My blog is no longer listed under "New Blogs" on the main page. Does that make me an old-timer now?

The balance in the change box is decreasing rapidly. DD#2 was asked to go to the last home volleyball game with a friend and needed money to get in. Then DS#2 needed an extra quarter so he could get in. So just when I was close to breaking $5, I'm at just above half of that now.

Came home from work early today to get a dessert made for DH for his men's meeting tonight. He had also come home early to work on the kitchen addition since it was one of the few days this week with no rain or snow. Got his paycheck ready to deposit tomorrow morning and have a transfer set up for tomorrow into the Amboy account. That will bring us to $255 for the EF.

Ordered DS#2's Christmas presents today so that's one more down. I've got a bid in on an Ipod on Ebay for DS#3. I'll bid up to the amount we spend and if it goes above, I'll look at other options for him.

I believe I've mentioned how much I love to work on my budget. Well.....last night I spent from 6 pm until 10 pm setting up my spreadsheet differently so that it matched my actual budget book more. I had originanlly set up this spreadsheet when I took my Personal Finance class this summer. I had used their categories and was having to combine some of our expensed in order to match. I decided to make it easier on myself.

So I now have a spreadsheet that matches my budget book exactly! Much easier to see where money is going (didn't like that part one bit!) and where I need to budget more.

Clothing is 4 times what I have budgeted!!! I knew it was over, but not by that much! It is awfully expensive with 5 teenagers to try to keep clothes on their backs that fit! And our kids are not the type that have to have the latest fashions. They're so used to hand-me-downs that new clothes are a real luxury.

It also hasn't helped that I've needed so many clothes lately. I'm hypothyroid and over the past 3 years had managed to take off almost 50 pounds. Well, the beginning of this year it came back on with a vengeance, all in the space of just a few months. It took many months for me to put the symptoms together and realize what was wrong. Usually when my thyroid decides to take a vacation I am so tired that I cannot function. This time I had insomnia. So anyway....new clothes for me in bigger sizes really messed up my clothing allowance.

My repair account for my van that we traded in was also double what I had planned for since the engine went and had to be replaced. It was also rusting so once we got a used engine in it we decided to trade it in on a 2005 Equinox.

My furniture/appliance account really took a beating this year too, because we finally replaced the old, worn out washer and dryer plus got new living room furniture. Believe me, it was time for all 3 of them! The kids and I were sick to death of having to sit on the washer each time it spun. Otherwise, it would walk across the bathroom floor. We had a repairman in and it was not worth fixing. We had been doing this for almost 10 years!!! I LOVE my new washer. LOL!

So anyways, that's the results I found from my long evening of crunching numbers. Should have been studying my Accounting 2 lesson, but personal finance is always more interesting to me!

The first thing I did when I got home today was to get my Amboy account activated. I think I've even figured out how you transfer money to and from it also. I'll give it a try on Thursday when DH gets paid.

I'm thinking that I'm going to follow Dave Ramsey's advice and get our EF back up to $1,000 before I pay extra on the CCs again. I really do have a much better peace of mind when I know that money is there. I'm finding that I'm not sleeping well at night because I keep waking up and thinking of all that could happen that there wouldn't be money for. Not good, I know, but that's how I am. I like to have that little nest egg available.

Got paid another 10 cents for doing laundry. Added it to the change box.

I have been waiting all weekend for the small deposits to show up in my checking account from Amboy so that I could verify them and get my new savings account going. Well, wouldn't you know, I just checked and they're there, but the email and password are in my home email and I can't access it from work! I wish I'd thought to email a copy to my Yahoo account so I could have done it now. Oh well! I guess this evening will be soon enough. I'm just ready to make some "real" interest and not that piddling little 1.24% we've been getting!

I needed to stop by the grocery store on my way to work so I had some food here. I got 2 Yoplait Smoothies (65 cents each), bananas (3 pounds for $1), salsa, cracker jacks, honey roasted peanuts and a king size Reese's Cups for a total of $9.77. I'm trying to get my diet gluten-free to see if it helps with some symptoms I've been having. So I'm trying to concentrate mainly on meats, dairy, veggies, and fruit. I already have an apple, cherry tomatoes, and a potato at work.

Had to give up 60 cents out of my change box for youngest DD's library fines at school.

Also paid DH's life insurance for the month. That was $58.75. Need to get busy looking into term life insurance!

That's how much I got "paid" for helping with the leaves yesterday afternoon.

DH came home from working 8 hours of Saturday overtime and immediately started raking the yard so I felt badly. I had cleaned house all day, but thought we could chat as we worked. After he raked several piles our middle DS and I bagged the leaves. We found a penny at the bottom of one of the piles so that is going into the change box.

When I went to get the mail I ran up to our Dollar General to get DH some deoderant and the kids some chapstick. They didn't have the deoderant so I just ended up with 3 tubes of Blistex that came to $3.18.

Added .65 to my change box. This is change from sending a package to Canada.

Ordered my oldest DS's Christmas present. That went on the CC but I have the money in savings so that will be transferred over and paid off on Monday so that it doesn't add to the total. 2 Christmas gifts down, 4 to go for the immediate family! I will get my parents a gift certificate to a restaurant, as always. Last year we tried to get them each a gift but they just ended up returning them so we decided might as well stick to the tried and true. We will also get my aunt a gift certificate but it will be to the grocery store in town. She is disabled and lives on a fixed income so this is the best way to help her.

I got an email a little bit ago that my Amboy account has been opened!

I have to verify the small deposits, but I went online and they aren't posted yet. I'm hoping after 2 this afternoon they will be there. I'm anxious to get going on this savings fund.

Last entry of the day, I promise!

I'm excited about opening the Amboy account so I sat down tonight to determine what budget category I could shave $5 off of a week to contribute to the account, along with whatever overtime money I put in. So I decided since my car is newer, hopefully it won't have as many repairs as my husband's 1989 truck. I cut the car repair account to $15 a week. So at least $5 a week will go to the new Amboy emergency fund. Better than nothing!

I also started saving any change that I have in a box that is on the top of my computer desk. Each day I will put any change I have in my purse and whatever change I "earn" for doing laundry. When it gets to a decent amount, that money will also go into the EF. Now to keep others out of it!!!

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Also, just wanted to add that I'm so glad I found this site! I tried a blog before but just couldn't find anything to blog about! But get me started on money and I could probably blog all day!

And I think it's really going to keep me motivated to save and pay down the debt!

At the beginning of the year I'll be getting a cost of living raise plus a merit raise. It is going to amount to $38.67 more each paycheck (bi-weekly).

I've been debating what to do with this raise. I would love to apply it all to debt, but I'm thinking that I really should put it towards my clothing category since it is notoriously underfunded and hence, clothing expense tends to go on the credit card.

Right now it seems to make more sense to me to get my budget categories to a reasonable amount so that CC spending is limited and/or halted altogether.

I have a couple of months to mull this over and make a decision, but I'm really leaning toward more for clothing.

Thought I would post my budget here. It is always changing, but not by a whole lot. I adjust it a bit here and there as bills go up and down. There are always areas that are not funded enough though, like clothing and medical.

Weekly:
Tithe: $53
Allowance: $60 (this is my husband's cash that he buys gasoline from each week and uses the remainder for whatever he wants)
Eating out: $15
Groceries: $100
Utilities: $92.39 (this includes: electric, gas, water, phone, cable & internet)
School lunches: $14.54
Insurances: $59.82 (life, disability, car)
Medical: $20
Clothing: $6.56 (WAY underfunded)
Daughter's allowance: $5.00 (she pays her flute payments with this money)
Home repairs: $20
Vehicle repairs: $40
Wood pellets: $35
Occupational tax: $7
Gifts: $20

Bi-weekly:
Tithe: $60
Gasoline for my car: $70
Furniture payment: $35.54
Car Payment: $137.99
Mortgage: $262.93
Credit Card: $31.48

My husband has been getting quite a bit of overtime lately so that has been going to getting our house fixed up and also to the credit card payments. I typically take an extra $50 out of his overtime money weekly to apply toward that. The rest has been going to buy clothing lately because our 3 kids at home have hit the teenage growth spurt all at once. OT pay has also been going into a small addition to the kitchen so that we can put our coal stove in there so we have heat. We have gone 4 years with no heat in the kitchen.

I have a part-time bookkeeping job for a library that pays me $50 a month. That is my "allowance" to spend as I please.

I should also add that our youngest daughter is the only one that we give an allowance to because both of the 2 boys at home have their own jobs (delivering newspapers & working after school at a mechanic's).