We're at $358 for the weekly budget since we had a no-spend day yesterday. The wife made a chicken caesar salad for dinner and everyone was shocked to see me engulf it. I'm a meat and potatoes guy but for some reason that salad was really good. I think my kids were going to pass out from shock!

We received a 90 dollar credit to our checking account because me the dopey guy transposed the two middle numbers on last week's atm deposit so they corrected it for us and the money showed up today. So now we have $223 in the account and I'm planning on waiting until Friday when the tax check gets deposited to make some debt tracker payments.

The wife may go grocery shopping tonight but we're not sure if she'll have time or not. If she does I'll update the budget.

I wanted to update where we were in the budget and another small ebay sale to add to the total. First we have $58 left of our $300 budget for this week and we also have next week's $300 in our pockets so we have to go 8 days on the $358.

Another ebay item sold bringing in $52.01 so I'll add that to the total. I only have one more item listed for sale right now but I hope to add more in the next few days (possibly this weekend as well).

$2386.54
+ $52.01
$2438.55

Oh and I almost forgot that another one of the cards from the matrix (Card 3) that was paid off had its statement close and they hit us with a $78 interest charge...which I promptly paid. We have $133 left in our checking account for now...in case any other interest charges want to rear their ugly heads!

Well I had mentioned in the past about how we had some savings accounts scattered here and there with anywhere from $75 to $450 in them. I was able to close two over the weekend and both banks are mailing us checks for the balances which we will be putting into the checking account to pay off more debt. We ended up wiht an additional $250 from those two accounts and today we are going to a third bank that we have another savings account (with $450 in it) so we'll be able to use that to pay down more debt as well. It just doesn't make sense to me to carry balances on credit cards and give these lenders interest when we have the means and ability to continue to chop away at that debt.

We are waiting on Fedex to deliver some money for the company today and we should be seeing that tax return $ in the next day or two. $6820 will go a long way to paying down even more debt. The sooner the better!

Oh and another closed card decided to hit us with a final interest charge of $120 which I promptly paid. I will probably have one or two more of these before it's all said and done since we paid them off before the statements closed. Ah it's good to know those interest charges are history (especially on that card...one of the 18 percent cards).

FYI we did close the other savings and they gave us the cash at the bank ($420) and I gave the wife our $300 refill for this week and will be depositing the $120 into our checking account. This way she's got the cash to last until payday (9 days from today) and I can just use the tax money to attack more debt. That saves us a $300 withdrawal on Weds. Hopefully planning ahead works out!

OK well here is how we started spending that $4500 we deposited into our new joint checking account yesterday:

$700 for Mortgage (2nd mort payment)
$120 to Sewer (Utility)
$81 to Garbage (Utility)
$127 to County Theater (Donation)
$280 to weekly budget

All transactions have posted to the old checking account so I withdrew the last $20 from Wachovia and have closed the checking and savings accounts with them. I also spent part of the day updating as many online accounts as I could with the new checking info (as well as deleting the old info!) The $20 left goes with the $280 over to the wife for the weekly budget. She had $59 left (I thought she had $40...but it turns out she had more) so we get to go from today til next Weds with a $359 cash flow for the budget! She's going grocery shopping tonight (gulp!)

You can see I also made a donation to an old theater in our area that runs a lot of current and old movies (they are very small but they're fun). The donation got us 6 free movies for 2 people so we can make the most of it by going to that theater if there is a movie we like. It helps keep the theater going (since 1937) and they're probably the most friendly people that run that place so it's a treat to go down to the old theater to see a movie.

I also made a little dent in the matrix but I'll keep that in a different blog post.

Well we deposited $4500 into our new checking account today and we've run the old ones down to a combined $40.95! There is a check from the wife's checking for $20.00 that needs to post and there is $20 left in my checking account (which I'll probably withdraw via ATM and add it to the weekly budget cash) that will be withdrawn after all the transactions have posted to the account (I have a few I'm waiting to post). We're also waiting to put our $300 refill into our weekly budget for our first deposit to post (we just want to make sure everything clears...it's a new bank and all) and we have $59 left over from last week so that should tide us over until the deposits post.

We also got the official tax refund number today of $6820 so that will be a check to us on Monday (as I mentioned before we have to pay the IRS the tax owed because we had to claim $42k in corporate income so the company is giving us a check for tax owed plus what we would've gotten as a refund if we didn't have to claim the added income). So we should have over $11k by next week to attack the matrix (namely cards 1 and 2).

Today should be a no spend day unless the kids have something they need tonight (to the best of my knowledge they don't...but you know how that always changes).

Well I've been out of town for two days and I've spent a grand total of six dollars so I have $44 left from the $50 I took with me when I left. The wife hasn't had to spend anything while I've been gone so we're still at the same number we were at when I left. I am exhausted and I'm working on work right now remotely and figured I'd check in.

The $46,000 from the consolidation loan was deposited into our checking account and cleared on Saturday. Of course they deposited it into the Wachovia account that's going away instead of the new Commerce account and Wachovia doesn't want to move the money until we close the account (that will save us fees and we'll get a check for the amount at close). It's driving me nuts because I really want to start attacking the matrix but I wanted to do it from the new account since I would love to start changing over the checking account information with all of the creditors out there that have our business. I could change the checking info and pay off the cards as I go all at one time if the money was in the new Commerce account. I have to wait for one more check to clear before the Wachovia account will be ready to close so I figure I will take care of things when I get back to PA on Weds. We did already switch over our direct deposit (Weds is payday!) so that's a nice step in the right direction.

Well we bought groceries last night and they came out to $117. We're good on food for the next week and the wife has a decent amount to work with while I'm gone. I'll be staying at my mother's house so I will not have to spend much of anything on food but I will be taking $50 in cash to cover any expenses I have. I'll subtract it from the amount we have left to be safe.

Balance: $334
Spent: $167
Remains: $167

Well today is the day to pull out our weekly $300 for our weekly budget and we did pretty well this week. Today our son got a haircut and we did spend money on lunch (and we did pay for the t-shirts for our daughter's bball team finally!) so today so far we've spent $60 (ouch!) The wife is going grocery shopping tonight so we'll see how we fare there. Here's the "so far" daily totals:

Balance: $94
Refill: $300
Total: $394

Spent: $60

Remains: $334

Well another no money day for Tuesday and tomorrow is the refill day so we will be able to carry over $394 for the next week. It's a good thing to see us building the weekly budget up by not spending the money. Our son has to get his haircut tomorrow so we will be spending some on that and the wife will do her weekly grocery shopping so we'll chop a chunk of the funds down but at least it's not frivilous!

Also, we found out our tax return will be $5000 so we're happy to get that. We had to claim $42k of corporate income on our taxes (thanks to being in an s-corp wifey!) but the company is paying what we owe plus what we should've gotten back if we didn't have to claim the additional income so we'll end up paying the IRS the money that we owe based on the total income and get to put what we would've gotten as a refund right in the checking account. The one good thing is we'll get the money immediately instead of waiting for the IRS so we should have it tomorrow or Thursday.

On a sad note my best friend's father is dying from cancer and is now on oxygen in the hospital. He has a lymph node in his lung that is blocking his airflow so it's not looking good. I have to fly to Chicago on Friday or Saturday and help him and his sister out with everything. I have a free flight on United so I'm going to use that (hooray for frequent flyer miles). It's a sad thing but we'll get through it.

Well a couple of things for today! For one thing we're considering selling our DVD's to a company called Media Exchange. They seem to pay the most online and they pay for shipping if you ship them enough DVD's so it makes sense for us to do it. I added up just a group in my upstairs furniture and came up with $65 in sellable DVD's (and we have close to 100 more downstairs). It's not a lot for them but it's something (if we really needed to watch them again we could always rent!) Just a thought on how to make some more money.

Also, we officially opened our Commerce Bank checking account today and we're meeting with the Commerce Bank rep here at work tomorrow to go over everything about the account. I get to say goodbye to $6.95/mo x2 which starts April 1st from Wachovia and I still get to use MS Money to track my account (for free!) Goodbye Wachovia hello Commerce!

No money spent this weekend so we still have the $94 for now. If we can make it to Weds when we refill the weekly cash we'll have $394 to use up until payday!

Oh I almost forgot that we paid the electric bill today with ebay money. $150 is the lowest it's been in months (always a good thing).

Well the wife and daughter did well in their trip to the mall today. They returned a dress and got a $70 credit and ended up spending $120 so they actually only spent $50 in cash from the budget. Then after the kids went out we decided to treat ourselves to a Friday dinner from a local Italian place that's right around the corner. We spent $30 there altogether. So here's where we stand going into the weekend:

Balance: $174
Spent: $80
Remains: $94

We really don't have to spend any money this weekend unless we decide to go to the movies but we may just stay home and hang out. We'll see!

Well as most of you know we refilled our weekly cash budget with $300 yesterday and had $36 left over from last week's budget so we're starting the week with a little surplus. The wife went grocery shopping last night and came up with $162 in groceries. We didn't spend any money today (hooray!) and as you know from my debt reduction post we hit a home run with what we're going to save in interest payments. So here's where we stand going into Friday:

Balance: $336
Spent: $162
Remains: $174

This weekend our daughter needs a new outfit for some party (my wife ok'd this...why I don't know) but at least she's going to return a never-worn dress at JC Penney that still has the tags on it and get a $70 store credit to go towards the new outfit. We'll see how they do!

Well we're off and running paying bills! Paycheck was the usual $3500 and I started working from that number. So here's how we paid "da" bills!

First things first...the mortgage. $2500 right off the top. That left us with $1000.

Next, we withdrew the cash for the week. We pulled out $300 (which is our normal weekly cash withdrawal number) and the wife is going grocery shopping tonight. Since we finished last week with $36 remaining she actually has $336 to work with this week. Hopefully we will continue to be under the bar and build up a surplus week-2-week. So we're at $700.

Next I paid the snow service who charged us $50 for the last snow removal (which is hopefully the last one of the year!) So we went to $650.

Next...the cable bill! Which is $155. So that knocked us down to $495.

So now we're sitting at $495. The next thing I did was transfer my overdraft savings account (with a near zero interest rate) to my checking account. Why? I'm going to be closing shop with Wachovia and moving to Commerce Bank. I am a Microsoft Money disciple and Wachovia wants a minimum balance to use Money or be charged $6.95/mo and I think that's crazy. Commerce is our bank at work (we also switched from Wachovia) and they're really helpful and friendly when it comes to account options. Plus MS Money is free to use with their bank regardless of your balance. So the switch is on! So let's add $168 to the total and we have $663. Next I removed the last $37 from my wife's checking account (also Wachovia) and moved it into mine so all the Wachovia money is in one account. She doesn't have any more checks to write or any outstanding checks so we're safe. So now we have $700.

Next, I decided to withdraw $1200 from my Paypal account (ebay money) and put it into my checking account because I want to attack the debt matrix. The payment will not transfer for a few days but this gives us enough time to wait for one of the wife's cc grantors to give us the decision on the loan we talked about earlier (unsecured consolidation loan at 6 percent for 30k). Once the $1200 shows up we'll have $1900 and leave a little bit in the Paypal account. Paypal now allows you to turn the balance in your account into shares of their money market fund which is currently earning 5.05 percent. I left a couple hundred in the account for now (it beats the almost zero savings interest from Wachovia!) and I may just consolidate the other savings accounts that way. I left a couple hundred in case I have to refund an ebay customer (you never know) and to cover seller fees when they come due.

Another good thing is there are only two cc payments due before our next pay period for a total of $247 so I should be able to pay those, throw another bunch of money at my least favorite card (Card 9) and make another nice dent in our debt. So this extra $1200 from Ebay couldn't have happened at a better time! We can't wait to find out how our tax situation will pan out as well. Now that the business returns date has passed (3/15) our accountant's staff will crank out our return (he has a staff member do the return and then he checks it before submitting) and we'll have another chunk of money to pay down some of this debt.

My wife is going to be asking for a salary based raise on Friday too of roughly 25 percent. Since she is part owner the way her salary works is not standard so this raise is actually in line with the other executives. If she gets the raise she's still making half of what her two brothers (the other executives) make so hopefully they vote to let her have the increase. We're having a great year financially so we'll see how it goes.

On the non-financial front, my daughter got the clean bill of health from the doctor today! No more mono. She's ready to go back into basketball training and is excited to get back to playing. I'm glad she's better (and in better spirit!)

...and we made it on $250 for the last week +! We had to spend $19 on pictures for volleyball for our son today but we made it. It was easier than we thought it would be (but the wife REALLY needs to go grocery shopping tomorrow). So here's the update for the budget tracker:

Balance: $55
Spent: $19
Remains: $36

We are planning on withdrawing the $300 for our weekly budget tomorrow and she's going to hold onto the extra $36 so we'll have a little cushion. If we can stay under our weekly budget next week as well we'll probably withdraw less and load up to $300. So I'm proud of the family for staying under the $250 after we had to go over $300 the week before.

***Stock Update***
I forgot this update on last Friday's posts but CRWN which I bought at $3.90 the day after President's Day closed today at $5.28! So that account is growing little by little (remember there wasn't a whole lot in there to begin with but instead of withdrawing it I left it in and bought 25 shares of this stock...just to keep my feet in the kiddie pool). So far so good (and I'm not endorsing the stock...just happy that it's up!)

I'm going to link this entry to all THREE categories since the debt tracker got a new twinge regarding Card 13. Finance Charge of $7 hit the card so the min payment of $81 is now due 4/12/07. Another notch to the cards due belt (ugh!)

Updated matrix:
Card 1/$12097/$20000/14.23
Card 2/$15318/$31000/12.24
Card 3/$8215/$12500/12.24
Card 4/$6211/$9000/18.24
Card 5/$6151/$9000/18.24
Card 6/$6143/$8000/0.00*
Card 7/$5903/$10000/4.99**
Card 8/$3821/$10000/0.00***
Card 9/$1971/$7250/17.24
Card 10/$3514/$4400/16.99
Card 11/$2815/$3900/13.99
Card 12/$2100/$2500/0.00****
Card 13/$4082/$4500/5.82

*Teaser rate ends 4/1/07 (up to 13.99)
**Balance Transfer rate
***Teaser rate ends 8/22/07 (up to 24)
****Teaser rate ends 5/1/07 (up to 13.99)

$81008-$78341=$2667 off since day 1.


And the ebay update: I sold another item and cleared $18.94 to add to the ebay total. So I'll put that below.

$1820.67
+ $18.94
$1839.61


Tomorrow's payday and I couldn't be more excited to pay bills...seriously!

Well we only worked til noon today since we have gotten absolutely pounded here with snow and ice (since this morning.) The wife and I decided to stop at Burger King (she had a major hunkering for fast food) and I said since we're probably not going anywhere this weekend a trip to BK wouldn't put us in too much hot water with the weekly $ flow. So the two of us spent $13 on a BK lunch. We've gotten about a foot here so far and it doesn't seem to be letting up yet so I'm hanging out and going bonkers listing items to sell on ebay. So far I've gotten 16 more items up and I'm not anywhere close to being done. I'm going to keep on going until I run out of steam.

Balance: $68
Spent: $13
Remains: $55

That number should stick around for awhile...let it snow!

Well we went to the ATM yesterday and took out our weekly cash. It was going to be $250 but since the machine only let us take out multiples of $20 we took out $240. She got her $100 haircut and then got our groceries to last until next Weds (payday!) and she spent a grand total of $87 at the grocery store (and got quite a bit for that $87!) It was close to 80 degrees here yesterday while today it's 57 and rainy and tomorrow it's going to be a high of 33 and snowing! What a crazy weather week.

Daughter's team lost in the 2nd round of the state playoffs on Tuesday night so we're bumming about it since she couldn't play. They really wanted to win because of how badly we beat them last year and they played like it. The announcers on the TV wished her well and said her being out really hurt the defense which was kind of cool (I know it's only high school bball but it's still cool to hear your daughter get praise from someone other than her parents!)

With the weather the way it is I expect we'll be inside watching TV all weekend (plus to stay under that budget we really need to be home bodies!) I'll be updating the ebay tracker as things go too so hopefully we'll be generating even more additional income while at home! I've got more to list so this weekend will be listing weekend (I wish I could've taken advantage of the .20 listing day yesterday but no luck.)

Budget numbers:

Balance: $15
Adding: $240
Total: $255

Balance: $255
Spent: $187
Remains: $68

Oh we do need light bulbs for some of the lights on the outside of our house so we will probably spend a few bucks there too (doh!) but that would probably be this weekend (I'm just brainstorming upcoming expenses!)

Today is another "no spend" day for us as our daughter's team has a game tonight against the team they beat to win the state title in bball a year ago. Hopefully they can win without her a 2nd time and keep moving on in the state playoffs.

So we're holding onto that last $15 until tomorrow when she's going to pull $250 out for next week's budget (we think we'll be fine but you never know!) There isn't anything on the horizon and we took care of the kids expenses at school so we should be safe there.

Balance: $15
Spent: $0
Remains: $15

Well we have some good news and some bad news! First the bad news...the kids pretty much sucked down the rest of our weekly budget...to the point where we're going to try to make it on $250 from Monday until next Wednesday. It's not going to be easy but I think if we have an actual cap we might be able to pull it off. The kids needed money for school (daughter needed money for photography class...yes she's well enough to get back to school! Our son needed cafeteria money which we fund by writing a check to his Cafetrac account.) She also went to the grocery store for some extra stuff and spent $33. So our cash reserves look like this:

Balance: $68
Spent: $53
Remains: $15

The check to our son was for $50 (yes..ouch!) so that drops us to $35 in the red. It's ok the money is in the account to withdraw it but we are cutting the amount to take for next week to compensate for the check. I think we can do it but it'll be tough.

Now for the good news and there are a couple of "good news" areas. First I mentioned how I listed a bunch of items on Ebay (17 altogether!) Well FIVE of them sold already using the buy it now option which I required the pay immediately function and everyone did! Everything sold on Sunday and I made a grand total of $435 (that includes already paying seller fees!) So over the last week I've made a grand total of $661.50 on Ebay (which isn't a bad supplement on the income!) I still have 12 items listed and three already have bids so here's to hoping everything else sells and we make even more money! I've already put in the transfer for the money to go into my bank account so in a couple of days we'll have some extra elbow room and technically we could refill the cash to $300 if we pull from the ebay money.

One thing I am going to let my wife do is get her salon haircut and at first I was going to tell her to hold off another week but I can now let her do it and pay with some of the ebay cash (about $100!) Yeah it's a little different than my 10 dollar cut but I don't mind that she gets it done. I'll let her have some fun now and then!

My other good news is I got an alert from Equifax's Score Watch program (one of the only programs that monitors your true FICO score and doesn't give out a fake score) saying my score had changed. Well my Equifax FICO went from 665 to 707 after the updates from a couple of my cc accounts hit! I've been a credit monster for a few years now and to see that score climb over 700 is a thing of beauty. I'm getting closer and closer to that refi on the house and saving a ton in interest!

Just a quick update on a lazy Saturday! No money spent (we needed that!) It's been an ebay day as I listed 11 items (computer stuff...some old laptops etc.) to generate some extra cash and get some extra room in my home office. I'm thinking of putting the extra funds from selling the stuff there right to the debt. Either that or start an EF in an ING account (I have an orange savings that has about 150 bucks in it that I don't use.) I need to (for the 10th time saying it) consolidate those darn savings accounts into one sooner rather than later!

Balance: $68
Spent: $0
Remains: $68

Well our daughter's team has a game tonight but she will not be playing of course. Here's to hoping they win!

I got a letter from Wachovia today that really ticked me off. Starting April 1st there will be a $5.95 monthly charge for accessing your accounts directly from Microsoft Money, Quicken or Quickbooks UNLESS you have a certain type of account (which means you have to hold an average daily balance of at least $1500 to keep the access free.) Well I've never had a problem with Wachovia before but in my current debt situation I'm in no position to keep an average daily anything! So I'm considering switching to Commerce Bank here in PA. They have a free checking account that fits our needs (and our company now banks with them...we also switched away from Wachovia business-wise about a year ago) and no fees for using MS Money. Since my wife and I have seperate checking accounts they want $5.95 from each of us which is ridiculous. We both agreed a single checking account serves our needs better anyways. The only thing is everything I pay is online with our current accounts and we'd have a lot of data to change but it's not worth the ridiculous service charges! Maybe after I'm debt free I can revisit accounts with mandatory minimum balances but for now it's not money smart to do that.

Either that or just go to Wachovia's site and download it to Money from there. Bank of America already makes me do this for credit cards so it would just be more time downloading transactions. I'll have to decide!

So far no $ spent today...but I'm sure tonight there will be some $ spent. I mentioned the shirts and I'll put them down later tonight. Here's the tale of the tape: $17 on dinner for four after the game (they won!) and $20 on the shirts. So $37 spent.

***Friday Spending Plan***
Balance: $105
Spent: $37
Remains: $68

***Weekly Stock update***
Revisiting the CRWN I bought the day after President's Day at $3.90. It closed today at $4.92 (up around 70 cents since start of day Thursday!)

Today our accountant showed up at work and collected all the paperwork he needs to do our taxes. I'm excited to see how it all plays out.

It's a no spend day today which is good. We'll need to try our best to not spend any money this weekend (or realize that if we do we only have the $105 left to last us until next Wednesday so it better be a needed purchase!) My daughter will be watching her team play in the state playoffs tomorrow on TV with a first round game and I think we're going to be spending $20 on these booster t-shirts (when your kid plays you get stuck with these costs...even if she can't physically play) but I'm not sure yet. I'll add it tomorrow night after I know what the total is.

*Thursday spending*
Balance: $105
Spent: $000
Remains: $105

Doh! Well she's home today and has a swollen throat and can barely talk. $20 for a doctor visit and the doc said stay in bed so that's where she's going. My wife's going to the store to get her some things so that'll go on the spending plan for today.

The GOOD news is our son went out and shoveled the driveway and the walkways on his own without being told so mom called the snow removal service and told them not to come. She said she'd give him $15 for doing it so we save $71. Thanks son!

Ah let's just say the quick run to the store turned out to be the weekly run for groceries! So that will be added to the total.

***Spending plan***
Budget: $300
Doctor: $20
Son: $15
Grocer: $160
Left: $105

I would like to see our weekly fund last us through next Wednesday but it would be a surprise to me. Good thing I left a little cushion! Ugh...well at least that $160 included some meds at the grocery store for our daughter.

Thanks for the well wishes about her health. Hopefully she gets better quickly!

Well today is payday and I have dived head first into the bills. The first bill paid was the electric company since that bill is due March 14th so I'll knock that one off the list.

Payday: $3500
Electr: $167
Remain: $3333

The next bill paid will be the minimum payment on Card 1 for $319. I was hoping the B/T would've applied before the due date of March 12th but I don't really want to take the chance of being late on a payment and the good thing about the B/T is the min payment should be significantly less next time since the balance is significantly less. I will have to make a minimum payment on another card (where I b/t'd the 4k) but at least the 4k will not be kicking me in the shin with a higher interest rate. In fact it'll be one of the lowest APR's I have at 5.82. So let's take off the min payment of Card 1.
Balance:$3333
Card 1: $319
Remain: $3014

Next we have a couple of cards due 3/18 but I'm going to skip them for a minute because they will come into play later. I'll explain it in a later blog post.

So now we come to the cleaning service on March 20th. I'm going to subtract it NOW because I know it's coming.

Balance: $3014
Cleanin: $133
Remain: $2881

We get paid again March 21st but remember the bulk of that paycheck is going to the mortgage. I really have two ways of attacking this. I can save half of what I need to pay the mortgage from this check and half from next check (so I would set aside $1250 from this check and $1250 from the next check) OR I can pay down debt with the bulk of this check and use the bulk of 3/21's check to pay the mortgage. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this...I have an inkling of what I want to do but I haven't committed either way yet. Ah time to ponder!

Oh the wife has about $100 in cash left from our $300 (since we wrote a check for the cleaning service...remember I had a birthday gift of $403 and used a part of that to cover it) so I'm going to give her $200 and refill the cash to $300. We'll revisit that next week to see where we're at. We thought about waiting til the money was gone before refilling but balked on that idea. So we can subtract the $200 from our total.

Balance: $2881
Week $$: $200
Remain: $2681

It's a snow day today for the kids as school is closed. We didn't get a lot but the roads are atrocious right now up here. We did make it to work and we're not taking lunch (I have started bringing granola bars to work for snacks...instead of wasting $.65 to $.85 on a snack in the machine!) so we can leave early today. I really love payday.

I have a hodge podge of things to talk about today...the first being Dave Ramsey. I'm not a big fan but I did read a review of his new book and in his debt plan he believes you should pay down your debt from smallest balance to biggest...ignoring the APR. I gathered that his argument was the emotional satisfaction of zeroing out cards would keep you motivated to continue to follow the plan. It's not a terrible idea to me IF and only IF the APR's are similar across all of your cards. I wonder if anyone is following this idea and can share some feelings on this (I know the numbers people...me being one of those...are a little miffed at Dave's trade of emotion for interest. You will feel better...but you'll pay for that feeling IMO!)

Next I got an email from Fair Isaac (for those not familiar with Fair Isaac they are the creators of the most widely used credit score...the FICO score. They are the authority when it comes to your credit score.) about what to do with old or unused credit cards. The message was plain and simple. Do NOT close any unused cards becuse it will more than likely damage your FICO score. I've learned from personal experience that utilization is the key to success with FICO and that's why closing your unused cards is a bad idea when it comes to your score. If you added up all your balances and then added up all your limits you could divide the balances by the limits and get your utilization. The higher the number the more it hurts your score. It's the same with individual accounts...the higher the amount to limit the worse off your FICO score will be. It's something to keep in mind if you're mortgage shopping or car shopping and you know you'll need a loan. Now there are a lot of variations of the score (Auto enhanced, Mortgage enhanced, etc.) but you can pull your Classic FICO on MyFico.com (and trust me this is the ONLY place you need to pull your score from if you want to know where you stand!) I'm not advocating people to go out and just buy scores but if you haven't ever seen it or are planning to buy a car or house in the very near future and are not paying cash for it I'd advise you to pull your scores from there. There are a lot of scores out there that claim to be your actual score but MyFICO is really the only place you can get all three true scores in one place. CPPSAVINGS code will get you 20 percent off each score if you need to go over there.

Spending today should be zero but we'll see what happens. Tomorrow for me and the wife is payday (yay!) so it will be a refill on the cash stash and we'll go into what I'm going to do with the money (I'm still figuring that out knowing I have a mortgage payment in two weeks that will eat up a sizable chunk of the next pay period's paychecks so I need to account for everything we'll need to have money for over the next few weeks to make sure we're covered 100 percent.)

Oh and in about 45 minutes an ebay auction of mine is ending and the current bid is around $150 for an old laptop I'm selling (with 25 watchers...so hopefully it keeps going up!) I could use a little bit of a cash burst before payday tomorrow to help attack cc debt!

***Update***
The laptop sold for $230! This thing was just gathering dust so I'm glad someone bought it. So 2 items down and we're at $239 made on Ebay! The buyer also paid immediately with Paypal so the money is in my Paypal account and I'm sending it to my checking account.

I paid the ebay seller fees today ($12.50) so taking that from the $239 we still end up +$226.50 in the black. If I take the 12.50 from the $44.26 that leaves us with $31.76 to last until tonight!

We have a budget buster but we knew it was coming so it's not a big shock. Thankfully with the money that's come in over the last week the budget buster is easier to take. It's my wife's cleaning service which I told her she could keep (she will not budge and she's been very good about everything else so I'm not going to push it!) I wrote a check and will be paying it from the birthday money I got last week ($403!) so it's not too bad. They come twice a month so if I figure it out of the weekly totals it's actually $66.25/wk ($132.50/visit!) We also gave the kids their allowances (they get $10/wk and we pay them twice a month) so that comes out of the budget as well. The wife actually has exactly $100 in her purse and on payday (Weds) I will give her the $300 weekly cash. That number is actually a little lower than what we could budget but the more we can send to the debt the better!

So for Monday (the cleaning people come tomorrow but I wrote the check tonight...so it's here!)

$130.51 Budget left
$66.25 Cleaning Service
$20.00 Allowances
$44.26 remaining under budget

The plan will be that she will give me $86.25 every Weds to cover these recurring costs. So I'm going to deduct them from our actual weekly allowance to make sure we stay on task. This one is a freebie for her since it's my bday money. From now on she'll get $260...and if she has $ left over she can hold onto it until we either get a surplus in weekly expense cash or we run out. We'll see how it goes!

Well we did a heck of a job this weekend with not spending money if I do say so myself (and I will...ha!) Saturday we spent NO money and I was able to sell a Day Timer on Ebay for 9 bucks and the old laptop I'm selling has a bid and 13 people watching it so I know it will sell in a couple of days! Income income income! We did go out to dinner but the company paid for it so we didn't have to spend any of our own money (yippie!)

Sunday we went up north to a town in NE PA to go through my wife's aunt's house (she's in a nursing home and is not going to be moving back to her home...it's been sold) and got to pick and choose some of her things to keep at our house. We picked up a couple of chairs (one for my office and one for our sitting room in the bedroom) and a chest and some other neat items including a coin collection with some coins that go as far back as 1878! We're not expecting them to be worth a lot but we are going to get them appraised so it should be interesting.

We also spent no money on Sunday. My in-laws bought lunch and drinks so we were able to go through the entire weekend without spending one red cent. Talk about a happy weekend for the finances!

So the spending plan:
Saturday: NO MONEY SPENT!
Sunday: NO MONEY SPENT!
Budget remaining: $130.51

Only three days to go until payday and we're well under the $300 goal we set for an 8 day period (from last Tues to payday!) Hopefully we can keep it up for the home stretch!

Well today's my birthday and to celebrate we spent some of our budget on a movie and concessions. I went to see Wild Hogs and it was funny! The total spent on the movie and the food was $26.50 but I did get a free movie ticket for the next time we go thanks to my Regal Crown Club membership! My daughter's bball team also won the district championship beating a team that had given them fits (and their only 2 losses of the year) so it was a great day all around.

Since it was my birthday my parents no matter how old I get still send me money and I also found a rebate check I hadn't deposited that was in the glovebox of the wife's car so I was able to deposit $403 into the bank account today! We will be buying some food tonight for dinner so I'll be putting that into the deductions after we get it.

***Friday Spending Log***
Movie and food: $26.50
Dinner: $12.50
Budget remaining: $130.51


***Stock Update***
This is a weekly update of a stock I put some money on the day after President's Day.

CRWN purchased 25 shares at $3.90
Close Friday: $4.28

It wasn't a lot but I didn't want to withdraw it so I thought I'd leave it and purchase a stock I liked. So far so good.

The wife did great! She spent only $123.50 and got plenty (and I mean PLENTY) of groceries! She used her shopper club card (as always) and saved about $8 with that. She also didn't clip coupons and wanted to from our Sunday paper but I told her she did great since this is around $80 less than what we average a week for groceries. We should be all set until at least next Wednesday (payday!) and she really didn't skimp on anything. In fact the most expensive item she bought was refills for my razor cleaner (I have that Braun Clean & Renew and the refills are $10 for 2.) I got about 3 months out of the original so I expect to get 6 months out of these 2 refills. So to update our spending plan:

$300.00 start (Tues 2/27)
$130.49 spent
$169.51 left!

She's at a technology fair in Philadelphia today and she can put everything down there on the company Visa so she shouldn't be spending any money (except maybe coffee in the AM...she'll let me know.) I'm at work and she got me a bunch of those crystal light to go packets which run about 30 cents/packet (so I basically can just fill up a bottle of water...we have bottled water delivered at work.) It's less than half the cost of a 12 oz soda here and I get 16.9 oz of either fruit punch of pink lemonade to drink. I can usually go through 4 packets a day (on average) so with the 2 boxes of 10 packets each that's a work week's worth of drinks for around 6 dollars. I'll take that anyday!

I got a reimbursement check today for $105.18 so that's nice to throw right back into the bank account. My birthday is on Friday so we're planning a budget-conscious birthday celebration. The wife postponed grocery shopping one day so she's going tonight. I can't wait to see how she does. Let's get to the nitty gritty (I'll update it later tonight!)

***Weds spending log***
$6.99 on food (it was my turn to buy donuts for the department this morning)

I'm going to start subtracting from the $300 budget we made to last us until March 7th (next payday!) so here we go:

Remaining budget until Mar 7th: $293.01

Keep in mind this budget is for ALL non-mandatory expenses but includes groceries. I'm only going to track the lump sum so my wife doesn't shoot me dirty looks when I ask her for receipts. She did promise to tell me where she spent it so I can at least categorize them myself (I can only let go so far of my crazy OCD over categorizing our spending!) Hopefully we come out well tonight at the grocery store!

Yes it's true...after figuring out what our mandatory expenses were (mortgage, insurance, utilities) we came up with a number of $375/week for groceries and all other non-essential expenses. My wife seems to think we can beat that but we'll see when it all adds up. I went to the ATM today and pulled $300 (fee-free of course) from the checking accounts and handed it to her in exchange for all of her credit cards. That was fun...I told her I would "buy" all her cards for cold, hard cash. She is much more of a cash fan than I am so I am including her as the cash holder. This way I'll go to her when I need cash (as will the kids) and since she does 99 percent of the grocery shopping (and really shopping period) she'll know where she can save and where she can spend. She's more budget conscious than I really thought she was (which is great...because I'm not...hence I don't carry the dough!) I asked her if she could make it to next payday (8 days) on the $300 and she said "no problem!" She's going grocery shopping tonight so I'll let you know how we do!

TUESDAY SPENDING LOG****
None! Whoo hoo!
Sat-Tues total: $76.04

Our daughter has a playoff bball game tonight against a very good team so we'll be going to that. The good thing about being parents is you get in free to the games (so we save $20!)

Another cost cutting measure...I cut $25/month recurring fee for a subscription I had online. $25 I figure is way too much for any kind of online subscription (especially if I'm not getting reimbursed for it!)

Oh AND I listed an old laptop on ebay. Hopefully that will sell and give us a little extra $ (I have a bunch of old computer stuff that I'll be listing so I can't wait to hopefully see that stuff leave my house!)