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Every time I think I have made progress; I manage to screw up and put myself back at square one.
Yesterday's bit of self-sabotage came in the form of a police car stopping me and letting me know I had not renewed my license plates in July. To make things worse, my car insurance company no longer sends out paper versions of my coverage, and because I had never taken the time to go to the library and print out the information, all I had in the car was expired versions.
Now, I am getting off luckier than I deserve, since the police officer would have been totally justified in impounding the car, and instead I am going to have to pay a ticket (about 400$), as well as pay for getting the tag renewed, so it could have been much worse, but I can't escape the feeling that this is just another case of me hurting myself unnecessarily.
Which leaves me to conclude that despite all the work I have been doing, I am not making any progress in terms of preventing these kinds of things.
To make things worse, I have already had to blow my budget this month due to my ex needing me to buy groceries for her, and my mom is also spent more this month than she should have.
I guess self-sabotage runs in the family . . .
Comments
It's easy to miss payment due dates.
Since so many companies have gone paperless, losing track of due dates is all to easy. I've set up my calendar to list the due dates of all my important things, i.e. license plates, car insurance, home insurance, taxes, etc. Then at 30 and 60 days before the due date I've scheduled reminders so I know they're coming up. I include the amount of the last payment so I make sure to have funds available.
This has proven invaluable to me. Hope it helps!
Boys will be girls... if they're lucky!
Jennifer Sue
CarFax
Does CarFax work in Canada? I have my car register with CarFax and they send me reminders for service work and license renewal. It's free. Might be worthwhile to look into it.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Not quite ...
We Can Not go back to Square One.
Not even in "weirdnesses" like the movie "50 First Dates" - there was a slightly different this-is-your-Life movie awaiting her each morning.
And each-new-same-day in "Groundhog Day", our protagonist had learned from the previous day, until he learned enough to Win his Lady (That was the cycle-breaker).
And so, while it seems like Square One ... you've learned things going around the loop:
= date for when your car needs a new butt-sticker.
= cost of sticker
= cost of Ex + Daughters' shopping (*) trips
Oh, and Yay! Dorothy, (per elsewhere) thinking to have insurance company fax insurance to registry office.
If anyone else in your 'circle' drives, put needed documents (as files) on a USB and ask them to print. Librarians will help.
Or borrow friend's USB. If need USB, basic ones are under $30 USD ... or Amazon Prime delivery to the rescue. Prime shipping is faster and free, then cancel Prime after delivery.
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(*) You may need put Ex + Daughter shopping down as a budget item for you. Then, each week, tell them you have at most $75 -- pick your own number. "Guilt is =not= a factor in deciding how much.
They get to grab their shopping list (remind them), you drop them at store with $75 (or whatever - =You= decide), pick them up when they are done.
All the drama happens at their place or in store, because you are waiting at home/Library/park/coffee shop/ ...
You are =NOT= in the store.
You =Do Not= have money for 'one more thing'.
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Tough love?
Yeah.
But you have a tough budget hole to dig out of.
Same as I have a deep budget hole to dig out of (described elsewhere).
Me? I have my shopping list on spreadsheet on my computer (ok, I'm a nerd). And some weeks, I'm playing put-and-take with a 69 cent can of peas, so as to come in under budget.
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Cooking at home is cheaper, can be more fun, and is, as they say, a Life Skill.
This garners praise when I bring to pot-lucks: https://www.drmcdougall.com/recipes/three-sisters-stew/ 8-10 servings. I can't see the point in rinsing beans, so I don't. 1/2 tea-sp of 'hot-dog mustard can 'tie' flavors together. I'm in serious like with vegan https://www.betterthanbouillon.com/products/seasoned-vegetab...
I also get satisfaction in making my own bread.
Cash only AND cooking at home
I have learned from VERY painful personal experience that cash only is one of the best ways to remain under budget and dig yourself out of the debt hole!
Leave any and all electronic payment methods at home (ATM cards, debit cards, credit cards, phone with payment apps, etc.) and take ONLY the cash budgeted for the day or week. Shop primarily for price, NOT for brand. Unless there is a personal health reason to select a specific brand over price. Tally your purchase total as you add items to your shopping cart (easier in South America and in Europe where by law display price has to include all applicable taxes and is the actual price that the consumer pays). It also helps to restrict grocery shopping to once a week or even once every two weeks.
Many years ago, we landed in a situation where the running interest of our debt consumed 25% of my monthly salary. Since my now ex wife was unwilling to abide by any budget agreement, I went to my credit union and requested that my account be blocked for any and all direct debits and that I alone could withdraw a certain amount of cash every week. The account manager was really surprised after 10 months that I had been able to pay off all that debt. My ex was bitching and moaning and bad-mouthing at every opportunity, but that was also the straw the broke the camels back, and ended our marriage. Ever since I prefer to go the cash only route.
Getting the individual [scratch or raw] ingredients to prepare the food at home usually is considerably cheaper than ready meals from the store. And you get a higher quality meal as a bonus! You will need to invest a little more time in your meal preparation, but you will know exactly what you are putting in your mouth. This is even more important when you have special dietary needs! Though with a little bit of planning it is possible to keep the average meal prep time surprisingly low.
Personally, I have a number of low level food intolerances. Non of them are life threatening, but the do cause more or less personal discomfort. And since a number of these intolerable ingredients are used extensively in industrial kitchens for ready made meals (for example onions), I find it almost impossible to find ready meals that will not cause issues for me. For over a year during the height of the pandemic I was living in pension and had to rely on add-hot-water or microwave meals, and I was in near constant low level pain. That changed as soon as I was able to get into an air-b-n-b style apartment with a proper kitchen and I could cook my own meals. If I would rely on take-out or restaurant meals for my daily hot meal, my food budget would be at least triple.
And, at least here in Germany, about 90% of all restaurants use premade food to some extent. Here in Germany there is a food show on public television where a food developer takes a premade or instant food product, examines the list of ingredients, and then tries to replicate that product based on the listed ingredients and industrial practices. The result is often rather disgusting. For example, the much touted healthy chicken broth that you get in a jar or a can actually contains less than 5% actual chicken. And the chicken it contains is about 90% skin and fat, that are “garbage” by-products from chicken harvesting. (This seems to be a theme with most industrial food products, the “signature” ingredients seem to be [more often than not] the off-cuts and/or by-prducts (a.k.a. garbage) from higher up the food production chain.)
It is actually cheaper to buy chicken wings and cook [more like simmer for 2-3 hours] them with some condiments to your taste (salt, pepper, onions, carrots, basil, parsley, celery, etc.), even if you throw the chicken wings away afterwards. (Savy cooks collect the off-cuts from vegetables in a bag in the freezer to use for making broth.) The longer you simmer the pot the richer and stronger your broth will be. After cooling off and straining the broth, you can freeze it in portion size containers. Now you have the basis to quickly prepare a soup, or as a base ingredient for some sauce.
With a decent sized freezer you can prepare a large batch of food, and freeze it in portion sizes. Economy of scale definitely applies here! If it takes 60 minutes of direct labor to prepare a meal sized for one portion, preparing a batch of 20 portions only takes 90 minutes of direct labor. Plus another 5 minutes max to reheat one frozen portion for consumption later on.
As Alan said, cooking your own meals is a life skill! A skill that should be mandatory for ALL students when they enter puberty. Although sadly it seems to be going the way of the dodo.
What JessicaNicole said!!!
Meanwhile, I, with my sometimes un-Bear-ably little Pooh-brain 'coughed up' with ...
If you can find a driver - have them drive you to your two critical errands - prints of insurance cards and car butt-sticker. This means all the USB nonsense I spouted above is moot.
Offer to take them to lunch. If your driver is your brother - make sure Shrew-Who-Must-Be-Ignored is not with you.
Then reminisce about your brother's happy times. That will keep his memories - and him - alive a bit longer.
And you just might get an outside view of your childhood.
JessicaNicole: "Cash only AND cooking at home".
From her reply - which is a Very Good read - to one of my comments above.
Dang! Jessica. I dug a far deeper hole than you and spouse did. You paid off in 10 months. I'm gonna take 15 months, minimum. But, I have zeroed the highest rate card.
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As Jessica said, dining out (or even take-away) and ready-meals (old name in USA: TV dinners) gets real expensive, real fast ... and real boring
I went vegan and divorced (not related) at about the same time, so I "lost my cook" ...
I describe my learning to cook as being in self-defense.
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Relationship status: I'm in very deep Like with my Instant Pot ...
The IP is electric, my stove is natural gas - and my gas company has way-high rates. So gas cooking - poor idea.
In winter, my gas bill can be 2-1/2 to 3 times my electric bill for the same month. That's with 'dialing down' my gas heat, and using electric space heaters ...
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Some expenses are either Big, or Credit-only, or both.
What works for me is to save up for those expense. I have a 'pencil box' full of envelops, one envelop for each thing I'm saving for.
Each week, I take money from ATM/checking, buy groceries, and 'feed' save-up money into the envelops. When the time comes, I buy the thingy with credit, same-day/maybe two days, pay off the credit.
This is the Key, The envelop money =must= go back into checking.
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Example. Each week, some dollars go into the BCTS envelop, When it's "ripe", I CC donate, and the envelop money goes back into checking. =And= I pay off the amount I charged/donated to BCTS. Then I keep going.
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This is the Key, The envelop money =must= go back into checking.
(*).
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Most of my shopping is groceries, So I take the cash, buy groceries. Favorite, least expensive store: Aldi's-USA.
At other stores, things on their dented/close-to-date, bargain shelves, that are "marked down" to more than full price at Aldi's!
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(*) Stores and such, credit-card companies, and banks all have some lag/delay in relaying transactions.
So I can walk out of the store with my paid-with-credit thingy ... get home ... and can't pay the charge for thingy because the credit-card people have not yet seen the charge, and I have a zero (Ha!) balance.
-
I learned this when my favorite radio station (WFMT.com, listen free over the net, Bach-to-School program) had a limited-time matching grant on donations, and I got over-eager, could not see the donation on my CC ... and I double-donated $40 !!! Oh, well /smile/ My "Patience. grasshopper" 'angel' woke up long enough to stop a triple donation ...
Credit card/debt trouble
A lot of people have no idea how to tell when they are in deep do-do credit wise. A simple rule I use is, if I don't have the cash on hand to pay down to zero all the outstanding balance on all my credit cards I'm in trouble. Time to put the credit cards in a drawer and get used to cash only.
The envelope system, describe by others works really well. At one time, I was scrambling to come up with my rent every month. I had a low paying job, but on paper I should have had just enough to make ends meet. But some how the never met on the due date. Hint: late fees will blow your budget. So I looked at my monthly expenses. Being paid once a week, I divided them each by four; labeled an envelope for each expense and each week the allotted amount went into each envelope. Groceries had an envelope as well. Any left over, like if I worked overtime, was discretionary funds. That went into the entertainment envelope. I allowed myself to carry five dollars for emergencies, but learned real fast, a cup of coffee from Starbucks is not a valid emergency expense, that has to come out of the entertainment envelope.
I was amazed that the system work really well.
As far as paying off large, outstanding balances on your credit cards. Dave Ramsey has a system he call "snowball" that works really well.
You can do it two ways. Either the highest interest or the highest balance. I prefer the highest balance. Sort them and pay little extra on the highest. When the highest is paid off take the money that was going toward that and add it to the next highest. That should put you paying double on that card and that balance will shrink quickly. When that one is paid off take the money, including the extra and add it to the next one in line. Rinse n repeat. By then, the balances should be melting like a snowball in Phoenix.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
... more Envelopes... And snowballing
...
A few more things to bite us in the Budget Butt. For me:
Twice a year property tax,
Quarterly utilities, e.g. water, sewer,
My car barfing out it's starter motor! (Nearly $1,000 USD).
Seasonal: higher heating in Winter, higher cooling in Summer ... and these may not 'balance out',
Also seasonal: for me, Summer offers more places, and some are out of state, for the Entertainment envelope to fund
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Your gas and electrical companies might have a 'budget plan' - same payment each month, then adjust at year end.
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Snowballing:
With (Very) Strict budgeting, and aggressive paying down:
I Zeroed one credit card.
And cut my debt so precisely in half (within $5) since last December, I worry my spread-sheet is wrong!
I expect the second card to Zero-out at the end of January,
And clear the third and last at the end of April. The 3rd has a markedly lower interest rate, which is why it will be last. It's the cheapest to 'carry' longest.
--
"Snowball Math"
Notice that clearing one-half of my debt took me 12 months (Jan-Dec 2024).
The second half will take 5, maybe six months (Dec 2024 - Apl 2025).
Yep. One half takes 12 months, second half takes 5, maybe six, months.
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One last thing -er- two -er- three:
2024 total interest will be just about $1,000.
2025 total interest should be =zero=.
2025 monthly interest should be =zero=.
My car barfing out it's starter motor! (Nearly $1,000 USD)
Another use for discretionary funds is an emergency fund. Another of Dave Ramsey's teachings is that we should all have an emergency fund. Ideally it should be six months worth of expenses. That's a pretty hefty amount of money. But just because you can't set aside that much doesn't mean you shouldn't have something. Dave's thinking is that if you lose your job and your income falls to zero, that fund will give you six months to get back on your feet.
For the most part, we won't be dealing with the worst case scenario, it'll be the little things, like the above mentioned starter motor going out on the car, or like me. A toilet that sprung a lead and needed replaced ASAP, or the Water heater the channeled the toilet resulting in the same need, followed by a washing machine dying. That was within a 24 month period. Any one of those things would have put my budget in the red. Fortunately, all those things happened after I'd dug out and had an emergency fund set up. It wasn't six months income, but it was enough to cover those expenses without totally depleting it. And by being dedicated to having a fully funded emergency fund I've nearly recovered the expenses. That couldn't have happened if I hadn't dug out first.
Trust me, getting on top of your budget i worth the effort.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
I worry, that you think we're bragging, & you'll do an 'Eeyore'.
"You-all are just bragging ..."
* hand up, illuminated by blushing face *
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"But you're all Special ... just plain Dorothy can't do that ..ee-Yore Crunk-snort ..."
Uhm, no.
None of us here are "special" ... or we are all exactly as Special as you are.
Remember, last December I was $4,800 'in the hole'.
The special part, is that I wanted 'out-from-under'.
Everybody else here who has dug out, or or is digging out ... That's their Special part.
I wanted that $1,000/year in interest for =me= to play with, not the CC pirates/parasites ...
I wanted to eat out more often with friends.
I wanted to go to the Ren Fair. In 2024 I didn't - that $100 went to paying down. Next year, I will go, and I will go to other festivals.
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We are standing around you and behind you, and none of us want to hear you braying "I can't".
And we are offering the various things that we've done, and the 'ways' and 'tricks' that we and others have used.
And yes. it will take Time.
For me, I'm 12 months into my 15 month 'crusade'. For others, differing amounts of time.
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Thinking about the CC companies ...
Yeah, I "get it" about why Jesus had His 'little hissy fit' about the money changers in the Temple ...
Sounds Like you need the Tigger Song!
... because he's bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy like a coiled spring!
Sephrena