Where is the Personal Finance Blogger who FAILS?

I have a confession to make:

Sometimes I feel VERY jealous when I read or hear somebody’s “I PAID OFF ALL MY DEBT AND YOU CAN TOO” story.

I make comments like, “Way to go!” or “That is AWESOME!”.   Deep down though, I’m a little resentful.  I want it to be me.  I can’t help it but I read their story and pick apart the ways it was so much easier for them and how it is so much harder for me.

“OOOH, I see they don’t have kids.  No wonder they could put so much towards their debt.  They don’t have 5 mouths to feed.”

“Yep.  Just as I thought, they make double a year what we make.   Of course they could pay off their debt so quickly.”

I wish the stories were inspirational but at times I am a little stuck in the “whining phase” as opposed to “accepting personal responsibility phase”.   Most days I can visualize the finish line, when all the debt is paid off, those are the days I search out the “I Paid off my Debt” posts.   But some days, it feels like it will never happen and that is when I whine.  Or maybe it is better to say, “I get discouraged.”

I’ve never heard those who got themselves out debt say it was easy, but I can never get a good handle on how hard it was for them either.

Their story always ends the same.  They write the “final post”.  They are out of debt.

Where is the “Personal Finance” blogger who starts the journey, makes the commitment, posts everyday about how they are saving money on this or that, shows how their debt is going down with graphs and spreadsheets and fails in the end, never gets to write the final post?  Does that happen?   Will it happen to me?

(OK, now I got Stuart Smalley going in my head.   “You’re good enough, you’re smart enough and gosh darn it, people like you.”)

So I get discouraged.   This is not a good enough reason to quit.  We push on.  So right now we pay 24.5% interest on our credit card while others are making double mortgage payments.

They all started somewhere too…

I’ve stopped playing the world’s smallest violin for myself.

And when my time comes for “THE POST”, I’ll try to remember I was once like this.

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Getting a BIG Tax Refund was keeping us in debt

The “great debate” that centers around whether it makes financial sense to get a tax refund or not usually entails one of two perspectives:

The “No Refund” crowd loathes the fact that you are loaning the government your money for free.  Your monthly overpayment in federal taxes could be put in a high-yield savings account and earn you interest throughout the year.

The “Pro-Refund” people usually argue that getting the big refund allows them a forced way to save money that they wouldn’t otherwise save.  The refund can be used to pay down debt or put away for a rainy day.

I’m a reformed “Pro-Refund”.  We used to get the big refund and pay down the credit card.  The same credit card that we were forced to use throughout the year for necessities.  There was no end in sight, the credit cards would never get paid-off because the take-home pay was not enough to cover our lifestyle. What a crazy cycle, we were giving our own money away(letting the government hold it), and then we would have to use credit cards (at about 18% interest over the year) to borrow our own money, pay off the credit card with the refund and start it all over again!

Last week I asked my husband to bring an updated W4 to HR so we can avoid a refund.  Not so we can put this extra money per paycheck in a savings account or use it to pay off debt.  We will use it to avoid using credit cards. We are a paycheck-to-paycheck family.  We are fed up with that lifestyle.  For us, not getting a refund will result in an extra $200-$250 a month.

The majority of our credit card purchases were made because there was not enough wiggle-room in the budget to pay for our monthly expenses.  Even with our cost cutting measures, we were still one small hiccup away from using a credit card to get us through. Maybe down the road, when we have better control of our finances, this money can be used for a “Vacation Fund” or the like.  For now, I’m looking forward to NOT putting groceries or gas on a credit card.

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The “race-car” Shopping Cart – Necessary Evil

The Necessary Evil

I’m not very up on current events so when I went to the grocery store today I thought I missed the news the world was coming to an end and we had been ordered to our bunkers with supplies to last for 6 years.  Mad House.  Then, I overheard someone talking about the “big storm”.   Ok, fine, whatever, that’s how it goes when people hear “snow”.

Everyone was super stressed.  Blindly throwing any food they could get their hands on in their overflowing carts.   There were concerned whisperings the store was running low on bread and rumors of “no milk left”  which caused a mild stampede but thankfully no injuries.   I too succumbed  to the Group Think.   And thus want to apologize to all the parents with one child I gave the stink-eye and a heavy sigh of disdain to as you pushed passed me with your one kid happily driving the “race car” cart.  (full disclosure – I also called you a jerk under my breath.)

See the store only has three of these carts and when I am forced to go shopping with a 1 year old, 3 year old and 4 year old this particular cart is the only way to keep three rascals contained and still have a place to put food.  I got a little irrational and blamed you for the fact I had to shop and round-up cats at the same time.  “I’m sorry”.

And you chicken-little’s who gave me dirty looks while I tried to shop with 3 little kids dragging me down, blame the cart hogs with one kid.  Believe me, I don’t want to be here anymore than you want to hear me say to my kids for the millionth time “Guys move over you are blocking the way”.

The financial moral of this story:  I was all flustered by not having “my” cart (yes I consider it mine) and went way over budget on the food expenses this week.  If you want to save money while grocery shopping DO NOT bring your children with you to shop before snowstorms.

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Gardening Rookie

Everybody is starting to get antsy for spring.  I can see the tips of the hyacinths peeking out the ground and I’m getting excited for my second year of gardening.

Coming from the city, I was a complete newbie to gardening so I decided to start small.  I read “Square Foot Gardening” by Mel Bartholomew.  If your not familiar  – you basically just build a wood frame out of 2×4′s, put weed mat down and fill it with a mixture of different soils.

This is what the finished product looks like:

Small enough to fit anywhere

To my shock and amazement stuff grew!  The kids LOVED “working” in the garden and eating stuff they grew.  And I now had something I never had, a hobby.

I couldn’t believe how freaking enjoyable it was.  This year I’m planning on expanding and hoping it will save some money on food costs.

What was easy to grow and edible?

Sugar Snap Peas - I’m doing way more of these this year.  In two of those little squares above I pushed 5 seeds in the ground.  All of them grew.  The kids picked and ate them as they ripened and none made it inside.

Spinach – The kids also picked and ate it raw.  They said they” loved it”, I think they just liked I was letting them eat leaves.  Whatever, it’s healthy.

Corn – My crazy children also ate this raw.  At first I told them, “no we have to cook it” but one of them snuck a bite and told me it was “yummy”.   I tried it and they were right, it was good raw.  Who knew?

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Mommy is Messy

I’m a messy person.  I’ve always been a messy person.

As I child when my mom told me to “clean up my room” I’d do everything possible to avoid actually cleaning up my room.  I spend an inordinate amount of time devising new and creative ways to get out of the actual cleaning that it probably would have taken me less time to just clean it up right.

For example, I’d sit on the floor, shuffling around on my butt, shoving and stuffing with all the force of my little legs – every single thing under my bed.  Then I would meticulously stack my board games neatly in front of all the crap, so when my mom would check under the bed (and of course she would, she had been on to me since day one) all she would see were the perfectly stacked boxes.

After she found out about that trick, I’d get a lawn and leaf bag and stuff it to the top.  (Sometimes I needed two bags.)  With my bags bursting with all my stuff, I’d wait until she ran to the store and climb up to the attic like some deranged reverse Santa Claus and throw them in a dark corner.

But I’ve grown up and have learned how important order and neatness is….

This is what my closets look like now:

Yeah right.  I haven’t become neat.  I (conveniently) believe that some people are just born messy. When I hear a group of women going off on how their husbands never clean up this or that, I’m hoping they won’t look to me for agreement. I’m the true slob of our house.   I’m probably even worse than the kids.  As a mom this presents some challenges.  It is actually my biggest challenge.

Bookshelf/Closet? Both!

Am I the only messy mom out there?

I think it’s a genetic defect.  A mess doesn’t bother me.  The only reason I really ever clean up is peer pressure.

I go to other peoples houses and everything always looks so together.

But I admit, I haven’t checked under their beds…

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