Saturday, August 01, 2009

Budget Update: 7 months in - How we're doing

In a word: GREAT!

We've managed to pay off somewhere in the neighborhood of $14,000 since January 1st and we are in absolute awe of that fact. We give all praise and thanksgiving to God for giving us the inspiration and promise that He would take care of it if we would make the commitment to get out of debt.

We're now focusing on our consumer account that has not required a payment for over a year. Once January 1st hits, we'll be owing the regular monthly payments as well as the deferred interest that has been building, so we're definitely going full steam ahead to get it paid off by December 31st. It's a biggie, but we know we can do it.

Grocery shopping has been going great. I've managed to still stick to my budget of $75 a week on shopping for the most part, occasionally going over if there are deals that are just too good to pass up, but it's usually no more than $15 dollars over, and even that's rare. I recently had a really great trip to Kroger. I got all of the items in the picture below for a whopping $3.83! I saved 87% by using coupons and store discounts. Not too shabby!


I haven't had many other trips quite as good as this, but I'm still faithfully clipping, sorting and using my coupons every week. We still don't eat out very often and we've both gotten out of the habit of impulse shopping. We've been faithfully tithing out of every paycheck, and even been donating to some worthy causes that we feel are important to contribute to.

We did decide to splurge on new (refurbished) iPhones for both of us, which would definitely not be Dave Ramsey approved. But for me especially, I've found my iPhone has greatly freed up my time at home since I don't feel the need to spend my evenings "catching up" on emails and facebook happenings since I can do this at various breaks throughout the day. We both feel very much more "connected" and for the time it's given me and the stress it's taken off of me alone we feel it's been worth it.

I hope the next big update has more good news! And I pray all of you out there who are working hard to get out of debt are being as blessed as we are. Here's to being debt free!

By the way, in case you're not linked over, I do the huge majority of our family updates on Harper's blog at http://www.babyhanes.blogspot.com/.

4 comments:

Tara K said...

Congratulations and way to go! I'm really proud of you guys!

Jon and alyssa said...

I went out on a limb and got an iPhone for my b-day, and I honestly feel it is worth every penny. It IS such a time saver!

Kristin said...

That is so awesome your amount paid down. I am so jealous that you have gotten so good at coupon clipping. I suck big time.

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