2012 Budget

First, I should say that I am 8K 5180.09 SHORT on my budget this year. But based on last years sales, if I cool it on supplies and inventory, I should make that easy this year with my hair pretties. I am in the hole right now, about $2700 on supplies so I will pay that back first before I put extra hair bow money into the regular budget.

I now have a mortgage on the house we are in. I did some rearranging of cash and that bit me in the butt when the market crashed. But I am not going to worry about it until I hit 40. Who knows what will happen by then!

I am also buying a car sometime next year. I am just going to have to break down and do it. My current car is 12 years old and is wearing out everywhere so quickly.

Please note, in no way is this budget frugal at all. At this point, my mad dog frugal budgeting skills are missing. I haven't seen them all year! I do hope to trim some expenses and I will note those.

Flexible Expenses

1. Groceries 2000 - this is an increase over last year. Everything has gone up!
2. Gas 1025 - Natalie's school is 15 minutes away. This has caused an increase in our gas usage.
3. Natalie's Clothes 400 - I am not going to need this much. But this does include shoes and boy are kid shoes expensive! I have some pairs set aside but I know I will need 1 pair of white church leather sandals and a pair of size 11.5 (or was it 12?) tennis shoes. I have 4 rubbermaid totes of clothes I have bought for $1 at the local consignment store. Great brands like Gap & Gymbo. I have to pull it all out and see what is needed to complete outfits. I am really looking forward to the end of Jan clearance sales for winter clothes for next year!
4. My Clothes 300 - my stuff is looking really rough. This is 3 pairs of jeans, 3 capris, some tshirts and a couple of hoodies. And a pair of shoes. Girl clothes are expensive too! I will be on the hunt for stuff for me at consignment too.
5. Natalie's Birthday 100 - Her birthday is actually part of a vacation I have planned. And truthfully I am not sure she will get much of anything else. I am planning on one toy, them my BF and her BFF will give a gift on the trip. I might get her a giftcard where she can pick out a second item. This money will also need to cover a cake/cupcakes on site.
6. Other Birthdays 150 - BF, Mom & DD's little friends.
7. Natalie's Christmas 400 - this is a big number. I am assuming she will get a doll bed to go with 2011's doll. And those stinkin beds are expensive.
8. Other Christmas 300 - The bulk of this is for the BF and my Mom.
9. Cats 720 - sigh. Most of this is for the strays outside. I am a sucker. They are nice cats but I really wish they'd go away.
10. Bath 300 - This number seems so low for a year. I guess we will see.
11. Vacations 1400 - last year's number was 5 or 6K. I have two trips planned for 2012. DD is starting real school and can't miss days. So we have something in Jan then something else at the end of May.
12. Dental Work 1000 - I have a cracked tooth and need a crown. It was cheaper for me to pay for the crown and cleanings than it was to have dental insurance and pay copays. So this sounds dumb, but I totally forgot my company gives me 1K as a bribe for having a high deductible health plan. I will use this money for my tooth.
    
13. Mad Money 575 - $10 a week plus tax. This will be hard for me.

Fixed Expenses

1. House Taxes, Insurance, Mortgage 5310
2. Car Insurance 510 (number based on new car)
3. Cable Modem 240
4. SS & Medicare 3700
5. medical extra 2200 - I am losing my distance vision and have to have laser eye surgery or I won't be able to wear contacts anymore. This won't fix it, but will buy me some time.
6. Power, Water, Cell 2520
7. CC Payment 720 (this is a promo)
8. School lunches 130 - I pack most of her food, she eats on pizza day
9. netflix 108
10. Gymnastics 1000 (est)- DD is well on her way to competitive gymnastics. I am really excited but scared about the $! Uniforms, extra lessons travel costs...around 4K. But it won't happen this year.
11. Ballet 423 - plus a leo but I will buy that with clothing money. She will switch from the pink to a white uniform.
12. Car 4800 - car payment.From the house sale, I have enough to buy a car. I just can't give up my security blanket. So I will finance a car, my credit union is 2% for new cars now. I haven't decided what I will buy and when exactly.
13. 401K/IRA 15,000 12,800 (company does another 2200) (wanted to save 15K total this year including that contribution. Had to fix my math!)
    

Whew so there it is in all it's glory. I will be tweaking and playing with it as time goes on. Bye!

Some 2012 purchases

I wanted to count these because that would sort of be cheating if I didn't!

I was able to purchase DD 4 PJs/Nightgowns on clearance this week for next summer and winter. Since I didn't have any of these stocked up, I was happy to find them on sale. Plus they are really cute :)

$45.20 for Owl Pjs (CUTE CUTE CUTE!), fuzzy princess PJs, Rapunzel nightgown and Ariel nightgown for DD for 2012.

$18.07 was spent on 3 Disney tshirts for her next summer (this should be the last of the shirts she needs).

I spent $43.80 on three shirts for myself. A Disney sweashirt, a long sleeved t and a tshirt. Then I bought two pairs of those weird converse croc shoes. The are canvas sneakers on top then the white toe and white part on the bottom is croc stuff. The inside is croc stuff too and has the little nubs that massage your feet. Those were $32.85. I still need stuff for our Jan trip, it isn't even 2012 and I am already thinking I am going to mess up the "my clothes" column. Boo.

Left to spend on DD's clothes: 336.73
Left to spend on my clothes: 223.35

I also bought a t for my DDs BFF to add to her birthday present. I bought the other part of it 2 months ago. $6.02

Slacker Girl Returns

Every year I just sorta fade away and ignore the blog. I am going to try this all again starting in Jan. Who knows, maybe in 3-4 years I can actually stick with it the entire year? lol

I am trying to think back to this past year. The three main money things that changed were the big house selling, the stock market crashing...again (more on this later) and I started up a business. I still have my regular job too so I have been really busy.

Here in a bit I will post my budget for 2012.

July Meal Planning

So I was looking through my freezer trying to figure out what meals I could make to totally clear it out. Late July/early August is prime farmers market freezer stocking time and I want to be prepared with an empty freezer!

These are the dinners I came up with, I need 26 dinners:

sausage, peppers, onions, rice X 2
fish tacos X 2 (need corn & black beans)
fish veggie rice X 2
chicken legs frozen veggie, mac & cheese X 2
homemade chicken veggie soup X 2
chicken breast, frozen veggie rice stir fry
chicken & dumplings (need mixed veggies)
ham peas mac & cheese X 8 (need 7 veggies for this)
(and are we really going to eat this 8 times in July? Maybe, DD likes it and it is easy on me. I would like to mention its all natural organic mac and cheese...not that it makes it that much better!)
shrimp with pink sauce & veggie (missing shrimp, alfredo and veggie)
spaghetti (missing ground beef)
Chinese dumplings, rice & veggie (need veggies, need filling items for dumplings) X 4

Hmmm....ok so that wasn't so hard. Not a lot of variety but to tell you the truth, I am too tired for variety. I barely keep things together here and I can't get all fancy on stuff.

I think for breakfast, it's time to get into the oatmeal routine and stick with it. I think for lunch, we'll be having a lot of breakfast foods too. I think as long as I keep a good carb/fruit/protein balance, does it matter if you eat an egg on toast at noon instead of 8am? And I am going on the record now, PBJ a couple of times a week will not kill us in the month of July (is my tiredness showing now?)

So my shopping list could be this simple:
13 pounds of veggies. Fresh, frozen, whatever.
corn
black beans
shrimp
jar of alfredo
pd of ground beef
water chestnuts
2 pds of pork
cabbage
ginger root
(I am going to make 100 of these and freeze them for next month too. I figure if I am going to have the mess, go ahead and get it over with.)
5 milks
5 juices
sugar for lemonade
canister of oatmeal
fresh fruit
8 loaves of bread
5 dozen eggs
PB
crackers (for hummus that I'll make)
Depending on sales, I can probably pick this stuff up for $100. My biggest problem will be overspending in fruit and fresh veggies, I have a lot of waste there.

My goal for July is $150. Wish me luck.

I am still here :)

I just don't have anything too exciting to say lol

My house isn't closing until the 8th. That drives me nuts but at least I got $2250 in unexpected rent. After I pay the interest on my loan, I made $1750ish. I'll take it.

I also booked a cruise for a new client. But I won't be paid for that for a few months.

My spending is like wheeeeeeeee. I blew over $400 on ribbon..sweet sweet ribbon. It's my korker ribbon and I think I have found an awesome way to cook it all (you cook it to curl it). Stay tuned!

Next month I work from home every day. The little one has ballet camp on my office days and it was just easier to go remote the full month than to shift things around. So my overall spending should be a lot less. Very little gas money and our fast fooding should be a lot better. I won't be spending money in the vending machines at work either.

I have been working on my hairbows, at least 2 hours a day. I have a big show in Sept and I really want to have my basic inventory done. This is my goal:
1050 basic bows. 30 of my base 35 colors.
840 baby bows. 24 of my base 35 colors.
200 big solid bows
720 small korker solids, 20 of each of my 36 basic colors
120 med size solid bows
240 fat korkers
240 mixed korkers
120 tutu bows
100 felties
200 specialty print bows
---------------
3830 bows - yikes but really I am at least 1/3 of the way there. I just want to sew up a big inventory so when I pay to do a show, I am not feeling like I am wasting the opportunity.

Ok I think that is it for now. I will post my June spending in a few days. It is going to have a killer credit card payment on it. Eeeck.

Two weeks of Spending

I have joined a no buy group on DIS that is motivating me to track everything I spend. We confess our spending and go woohooo when we do good lol

This is what it's looked like over the last couple of weeks. If you took off the $400 cruise deposit, then I'd actually be doing good. This of course doesn't include about $230 in utilities. It also doesn't include any remodeling expenses. My mini goal for the month was to keep non vacation, non utility spending to $700.

6-14 38.64 (food and gas)
6-13 $7.44 McDs
6-12 $1.10 DDs breakfast
6-11 $54.15 lunch & groceries & gas
6-10 $12.59 (pizza and diet coke)
6-9 zero
6-8 $16.53 cats & bath, $400 cruise
6-7 taco bell $2.19
6-6 $61 zumba, shoes, tea, leotard & phone
6-5 zero
6-4 $93.54 (bug killer, pool, sprinkler, flowers, lunch & groceries)
6-3 $1.10 for tea
6-2 $105 for heat pump repair
6-1 $35.33 + 5.57 (car repair and mcDs)

Early Saver Discount

Hi, my name is Kim. I am a cruise addict. I set up a travel agency just so I could stalk rates on Carnival ships. (no really, I did, it wasn't expensive lol)

I finally go to book our trip in Nov, I am super happy to say we are going to Grand Turk, Half Moon Key and Nassau on a 5 day cruise. We are going to stop at Sanibel island on the way to Miami and spend a few days there too. Yiipppeeeeee

We did the Early Saver rate through Carnival. If you don't know what that is, basically you commit several months (sometimes years!) to a particular cruise. You get the lowest estimated price on that cruise.

Now sometimes pricing will shift and they aren't filling the ship as fast as they wanted to. Enter the Early Save Price Protection Guarantee!

I booked our cabins last week. Last night they dropped $5 per person. Now call me cheap (go ahead, I like it!) but that was enough for me to request a discount. Shoot, that is $20, $20 is $20 right?

It took maybe 2 minutes to fill out the form. I got confirmation of my rate reduction today. YAY!

So now I have a new obsession. How many times can I squeeze a discount out of this cruise? lol It's a game, a fun fun game!