I’m starting to realize that before I had a baby, I was pretty much a tightwad.  Since my baby’s been born, I’ve loosened up a little.  For instance, I’ve purchased a few new outfits for her that didn’t come from a thrift store.  I’ve purchased new cloth diapers that I didn’t really need just because I wanted to try them or they are cute (I can also re-sell them if I don’t like them, or when I’m done with them).  We’ve used the dishwasher and dryer more times than I’d like.  We probably aren’t saving quite as much money as we could (but we’re still saving).

I’m happy.  Spending a little money on things that are important to me makes me happy.  Hoarding my money doesn’t do me any good if I’m miserable.  One of my 2012 financial goals was to find a nice balance, and I’m still working hard to achieve that.  It’s a constant struggle for me, because most of the time I think I should live as cheaply as possible in order to save the most amount of money that I can.

Sometimes it’s overwhelming thinking about all the things we need to save for: unexpected expenses, retirement, the baby’s college, new vehicles, etc.  I have to tell myself as long as we’re saving something, we’re doing okay. Life is about experiencing things and living life to its fullest.  Having a baby really makes you have a new take on life, and I never imagined it would be this good.

Yesterday morning I asked Mr. Money to go and get the mail, as we were expecting a card from his dad.  He went out to get the mail, said there was nothing in there, and not an hour later did we get a knock on the door.  It was one of our neighbors down the street, bringing us mail that had our address on it that he found in the ditch. Nice.

He found a card that my aunt had mailed to us, ripped open, card and envelope in the ditch.  There was also an empty envelope from our bank.  Great.  I figured out that it was actually our credit card statement, completely missing.  I do feel better that it wasn’t a bank statement, as those have our full account number and other information on them.

I called our credit card services company to cancel our cards.  She said we shouldn’t be too worried because the full account number is not on the statement, and if anyone tried to purchase anything online they would need the security code on the back of the card, which they wouldn’t have.  Also, we’re not liable for any fraudulent charges that anyone may make.  I still canceled both my card and Mr. Money’s just to be safe.  What stinks is that I was planning on ordering our crib this weekend and now I’ll have to wait until we get the new cards.  Ugh.  What a pain!

I made sure to enroll our bank statements in paperless statements now so that there’s no chance that anyone can steal those.  I feel better about it, and will just have to make sure I print one each month, or at least back it up digitally.  What a pain!

I’m a little freaked out that they stole something else that I have no idea about, but I guess there’s not really a way for me to know that.  I’m pissed because I feel like I’ve been violated.  What idiot goes around at Christmas time stealing stuff out of people’s mailboxes?!  They’re lucky I don’t know who they are.

Mr. Money has suggested getting a post office box, but I don’t really want to have to deal with that headache.

Do you think we should take any other precautions?

Have you heard about the man who won two million dollars in the Michigan lottery yet is still on food stamps?  If you haven’t, prepare yourself to be shocked.  Then again, knowing how things go sometimes, you may not be.  I first heard about it on the radio and was appalled.  I can’t even fathom winning the lottery, or winning the lottery and staying on food stamps.  This is absolutely ludicrous.  There are just so many things wrong with this situation: the fact that the government doesn’t kick him off food stamps, and the fact that he sees nothing wrong with continuing to stay on them.

Don’t get me wrong: I believe there are many people who deserve to be on food stamps; it just angers me when people abuse the system.  And it’s not like Michigan needs another person draining the Welfare system.  They are in enough trouble without people like this.

He claims that he told his case worker about him winning the lottery and she said he’d still be eligible for food stamps, or the “Bridge card”, because they don’t claim lottery winnings as income. Um, what?  He took the cash option and walked away with $850,000.  I don’t know about you, but I know that’s enough money that I’d probably be set for life.  We all know he could buy a pretty darn nice house in Michigan for under or around $100,000, so even if he wasn’t a homeowner and did buy a house, he’d still have $750,000 left.

I just can’t believe that even after getting that much money he would still stay on food stamps! He said that if anyone tried to make him feel bad about it, they wouldn’t succeed.  Okay.  I think he’s nuts.

What do you think- do you think he should still take advantage of food stamps?

I think one of the things I struggle with most is obsessing over money.  If you’ve read my blog for quite sometime, you probably aren’t surprised.  There are many times that I worry about our money.  Will we have enough? Am I saving enough? Am I keeping a good balance between spending and saving? Should we pay more on our mortgage?  Many questions run through my head all the time.  Sometimes I think about money so much that I drive myself crazy.

It’s hard because I work at a bank, and also have a personal finance blog that I use to talk about money.  Money is a large part of my life, and probably more so than most people.  Sometimes I think about finding a new job that’s not at a bank, but then I realize that I’ve got so much invested in my current career and I want to be a stay at home mom as soon as I have a baby (which will hopefully be sooner than later).  I don’t think  I should jump into a new career when I really am not looking for a long term commitment.

It is such a struggle to figure out money sometimes.  Thankfully, we always have enough to cover our bills and have some money left over and I am so grateful for that.  It’s just that I think about the stupidest things sometimes and I wish I didn’t do that.

I think for so long I’ve tried to limit expenses to the bare minimum, and it’s made me a little crazy.  For instance, I have used my laundry detergent recipe to make laundry detergent for the past few years.  A couple months ago I picked up some eco friendly laundry detergent at the store and it just makes my life so much easier.  I feel better when I use it for some reason.  So, I’ve decided that I’m going to buy that laundry detergent and just use less.  It’s worth the extra little money to make me happy.  I’m tired of trying to save as much money as possible.  There’s no sense in depriving myself when it’s not an absolute necessity at the moment.

Another thing that I’ve tried to do is keep the thermostat low so we save money on our heating bill.  While I still try to wear a sweater and keep the heat down low, I have also decided that I’m going to turn the heat up if I am cold, and I’m going to keep it as warm as I want it.  I learned how to budget for irregular expenses, and I’ve applied that to our electricity bill.  It’s been working very well.

I guess over the past few months I’ve been a little more lax on money.  Sure, I’ll be the first to try to save money on whatever, but I’m not about depriving myself to the point that it stresses me out.  That’s really stupid.

How do you deal with stress about money? Do you obsess over money too?

We made a “fun” discovery this winter when it rained pretty heavily: we had a leak somewhere in the roof. I had a roofer come out and he determined that it was the attic window that was cracked and the caulking around the window needed to be redone. He said he could replace the plexiglass window for me for $75, or we could go to the hardware store and ask them to cut a piece of plexiglass and then install it ourselves. I told him we’d do that. Over a month later it’s still not done. Big surprise. What happened was we started debating whether or not to just go ahead and replace that window with a real window that slides shut so that it’s stronger and more energy efficient.

That led to the fact that we have one more attic window that could stand to be replaced, as well as three windows on one part of the house that need to be replaced eventually as well. Of course I’m debating whether or not we just replace the attic windows that need to be and then wait to replace the other three. The windows aren’t horrible but they are older and I know they aren’t nearly as energy efficient as they could be. So now it boils down to: which windows do we replace, all of them, or just the ones that are in dire need?

Then, this morning I was making tea and the burner started sparking and I was scared it was going to catch on fire. Mr. Money assured me it wouldn’t, but it still made me nervous. The stove has been slowly dying since we bought the house 4 years ago. I’d be totally fine with replacing it with a stainless steel electric range, but Mr. Money wants gas (as he’s a chef and it’s important to him) but we’d have to have a gas line run to the stove, so that would be an extra cost.

And also my car needs new tires soon. It seems like everything is happening at once! It’s hard to decide whether or not to just go ahead and do everything at once, or spread it out. This is the reason we save money because there are always going to be expenses like this. I’m very thankful we have some money saved so it won’t be such a financial blow. It just seems like when it rains, it pours (literally).

Does it seem like everything happens to you at once?

The other day Mr. Money went to Costco to pick up some things for us.  He bought eggs, dog food, organic butter, and toilet paper.  When he was on his way home he gave me a call to tell me the total so I could update our check book register.  He then proceeded to tell me how he saved us money on toilet paper because he bought a cheaper brand.  I hesitated for a minute, but let him finish on all the good things that the toilet paper boasted:

-Paper individual wrapper (versus the Kirkland brand that has plastic wrap around each roll apparently)

-Cheaper per square foot

-More toilet paper in each individual roll

I decided that if he was that proud of himself for saving money and figuring out the cost per square foot, then who was I to criticize him?  I told myself I would give it a try.  Surely it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought it would be.

Wrong.

I started a new roll the other day and had convinced myself that I had separated the two ply and was only on the one ply.  Turns out, it IS one ply!  I had to take off at least twice as much as I normally do and fold it in half, then fold it in half again to get it to the right amount.

Let’s just say it still didn’t work very well.  I was not amused.

I hope next time we need toilet paper I’m buying it, or Mr. Money chooses the Kirkland brand. I’ve never had a bad experience with it.

What’s something you just don’t skimp on?

Last Monday my father had a hernia operation.  While the surgery itself went well, afterward he experienced some bleeding and developed a hematoma in the incision site.  He has a blood clotting disorder (Protein S deficiency) and is on Coumadin and other drugs that probably contributed to the hematoma.  Last night he had surgery to help drain the blood and get him back on the road to recovery.  The whole day yesterday I spent worried sick about my dad.  The thought of losing him just shattered me.  I would have given all the money I had just to make sure he would be okay.

Money is worthless.  Money can’t keep us warm, it can’t buy love, we can’t eat it to keep us nourished, and sometimes it causes more problems than anything else.  I think about saving money for the future.  I struggle with thinking I don’t have enough money for everything I’ll need in life, and I need to realize that’s okay.  Life is a journey, not a destination.  Money will come and go.

I read something the other day that really hit home.  Everything is perfect and exactly how it should be.  While this seems like such a simple statement, it has really spoken to me.  Instead of worrying about things, I need to embrace them and realize that life is just how it’s meant to be right now.  Even when the situation is not ideal, it’s meant to be.

Every day we are gifted with 24 hours.  How we spend those hours is up to us.  We can’t save them for the future; they must be spent. Time is more valuable than money.

Sometimes it takes a crisis to make you really figure out what’s important.  I am very thankful to have extra time to spend with my dad, and I won’t take that for granted.

The past six years have been a financial roller coaster for us, and we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel (finally!).  When we moved to this state for my hubby to go to school, we incurred moving expenses.  Then I was the only one working while he went to school so our income was pretty low.  In addition, culinary school ended up costing over $36,000 so we took on student loans. After culinary school, we continued to live frugally to be able to pay down our consumer debt.  We ended up paying off that debt this year and it couldn’t feel better.

Fortunately, (or unfortunately) I’ve continued the mindset of OMG we need to save as much money as possible! and I’m getting tired of it.  Not to mention, I feel sometimes like it’s hindering my happiness.  Now, I know that money doesn’t buy happiness, but what I am saying is that maybe being a little less stingy with our money would result in more happiness.  I received a comment the other day that really struck home.

I like your blog but there is one down side that has made me tune out a lot; you seem to very often put money waaaay before happiness. I get the importance of being financially responsible but I think IMHO that you often cheat yourself just to save. I’d rather have sufficient and modest savings but live happily and in sync with my values than maximize my money but sacrifice a lot of what makes me happy. just my opinion.

First off, I’m glad that the person actually said this.  I don’t think that I would have had the guts to post this because I’d be worried I would offend someone.  Truth be told, this is one of the best comments I’ve ever received.  I think there’s a lot of truth to it, and I’m going to do my best to focus more on being happy than worrying about money.

Over the years I’ve worried a lot about money.  We had debt, we needed to save for this, we need more money to pay this, etc.  Money is stressful!  Now we’re debt free, focusing on new goals (which can also be stressful), and I want to really enjoy life more.  We are not bound by debt (except for our mortgage) any more.  I want to continue to live frugally but not miserly.

One of the things that really stresses me out about budgeting is eating out.  We really enjoy eating out and as much as I try to cook at home all the time to save money, Mr. Money isn’t happy unless he can eat out.  Maybe I need to compromise and plan for one meal out a week so that way we are both happy.  Instead of looking at it like “we’re wasting money eating out and it could have cost me so much less money if we ate at home”, I need to look at it like I am blessing my husband and we are using our money wisely because this is something we both enjoy.

Obviously, budgeting is a huge struggle for me.  I don’t know how to tackle this.  I’m thinking about two solutions.

1. Make a budget with all of our bills that have to be paid (but not things like groceries) and include some savings goals in it.  After all the bills are paid, don’t worry about how much money we spend.  It’s not in our nature to go overboard, so our spending would be reasonable.

2. Make a budget and include the things like eating out.  Give us a set amount of money each month to spend on restaurants and fun things.  This option seems more stressful because I’d feel restricted.  Is that a good thing though?

I guess my main focus with our finances now is to start enjoying life a little more and stop acting like we’re dirt poor.  I don’t want to be 70 years old with a million dollars in the bank and wish that I had spent more time doing things that would have cost me a little money.  It’s all about balance.

Do you struggle with spending money? Or do you struggle with saving money? Which do you think is worse?

The other day I was bidding on Mach 3 Turbo razor blades on eBay and I stopped to think about how silly that actually sounded.  Here’s how it goes down at my house: Mr. Money tells me he needs new razor blades, and can I pick him some up while I’m grocery shopping?  I tell him that if he can wait, I can order them online and we can save a lot of money versus buying them at the store.  He then agrees and starts using my emergency stash of disposable Bic razors (not cool.)  I then forget because I’m busy, so a few weeks go by and he asks again, which prompts me to get looking on eBay.  I then find some Mach 3 Turbo razors that are a good deal, so I bid on them.  And then I lose.  And then I forget about it for a few days.

Then I remember, and bid on another item.  I think I’m going to lose the auction, so I start looking on Amazon at the prices of the razor blades. I find a good deal there, so I keep that in mind while I wait for the auction to end.  The next morning, I find out that I actually won the auction (yay!) so I pay via Paypal so that Mr. Money doesn’t have to wait any longer to receive his (now very necessary) razor blades. Done and done.

The more I got to thinking about it though, the sillier it sounded to me.  I mean, who buys razor blades on eBay? Granted, they are brand new and in the packaging, but still.  Most people just run up to the grocery store and purchase the razor blade refills.  Those things are expensive!  I can’t stand to pay full retail price knowing I can get a better deal online.  Of course, Mr. Money may not agree that it’s the best thing because he has to wait so long.

Another reason I purchase the razor blades online is because I can get them in bulk and it helps me from having to remember to buy them again in a month or so (obviously I’m not very good at remembering to order them!).  Not only does it save me money, but it also saves me time.

There are many times where we’ll be shopping and I’ll look at something and be like, oh I want that, but I won’t buy it because I know I can get it cheaper online!  I’ve done that with vitamins, shoes, coconut oil, and other random things that we’ve wanted.  It always seems like I pick the strangest things to order from the internet.  I can only imagine what the delivery person would think if they actually knew what was in our packages.  They would probably think we’re very weird!

Shopping online can be a great money and time saver if you actually go ahead and do it when you’re supposed to.  Sometimes you get in a time crunch and then can’t help but purchase the item from the store.  I do like supporting local businesses, so if the price is not that much different, I will pick it up from the locally owned store.

What’s the strangest online purchase you’ve ever made?

Teen Mom is a show on MTV that airs on Tuesday nights at 10PM.

It’s a reality show that follows four ‘teen moms’: Catelynn, Maci, Amber, and Farrah.  The young women were originally part of “16 and Pregnant”, another reality show that is exactly what it sounds like: pregnant 16 year old young women.  Both Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant are like train wrecks: you can’t help but watch because it’s so messed up.  I know I’m addicted, and the majority of my friends are also.  There are some good lessons to be learned from the show (don’t get pregnant until you can completely be responsible for a baby), and I’ve decided to highlight what I’ve observed about money and Teen Mom.

Farrah Abraham

Farrah’s worst money experience is when Farrah gets scammed on Craigslist.  On Episode 5, Farrah decides she’s going to sell her Dodge Neon on Craigslist.  She lists it, and lo and behold, someone buys it the next day! They send her a check in the mail with more than enough funds to cover the car plus shipping, plus some extra money for her trouble.  She Western Unions the money to the buyer, and all is well.  Until a few days later when her banker calls to tell her that dun dun dun… the check was fraudulent and bounced.  Now Farrah’s out like $3,000 and overdrawn in her bank account. Ouch.

Amber Portwood

It seems as if Amber and Gary don’t care about money because neither of them are employed.  One good money move they are making is to not get married.  Of course, that changes during every episode, but more likely than not, they won’t get married.  They will not only save money, but they will probably also save each others’ lives.

Maci Bookout

Maci appears smart with her money- she attends a community college in Chattanooga and then transfers to another community college in Nashville.  Of course, when she decides to move from Chattanooga to Nashville, her expenses increase as she moves from her parents’ house into her own apartment.

Catelynn Lowell

Catelynn and Tyler seem to be pretty responsible with money.  Both live with their own respective parents (coincidentally Catelynn’s mom is with Tyler’s dad) and attend a public high school.  They placed their daughter for adoption in hopes of a better life for her.  They believe they couldn’t have provided adequately for her, as they still hadn’t graduated high school. I think they made an awesome decision in placing their little girl with adoptive parents.  Although they miss their daughter terribly at times, Catelynn and Tyler seem to not regret their decision.

Raising a child is expensive, and it’s even harder when you’re a teen mom.  Going to school, paying for living expenses, and raising a child all cost money.  I can’t even imagine being a teen mom, but these girls seem to make it all work somehow.  It’s interesting to see the vast differences in money management between the young women.  Some of them handle money better than others, and some seem to not care at all about money.

Do you watch Teen Mom? Have you ever thought about their money situations?