I fell off the wagon a bit with spending during this pay period. Since I am confined to activities that involve very little moving (breathing is still quite an effort) and minimal mental involvement (thank you prednisone), I have been trying to green things up. I have been making sure that all of the bills that I get are on email delivery. (This is also part of decluttering the house since I will no longer have to file all of that paper that I barely review anyway.)
During my analysis of things, I reviewed our mortgage account online. Kind of wish I hadn't. It makes bronchitis seem friendly. I realize that I am unable to do much heavy thinking right now, so I made a basic excel spreadsheet and realized, dude, our escrow payment needs to be way higher each month. When we bought the house, we assumed that this was the case. Then they did an escrow analysis and it seemed we were paying way too much into escrow and stopped. Well, that money needs to be paid again. In fact, instead of the $150 extra that we were paying before, it should be about $200.
So I called the nice folks at IndyMac and they were kind enough to do an accelerated escrow review. I know what they will say, but I want to see the adjusted payment from them.
Once that was done, I immediately pulled up my super duper budget spreadsheet and tried to figure out where on earth I am going to get that money and still have any realistic chance of paying off my Chase card by the end of the year. (As you may recall, my student loans can only stay in forbearance until February of next year, so I have to ensure that I have adequate funds available to cover that $338 payment. Part of my goal is to pay off the Chase card, which would free up the extra money.) I just slashed my wireless plan's minutes. I occasionally go over, but not that frequently. I will start tracking that better now that The Boy is no longer in my network. (although, yay for BB Messenger. That is saving me a ton.)
Must go hardcore on the grocery costs again. I have been lax because of the weird diet that I've been on. I need to do a better job purchasing meats on sale and not wasting food. Or, I could completely give in and start eating nothing but shredded wheat. Honestly, I think I'd be fine with it. That is bound to save some money....
But here's the good sign. I am not throwing a tantrum right now. I am pretty damn calm, which is not usually the case when I deal with money. I am going to work all of this out and it will be fine. Perhaps this is the prednisone, but this is a pleasant side effect, unlike when it looked like everything was melting earlier.
This leads to a final question - is it "icky" to have a garage sale? i.e., will you judge me for having one? I think we have a lot of stuff that we can get rid of, including as ass load of children's clothing and other things. It seems like having the cash on hand would be as beneficial as a tax deduction. It's not like we won't still make donations to other places too. It just seems that we could make $500 easily on a garage sale. Or has the economy affected garage sale returns too???
You may want to consider a consignment sale for kids stuff- that's a market of people who specifically are looking for children's clothes, toys, etc, so you've a better chance of unloading everything.
I think we're going to be seeing a LOT of garage saling this spring and summer- generally garage sale season ends on Labor Day, but last year I was still seeing them through November.
Posted by: robin | March 11, 2009 at 06:09 PM
How about selling on Ebay? I know some young mothers who do very well selling their unused baby clothes on Ebay. I know some other young mothers who insist on buying on Ebay. It's a pain in the behind - you gotta photograph everything and then write descriptions, then mail the stuff, etc. But it could be lucrative. I don't think there's anything wrong with garage sales, but I think you'd get maximum $ out of an auction.
Posted by: Jo Ann (garageless in Philly) | March 12, 2009 at 09:22 AM