August Wrap-up

It is the last week in August and I have just finish paying all my bills for the month.  Things did not go so great on the financial front.  I went over budget and failed my $30 a week grocery challenge, but I made some progress on my menu planning skills. I am trying out a menu/grocery system that I hope will not only work but save me money.  I will wait to expose this planning method until I know it works.  The biggest challenge has been conforming my necessary eating habits with saving money.  I have been having lots of issues with keeping my blood sugars level and am in the process of going through a series of blood tests over a few months.  So based on my Dr.’s orders I am cutting back on fruit and sugar, and increasing the protein (I cooked meat for the first time since Oct) and complex carbs.  Finding cheap, healthy snack seems to be an issue for me.  If I could afford a nutritionist I’d see one, but at $95 an hour it is not feasible.

I am happy to report that I have paid off $3558 since May 11, 2010.  Next month my overall total should fall below $110,000.  Yippee!!  It feels like the possibility of getting under $100,000, which felt like it would never happen, is within my grasp.  This should happen within a year’s time.

The bad news is several unexpected expenses set me back in August.  The tree removal was the largest setback.  I didn’t pay for all of it out of my emergency fund, I just couldn’t get myself to deplete the entire account.  So I moved some things around and only borrowed a portion of it out of the fund.  The emergency fund wasn’t full to begin with due to my spring house and car issues.  I also need to take my car in again, soon.  I’ve started looking seriously at cheap used cars, but I am not going to jump the gun and purchase one quite yet.  I need to look over my records and determine what I have been spending in maintenance over the last year or so.  There comes a time when a crappy used car soaks up more in maintenance fees than it is worth to drive.  I don’t have many miles (122,500) on my 1999 Contour, I didn’t take the best care of it and that is evident.  I think I got my money’s worth out of it.  I paid $11,000 for it in 2000 with 14,000 miles.  Look for a blog posting in September on this subject.