Envelope system

The plan for the month of February is to use the Dave Ramsey envelope system. I think we are going to just use the system for the categories we most often overspend. So we will have one for groceries, household items and spending money.

I think this will help us the most. We are going to sit down tonight and do a zero dollar budget. This way any money going to pay down debt and money going in to savings will be moved there at the beginning of the month instead of waiting until the end of the month to see if anything is left.

The old system of waiting to see what was left is pretty easy way to never save any money.

So now we will have a plan, have a way to enact the plan and have every hope that we will be able to get into better shape financially.

Shopper's triple coupons

Today I was reading Money saving mom and I saw that Shopper's was tripling coupons. I just got the sunday paper yesterday to try to use coupons to save money. I cut all the coupons that had a value of less than 99 cents and made a list. I could not believe how well I did. I am sure I would have done even better if I had been saving coupons for longer.

Ok here is what I got.
Pillsbury pizza crust $2.69 - 1.20= $1.49
Pillsbury crescent rolls $ 2.39 - $1.05= $1.34
Totino's pizza rolls $2.00 - $1.05= $0.95
Bob Evans breakfast bowl $ 3.79- $1.50 = $2.29
Bob Evans sausage $ 3.79 -$ 1.00 on package price reduction - $1.05= $1.74
Hilshire farm turkey kielbasa $ 3.29 - $1.05 = $ 2.24
Formula 409 $3.19 - $ 2.25 = $0.94
Pace queso sauce $3.39- $ 1.50= $ 1.89
Pace picante sauce $2.59 - $ 1.20 = $1.39
Pringles buy 2 for $3 - $ 0.60 = $2.40
Newmans own dressing $ 3.79- $ 1.50 = $2.29
Newmans spg sauce $2.89 - $ 1.50 = $ 1.39
Pop secret popcorn x 2 $ 4.58 - $ 1.50 = $ 3.08
cherrios snack mix $2.50 - $1.50 = $1
Fiber one Bars $ 2.99 - $1.50 = $1.49
Hefty storage bags $ 2.15 -$1.50 = $ 0.55

Total was around $50
OOP was $ 27.41
Savings was $ 22.60
That was a savings of 46%

The plan is to look into Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University

We realize that what we have been doing it not only not working. We need a new plan. We are ready to take care of this debt and take control of our lives. We want to be debt free, we want to stop worrying about sending our daughter to college and we want some day to retire.

Like many people we lost lots of money in the recent down turn in the market. My husband lost his job in October but we were very blessed that his unemployment was short lived.

We are finally waking up to the mess we have created and are ready to change our ways.

I am now going over all of the debt we have and will post the totals and are goals for 2009 soon.

Why thrifty little?

Let me start by saying that 2008 was a hard year. It was a year that really wiped us out financially. We have always thought we were being responsible with our money but truth be told we were not. We have decided that 2009 is the year we will begin to make baby steps to improve our finances. We will no longer feel like chicken little every time a small emergency creeps up. I will post our specific debt owed and 2009 goals later.