I’m back from vacation and almost ready to get back to the real world…almost.
Today I have taken out my twists, did some putting away of things, and mostly…I’ve been searching the web like a mad woman! I have had ADHD of the web today and I’ve been scribbling away at my notebook with all that I’m finding because I have so many thoughts at once.
This post may be a little scatterbrained…but try to follow me lol…
I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but if you know me personally you know that I had the unpleasant unexpected expense of a new battery for my car. This expense occurred within a week of vacation. It was $160 that I did not intend on spending. That’s $160 taken away from vacation money. Downside to vacation is that {A} bills don’t take vacation and {B} money seems to flow freely out of your pocket. So needless to say, being broke now that vacation is over is not what I planned on. But alas, it is what it is.
Now that vacation is over, it’s time to turn my focus to the mission at hand: moving to Charlotte.
The ulitmate goal would be to be able to move by my birthday {beg of Nov} but overall as long as I’m moved by the end of the year I will be happy. Of course the sooner I move, the faster I have to come up with money. So today I’ve been jotting down some notes on what I’ve been researching as far as the initial moving costs will be. I like to aim higher, so assuming that we rent a 3 bedroom place…the most I would want to pay for rent is $1200 a month. Double that as up front costs to include deposit and that’s $2400 alone. Now realistically I would like to be way less than that, I’m thinking maybe $900 a month, but who knows. Then looking at the costs of getting cable and utilities set up, plus the costs of moving {for now I’m assuming a Uhaul} I’m looking at overall costs of around $3500. Yeah that’s a big number. It’s almost a full week for a family of four at Walt Disney World.
So what does that mean? It means it’s time to get to business. That means, no slacking on my couponing. I have to coupon like my life depends on it. It means no more eating out on my lunches. It means meal planning to stop spending unnecessary money. Do you know that it’s $15-$20 to feed a family of four at McDonald’s and that’s with the small happy meals? Smh. That’s not even counting when Brianna will start needing more food to be full… It’s just not worth the money to be eating junk. It means working overtime and pocketing all of my overtime and bonus money into my moving account. It means doing more things online to maximize my savings. Hubby will be working overtime and putting some of that towards moving too. Before long we will be at our goal. I’m also upping the amount of my check that will automatically go to my moving account substantially now that vacation is over. After the move, I’ll start saving towards our next vacation.
I have to get back to stockpiling as well. It really helps with overall saving and when my supplies are dwindled {like now} it makes me spend more money. The past couple of months I haven’t done so hot with my grocery trips as far as savings goes. So it all comes back to being disciplined with my coupon game. I have the energy and the motivation to get on top of it this weekend.
My focus will also be on clothing the kids and myself for as little as possible. Lately I’ve been the shrinking woman, so I will need to buy more clothes soon. My focus will be on building a more professional wardrobe. I’m going to do a huge shopping haul this upcoming weekend {tax-free weekend} for Brianna’s school uniforms and getting shoes and such, but otherwise there will be no unnecessary shopping. I’m going to decide if I’ll do a yard sale or something before the end of the summer to try to boost the moving account.
You will see many more posts about saving and reaching my goal. Many requests have come to me about helping to save, and I’m happy to oblige. Check out my ticker below that I will update often. SN: prior to my unexpected expense and vacation, I had over $200 saved up in my moving account. But once again, it will be a “hands-off” account.
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