Day #18 of 30 Days to a Simpler Life --- Go for Financial Freedom

Happy Monday to you!

Day #18's task is:

To achieve financial freedom, first figure out what you have and then manage it well.  Today, collect your documents that are associated with large assets---documents for your car, house, investments, and so on---and put them in one filing cabinet called Assets.  For your house: file your deed, purchase contract, closing papers, title policy, and insurance papers.  For your investments: file confirmations, year-end statements, and tax reporting forms.  For cars: file ownership papers, registration documents, and insurance papers.  (30 Days to a Simpler Life, p. 116)

OR for serious simplifiers only...

Don't use your credit card for three months.  Be resolute.  Or, every time you use your credit card, deduct the amount in your checkbook.  Better yet, trade in your credit card for a debit card.  It automatically withdraws the amount from the bank.  You'll spend less.  

(30 Days to a Simpler Life, p. 122)

What does financial freedom mean to you?  For me, financial freedom means freedom from crushing debt (currently we don't have any debt now other than our mortgage---which we are upside down in because of the housing market crash, but that's another story), the ability to live without fear of not having enough, and having the opportunity for an occasional treat like a nice family vacation (we're currently saving for Disney World for fall 2012).  I don't know if anyone is perfect in this department, but I think we're doing pretty well.

It wasn't always this way.  Shortly after we got married, the Cobbler's mom gave me a foot tall stack of paperwork (she had been paying all his bills for him prior to our marriage) and said, "Oh and by the way, you guys owe me $10,000."  Turns out she had been paying some of his bills with her money!  I wasn't much better.  When a credit card statement would arrive, I would hide it and pretend it didn't exist.  I had the money to pay my bills; I just had this weird phobia about actually paying them.  Well, those days are long behind us after nearly 11 years of marriage.  The Cobbler is now in charge of managing the money.  I used to be until he decided that he wanted to try doing it seven years ago, and I was more than happy to hand the bill paying duties over.  He manages our accounts using mint.com and is happy with it for the most part.  I think he has some issues with credit cards not syncing properly, but you can't expect too much from a program that's free.  When Microsoft stopped supporting Microsoft Money, he was devastated (really---the man was broken up).  It took him a long time to move on to something else.  We try to live below our means and save the rest for retirement or the kids' college education.  The biggest ways I've found to save is to diligently plan our meals so I only need to grocery shop one time each week and  to not shop when I'm bored.  The less I shop; the less I can spend.

Not using our credit card?  Not going to happen.  The Cobbler has it down to a fine art which credit card I am to use for what purchase.  Here's my decoder ring --- the grey HSBC one is for groceries, gas, drug stores, and Target (for some reason the company counts Target as groceries.  Who knew?) because we get 5% cash back on those categories, and the blue Chase one (that gets some other lower percentage back) for everything else.  Once we hit the limit on the 5% bonus on the grey one, he then has me start charging everything on the blue one.  He's constantly looking for new ways to make more money off the credit card companies.  I guess this would only work if you can pay it off every month, which luckily we are able to do.  It's like a game to him.  As long as it doesn't get too confusing for me, I'm willing to play along.

One thing I want to do today is find a secret spot to put the combo for our safe that has our important documents in it (i.e. our will and trust, deeds, etc.).  It's all fine and good that they're in one place that happens to be fireproof, but if we ever had to leave in a hurry neither one of us knows the combination by heart.  We're going to be stuck towing the safe away in the kids' wagon or something.  Not a good scene to contemplate.

Back to my day #17 ugly computer drawer.  As a reminder, here's a photo of that hot mess again.

Here's how it looks now.

Here's what I was able to purge out with the Cobbler's help---about 20 CDs in all!

My favorite thing I found in the drawer was the CD for our old digital camera that we bought in 1999.  I think that its maximum mega pixels was 2.0 and we thought that was absolutely amazing when we bought it.  Not to mention, I think we paid between $300 and $400 for the camera back then.  Eek!  We haven't had the camera in I don't know how long and yet inexplicably we still have the CD.  Well, not anymore!

I think today I'll be back to working on the unfinished projects.  Yikes!

On a totally separate and unrelated note --- go look at the live web cam pointed at the baby bald eagles in Norfolk, Virginia here.  Red and Tom Thumb were riveted yesterday when one of the parents was there at the nest feeding the wee baby eagles.  Amazing!

Updates on heat, "paper towels" & other frugal musings

You may recall this post when I decided to turn down the thermostat in an effort to save money for my sister's wedding.  Here's the update...

Drum roll please...

We saved $30 on our bill last month vs. last year same time period!  Based on my initial projections from the thermostat calculator from the post linked above matching closely with our actual savings, we're right on target to save this year around the cost of a bridesmaid dress--- ha ha!

And no, this still isn't the dress.

What's really great about it is that we're not suffering.  We're not freezing cold!  In fact, when my husband told me last night about the savings I said, "Well, I guess we won't be saving that money anymore because didn't you turn it back up to 68 when we got home from vacation?"  He said, "No, it's still at 64.  I guess we're just used to it now."  I can't believe it!

You may also remember when we got rid of the paper towels.  It's been about two weeks now, and with a few exceptions it seems to be working out.  Here are the exceptions:

• Greasing pans - I always use a paper towel when I grease a pan.  Maybe I can switch to wax paper or sandwich bag and leave it in the can of shortening?  If anyone has any other suggestions, let me know.
• Cleaning up cat puke - I'm sorry, but there is NO WAY I'm going to clean up cat puke with a cloth and then let it hang out until I have time to do laundry.  I may have to keep one roll around just for the occasions that the cats decide to cough up their breakfast on the rug.

My latest frugal adventure may involve making some of these.  How cool is that?  I have so much extra fabric lying around that it would be a cinch to whip some of these up to replace sandwich bags---except for the one going in the shortening can. :-)

Swearing off paper towels

A couple of years ago one of my dear friends was very pregnant with twins.  I decided I'd go clean her house for her to help out one day.  Upon arrival, I asked to be shown to her cleaning supplies and she directed me to the hall closet.  I found the cleaners no problem, but there was absolutely no sign of paper towels.  After tearing apart the closet for a few minutes, I finally asked, "Where are your paper towels?" She pointed to a laundry basket full of rags on the floor of that very same closet.

I thought she was nuts at the time.  Why, why, WHY would you use rags when you could just grab a roll of paper towels?  My parents made me use rags to clean the bathroom when I was a kid and hated how cleaning with a rag and a bucket of water with cleaner in it always seemed to just push the dirt around and never get anything clean---at least not easily.

Fast forward to today.  I spent a couple hours today cutting up old bath towels (what was I thinking buying white towels in the first place???) and zigzagging around the raw edges with the sewing machine to make smaller, paper towel size towels.  My plan is to try to use them just as I would a paper towel, but throw them in a fabric bag to go in the washing machine instead of in the trash.  I'm not going to do the rag/bucket deal of my childhood.  I'm going to spray the cleaner, wipe with the towel, and when it's dirty it's getting tossed in the bag.  None of this rinsing out and using again..  Hopefully, since I have around 60 I'll have enough to give me the convenience of paper towels, but the benefit of less money spent and less paper in the landfill.

The Cobbler and I have been trying for a while to reduce our expenses and also be more environmentally friendly.  I'm currently making an effort to switch from Windex to vinegar and water as well.  Oh how I love my bright blue cleaner in the bottle!  It's been hard.  I still have one bottle with a bit of Windex left in it so I haven't had to go cold turkey.  We still have about 6 rolls of paper towels left.  It's time to hide them and see what happens next!

On a separate note of thriftiness, I found out that you can easily make foaming hand soap for pennies if you already have a dispenser.  Check out this blog post about making your own foaming hand soap.  We use bar soap in the upstairs bathrooms, but need to use foaming soap in the downstairs bath (otherwise the black floor gets instantly gross looking from drips off the bar) and the kitchen (kids drop slippery bars into the garbage disposal).  Yesterday I finished off a bottle of foaming hand soap.  I squeezed about a quarter inch of a shower gel I don't use into the empty container, slowly filled the rest of the container with warm water, gently shook it up, and voila foaming hand soap!

Saving $$$ by turning down the thermostat

My sister is getting married this year.  I'm excited.  She's the youngest.  She's the last one.  I'm a bridesmaid---no matter that I'm married with kids---I'm a maid!  It suddenly occurred to me how much her impending nuptials are going to cost me.  Yes, ME!  Here are the expenses that I've come up with so far as minimums:

Dress: $200.  That's how much the one she initially picked cost which was subsequently vetoed by our other sister who is in the wedding.  I'm guessing the final choice (I think it's final?) will be $150 plus alterations.  Nope, neither one of these are the dress.

Shoes: $30 
Shower gift: $50-100 (this is my baby sister after all)
Wedding gift: at least $100
Shower expenses: ??? The bridesmaids are throwing the shower.
Flower girl and ring bearer ensembles: ??? Chances are that she'll ask Red and Tom Thumb to be in the wedding.
Babysitter: $75-100.  We're paying to plate a meal for our babysitter at the wedding so she can drive the kids home and put them to bed so we don't have to leave the reception before 8PM.

I'm guessing we're going to be spending somewhere between $500 and $1000 on this wedding.  Where is this extra cash that we don't have going to come from?  

My first brainstorm is turning down the thermostat.  I'm naturally cold so I like the thermostat at between 68 and 70.  Can I turn it down and be comfortable?  And if so, am I actually going to save money?

I tried it out yesterday morning.  I put on a sweater and turned the thermostat down to 64.  Initially there was no real difference.  By the end of the afternoon, I was a little chilly but doing okay.  Last night I slept with a sheet, a thermal blanket, an afghan and the comforter.  The verdict: I survived.  But will it make a real difference monetarily?

I found a website run by Duke Energy that has an online thermostat calculator.  It's intended for Indiana residents so I knew it wouldn't be an exact calculation, but I figured it could give me a ball park estimate.  I used zip code 47906 as my bogus zip code to get it to work.  You essentially describe your house (i.e. size, number of rooms, when it was built, etc.) and its heating system and it estimates what your savings will be based on how many degrees you turn down your thermostat and when.  Based on my home's thermostat settings previously being 68 degrees, it estimates that if I turn my thermostat down to 64 I'll save between $153 and $255 annually.  And voila --- there's my bridesmaid's dress!  Now I just have to dig out my sweaters and figure out where the rest of the cash is going to come from...