I'm backk....

KatieCutie05 · July 2015

well back on this board and back on the MM bandwagon. I just realized its been a full year since we paid any extra to debt... that makes me sick. But ofcourse thats mostly because I was pregnant and theres a 4,800 heating unit sitting in my back yard mocking me.

Well lets sum up shall we...

-My son is now 5 months old and I really want to atleast switch to only working part time- but ofcourse I can't do that until these stupid student loans are paid off! grr

-H got a new job last month! YAY! and it came with a big pay increase (an extra 19k per year). He's a buyer now so he has better salary potential too. Wooh!

-H is doing the Isagenix program to lose weight and he has a dream of making a million dollars on it. - i think he's crazy but i figure w/e i'll let the man dream. the first 2 months are costing us 300/m but next month should be 150. Still insane but he likes the shakes and he eats them for breakfast and then a shake and a bowl of soup for lunch at work so we are paying less in groceries and he's not blowing his eating out budget anymore. He's still working 1-2 days a month at the gunshop to help cover the cost of isagenix which he says is only until he can get ppl signed up and get his products paid for... we'll see how that works out. lol

-Unfortunately, my dad lost his battle to cancer a few weeks ago. I'm just so happy we got up there in time for him to meet his new grandson.

But consequently, my 29k SL in his name is going through forgiveness...

So now we're at about 94k in debt left to go and a 101k income -- 2 years ago we started with 147k in debt and a 70k income. So if you ask me we're doing pretty good considering... So we're back on the debt snowball and have a goal of paying off our debt before our 5 year wedding anniversary (which is in 3 years-June 2018). In order to do that we should be paying 1500 extra per month and we can really only do 1,000 which would put us in at a year late... but thats not counting H getting an extra 4 paychecks a year that arent budgetted in (he gets paid weekly), raises, daycare going down as lo gets older, and a 4k inheritance i'm still expecting from my grandma. So i think we can do it!

-We've cancelled cable, i'm cloth diapering at home, breastfeeding, i'll make homemade baby food when he starts solids. theres not much else i can do to save money. but im all ears.

So now ya'll gotta keep us accountable because we have NEVER had this much money and theres a lot of stuff we really need for the house like furniture, a mattress, tools, yard equipment, appliances, you name it. We have to figure out a way to get all/some of that stuff without it breaking us. Seriously this is how pathetic we are... I have a 10 dollar coffee table we got from walmart 5 years ago in our living room with a broken leg and my sons gonna learn to pull up soon and its gonna fall on his head.

CuriousKiddosMama · July 2015

Welcome back!
I laughed at the coffee table thing. Resist the temptation to buy new. If you have garage sales around you, go one weekend and get a good wood one as cheap as possible. Then you can paint it with chalk paint and top coat it, and it will be completely custom to your decor and tastes for like $20. My son is so rough and tumble it doesn't make sense for us to buy anything new, and won't for years, so this is how I update my furniture. I have literally found wood dressers for free, or a coffee table at a garage sale for $2.
Sorry to hear about your loss.

jessica490 · July 2015

Haha, welcome back!! I was wondering where you went off to! Glad to hear everyone's doing well (baby too!) but I'm really sorry about your father...so sad. But overall it sounds like you are getting back on the right tracking and have a good plan. Stick around!

blondie42107 · July 2015

Welcome back! Sorry about your loss. It'll be nice having you back on the board!

vlagrl29 · July 2015

welcome back! GL at knocking down that debt. You should be able to do it with the income you guys have. I'm sure you would love to go down to PT with a baby but maybe you can do that once you have baby #2. Keep your eye on the prize! When we have baby #2 I will most likely stop teaching lessons for awhile because I want to just submerge myself in baby heaven. LOL.

bcarb · July 2015

Find an Ikea, their coffee tables are like 30-40 bucks, sure not the best of the best, but who cares. Ikea has the best furniture for super cheap! Great news on all of your progress, and sorry to hear about your dad. I went thru the same thing a couple of months ago.

Sisugal · July 2015

Ditto used furniture - garage sale or estate sale. An older real wood table with paint --fills the bill nicely.

Xstatic3333 · July 2015

Welcome back! I'm so sorry to hear about your dad.

As for furniture I'm another ikea fan here. Love the stuff!

dragonstarjk · July 2015

Welcome back!

I don't know about you but I'm not even anywhere remotely close to an IKEA, as fun as those sound. However, I second the garage sale/thrift store furniture finds! Also, see if your area has an 'Upcycle' type page on Facebook.

When H and I first started living together (13 years ago) we had 2 cinderblocks and a wooden board for a TV stand We also had a couch that we bought for $20 from a hotel that was remodeling their rooms. We now have slowly started replacing items with nice things as we need them (appliances, mattress set, couch) but we still have some cheap-o furniture from Walmart that gets the job done until we can budget for some nice, lifetime pieces. It's worth it to us to not take on consumer debt just to have nice things!

If I were you, I would prioritize the mattress over everything else, because it is necessary to your health! We put off replacing our mattress for about 2 years because we didn't want to spend the money, and ever since we got it we have realized how outdated it was and how much better we sleep.

formerlyGDaisy09 · July 2015

we also don't live near IKEA. I'm a fan of yard sales, closeout sale, etc. for furniture. Though I do now try to buy anything stuffed (couches, chairs, etc.) new. I've actually found some nice things at TJMaxx. 'tis the season for yard saling...make a day out of it and see what you can find...focus on pieces with the shape you want, you can always paint or stain something if it isn't the right hue for your decor.

If I could go back and do it again I would have definitely replaced our mattress sooner, while I care about getting a deal on a mattress, I'm willing to spend more. theoretically you're spending about 1/3 of your day/life in your bed, and poor sleep, or aches and pains from a mattress can affect 100% of your waking life. it is definitely worth it to get something that supports your body the way you need it to and will allow you to get as restful night sleep as you can.

KatieCutie05 · July 2015

Thanks, yea the closest ikea is 3 hours away. not really worth it. i've stopped by goodwill a few times in the past hoping they'd have a coffee table in there one of these days and nothing. I know i could fix it up nice - i reupholstered and painted old bar stools we have. But trying to find a good quality wood piece thats super cheap isn't easy. Even on craigslist they ask too much.

The mattress is the other big problem - its really bad and its probably not helping my back or my husbands sleep. Its 5 years old now which isn't crazy for a mattress but we made the mistake of buying a pillow top that you can't flip so its got some big craters in it now. We have an old hand me down one in the shed that used to be in our guest room but i have been trying to convince my husband that we could get a 50-100 good mattress topper and use that mattress until we can afford a better mattress. but he says that mattress is worse then ours so he won't do it - to be honest i think its better. otherwise i'd be the one to hit up bj's for a 350 mattress but thats probably too cheap. we said we were gonna wait until both our cars are paid off which is probably another 8 months out. But idk if its smart or should i say healthy to wait that long.

cupcait927 · July 2015

KatieCutie05 said:

Thanks, yea the closest ikea is 3 hours away. not really worth it. i've stopped by goodwill a few times in the past hoping they'd have a coffee table in there one of these days and nothing. I know i could fix it up nice - i reupholstered and painted old bar stools we have. But trying to find a good quality wood piece thats super cheap isn't easy. Even on craigslist they ask too much.

The mattress is the other big problem - its really bad and its probably not helping my back or my husbands sleep. Its 5 years old now which isn't crazy for a mattress but we made the mistake of buying a pillow top that you can't flip so its got some big craters in it now. We have an old hand me down one in the shed that used to be in our guest room but i have been trying to convince my husband that we could get a 50-100 good mattress topper and use that mattress until we can afford a better mattress. but he says that mattress is worse then ours so he won't do it - to be honest i think its better. otherwise i'd be the one to hit up bj's for a 350 mattress but thats probably too cheap. we said we were gonna wait until both our cars are paid off which is probably another 8 months out. But idk if its smart or should i say healthy to wait that long.

Check out mattress sales over Labor Day weekend (if you can wait that long). We got a $2k mattress for $670 (that includes taxes and delivery charges) from Sears 60% off with an additional 10% off for orders over $599. It's a Sealy Posturepedic Queen and we sleep so much better now. We had one of those discount mattresses and it was close to 10 years old - our backs, hips and knees feel SO much better. I'd been checking mattress sales for a year-ish and found the best deals were obviously over holidays, particularly summer holidays.

formerlyGDaisy09 · July 2015

cupcait927 said:

KatieCutie05 said:

Thanks, yea the closest ikea is 3 hours away. not really worth it. i've stopped by goodwill a few times in the past hoping they'd have a coffee table in there one of these days and nothing. I know i could fix it up nice - i reupholstered and painted old bar stools we have. But trying to find a good quality wood piece thats super cheap isn't easy. Even on craigslist they ask too much.

The mattress is the other big problem - its really bad and its probably not helping my back or my husbands sleep. Its 5 years old now which isn't crazy for a mattress but we made the mistake of buying a pillow top that you can't flip so its got some big craters in it now. We have an old hand me down one in the shed that used to be in our guest room but i have been trying to convince my husband that we could get a 50-100 good mattress topper and use that mattress until we can afford a better mattress. but he says that mattress is worse then ours so he won't do it - to be honest i think its better. otherwise i'd be the one to hit up bj's for a 350 mattress but thats probably too cheap. we said we were gonna wait until both our cars are paid off which is probably another 8 months out. But idk if its smart or should i say healthy to wait that long.

Check out mattress sales over Labor Day weekend (if you can wait that long). We got a $2k mattress for $670 (that includes taxes and delivery charges) from Sears 60% off with an additional 10% off for orders over $599. It's a Sealy Posturepedic Queen and we sleep so much better now. We had one of those discount mattresses and it was close to 10 years old - our backs, hips and knees feel SO much better. I'd been checking mattress sales for a year-ish and found the best deals were obviously over holidays, particularly summer holidays.

Agreed, since you know you're in the market. keep you eyes open for sales...Labor day weekend is a good bet. We went with one of the sealy icomfort memory foam ones because we had a similar issue with the pillow top we had, and it had a much longer warrantee and was less likely to form pits. (we did find a 3" memory foam topper did make that older mattress more tolerable)

bcarb · July 2015

Our closest Ikea is about 2.5-3 hours away in Chicago, totally worth it to me! I agree about looking for mattress deals around labor day. We spent a good bit of money on a temperdic and I am so glad we did. But next mattress I am getting a Sleep number! We made the mistake once of getting a mattress you can't flip either, so needless to say, you can tell where we slept every night!

vlagrl29 · July 2015

before we had an IKEA in our city we would travel for IKEA stuff which was worth it to us.

brij2006 · July 2015

Welcome back, and congratulations on both the baby and your H's job change. That is going to change things so much!

I will definitely agree with everyone else. Make due with what you have. Our dining room table is nice, but we only have 4 cheapo folding chairs and a couple crappy chairs I bought at a yard sale for $15. It looks horrible, but is functional. Getting out of debt is more important than a nice dining room table and chairs set. We won't even begin to talk about our nightstands and the dresser my parents bought used when they first got married, that we now have. We've had to reinforce them all, and I've refinished a couple pieces of furniture. But just ask yourself any time you want to buy something, "is it more important than paying off debt." That usually puts us back on the ground.

Remember, "live like no one else now so you can live like nobody else later." Who gives a crap if your stuff is B or C grade. If people want to judge, then they can. We flat out tell people that not having student loans is more important to us than having nice chairs at our dining room table. Usually as we're unfolding the $8 folding chairs from Target, while we're entertaining friends.

KatieCutie05 · July 2015

@brij2006: Yea thats basically what i'm doing. I dont want to spend the money on new stuff because thats just going to slow down how fast we get out of debt. And thats extremely important to us. Not that many people visit us anyway. lol.

But at the same time I do need stuff thats safe around a baby/ toddler and a mattress thats not going to cost me more in chiropractor bills. But i'm not doing anything until my cars paid off at least!

I like the sears labor day sales idea- 350 should be doable since we only need the mattress - no boxspring. That won't be too bad since its just the equivalent of a car payment. I'll keep checking goodwill and garage sales and try to find a decent coffee table in the meantime.

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