Fortunely our family no longer has any credit card debt. We have been blessed to learn our lesson many, many years ago. I hope the information in this article and/or the eBook will offer help to many who are struggling with consumer debt.

PS Please, please, please heed Tawra’s warning about maxing-out your cards again.

Winning the Credit Card Game
By Michael and Tawra Kellam
http://www.LivingOnADime.com

We were able to pay off $20,000 in debt in 5 years on $22,000 a year income by taking advantage of low interest rate credit card offers. We saved $67,000 in interest on that $20,000 by using low or no interest offers to our advantage.
All it took was a few 5 minute phone calls. Making the calls and getting lower credit card rates can be a great help to getting your debt paid off fast. The only catch is you have know the game and how to play it.
Please note: This is only going to work if you have your spending under control! If you don’t, then don’t bother messing with it. In other words, if you freed up some credit and then couldn’t resist going out and maxing-out your cards again, then don’t waste your time with this because you will make your situation worse.

Step 1: Don’t become overwhelmed by the amount of your debt. Take it one day at a time. You have no doubt heard the saying, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Concentrate on the bite you’re chewing on right now. Don’t worry about contributing to your kid’s college fund when your house is about to be foreclosed.

Step 2: Know What You Owe. List all debts (credit cards, loans, etc.). Be sure to list creditor, balance, interest rate, and minimum payment. This is found on your statements you receive each month.

Step 3: Deal with Creditors. Start answering the phone and dealing with the creditors! Better yet call them FIRST as soon as you know you can’t pay a bill! If you call them as soon as you realize you can’t pay a bill in full, they are much more willing to work with you than if you just don’t pay it. Call them and tell them that you can’t pay the bill in full this month and why (lay off, medical problems, whatever). Ask if you can spread it out over a period of time. Then, ALWAYS PAY SOMETHING.

Step 4: Ask for a lower interest rate. Most people will find that at least one or two of their credit cards will reduce their rates if they simply ask. If you ask a company to lower your rate and they say “no,” don’t take it personally. Remember, it’s not personal-it’s just business. Call the next company.

If companies won’t reduce your interest rate because your credit is poor, make all your payments on time for 6 months and then ask again.

****

Announcing Our Newest e-Book!
“Winning the credit card game”

 
The question we hear most often is, “How do I get a 0% credit card and use it to get out of debt?”
We show you how in the “Winning The Credit Card Game” e-book!

Learn more here.

How it worked for us:
Once we got our spending under control and paid down a little debt, we began to get better balance transfer offers.
The more we paid off, the lower the interest rates we paid because companies started competing for our business. We were able to finance our $40,000 business loan, buy a car, and pay off medical bills all at 0% to 2% interest.
(Remember, though, if you’re trying to pay off debt or especially if you don’t have your finances under control, you don’t want to buy or finance anything.)
It is really quite simple to transfer credit card balances. It generally took me about 10 minutes every six months. We were able to save over $67,000 in interest with 30 minutes of phone calls.
If we had paid the minimum payment at 21% interest, then we would have paid over $69,000 in interest.

Step 5: Keep it under control!

Don’t be late on your payments!

Don’t make purchases on a balance transfer card.

Don’t buy any “frills” that companies offer with your card. Some companies will try to sell you on the “benefits” of their cards.

Step 6: Keep Track. If you use these “limited time” offers to transfer balances like we did, you have to be really careful that you keep track of when the offer expires. You won’t save money if you transfer to a low rate card and then forget that the rate has gone back up. I keep one small notebook for writing down my balance transfer information.

Step 7: Pay it off! Pay minimum payments on all of your debts except the one you are trying to pay off. Then pay ALL the recently freed money and anything extra you get along the way to the debt you want to pay off first.

The idea is to completely eliminate debts, one by one. Once you pay off the first debt, take all the money you were paying toward it and add it to the next debt. This creates a snowball effect that makes it possible to pay much faster than you might have thought at first.

For more information on this topic, including the step by step process we used, check out the new Winning the Credit Card Game e-book here.

 
Visit us for money saving tips and free recipes!

www.LivingOnADime.com

This is a great offer for Photo Books.  These are extremely easy to make.  Basically it’s just a click and drag of a photo onto a page.  You find the template you like with the background that suits your taste or a theme for the picture. Add a title and some text for a caption or journal a short story if you like to write. Create several pages like these and submit them with a simple “click”.  Picaboo will print, bind, and ship you the book. These make extra special holiday gifts for parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, coaches, teachers and just anyone special in your life.  

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While web-surfing I found a site where you great rebates sent to your PayPal account when you shop online with certain businesses.  These are national retailers, (Target, Office Depot, Sears, Dell, and hundreds more).  I was pleasantly surprised to find many of my favorite stores including the store where I purchase my make-up. Get $5 in your account just for signing up. It’s worth noting though that they do not make a PayPal deposit until your account has at least $5.01, (With Christmas coming up that shouldn’t take long. Some companies rebate up to 10% or more of your total purchase). If you use this link I get referral credits.  Ebates.com  

Have a GREAT day!

Recently KC started taking college classes. She is really struggling and feeling like a failure plus she’s not interested in taking anymore classes in the future. She asked me if we could talk to somebody about her difficulties. She said, “If I know what’s wrong then maybe it can be fixed”. After some discussion she realized that there’s no pill or cure for what’s going on but I promised I would talk with someone. So I did, talk with someone that is. My mother sees a neuropsychologist from time to time for testing. Mom has Mild Cognitive Impairment and the testing has been done to first, diagnosis and second to gauge the effects of the meds she takes. Sorry, got off track. Anyway, I talked with mom’s doctor and she encouraged me to bring KC in for a consult. She did tell me ahead of time that even having answers may not settle things for my daughter. According to her, a life-long struggle causes a person to compensate. At 17 years, KC probably has done all the compensating and coping possible. Makes sense.

Yesterday KC had her consult. The interview was interesting. The doctor asked questions that first called into question my daughter’s habits and personality. Something I did not expect but understand why it’s necessary. This doctor doesn’t know my daughter and she needed to evaluate her from all angles. Is this kid failing to pay attention, is she lazy, apathetic, or disorganized? If not, then why does she have trouble remembering what she read without having to reread the material? Why can’t she correctly transfer information from a book to a piece of paper? Why does it take so long for her to answer a question that she is reading but if asked the question directly her verbal response is correct? I certainly can’t answer these questions and my daughter wants satisfaction. By the end of the session I think the doctor had an idea of KC’s personality. I believe she saw KC for the hard working and determined young lady that she is.

We’ve decided to go ahead with the testing. I hope and pray we will find solutions, but realize, as the doctor said before, KC probably does all she can to cope. On an extremely positive note, just with the one visit KC has decided, on the advice of the doctor that she will at least hold off on her decision to quit until after her testing is completed. KC has also been resistant to letting her father or I help her study. She seems to think that asking for help is an admission of failure. The doctor was able to convince KC that everyone needs help from time to time with school and family is the best place to begin receiving it. She also complimented KC on her articulation, telling her it’s been a very long time since a 17 year old communicated with her on an adult level. She even went so far as to tell her she could see her arguing in a court of law. This was a definite ego boaster for KC.

The rest of the evaluation, the actually testing, won’t be completed until the week of Thanksgiving. I’ll let you know how things go.

Blessings

Susan

Leftover Halloween Candy
by Tawra Kellam
To prevent sugar shock, have a big bag of popcorn waiting when everyone comes back from Trick or treating. It’s easy to fix and will counteract some of the sweet stuff.
Here are sone tips for using all of that extra Halloween Candy!
You can freeze candy up to a year in the freezer.
Don’t forget to buy discounted Halloween candy for Christmas stockings and parties. Most kids don’t care if their Christmas candy is orange and black or if it has silver and gold wrappers instead of red and green.
Use leftover Halloween candy in Christmas baking and for making gingerbread houses.
It is easier to cut candy into pieces if you freeze it first.
Break Butterfinger candy bars into peanut butter cookie dough.
Sprinkle chopped chocolates on a white or chocolate frosted cake or use them to top ice cream and cheesecake.
Mix leftover chopped chocolates into cake mixes.
Cut a hole in the center of rolled out sugar cookie dough. Place a hard colored candy into the center. Bake as usual. The candies will create a stained glass look.

Since we are about to enter the holiday season I thought I would share info on some programs that benefit others when you shop. I’ve found two ways to shop online and give at the same time.  First is www.goodshop.com and www.goodsearch.com.  This program gives about a penny for every search and a percentage of their profit from every sale to a non-profit.  There are hundreds of non-profits listed and you’re bound to find a group or two that tugs at your heart strings.  You might even find a local group to aid.  All my Ebay shopping and several other online purchases are made by going to GoodShop first.  All my searches, (I do a great deal of online searches each day), are done through GoodSearch.  I designate my local homeschool support group as “My Charity”.  Once a year the group gets a small check from GoodSearch/GoodShop.

Another online company where shopping will aid others is Goodwill Too!, (www.goodwilltoo.com).  This is an honest to goodness Goodwill store in St Petersburg, FL.  They sell new and donated items. All donated items are labeled as such.

Hope you find some deals and save some bucks.

Since that night I’ve loved freezer meals. They are simple, tasty, and time saving. I got smart and decided to stop paying someone else to buy the food, chop the veggies, and bag the meat. Now I do all that myself and I can add “cost effective” to the list of reasons why I prefer to put up freezer meals. On average the cost of a meal is no more than $2 per person. Sometimes less, sometimes more, it always depends upon the type of meat used and what’s on sale at the time of prep.

So far I haven’t acquired the savvy or know-how for creating freezer meal menus. I’ve found an EXTREMELY inexpensive source for them at Saving Dinner. This website has many resources for saving money and time in the kitchen. You can find menus for as little as $2.95 for five. And once you buy them they are yours forever. Freezer meal menus are available for 5, 10, or 20 meals. I’ve found the more meals I put up at a time, the more I save. However, in the beginning I also discovered that starting out slow, using just a five meal menu, was best for me. I learned the entire process working in smaller units. Once I assembled a couple of the Five for the Freezer menus I was ready for 20. Bring on the food processer.

Here’s how the positives of freezer cooking breakdown for me. The cost savings come in the bulk purchasing of items and the elimination of waste. The menus tell you exactly how much to buy for the meals you are preparing. I’ve also learned how to use my menus and the sales at the local stores to my advantage. If chicken’s on sale, you’ll find me assembling chicken meals that weekend. The time savings come from the prep time. Yes, it takes a little while to chop your veggies and organize your work station but you will find that chopping 3 peppers takes only a little more time than chopping one. Plus, you’re only doing it once, not three or four different times a week prior to fixing dinner. Clean up after dinner only involves the items used in cooking. Not the entire knife collection, set of measuring spoons, and cutting boards. The meals are tasty. Saving Dinner’s menus contain dishes like Spicy Montreal Grilled Steaks, Swiss Chicken, Grilled Chicken with Ginger, Cashew Steak, and Honey Grilled Pork Chops. Can you tell we like white meat? Don’t fret though if you’re a meat and potato family. There’s plenty of beef recipes, and of course comfort food too. You can find stews, casseroles, and even crock-pot menu items. Putting together 5, 10, or even 20 meals is simple.
Decide what menu you want to use, buy the food, chop, set up a work station, (kitchen table works just fine), pull out the spices from your cabinet, grab some plastic wrap and freezer quality storage bags, and get assembling.

Lastly, remember these are not precooked meals that you throw in the freezer to collect ice crystals for six months. These are preassembled meals that are ready to thaw and be cooked. It’s just like pulling out meat from the freezer except this meat is seasoned and contains all the fixins’ to make it a main dish.

If you purchase any of the freezer meals, please email me and I’ll forward you my list of the money and time savers I’ve picked up from using these freezer meals.

The holiday’s are coming and now is a great time to stock your freezer with meals so you’ll spend less time in the kitchen and more time with your family. Grab your sale ads and head over to Saving Dinner’s website.

Blessings

Susan

The free project is available at my favorite frugal site, Living on a Dime. While your there be sure to sign up for their free newsletter.

Let’s face it.  Most of us don’t live within our means.  Consumer debt from credit card usage is at an all time high, people have purchased houses they can’t afford to own, and our desire for the “good life” no longer means keeping up with the Jones’. Now we try to keep up with the Brad Pitts, Madonnas, and Katie Holmes’; all at the expense of our savings and retirement accounts. With savings accounts being closed and retirement plans drying up, the future is looking a little bleak.  For many of us big changes have to be made in our spending habits.  These changes don’t have to be painful to be drastic.  Sometimes it’s changes in the little things that make all the difference.

Start with your grocery shopping habits.

Did you know that many of us spend as much as 25% of our grocery bill on beverages?  Expensive fruit juices, sodas, coffee, and bottled water can quickly max out our food budget.  Maybe giving up just one regular beverage purchase could put a small dent in your grocery bill.  Our family has cut way, way down on sodas and we never buy fruit juices.  

Can’t part with potato chips or other snacks, then try cutting out just one bag of chips from each shopping trip?  If you usually buy two, buy just one. Look at alternatives to packaged snacks. For instance, preparing popcorn can be a little time consuming but a bag of popcorn can last for weeks compared to a bag of chips that can easily be gone in one sitting.

Never ever go to the grocery store without your grocery list. Buy only what’s on the list and nothing else.  It’s hard but it can be done. Recently I heard of a mother and daughter who traded grocery lists each week. Just the lists, mom and daughter still paid for their own groceries, but mom shopped for daughter and daughter shopped for the mom.  Daughter is not going to throw an extra can of coffee in mom’s carts and vice versa.  It’s a great way to stick to your list if you can find someone to share in the project.

Shop only with cash and add as you go.  When you reach your limit you either have to stop or start putting back items. Oh, and only take the exact amount of cash you have budgetted for groceries.

Make a menu before you leave.  Use the sale ads to plan your shopping and create a menu that uses the items that are on sale. Menu planning and shopping for meals instead of just filling your pantry and fridge cuts down on waste and food spoilage.

Examine your daily habits.

Do you subscribe to a daily newspaper?  We do. Each day we received our local newspaper that was read from front to back over several cups of morning coffee.  I found out I could cut our bill nearly in half by getting just the weekend additions.  Our newspaper has a funny idea of what the weekend is, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday; but just cutting down to four editions a week from seven hasn’t resulted in any suffering.  I do miss my daily Sudoku but, I’m living through it. 

Are you paying for more cellphone minutes than you use?  Could cutting back to a plan with fewer minutes save you money?  We found that month after month we weren’t using hundreds of minutes on our family plan.  Seems the kids text more than they talk.  I cut back on minutes and saved about $30 a month. Before making any changes, be sure that your cellphone company doesn’t impose a financial penalty or require you to extend your plan.

Speaking of phones, do you pay for all the bells and whistles offered by your phone company? Do you really use call forwarding or three way calling? What about long distance? If your cellphone plan offers nationwide calling why pay extra for it on your landline? Are you even using your landline? I know many people who no longer have a home telephone. I don’t know that I could go that far but, I don’t have an extra anything on my phone bill and I probably pay less than half of what a full package of extras cost.

Never pay full retail.  Buy on sale or through resell.  Check prices and availability before you leave on that shopping trip. Many retail store’s websites now offer inventory checks for items at your local store. No need to make a trip for an item the store is out of. Buy clothing that is on sale or marked for clearance. I’m not a fashion hound and don’t mind wearing last season’s clothes.  I never even look at the clothing rack unless it says “sale” or “clearance”.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you but maybe some haven’t heard.  Run all your errands at once.  Group them together by area and just do it.  Try to incorporate as many activities into your regular routine as possible.  Buy stamps at the grocery store, fill up the car on your way to work, grab your dry cleaning after you leave the grocery store, do your banking via internet or on your way to another errand. Don’t make extra trips unless it’s an emergency. With careful planning and a little forethought you can save on gas, time, and wear and tear on your vehicle.

Sit down and make a list of areas where you can save money.  Try some of the ideas I’ve listed above plus examine your own habits. Can you find some small way to save just a little?  Remember, it’s the little things that count. 

Halloween on a Dime  

I promise to post the freezer cooking info just as soon as all the bugs are worked out of the links

Blessings

Susan

*******10/27/2008 Update – The links are working and the freezer meals blog has been posted.

Sticking to a Budget

In response to a recent Living on a Dime story about budgeting, Yvonne writes: My problem is not setting up a budget but sticking to a budget. Gas costs what it costs. Groceries – It is expensive to eat healthy. Do you have suggestions for how to live on a budget? We don’t do a lot of things but we seem to overspend our budget each month. And I know there is no way my husband is going to keep track of every penny he spends. Please help!

Tawra: This is a question that I receive frequently. Many people feel that the thought of budgeting is too daunting. My first thought is that if you set up a budget and can’t stick to it, either your budget, your spending or both are not realistic.

One thing I should mention up front is that there are several reasons why you might make a budget and how you handle your budget depends largely on why you have one. Here are the main two groups:

1. If you spend more money than you make, you may be making a budget to get your spending under control. If that is the case, your realistic options are to cut spending to fit within your income or to increase your income to cover your spending.
   
2. Some people create a budget just to create a plan for how they spend their money, even though they don’t have a problem with over-spending their income. If this is you, you have some leeway in your budget. Say your income is $5000 a month and your budget is for $4,000, allowing for $1000 savings each month. If this is the case, you can also choose to cut spending or increase your income, but you also have a third option. You might decide that $1000 savings is more than you can handle and cut your plan so that you expect to save only $500 and add the other $500 to your spending budget.
   

The reason why you are creating a budget determines the urgency of sticking to your budget. If you’re in the first group, you don’t have a lot of wiggle room. There is no good way to regularly spend more than you earn. If you do, everything will eventually, break down and it will impact all parts of your life. There is simply no choice but to live within your income or increase your income. If you’re in the second group, you have more freedom to choose to keep more “optional” budget items since you have not committed all of your available income.

Budgeting is not a precise thing, especially at first. In order for a budget to be effective, it has to accurately project your spending. The first time you make a budget, you will probably have to use your best guess for some things. Many people have no idea what they actually spend on food, entertainment and other more flexible budget areas. If you keep copies of utility bills and other expenses, your guess may be more accurate than another person’s guess. Even so, you will probably find out after the first month that some of your predictions in various areas are not accurate.

The solution to this problem is, after the first month, to re-evaluate your budget based on your spending. Ask yourself if the problem is that you disregarded the budget in certain categories and spent more than necessary or if the budget projection is not realistic. If you spend a certain amount of gas going to work each day, that is an expense that you can’t necessarily cut easily because your income comes from your job. If you feel that you must use the amount of gas you are using, you will need to adjust your budget to allow you to spend more on gas.

Even though I said you can’t necessarily cut the gas cost easily, most people usually do have options to reduce that cost. The question is, how important is it that you stay within this budget projection on gas? If you’d rather buy the gas than go to a movie, reduce your entertainment budget and increase your gas budget. If your budget is very tight and it accounts for every cent you earn, you may have to consider ways to reduce your gas cost. Even though “gas costs what it costs”, there are ways to reduce your consumption so you don’t use as much.

In our own situation, we used to think about something we wanted to buy at the store and then go get it right away. Now, we wait until we have many places to go that are near each other and make one trip out of it, unless it is a matter of life and death that we go now. It has been a challenge to our patience when we get excited about doing it “right now”, but we have saved a lot of money consolidating trips. Most people would be surprised to see how the mileage for “little trips” running errands adds up. If you drive to work by yourself each day, consider carpooling with someone else. We Americans don’t like the thought of that because it limits our feeling of independence, but if you work far from home, it can really save you a lot of money. If you live close to work, can you walk or ride a bicycle? Then you would get some of your exercise at the same time.

If your gas cost is high because you are involved in a lot of activities that require you to be in different places at different times of the day, consider whether you need to do all of those activities. If each of your kids are involved in a sport that costs $100 for three months, you also pay the cost to get them there and, if you’re busy enough not to be able to cook dinner, the cost of fast food is a direct result of that activity. If you do one such activity once a week and spend only $10 for fast food and $2.00 for gas each time, the entire three month activity cost is not $100, but $244. It is OK if that activity is important to you as long as you can afford to keep it in your budget.

There’s nothing wrong with increasing the amount you plan to spend in your budget as long as you can afford it. If you have only a set amount of income and are having trouble keeping your spending within that income, an increase in one budget area will mean that you will have to cut somewhere else. We know a family here in Kansas that thought that air conditioning was not essential when the temperatures were in the mid-90s and the humidity was high. They decided not to use the air conditioner, but they did not think buying delivered pizza and other convenience food was unreasonable. There is nothing wrong with that. We wouldn’t do it ourselves. It is just the choice they made. Regardless of how you make it work, income must outweigh spending.

We don’t recommend trying to keep track of every penny you spend. (Good news for your husband Some financial systems require you to keep every receipt for a pack of gum, but that is just not practical. It is too tedious and people just get frustrated doing it. If you are having trouble keeping track of spending in a given budget area, it might be useful to use an envelope system.

One of the biggest drains on a budget is “nickel and dime” spending — a quick stop for a pop at a convenience store or an impulsive magazine purchase. If you don’t know how much you spend in this area, put a set amount of money in an envelope for miscellaneous spending. Only make these purchases out of this envelope until the money is gone. This will help you get an accurate idea of how much you spend in that area.

Say you put $300 in the envelope and it is gone is ten days. That means you spend $30 per day on “miscellaneous” spending. (And you didn’t have to write down every purchase.) At this rate, you can plan to spend $900 a month on these things (I’m gasping at the thought .

If you want to limit spending in this area, put the money in an envelope and when it is gone, don’t allow yourself to spend any more on those things until the next month. If you’re accustomed to spending a lot more than your budgeted amount, this can be difficult. If your budget is not too tight, you might want to reduce the spending in that area over a few months so you don’t get discouraged.

If you feel your only option is to cut your spending but you are having trouble doing it, you will want to make sure you’re clear about “needs” and “wants”. The only real “needs” we have at a most basic level are food and shelter. Everything else is a “want”. All “wants” are negotiable at some level. We want to have a house with air conditioning. We don’t want to eat only beans. We believe it is important to have a car. If your “wants” are too important to give up, you must increase your income to make everything balance.

The problem we see the most is that most people who are having trouble with spending and debt want too many things they can’t afford considering their income. (Mike: I understand that. I’ve been there!) If you find yourself in this situation, it is easy to get irritated with having to make a choice to give up something you feel strongly about keeping.

We hope this helps! Good luck with your budget!

Michael and Tawra

Find more of Tawra’s Tightwad Tips at Living on a Dime

http://www.livingonadime.com/articles/sticking-to-budget.html?hop=susang101