Financial Expedition

So far I have only used my credit card while at the fair, charging $13.50 to my American Express.  Today I went out to eat and bought gas. I put $30 in gas in my car, which was less than a fourth of a tank, and it only got it up to three fourths of a tank. I'm going out of town this weekend and I don't look forward to paying for gas, but I might have a chance to ride with my sister and save some money.
I had today off to set up the school supply box drive that I plan out for my daughter's school. I was supposed to get a free box of supplies for being the coordinator, but there wasn't enough. This is the second year in a row this happened, and I didn't say anything last year, but it is hard to run out at the minute for school supplies. I hope they get back to me and are able to get me some supplies. This year it was extra challenging putting this all together, and it would nice to get the reward of free school supplies valued at $40+.
I also drove up about 20 minutes away to sell my college books that I haven't been able to sell on Craigslist. It was a little sickening when they offered my $40, but since I did try to sell them and wasn't able to, I just took it. $40 is better than wasting more time and energy. I wasn't able to sell one book which wasn't that old because they didn't use the book any more, so that could happen to the others and I would get nothing. College book value is worse than the real estate market.
Another good thing would be that they haven't been able to start putting up our siding, which is something I really want, but it also puts off making those payments. Maybe we shouldn't put more money on our house, but the wood siding and a lot of the wood is bad already. The new insulated siding is really going to make it look good, plus I will sleep better in the winter without my head getting cold.  My bedroom has two doorways, so the best place for the bed is against outside walls, to keep an eye on house movement.
I'm feeling better about my financial situation, but it always seems like a matter of time before I sink myself again. I am always thinking of things I need to buy, making list in my head of things it would be nice to have, or wishing I could run out and buy some food instead of eating at home.  I have been driving by stores, forcing myself to keep on driving knowing that I don't need anything or have a list to shop off of. One odd thing is, I am often able to not buy something because I don't like to just buy one thing. If I can't convince myself that an item is really needed or be able to find something else I need, I will put the item back and walk out without anything. This really seems like a twisted concept to me.
So I decided maybe I need to find some way to curb this over spending. I went on a search of the web to find some inspiration:

How To Stop Shopping by Sophie Kinsella
10 stop shopping tips

But one I think sound really good is:

The 30 day by frugallysustainable.com

I'm going to try this but also to include some of the thoughts I have as well as when I'm out shopping. I think the hardest part is deciding what is non-essential. Are my kids school supplies non-essential? Are essentials just bills and food, but not fast food or convenience food? Gas isn't really essential, if you think about it? Maybe I just need to set up a line to figure out what are my exceptions to the rule.



Money report: $7.41 on Taco Johns (but I got a free taco), 430 on gas, plus turned in college books and received $40
Chore Report: I didn't get anything done today ;0(
Health report; today was my day off from working out but I did do 4 miles yesterday despite the ran

Financial Expedition

I decided to start college again at the push of my husband and my grandma. I didn't like my job at the time, but I needed to provide for my family. I decided to go back to school for dental hygiene. I have already spent about $2500 on pre-requisite classes, and have about $15,000 in classes to go. During the course they don't recommend working more than 15 hours a week. I'm not sure how this will work out, having kids, trying to work and going back to school all at once. When I was in college before I just took care of myself and it wasn't too hard to maintain all my responsibilities.  Now going in to college again, I have car payments, a mortgage, old student loans, daycare, and all the things that cost raising two growing kids and then some.  I need to make sure that our household can take the hit of my not working 40 hours a week by the time I go back to school. I'm sure I'll take out student loans, but I don't want to go in debt otherwise, so at the end I can pay back school as soon as I can.

My plan is to pay off all my credit cards, and my smaller student loan by then end of 2013. I will then start working on cutting down on my car loan. This will leave me with the car insurance for around $130, $60 for water, gas in my car (eek! who knows how much that will be in two years?), and maybe child care depending on my class schedule and how mature my kids are in two years.

I need to cut up my credit cards for once, and cancel a lot of them since they always send you new ones every year it seems, just in case you forgot you had their card.  I need to make sure that I don't go over board on budget during Christmas.  This whole plan just frightens me because it seems impossible. I'm not good with budget and not getting freaked out about money. When I freak out that I'm going to be short on cash, I turn to my credit cards to use them as a buffer.  I will need to make sure to build savings to prevent myself from turning to my credit cards when I feel weak. I just hope in the end that I have decided to do the right thing for myself and my family.