I've been terrible, about blogging, about finances, even my house has suffered. We've all been sick and trying to recover from a stomach virus that has attacked a cold, its not fun.
I haven't been keeping very good track of my finances, at least, I haven't been writing what I've spent down, I've been estimating in my head. I splurged this last weekend though and bought a cell phone. I probably could have gone without, but I've had instances where my car doesn't start and I need to call for help. Having the cell will make me feel at least slightly more secure.
Christmas was a blast. I had a budget set for christmas, with the idea that the less toys the kids got the less cluttered my house would be on christmas day. My community had different ideas. Every day for about a week before Christmas, I"d find a bag of wrapped gifts and boxes of food on my porch. So my kids got a bunch of gifts, they got to the point that they didn't want to unwrap anything else. One of the really fun gifts was a gift card to the grocery store, in the amount of $200. Now the challenge with the grocery store gift card, is that it has to be spent all at once, so, I went to the store armed with my grocery list, decided to stock up on paper goods and other supplies. Even with my list, I was about $15 short of the $200 goal, so I bought a video, which I don't usually do at the grocery store because they are usually overpriced. But it was worth it, I bought a veggie tales video, and the kids love it, and it has a good message and fairly decent songs.
This is a very disjointed and unorganized blog, but I think it will help me get back in the swing of things.
Next time I'll discuss saving money around the house.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Sometimes, we just get caught up at Christmastime. That's alright. But the gift card must have been great!
The gifts from the community were a real blessing, I'm sure, even if it became overmuch. Did you decide not to spend anything yourself on Christmas and thereby let the gifts save you some elsewhere? You don't have to answer, but I was curious from the standpoint of this being a blog about saving and debt reduction.
Also, you could sell some of the extra toys on eBay and recoup some of the value to use for other things, if you felt right about that. It's all up to you how you treat other people's generosity.
The gifts from the community were mostly clothes and movies. Which I don't mind keeping. But that is a very good point, on selling excess. If I was slightly more organized I'd attempt it LOL.
I had actually purchased the gifts well in advance, and they were needed things, with one fun toy. I was trying to be very sensible about the gifts.
Another thind I did for Christmas, was to take some excess food and cash to a neighbor of mine who has even less than I do.
I was going to suggest that if it were still Christmas time, giving to those less fortunate is a great way to teach your boys values. Glad to hear you already thought of it.
I recently heard Dave Ramsey explain that tithing was the most important thing to do to get your financial house in order. I was very impressed to hear him say that. He even said, "You can reduce your offerings, but you should not reduce your tithe."
He likened God to a great Dad cheering you on, wanting the best for you. It was a great comment. I've really enjoyed hearing his show each weeknight on our new conservative talk radio station here.
Post a Comment