Indebted

I made the mistake of telling my mother I have credit card debt. As I get older, I keep having these moments with my mother where I think honesty is better than quiet agreement...I'm pretty sure I've been sorry every single time. 

A wise friend once told me that when it came to my mother, if I was being honest just because I didn't care, that was one thing, but that if I found myself wanting to be honest in an attempt to change her mind about something, it probably wasn't worth it. So true.

So yes, the credit card debt. I'm not happy about it. Not proud if it. But, hey, shit happens. We make choices, we live with the consequences. To my mother, however, admitting that I do not pay my credit card in full every month is the equivalent of telling her that I have an illegitimate baby in my basement. Seriously. It's like she can't even look at me lately without being reminded of the sins I have committed. 

Despite being an adult and having gone through enough therapy to know that she has unrealistic expectations, my mother's disdain threw me into such a tizzy of anxiety that I considered deleting the rest of my 40 by 40 list and replacing it with "Pay off credit card." I didn't, of course. But seeing as neither my husband or I are on the fast track to increasing our incomes dramatically, I might need to push those trips to Paris, Italy and Joel Robuchon to my 50 by 50 list...hello, living within my means. 

These are not real problems, I realize. It's just me accepting that living on a single income is not the same as living on a dual income. It's just me applying what I logically know to be true to my emotional desire to err on the side of fun rather than fiscal responsibility. It's the whole live-for-the-moment dilemma, right? Because to truly live like there is no tomorrow is only fun until you wake up and realize there are a whole lot more tomorrows and you've got bills to pay. Sigh. Responsibility is a bitch. 

On the bright side, this will force me to resurrect my efforts to invite people over more and eat out less. And not impulse buy at Target. And not plan vacations until I can afford to do so. Ok, that last one makes me cry a little. 

Poor little vacationless me against the big, bad credit card company. I will be triumphant. And it will be worth it. And all the world's creatures will rejoice in the knowledge that there is more than one way to live your life -- no matter what my mother thinks. 

More Fun, Less Money

It's Sunday, the night of pondering the week ahead and watching The Amazing Race.

As I've mentioned many times before, I ♥ The Amazing Race and this season is better than ever! The clues actually sometimes require the contestants to think and they've managed to keep the herd pretty close together for the most part, which is always more fun.

My kids keep asking when they're going to do another family edition - my guess is never because I have to imagine that it was a logistical nightmare having minors traveling all over the place and generally being at risk of injury. However, if they ever did announce another one, I'd consider trying out, mostly because I don't think we'd get chosen. While it would be cool to be part of a show I love and travel the world for free, I do not think I would love being in a constant state of high-stress and sleep deprivation with my husband and kids. We'd end up with a whole reel of our worst parenting moments. No thanks.

As for pondering the week, nothing big to worry about in the near term, so my attention then turned to all of the things I want in the longer term. I can blame The Amazing Race, actually, because now I want to visit Vienna at Christmas time...which got me wishing we could take an international trip every year because there are so many places I want to go.

And then I was thinking, what if we could take one international trip and then one beach vacation every year?! Maybe we'll only bring the kids on one or the other. That felt manageable for a second...but then am I swearing off Vegas and New York for the foreseeable future? And what about the places in the U.S. that aren't beaches that I'd still like to see?

All that pondering was really just a distraction from the fact that paying our regular bills is getting tighter thanks to the fact that it's been an entire year since we had two incomes. Which is to say that if I want to continue fulfilling my travel fantasies, something is gonna have to give somewhere else. (duh)

The fact is that I'm just not good at not spending money...wait, let me rephrase that: I'm not good at not doing things in order to save money.

I'm not a big shopper or anything, but I like to make plans, and those plans generally involve eating out. Plus there are the emergency fast food dinners with the kids, or the "It's Friday! I'm not cooking" dinners with the kids. And then all the other stuff that falls under "entertainment": happy hour, movies, dessert after the movie...it all adds up. I won't share how much we actually spent on these things in 2010 (I track them in Quicken), but it's safe to say that we could have taken a nice trip to Vienna.

So how do I give my social life a thrifty makeover? I want to see my friends and do fun stuff but not end up spending so much. Is there a reality show for that? Is it called "Saturday nights at the Bowling Alley"?

Grocery Neurosis

I wouldn't call it a resolution exactly, but I've decided to make an effort to trim our grocery bill by 25%. I've been told that our grocery budget was pretty lean already ($400/month for a family of 4), but I think I can do better.

Any of you who watch Jon and Kate + 8 regularly have probably seen the episode where Kate goes grocery shopping and explains that she spends $150/week to feed her family of 10. She is meticulous about clipping coupons and recording how much things cost at various stores so she gets the best deals, but that is still an insanely low number for 10 people. That's $15 per person for an entire week. In my new plan I'm giving us a luxurious $18.75 per person. 

Today was my first attempt. I finally gave into my OCD urges and started working on an Excel spreadsheet listing every grocery aisle of SuperTarget so that I can make my list in order. I actually took photos of the aisle signs with my cell phone today so I can ensure accuracy on my next trip. It's freaky, I know, but it's always such a bummer when you get to aisle 7 and realize you forgot something that was in aisle 2. 

I also clipped coupons for today's visit. I used to love clipping coupons and then I would always forget them when I went to the store and so I gave up. But not today. Not only did I bring the coupons, but I made little asterisks next to all of my coupon items and had the boys help me find them using the pictures on the coupons. Yes, it took longer, but if I get the boys onboard the coupon train, it will help me remember to bring them and encourage me to keep clipping them, even when saving 35 cents seems like a big waste of paper. 

So, the good news is that I saved $6 today with coupons. The bad news is that I didn't make my $75 goal, but I was close. Next time I'll do it.

Why am I going through all of this trouble? Is it really worth saving $25/week? Well, since that's $1300/year, I'm going to say yes. Plus, despite my interest in home cooking, I don't think I'll ever love to eat at home. I'd much rather put that $1300 toward Hawaii...or a weekend trip to Las Vegas...or a handful a really nice dinners in town...or, oh yeah, my steadily rising property taxes. Wait, aren't we in a recession?

Stopping the Insanity

That's what the husband and I ate for dinner last night. It's a boat...a boat of sushi. It was his birthday, so I'm not going to bother feeling guilty about it (it was delicious, btw), but today the insanity comes to an end. No more birthdays for awhile and no more excuses for crazy spending.

Inspired by this CNN Money article and my desire to be able to actually afford to take the kids on vacation this winter, I am pledging to exercise the willpower that I know I've got inside of me somewhere. I got some good ideas from a few of you regarding lowering my grocery bill (thanks!), so I figure if I combine those with cutting up the credit cards, not eating out, not signing my kids up for any additional summer activities and resisting the Target impulse buys, we should be on our way to paying off our debt and having a real travel budget. 

Send me your good thoughts. It all sounds very simple, but restraint isn't my forte.  

The Spending Diet

As we near the end of birthday madness, I'm renewing my efforts to become a teensy bit more financially solvent...or rather, I'm trying to find ways I can save some cash without drastically altering my life. 

We're not exactly one of those families you see on Oprah yet -- you know, the ones who don't have health insurance, but the mom gets her hair and nails done every week...or the ones who eat out three times a day(!), but we aren't exactly sticking to the budget, either. 

The problem is really that we're playing catch-up, only not very well. When we moved into our new house about 14 months ago, we had fully anticipated selling our old one. It's in a nice neighborhood and just getting its taxable value would have been okay. But after 6 months on the market, we not only hadn't sold it, we had begun to accumulate credit card debt fueled by the notion that as soon as we sold the house, we could pay it off...just one more month, then another. 

Sadly, it's a common story these days. However, having been raised by a mother who became a CPA for fun (seriously, she's never actually worked as one), credit card debt is a source of great anxiety for me...not to mention a really huge drain on the family budget. 

So anyway, the bad news is that we still own the old house. The good news is that we started renting it out back in October, which allowed us to begin our game of catch-up...and that brings us to the present, where I'm trying to find ways to cut our living expenses so that we can A) pay down the credit cards, B) start saving some money, and C) travel. I realize my compulsion to travel works in direct opposition to saving money, but we all have our vices, right? Let's save that one for another blog entry.

Alright, so I know there are plenty of things I could do to save money - cancel the cable, for one. I read The Simple Family and admire Rachel and her efforts to live more simply. But as I said at the beginning, I'm trying to find ways to save without drastically altering my life (and as we know, Bravo, A&E and the Food Network are important to me). I realize this means it will take me longer to reach my financial goals, but this is something I can accept as long as I know I'm moving in the right direction. 

So my current focus is on how to cut our grocery bill. I am really bad with coupons - I like clipping them, but am notorious for forgetting them when I go to the store. I'm considering using a grocery delivery service purely because it eliminates the possibility of impulse buys -- and since I do my grocery shopping at SuperTarget, the impulse buys can get out of hand. 

I'm also looking for cheap meals I can make that my kids will eat...and I'm trying to break out of the spaghetti, mac 'n' cheese, chicken nuggets and repeat routine. Unfortunately, my little Owen fears unknown foods so unless it can be marketed as one of the aforementioned foods, it could be a battle. Is a diet of ramen and soup the answer? Is winning the lottery the answer? Is getting some willpower the answer? Maybe, maybe and probably...but I'm hoping one of you smart people has a more useful suggestion.