If you find yourself going through hell, keep going

My husband was taken with this quote, spoken by his company CEO on a conference call, enough so to call me at work and share it with me.  I agreed that it was an accurate mantra for us to adopt at this time.  So we have identified the place we are in, and where we want to go from here: out of it.

Our No-Spend Month has been seriously compromised, by unanticipated bills that have arrived one after another, and by our own realization that we simply spend more than we take in (not that we didn’t know this before, just that its constant confirmation and our seemingly paralyzing impotence to fix it are depressing).  Plus, tension surrounding all of this has risen again, straining an already tenuous relationship.  We struggle daily to conquer our mounting to-do list, and worry incessantly over our heaping to-pay list.  Sniping ensues, and we end up working against each other as much as we are supposed to be working together.

I am aware that many, many families are dealing with the same issues, and many more have problems that make ours look petty.  What makes this my unending focus is that this is my family, my responsibility, and my solution to find.  When I find myself feeling a surge of hope, something materializes like a sharp object next to a balloon, to deflate that fleeting moment.  We are precariously sitting on the edge of solvency, and have exhausted all of our available tethers.  Put simply, the money’s run out and there’s no place to find more.

We finally made our rental property (the one we would gladly not have if homes were actually selling in that neighborhood) inhabitable and secured a new renter.  We’re hoping the third time’s a charm, as we have lost tons of money on the two previous renters, both of whom we thought would take care of the property, or at least actually pay the rent.  Our last tenants, people we knew, skipped out and left damage to the tune of a current $5,000 or more loss to us.  That was a crushing blow to our finances.  Whether we’ll ever recover a dime remains doubtful.

Business has picked up for me, but the influx of work to do has not yet translated into an influx of money.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the status of money due to go out, so I find myself working like crazy and watching the available funds in my business line of credit dwindle to nothing.  Countdown: T minus 20 days.  It’s ironic; I counsel clients at the end of their financial ropes, while I am actually similarly situated.  I tell them what they need to do, while I struggle to take my own advice, because sticking your head in the sand sometimes seems like the only available relief.

At least I was able to spend this 20 minutes of coffee time venting on a blog.  Maybe it will prevent me from another day of soaring blood pressure, irritable exchanges with my spouse, and deficient patience with my children.  We’ll see.

Coupon clipping cuts costs

There’s a newspaper-style headline for you!  It has everything: it’s short and to the point, it’s a sentence with no extraneous words, it has alliteration, and it’s nothing you didn’t already know.

The point is, it’s one of my newer money-saving methods; one that simultaneously drives my husband insane and reduces our grocery bill.  I must say, it took me a little while to figure out the smart way to use coupons.  At first, if it looked like a good deal, I cut it out and took it to the store in search of the item to which it referred.  After buying several things I would have never purchased without a coupon, often at higher prices, even post-discount, than competing brands, I wised up.  Now I employ strategy.

That’s where my husband loses focus.  He sees my hour or two on Sunday evenings as a complete waste of time, therefore somehow a waste of money.  If I did this during work hours, or spent an extraordinarily long time contemplating two cents here, thirty cents there, I could see his point.  But I’m usually clipping and scanning the grocery store circulars at night instead of watching Leno or surfing the Internet.

Now I clip coupons only for items we commonly use, or would use in place of another item.  Then I look over two local grocers’ weekly ads for specials (buy-one-get-one-free) or sales.  (I refuse to shop at Winn Dixie anymore after I get snowed by their BOGO Free policy, which only works if you buy two of the items, instead of selling each at half-off like other stores.)  I also pay attention to those coupons at 50¢ or less, because the stores I frequent double those amounts.  Now, armed with coupons for items that are on sale or good deals anyway, I map out our weekly menu, starting with what food we already have on hand.  Then I look at the coupons to determine what items would support a meal or fill in the gaps.  I add produce to my shopping list, and any must-haves that we buy regardless of coupons or sales (very few things lately), and I compile my research for the next day’s shopping trip.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my last trip’s total was nearly equal to the “Amount Saved” on the receipt.  And I manage to make it through the week without heading back to the store for something (except milk, which goes fast with two growing girls).  Just one or two coupons pays for the Sunday paper, and sometimes I print online coupons.  All in all, my coupon-clipping is actually a wind-down activity for me the night before a busy week begins, and, in my opinion, worth every penny of that time.  Those little coupons add up, and buy me a little more peace of mind.

The money pit

We got a lot done around the house yesterday, but that unfortunately involved shelling out for a new garbage disposal and light fixture.  Our old garbage disposal stopped working a couple of weeks ago, and my husband installed this shiny new one with more horsepower.  It’s one of those things we’ve never been without, and apparently don’t know how to.  The kitchen already seems infinitely cleaner.

The light fixture was for the basement stairwell, which had alternated between too dim to safely navigate the stairs or blindingly bright.  The old fixture had clear glass panes — it was an outdoor light — so you had to either use an extremely low-wattage bulb or risk searing your corneas if you accidentally looked directly at it.

Needless to say, both installations are marked improvements, but they also cost money.  I took the head-in-the-sand approach on this one — I haven’t even asked my husband what the financial damage was, or even if he paid cash or charged it on the Lowe’s card.

Still, I made concerted efforts to spend less.  After my five-year-old’s morning soccer game, I brought her and her sister back home for a celebratory brunch instead of going out to one as usual.  I made bacon and eggs with cheese and chives (I really love those Egg Beaters concoctions, especially when they were on sale and I had a coupon).  Then I set out to make creative use of items we had on hand for the other two meals as well.  I had sausage, cream cheese and refrigerated crescent roll dough, so I threw together a yummy lunch with those ingredients, using this recipe and halving it for our needs.  I also didn’t bother with cutting the dough triangles in half (they’re always so skewed anyway, it’s enough work to mold them into real triangles), so the recipe yielded six regular-sized crescent rolls.

The girls both ate one, and my husband and I fixed plates with one crescent roll and a side salad.  Everyone agreed that they were quite yummy.  I later discovered that my husband ate a second one, thereby depriving himself of what I had set aside to be his lunch Monday.  Oh well, it’s a compliment to the cook and he is a grown man.

Since we had breakfast and lunch with a higher fat content than usual, I toned down the fat grams for dinner.  I made use of potatoes and corn we had on hand (we’re running low on meat, but I’m trying desperately to prolong another grocery store run), and made potato corn chowder for dinner.  My five-year-old loved it (it did turn out delicious and filling), and we have plenty left over for seconds.  The recipe was simple (I nixed the pimientos), and it made good use of what we have on hand.

Our only other expense yesterday involved the cigar and 12-pack of beer my husband came home with after putting in a few hours at the office.  Necessity?  No.  But we’ll tackle these issues one at a time.  I have a feeling No-Spend Month will trickle into November as we identify our spending habits and make changes.

If at first you don’t succeed…

Our “no-spend” month isn’t getting off to a very good start.  I just checked the bank account and to say I was dismayed at the balance is putting it mildly.  On Wednesday, October 1, I managed to make it through the day without spending a dime.  (I did attend a bar association lunch, but that $11 came out of my business account.)  My husband came home with a cigar and a half-pint of brandy — together they make up one of his favorite relaxing activities — but I hadn’t warned him that the no-spend month started that day.  So that was just under $10 for the day.

Then Thursday rolls around, and I go to my dentist appointment only to shell out $150, which is actually just half the balance for the crown I’m having to get.  I came home with a sore mouth and lighter wallet, nonetheless.  Hey, at least we’re brown-bagging lunches.  I also bought a pack of cigarettes (I know, I know, major health concern, big money drain.  I’m working on it, starting with cutting back) for $3.54.

I also had to hit the grocery store that day.  Here’s where it gets interesting: I spent a little time doing sale and coupon research.  When it was all over, my receipt totaled $40.12 for 25 items.  The YOU SAVED line read: $39.08.  I was almost giddy at the prospect — all my food at half-off!  I got $40 in cash out and divided the money between myself and my husband, with instructions that it was all that was to be spent during the next week, feeling hopeful.

That feeling’s gone.  I arrived to drop off my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter at daycare on Friday morning, only to find out that it was make-up picture day.  She had flat-out refused to take a picture on the regularly scheduled day, and we desperately need a posed photo of her, so I decided to stay and see if I could work my mom magic to get her in front of the camera with a smile.  When pleading and bribery with candy and stickers didn’t work, I pulled out the big guns: Wanna go to McDonald’s?  Worked like a charm.  Then I was beholden to a toddler, and had to make good on my promise.  I put her back in the car and headed for the closest McD’s, the one in the local Wal-Mart Supercenter.  We had breakfast from my cash savings to the tune of $5.77.

Sadly, being in the giant warehouse of consumer goods made me remember a few items on our shopping list, like new shoes for said toddler, ketchup, underwear for my five-year-old, and make-up for me (at least I buy drugstore brands instead of department store counter luxuries).  The damage: $63.91.

So, in the first three days of our “no-spend” month, we spent about $122, not counting the medical expenses of $150.  We still have a little cash in our pockets, which I can only hope stretches over the next week.  Though the start has been a little rocky, I’m not giving up.  We can’t regain the loss, but we can stop the bleeding.  After my daughter’s soccer game this morning, I plan to come home and alternate housecleaning with putting outgrown clothes and other unused, but good, items on eBay.  Then we may go to the local fall festival for a little cheap entertainment.  Or, I may just unleash the girls into the backyard for some totally free fun.  Yeah, that sounds better.