodles is hard enough for me to do. I’m going to use my energy focusing on storing the leftovers instead. This last time my husband dealt with leftovers which means all of the sauce goes into one big container which leaves us to dish up as much as we want later. I need to be better about storing leftovers in serving sizes with the noodle or rice included. That will help both with portion sizes and getting as many meals as we can out of each dish.

Picking out new recipes is both fun and tedious!