Jessica - 28 years old. Downtown renter. Single. No Roomates. One cat, rabbit, and a penchant for impulse purchases and travel.
Gail - lovely mother of Jessica. Suburban homeowner - 3 more years to mortgage free. Married. Two adult children. Two cats. Penchant for gardening, knitting, and jewelry marking.
Together, we are BUDGETING BABES. We have made a pact to get our finances under control. As a brazen mother-daughter team, we know each other better than anyone and can whip our bodacious butts into shape.
We will both blog about with tips, successes, failures, insights and gnashing of teeth. Let the blogging begin.
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So here's the deal. 2011 was not kind to me. There were lots of medical expenses. Due to several of them in a perfect-storm kind of combo, my teeth began breaking apart at an alarming speed. The end result? A $7K debt to my darling dentist. Actually, that's not sarcastic, in spite of all appearances. He is sweet, kind, gentle, humorous, and EXPENSIVE! These expenses are compounded by some rather entitled and very impulsive self-gratifying spending. I created huge amounts of lovely jewelry without having any clear plans on how to profit from it. Do you have any idea how small a bag of $150 work of lovely glass beads can be? It's quite deceiving! I ate into the inheritance I have left from my mother, and my determination to replenish that account by at least $5K (preferably $10K) means this is going to be a LONG endeavor!
ReplyDeleteSo. To be paid off:
Dentist: approx $5K
Podiatrist: $660 that he told me would be completely covered by my insurance. Grrrrr.
Inheritance: at least $5K.
Minimum amount in order to achieve this goal:
Approx $10,700
Current plan: 1) Keep rigid, itemized specs of ALL expenses.
2) SPEND LESS! MUCH LESS! via...
a) no impulse buys
b) avoid all areas of Target except for grocery department
c) avoid any and all department or clothing stores until spring.
d) rarely use credit card. Can be used for Target (5% discount), gas stations (%5 return).... and maybe that's it.
e) as little unnecessary spending as possible, like massages, craft supplies, novels, jewelry.
OK, that's all the commitment I can bear for now.... I look forward to vulnerably exposing my foibles to you all!