New Cars and Budgeting

I was gone for a few weeks because things got hectic at home and at work. We finally bought our new cars. They are quite lovely and we are very hapy with them. We wound uo going over our planned payment by about $100/month on each car, but decide it was ok because we can afford it and they’re great cars.  What we had not considered was the insurance premiums. We figures they would obviously go up somewhat, but for all of our reasearch into the car buying process and all of the math we did, neither one of us thought to get an insurance quote for our desired cars. It turns out that our insurance payments will go up by $350 per month. We were prepared for a rise of $100 – $150 only. This really caught us by surprise and we almost choked. 

Anyhow, after the initail sticker shock, I took a look and saw things we could dispose of.  We bought a warranty for my car that includes a loaner car while mine is at the shop and roadside assistance, so I removed the rental reimbursement and roadside assistance and raised our deductible for collision and that rdeuced the total premium by $280, which reduces the monthly payment by about $46.  Since we have a few grand in the savings account, we figure we can safely assume that we can pay the deductible if it came down to it, and would rather save on the monthly payment. 

Either way, it still rocks our budget quite a bit as we had planned on saving about a grand per month. then, we decided to bite into that a bit to get nicer cars with warranties and now we’ve ate most of it up with this insurance increase. Thankfully we refi’d before we bought the cars and reduced our mortgage payments . My husband did not renew his gym membership, opting to run outside and make use of the bit of gym equipment we have at home, this gave us a little morein the monthly budget. Thankfully though, the hubby is also doing extra work on the side of his 9-5 job, so that money should cover the rise in insurance as well as the overage in car payments, so hopefully we will be about even and able to still save a nice chunk each month. 

I’ve been searching for some sort of virtual assistant job that I could take on in the evenings, but have had some trouble finding a legitimate offer. I’ll keep on it. 

We will be keeping a very watchful eye on our budget in the coming months so that we may adjust as necessary. I think Starbuck will be quicly going out the window along with random shopping in order to stabilize the budget at least until we figure out exactly how our monthly budget works out with all the changes we’ve made.

 

Charity

We sponsor a child through the Colombianitos Foundation.

Colombianitos

 

She is provided with school tuition, school supplies, and lunch daily. She is also a part of theirs Goals for Life Program, which all sponsored kids participate in. The program aims at keeping children off the streets and providing them with life skills through soccer academies. They are found in the lowest income areas of Colombia where the children are at the highest risk. All for only $25 a month which is debited from my account automatically and tax deductible!

As part of being a sponsor, we get letters from our kid and we are allowed to send her gifts on Christmas and her birthday. I contacted the local program coordinator and asked if the Christmas gifts could be sent late, she said that would be fine. I also got information on the family, the home situation, and her size. I found out that she has 3 youger sisters. All in all it is 4 girls ages 12, 11, 8, and 6. They were recently moved into a home provided by the municipality as their home was destroyed in a mud slide. 

My original plan was to send some housewares such as sheets, etc. However, it became to difficult to find out what they really needed. So, last night I hit up Wal-Mart.  I got some great deals for the kids. I chose to buy for all 4 girls because even though I only sponsor one of them, I would hate to imagine one of the girls getting gifts and not the other 3. I tried toi buyt things they needed that might be difficult for their parents to buy. things that I remembered thinking were “so cool” at around 11. I also wanted something that all 4 girls would enjoy. I bought them school notebooks at 97 cents each. I bought them a pack of about 25 pens at about $1 and 25 pencils with the cool earaser topper and grippies and sharpener the pack cost $2. I also bought them the cool gel glitter pens that was about $2 too (not a bargain, but it has the “cool” factor). I got a 75 pack of colored pencils along with professional sketch books and the professional earasers for the older girls to practice drawing (total of about $10) and construction paper 100 pack of crayolas and kiddie sketch book for the little ones (total of about $7) I also bought them a calculator for $1. Then came the fun stuff: a pack of 10 puzzles (100 – 500 pieces) for $10, Uno Cards for $5 and Dominoes for $5. As I walked out of the store, I walked by the girls section and noticed the clearance section. I found shorts for each of them for $1 and t-shirts for $3! I also picked up really cute bookbags for $15, $10, $10, and $7 for each kid and two jumpropes that were $1 each. All in all I spent about $100. I will also spend about $40 to ship it. My original total budget for this was $100, but both my husband and I know that when it comes to gifts and charity, I always blow the budget.

I am excited to know that I will have provided these 4 girls with clothing, school supplies, and games for $100. TO me, that is a bargain, specially considering that it will be tax deductible.  Shipping will be between $40 – $50, just because shipping to Colombia is expensive, but I’ll deduct it from the taxes and make peace with that. 

If you think you cannot afford to give to charity, just add up your trips to the coffeeshop or the bar. Personally, I spend $100 monthly on Starbucks (and that’s after cutting back) and about $75 on liquor a month. So, if you can cut that in half, you would have more than enough to Sponsor a Child. Everytime you want that extra cup of coffee, you can just think that you are feeding and educating a child that would otherwise not have that opportunity.

 

New Year, New President, New Look

It’s a brand new year and the Blog has a brand new look. Not to mention we have a brand new awesome president! Sorry, I can’t help myself. 

My Goals for the Year:

• Organize my home office
• Eliminate my debt (except cars and house)
• Buy new cars
• Increase income 
• Start School again!
• Create building blocks for my marriage (ie: better communication, date nights, etc)
• Blog more frequently
• Create a savings plan
• Create a retirement plan
• Begin depositing in my sister’s college fund

The End. Let’s see how I do.

 

WaMu Savings Update

I checked my WaMu savings account this morning and my APY has fallen from 4% to 3%. It is still a pretty good rate, but no longer the highest out there. There’s your update for the day.

 

Voter Registration Deadline

Short and sweet post today:

REGISTER TO VOTE!