Leap of faith and then some...

I did some looking at what we would be paying off with our tax refund. Since we have an emergency fund in place we will use all of what we are getting back to pay off debt. Here is a look at what we will have before and after taxes! (kinda fun for us visual learners)

This is what we have in consumer debt to pay before taxes-

This is what the consumer debt will look like after we use our refund-

We will get rid of two complete debts and 80% of a third debt! This is very exciting to us as we were on the 10 year plan and we are already cutting that down by two years. It really is amazing what you can do when you set your mind to it. That's all I have for money today, however, I do have some other great news...

My sister-in-law, and brother-in-law worked at this camp last summer and when we went back to stay last summer for a couple days I took Kasey to a Doctors appointment because she had just has surgery and couldn't drive. On the way there she told me about this amazing camp. It is a camp for kids who live in foster homes who come from walks of life that no child should ever have to experience. She encouraged me to apply this summer to work at the camp. At first I was a little nervous but I'm not sure why as my dream would be to work in orphanages with kids if money was no object. So with only hearing how amazing the camp was for them I applied, I prayed about it, and I applied :) I had my phone interview the other night and I think I was shaking the whole time 1. I have a strong faith, however I don't really KNOW the Bible 2. I was talking with people I have never seen in my life 3. I was out of my comfort zone in talking about my faith with people I hardly knew. For those of you who don't know me as well it took an AMAZING friend for me to get to know the Lord and not be afraid to talk about it. Either way they asked me to work at the camp and they gave me an option to be photographer (easy) counselor (HARD) I took the option of being a counselor, I feel if I am going to take a leap and work somewhere with kids I don't know I am going to get out of my comfort zone just as these kids are going to be out of their comfort zones. If you would like to see more are read about and maybe even donate to the camp you can find more at Royal Family Kids Camp

I will do my training at the end of March and will be at camp the first week of June. I can't wait to experience this and I believe it will help me grow so much in my faith and give me much needed experience with kids from all walks of life before getting into a classroom. I ask for prayers in this journey, but know I am very excited and can't wait to tell everyone about it. I will be missing Dan's birthday so if you can all remember and I will post right before I leave as a reminder to shower him with birthday wishes when I'm gone it would be much appreciated :)

As for the rest of this week we have been very busy as usual...I have classes M-TH and I'm usually up until 11:30-12 doing homework after work so I always say work your butt off Sunday-Wednesday night and Thursday Friday and Saturday relax...so far it has worked! Tonight we are going to relax as the now is falling here. No work and no homework just relaxing with Dan and the dogs! Hope everyone has a safe fun filled weekend!!

Love,
Hollie

Get the Math right...

So I'm sitting here waiting for my last class of the day to start and all I can think about is how we are working with integers in math class. She specifically talks about debt for some people to better understand. She asked people to raise their hand as we were going over percents and interest and calculating it for different situations and it's amazing how many people raised their hands the age of 18-20 probably that have 1 or more credit cards. I didn't get my first credit card until I was 22 and even then had a max of $250. Neither Dan or I have credit cards now which is an amazing feeling that we don't need to calculate how much interest we are earning and how long it's going to take us to pay them off if we pay a certain amount a month. Which is only possible because of Dave Ramsey. Give every dollar a name before the month starts. Go to Financial Peace University to find forms on how to set up a budget and allocate your pay checks. If you find you are spending more than you make then you need to sell, sell, sell, drop those extra channels, pick up another job or two and get those bills caught up to date. Then get $1,000.00 in your emergency fund. Don't fund this anymore until ALL of your debt is paid. Getting the emergency fund is easy, not touching it will be your hard part. This is for EMERGENCIES ONLY! I think back to when we first started our class, I miss the Mondays we had there, but I love that we know where we are going. So, tonight when all of you go home and get your comfy clothes on to sit down and watch your Tuesday night shows...I'll be working because well... I owe, I owe, so off to work I go :)

Hope everyone is having a great day, and don't push stuff off that can be done today, because tomorrow may never come :)

Love,
Hollie :)

Waiting for a slow down...

Awe, the holidays are finally over and school is back in session. There wasn't much of a winter break this year from school as the week and a half I had off I worked everyday, including most weekends. Grand View is done at the end of April so we don't have the month break like most colleges. However, the no homework thing was just getting comfortable when classes started back up last week. The positive for going back to school last week...the Dean's List came out and with a lovely 3.75 GPA for my first semester back I made it!! That never happened in the 4.5 years I was at Central. However, this semester will be the one that tells all. Last semester I was going for a 4.0 and fell a little short, but I am still happy. This semester I am taking on extra classes still working 3 jobs, taking one of my hardest subjects...Math...and I am shooting for a 3.75. Wish me luck with that.

I have been working like crazy as always, Old Navy at least 3 times a week, my dad's 3 afternoons a week and the schools 2 mornings and 3 afternoons a week and if I'm not working at night I usually get some babysitting in. Thank the lord for my iPhone otherwise I wouldn't be able to remember all my schedules. Life is super crazy and Dan and I don't really have a lot of down time in between homework and jobs, but when we do spend time together it's cherished. I think that is something we have started to realize now that we are so busy. It's great practice for when we have kids I think.

With the new year comes a new haircut- or so I decided on Saturday morning when I woke up. I now miss my long hair but it will be all grown back by summer so it will be fine :) Me with about 5 less inches of hair (CraZy!)

I had a gift card so I didn't have to pay for this, so in about three months someone remind me to put a trim in the budget :)

We have followed our budget so well this month and with extra money coming in from babysitting and extra side jobs we are actually going to have almost $1,000 left at the end of the month. We were looking at our bills last night and realized we have so much left over that something had to be off.. but we calculated and calculated and it's right. Between finding my school books for super cheap...those of you reading this that are in school and buying books, http://www.abebooks.com/ I got a brand new math textbook and another one that happen to be rather thick...one for $13 and the other for like $20. It was like $100 savings a piece..you can't beat that. We actually thought it was going to cost about $500 for books considering one of my classes had eight books, however, I found those for about .99 a piece. I paid total for five classes and 12 books $136. You honestly can't beat that! A little piece of advice...search the Internet before buying at the local bookstores! Okay, so you know we saved a ton there. I also have been doing an amazing job (don't mean to brag) budgeting the groceries and making rather tasty meals. My sister got me this great cookbook for budget friendly shoppers, and the meals are delicious and super cheap! Last week I got 8 complete dinners, and 15 days worth of breakfast for $77. We use our leftovers for lunches and more meals depending on how much the meal makes. This weekend I went to the store again we still have meals from last week we haven't made, but I went super cheap for the next meals because well...Dan says we don't have any snacks which is true, but that is because I wanted healthier meals so this week I went his way :0

Day 1- Pizza (4)- ($5)

Day 2- Mexican Lasagna (already have this stuff)

Day 3- 3 cheese Pasta (already have this stuff)

Day 4- Chili Mac (3 boxes of mac&cheese @ .34 a box, and 2 cans of chili at $1.18 a can-this will make two nights in different weeks of dinner and a box of mac. for Dan to make for lunch)

Day 5- Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup- (pack of cheese $2.22, soup $1.38, bread1.97)

Day 6- Tuna Helper-($1.12)

Day 7- Breakfast Burritos (already had this stuff)

Day 8- Spaghetti (already have this stuff)

Day 9- Pizza (included in price above)

Most of our budgeted money for food went towards snacks but the list above is this coming weeks and probably most of next weeks food. Which gives me a great idea...I will start posting the ingredients an the prices for each item when I buy them to give you all a better idea of how we are working our money for food and post a photo of the final meal. On stuff to make meals for the next week and a half if not two weeks I spent about $30.00 and that includes dinner, lunch, and breakfast. You just can't beat that when you are doing a budget for food. We budget probably around $150 a month for food. I can't stress enough getting off brand food. IT TASTE THE SAME!!! Another thing I do which ladies means probably leaving the significant other at home, I use my calculator and as I pick up things I add it all together so I stay within the budget, I only take the amount of cash I budget with me so once I start adding things up I know where I stand and don't panic at the register. Plus, this helps when shopping at places like Walmart that extra things that aren't on the list don't get picked up.

We found places (BIG places) to save money this month...writing out meals and a grocery list, finding all school books online, and cutting the DirecTV. We haven't really gotten rid of DirecTV yet as they are giving us 3 months free which is a big mistake on their part, because basically they are letting us "try" out the stations we will get after the three months. The stations they took away we typically don't watch besides the 2 or 3 I watched. Other than that it's been super nice not having to pay that bill yet we still watch almost all of our shows on regular stations. Come March it's goodbye DirecTV hello Hulu :)

Another thing we have learned we have to work with--things come up that we want to do. For me I have given up on tanning :( I don't shop like I used to, and never pay full price for ANYTHING when I do shop. We do weekly money for Dan, I don't typically spend much during the week so if something comes up and usually every other month there is something, we just give something else up. For instance, this past week Dan wanted to play in pocker tournament, so he had to give up two weeks of weekly money. He was okay with that, it helps that he has a brother that helps him out as well as winning some money in the poker tournament :)

I can't say how excited, happy, ecstatic I am to know we are making a lot of ground in our debt snowball, there is actually a small light we can now see in the tunnel if you will. Come April we will have three more debts paid off while keeping our emergency fund in place! I will probably ask Dan about going back and taking the course again in the Fall just to keep things rolling, keeping everything fresh in our minds.

2011 is off to a wonderful start- this year has so much to offer :) Hopefully you have all started your year off on the right foot and have some goals written out :)

Love,

Dan, Hollie, Tyson, and Hershie :)