August financial checkup

No matter what drew you to my blog it all has one common underlying theme.

money.

Whether your goal is to learn how to make your ends meet or learn how to save more on your own personal stuff so you can give more to the community or whether you are looking to improve your lifestyle. All are worthy causes.

I started on this journey of saving like the dickens by reading one blog in particular: Money Saving Mom. aka Crystal Paine.

I found her through my good friend and cousin Candy. Candy really opened my eyes to how it was possible to give when you don't have a lot of money to do so. She and her husband have four kids and her husband's work cut his hours last year. They still managed to survive AND because she was so savvy with her spending she was able to create "The shelf" which was her stockpile.

She did the most amazing thing with her stockpile though. If someone in her church or in her town lost their job when the economy was really slumping...She put together a basket of necessities to help them get by and took it to them. I was at her house one day and one of her teenage cousins came over. He asked about razors and she went and grabbed one off the shelf for him. Talk about giving! This was a Gilette Fusion (or comparable razor!) She is a one woman giving machine! So you can blame her for my starting this blog. :)

Candy got me started shopping like this at Walgreens and then when i came back to nashville, Candy recommended I start with www.moneysavingmom.com

Money Saving Mom - Crystal was recently featured in the Nashville parents magazine along with 5 other moms who blog about saving money.

Not only is Crystal extremely savvy with her spending but she also listens to Dave Ramsey and follows Financial Peace. (She also teaches it in the town where she lives!!)

She posted today about her financial accomplishments in August. Go here to read about them. One thing that is really cool about Crystal and her husband is they plan to pay %100 down for their house they buy!!! They are currently at 65% ( They started August at 57.xx%!!!!!!)

My August has not been what it could have been due to many things. Life got in the way of shopping and honestly? That's how it should be. I don't measure my financial accomplishments by how much I saved though I really should. I measure my accomplishments by how much i was able to give. So that's why I have mixed feelings about August.

I really should create a budget and actually stick to it. Here are things I need to do better with:

Phone plan is on verizon ppaid now which is unlimited phone calls to and from other vzn customers. Should switch it to boost mobile for unlimited text & phone calls. Thing that sucks is I have to buy a whole new phone!!!! but I'd save at the very least 10.00 a month since right now i'm going through more than I care to think about a month.

Switch to cloth diapers - more frugal, better for environment - what more could I want?

Live greener - I need to recycle more things and work on my compost piles. (yes you read that right with an S at the end) I am intrigued by the idea of urban chickens. (am i the only one disturbed that the URL urbanchicken.com takes you to a BABYSITTING SITE?!)

I need to come up with a way to create more income.