Financial Swimming Pool

I feel like I am drowning. I am the child of two accountants and I can't seem to get my mind wrapped around the problems surrounding our financial situation, or rather financial disaster. I have spent the better part of several hours trying to find an answer to the question "how do I budget our spending?". Actually, I found out that isn't the question I should be considering....I should be asking "How do I STICK to a budget?" because I have created literally HUNDREDS of budgets over the years, but we are still here barely getting by, living paycheck to paycheck and wallowing in debt.

There are thousands of websites out there, all with their associated experts, that promise they have the answer. And for only $29.95 they will share the answer with you.....I am super cautious about this kind of thinking because anyone who is in trouble with money shouldn't be spending money to learn how to save money.

Last year at this time I created several spreadsheets to do an analysis of our monthly expenses and spending. I did just fine CREATING these, but I am at a loss as to how to TRACK these numbers. I have used MS Money in the past and it never seemed to work for me and today a website pointed out WHY.....it is focused on showing you where you came from and screwed up rather than planning for where you are going. Kind of like driving while only looking in the rearview mirror. What I really need is something equivalent to the old "envelope budget"; once the envelope is empty, you don't spend anymore. So today I went on a hunt. I found a couple of promising pieces of "software" that may help with this solution.

One is called "Mvelope" and is an online product that works by downloading your bank transactions everyday and then you drop them into the appropriate "envelope" on the screen. The biggest draw back is that it involves a monthly fee. But after some investigation, it doesn't work with my bank. Bummer.

The second and most promising at this point is called "You Need A Budget" or "YNAB Pro". What this one does is function like a check book register for several virtual accounts all at the same time. A one time fee is all it needs to be up a running. Biggest draw back....having to manually enter ALL transactions. I barely have the discipline to download into MS Money each month so I don't know how well this would work. On the other hand, in MS Money I do have to assign each transaction to a category and then accept it so I am almost doing the same thing.

Basically, this financial wellbeing thing is going to take several forms of analysis. We will start with the budget portion, and then work on the debt repayment portion. We HAVE to get our spending under control and that means that I am going to have to turn into a budget Nazi. Scott is not going to like that concept but at this point we are spinning our wheels. I just hope that we can keep treading the financial waters long enough to find solid footing again.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things we are doing really well. We have a rainy day fund, we have a long-term savings fund, we have an account that we regularly contribute to for Caleb's college savings. But we also have to use over draft protection every month because we are running so tight to the limit. As of right this minute, we only have $0.08 in our main checking account. Payday is tomorrow, but we are going to have to use ODP again and we just keep getting further toward the deep-end of the pool.

Toddler from Hell

Who took my son and how do I get the real one back? The last few days Caleb has become a mega brat and I have no idea how to counter act it. He refuses to do ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING that he is told or asked to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah....I can hear everyone out there laughing because he is 2 and that is what 2 year-olds do. But seriously, there has to be some strategy that addresses things I can do instead of standing there with my mouth hanging open. Cause I know that ain't workin'!

Here's the scenario:
Me: Caleb, come eat dinner with Mommy and Daddy
Caleb: NO! Me watch Blues Clues.
Me: I paused Blues Clues and you can finish watching after dinner.
Caleb: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
Me: If you don't come eat dinner right now, I am going to turn the TV off for the night.
Caleb: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
Me: (shuts off TV)
Caleb: (begins screaming fit)
Me: (goes and sits down at the table to eat dinner)
Caleb: (continues screaming fit)
** 30 minutes pass **
Me: (still trying to finish dinner, but now my nerves are shot and I am beginning to think about tranquilizers....for me)
Caleb: (still whining about wanting Blues Clues and won't come to table)
Me: Caleb, you can choose not to eat now, but if you do then you can't have anything else. No snacks, no ice cream, no chocolate.
Caleb: Me go upstairs.
Me: Do you want to go upstairs and put your pajamas on?
Caleb: Yes.
*** we go upstairs and put pajamas on ***
Caleb: Now me eat ice cream! (Note: usually if he asks for ice cream we tell him he has to get into his PJs first)
Me: No, since you didn't eat dinner you don't get ice cream or candy or chocolate or crackers.
Caleb: Go downstairs.
*** we go downstairs and he immediately starts eating his VERY cold dinner with enthusiasm. Then he gets to watch Blues Clues and have a small amount of ice cream ***

Did I do the right thing? Should I have forced him to sit at the table with us? I tried not to give him attention as a reward for bad behavior, but it is hard to ignore him in full tantrum. He ended up getting EVERYTHING he wanted, from the TV show to the ice cream, all because it ate 2 pieces of chicken and 4 green beans. Grrrr.....who makes up the rules for these dang situations anyway. I just wish I was given the play book before the battle even began.

Recovery

OMG, I have never been so sick in my whole life. I went to bed Thursday night and I felt 100% fine. Tired, but fine. When I woke up at 6:30 the next morning I wanted to die. My fever was at 102° and rising, the body aches were horrible and I was swallowing fire. I basically passed back out and woke up again around 10:00 and now my fever was 104° and I was also vomiting. Great. Beautiful. There was no way I was going to be able to keep anything in my tummy to help bring the fever down and there was no one I could call. I just had to wait until Scott got home so that he could take me to the doctor. By 5:30 my fever was 104.6° and I was so dehydrated that I was beginning to hallucinate. The fever broke late that night but I spent the rest of the weekend in bed trying to recover.

As a result, I didn't see my family the whole weekend, so I don't really have much to say. I am still a little wobbly this morning, but I don't have to do a lot of moving around to do my job so here I am at work. The commute in was a little weird this morning with such a fuzzy head and all the snow, but I made it.

CAR WASH MISHAP and other adventures

So in the spirit of my new blog, I am going to relate one of the many funny stories that I don't want to forget.

It all happened last night beginning at around 8:00 PM. After dinner, we decided to take my DS to the car wash (he is 2 and they fascinate him). The car was super dirty (welcome to winter in WI) and needed a good scrub. So we fill up the truck with gas, grab a gallon of milk and then go get in line for the automatic car wash. We are 5th in line, which means that we have about a 20 minute wait. No bid deal, DS is happy and we haven't spent this much time together as a family in weeks. When it is our turn, we pull into the building and the wash cycle starts. Undercarriage blast...check. Pre-soak...check. Apply soap solution....check. High pressure rinse...hose blows right of the nozzle, car wash broken. Yeah. There we sit with a soapy car and an unhappy DS. DH runs inside to tell them the thing broke and the cashier gives us the money back. However, we still have soap all over our car. We then drive 3 miles north to the next car wash place, wait in line for ANOTHER 25 minutes and then put in the money. We held our breath the whole time but we came out with a VERY clean car.

DS was so tired he fell asleep on the way home and he got to sleep in his clothes since I didn't want to wake him up to get him into PJs.

Caleb's favorite phrases lately are:

• "Oh, MAN!" (he uses this when he doesn't get his way but is done arguing about it)
• "Right back" (this is said with his little finger in the air on his way into another room)
• "Me eat chocolate?" (this one seems to be pretty constant. Quite the sweet tooth, huh?)

Caleb also has started to negotiate with us. He isn't quite 2.5 and he is already proposing alternate scenarios that would work better for him. Example: we were on our way to the doctor and all the way he was trying to convince me that I could go to the doctor and he would stay home with Dad and play with his toys. Too funny!

And the final one for the moment: Last week Caleb was stalling going to bed. You know, asking for stories, water, going potty, whatever it took. The one that mad me laugh was that he ran into the bathroom saying he had to "Check his feet". He runs into his bathroom steps on the scale and looks down at his feet, just like Mommy and Daddy do. Too sweet! Made me chuckle all night.

Initial Post

Why is the first post always the hardest? I never know what to say. How about I start with the intention of this blog.

Every time I look at my life and how fast it is flying by I think that I should be recording some of the mundane but special things that happen every day. But I never have the time or energy to write them down on paper each evening. The dedication simply escapes me. So I am going to try doing it electronically. Our life is pretty simple and definitely not exciting when you look at it from the outside, but I still want to record some of the milestones that we all reach.

My small family consists of my 2 year old son, Caleb, my DH Scott and our dog, Ruby the Vizsla. My name is Sara and I am 30 years old. I am a civil engineer by training and a cube rat in practice. We live in Wisconsin and plan on being here a long time. Lived in Michigan for a while and it just wasn't for us.

That is it. Our whole life in a few words. I hope to keep these records simple and relate some of the funny stuff that our precocious toddler says and does. I want to hang on to every memory and silly thing so that I can scrapbook and journal things more efficiently.

Welcome to my world.