For those of you who didn’t make it through my last post, 5 Genius Ways to Save Money on Toilet Paper, you will be happy to know that it was entirely an April Fools’ joke. I have not gone off the deep end. We don’t ration toilet paper, make our own, or any of those other ideas. I did have a really fun time writing about it though and I’m glad I had some of you going! 🙂
My due date is coming up in a couple of days! I’m usually late, so I figure I’ve got at least a week left. I have lots of loose ends that I’d like to tie up before the baby comes, so unlike most women who are 9 months pregnant, I’m in no rush to have this baby. I just started using Instagram a couple weeks ago, so I’ll probably post some pictures when he or she (we’re waiting to find out the gender) is born. Feel free to follow me if you’re on Instagram.
Debt Repayment
During March, we put $2,876 toward our student loans! Our beginning of the month payment went toward our student loans like normal. The end of the month payment (and all of our payments in the coming months) went toward the 0% APR balance transfer that we’re using to save money on interest.
Income
Our total net income for March was $4,410. Since we live on last month’s income, this is income that we haven’t touched yet. We will budget and spend it in April.
Regular Income– $2,972 This is Mr. SixFiguresUnder’s current take-home pay. For more details on his income, see here or here.
Blog Income– $1,160 This is the income I actually received this month (minus my blogging expenses), which means I earned it a month or two ago (payments always lag a month or two). Taxes are not taken out yet.
Etsy Income– $133 Partway through the month I put my shop on vacation mode. I’m taking a maternity leave from Etsy for a while. The thought of having an influx of orders when I could be having a baby any day now was stressing me out. It seems like my customers either place orders months in advance, or want it done by Friday.
Pet-Sitting Income– $145 I’m actually not really an animal person at all, but when my friend went out of town, I offered to take care of her cats, bunny, and gecko. I also got her mail and did a couple of other odd jobs while she was gone.
Spending
Each month we budget down to zero using last month’s income. Our spending in March comes from the income we earned in February. In addition to the debt payment above, here’s how we spent money in March:
Tithing– $469 At the beginning of March, we paid a 10% tithe on the money we earned in February. You can read all about why we pay tithing even though we’re in debt.
Other Giving– $20 Other charitable donations we made.
Mortgage/Rent– $0 We don’t pay any rent living in my in-laws unfinished basement, but we still keep this category here so that you know we aren’t leaving anything out. Our alternative living arrangement not only frees up money in the budget to put toward debt, but it provides a constant reminder of our goal to get this debt paid off as fast as possible.
Internet– $270 Hooray for getting new internet! Did I mention that I’m excited about not having to budget my bandwidth anymore? I am! We paid $200 for the installation and the monthly cost is $70. My in-laws pay for all the other utilities, so we decided to take care of the internet costs ourselves.
Republic Wireless Cell Phones– $22 We both have smartphones through Republic Wireless (you can read my review here). With tax, each phone (with unlimited talk, text and WiFi data) is around $11. You really can’t beat the price and service they offer.
Health Insurance– $156 We have an ACA health insurance plan. We had a private, high deductible plan back when those were allowed. You can read about how the ACA changed that.
Car Insurance– $97 We have auto insurance through USAA for our two older vehicles (both 1997) with a $250 deductible.
Renters Insurance– $14 We also have our renters insurance through USAA. It doesn’t cost much and it’s really great to have when you need it.
Food– $310 We were a little on the high side for groceries this month, for no reason in particular. Being pregnant, I do tend to be a little more impulsive about food.
Gas– $470 Part of living in the boonies with free rent means that my husband commutes at least an hour each way to work, so our gas spending is high. Plus, with weekly doctor’s appointments for me, I’ve been driving more than usual. Thankfully gas prices is starting to go down again.
Fun– $2 The kids and I went to Jamba Juice when there was a buy one, get one free coupon. I used the coupon in conjunction with a gift card that had a balance remaining. The gift card covered almost all of the purchase, but I had to pay a little out of pocket.
Household– $74 We were definitely higher than normal in our household spending in March. This includes $28 for electronically filing our taxes. The funny (well, annoying) thing is that our electronic submission actually got rejected because of a complication with a first-time home buyer credit from 2008, so it looks like we’ll have to paper file them after all.
Gifts– $32 We went to a wedding reception and I put together a cute gift with all sorts of cleaning supplies. I’ll do a post on it eventually. I also bought some books for our daughter’s birthday at the beginning of the month.
Clothing– $7 I got a few kids things at the thrift store on half-off day.
Medical– $68 Some co-pays for my husband and me.
Car Repair– $109 Remember back to when my husband hit the bear with his car back in October? It really messed up the headlight wiring. It was fixed at one point, but it’s been out for a while. He finally took it in to be fixed.
Law Practice– $134 In addition to my husband’s law practice management software subscription, he had to pay Bar Association dues this month.
I think that pretty much covers our spending for March! If you missed the 2014 Annual Spending Totals Report, you’ll have to check it out. It was actually really fun to put together and see how our spending looks on a larger scale.
How did your finances go in March? How are you doing on your 6-month goal?
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Linked to One Project at a Time, Thrifty Thursday, The Thrifty Couple
Your nearly half way there–you go girl!
And congratulations in advance, we’ll all be excited to hear about the new addition.
Blessings,
Thanks Deborah! It’s exciting to be approaching half way!
I didn’t realize you were pregnant. Congratulations!
Yep! Well, she’s born now! 🙂
I came across your blog today and I am blown away- you are doing an aamzing job! Our family paid off $60,000 in student loans, vehicle cost and immigration fees. It was SO hard but it has been a great feeling to have all of that behind us. I look forward to reading more about your journey.
Good luck with your delivery I hope it goes smoothly for you.
Thanks Christina! That’s awesome that your family paid off so much debt! I bet it does feel amazing! I can’t wait! 🙂
Hi Stephanie, You are an inspiration for me. We had lot of debt but we are trying to pay back as soon as we can. I was a stay home mom and my husband make a lot of money in his construction business but we spend and managed the business terrible, we never have a clue about where the money go. We learned the hard way. Since last year I find a job nothing special just the minmimum wage of 11.00 dollars an hour. My job is part- time but it help us a lot. We had 95.845 in debt but every month we paid something. I want to be more dedicate , confident and learn how to budget our groceries. I always spend alot of money in food. we cut the clothing and the facials ant the 4-5 weeks hair cuts also we buy our clothes in department stores and Gap and Old Navy, HM and Loblwas. We eat at home or take a lunch bag. Thank You for your ideas and inspiration. If you did I can too. I have a very personal question. Sorry if I ask You this. How do you make money writing a blog. I never knew that it is possible. Does someone sponsor you or give you comissions in some ways. Sorry for this question so noisey.
HI Ruth! It sounds like you are doing a lot to get rid of your debt! Good for you!
I’m happy to answer your question (not personal at all). There are lots of ways to make money with a blog. I make money from the ads you see on the sidebar. Google Adsense is one of the first ways most people monetize their blogs. I also earn some commissions though affiliate links. For example, if I recommend a product on Amazon and a reader clicks through and makes a purchase, then I get a small commission. Some bloggers have sponsors or do occasional sponsored posts. You can also sell your own products (like ebooks, courses, etc) through your blog.
A book that does an excellent job of explaining it all is How To Blog For Profit: Without Selling Your Soul
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Just found your blog today. I LOVE reading the breakdown of other peoples’ budgets! How exciting to be almost halfway to your goal of debt-free! I’m excited to check out the rest of your blog. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by Rachel! It is exciting to be almost halfway done with our debt!
I have to say, you had me going with the TP. I was so excited to finally find a way to not spend so much. That was a great April Fools Joke. I also learned something, because I had no idea people were using cloth wipes and that it was even a thing. Love your blog, but never comment. This is my first time. LOL!
Thanks for commenting Deborah! I’m glad you enjoyed the April Fools joke. I was surprised when I first heard about the “family cloth” idea a couple years ago. Works of some people, but it’s not for us!
Are you planning to pay for the educations of your children? College costs just keep going up. These days you need to start college funds when the kids are small.
We probably will save to *help* them with their education expenses, but it’s not on our radar right now. We’re pretty one-track when it comes to paying off our debt right now. Then it will be the down-payment for a house. Then we will branch out into other savings. Even though we understand the benefits of starting early, right now we need to focus and knock out our debt.
Congrats on the new baby! 🙂
Would you be willing to do a post on budgeting for wedding gifts? Or finding budget-friendly gifts that are appropriate? I find myself invited to a wedding or a shower almost every weekend in the summer! I always bring a gift, and those costs add up!
I really have fun putting together frugal (but fun/cool/classy) gifts, so that is definitely a post that’ll be coming up in the future! 🙂
March was the best debt repayment month around here. I paid off $3792.64 in debt! I could not be more pleased! That gets me right on track or even a little ahead of where I wanted to be at this point in my debt repayment process.
Thanks for sharing your updates! Congratulations on your newest addition. I hope that everything goes smoothly!
That’s great Amy! Getting ahead of where you want to be is amazing! Keep up the momentum and you’ll keep surprising yourself! 🙂
Love your post and transparency. i have learned so much from you and am reading all your posts with great interest. I pray for you daily.
You are so sweet Diane! Thank you for being so kind and supportive! 🙂
I read your posts in the U.K.
Good luck with the impending arrival.
Thanks Holly!
Ok, you *totally* got me on the TP post – lol! I read it and thought, “Gurl… you are HARD. CORE. Also, that was prolly TMI.” 😀 #yesIhaveSUCKERtatooedonmyforehead
I was curious about your internet situation. May I be nosy and ask who you went with? Our internet is LAME and expensive to boot. Ugh. My (admittedly cursory) research for our area only turns up internet bundled with cable, but we cut the cord/cable a year ago and want to keep it that way. Thanks!
We went with a local provider– like a one-man gig. We are in the boonies so we don’t have many options. His in-laws happen to live out in the boonies too, so he has towers out here.
My in-laws have tried just about everything available out here. Our 2-year contract with Verizon just ended. Hooray! We have been planning this switch for about 8 months now, but the early termination fee made it more economical to ride out the rest of the contract (and budget bandwidth). This is what we had: http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/lte-internet-installed/. It was fast, but the limited bandwidth was a killer. And it was expensive for what you get (10GB-$60, 20GB-$90, 30GB-$120). What’s the point of high speed if you don’t have much bandwidth?
Thanks! 🙂 I’m on the prowl, wish me luck – lol!
We have internet from the cable company, we just don’t pay for the other parts of the “bundle”.We get about one mailing a week and one phone call a month telling us how much we would save if we started paying them an extra $45/month for TV we don’t want. We’re not in town but not all the way in the boonies. Our friends a couple miles down the road have totally different (and not as good) options.
Nosy question: if you bought a house in 2008, what happened? Did you sell it to move in with your in laws?
Ha ha– that’s not nosy! 🙂 We bought a house when we moved to the midwest for law/business school. We knew we would only be there 4 years and decided to buy instead of rent. We bought a 925 sq ft house that was move-in ready. We loved it! We took good care of it and did a few small updates. Thankfully we were able to sell our house quickly after school before we moved out to CA. We had put 20% down and had a 15 year mortgage, so we had some equity in the house. After our moving expenses, the remaining chunk went toward our student loans when we decided to get serious about them (and this blog was born).
I always love reading your debt repayment posts. They are so inspiring to me! I may have to check out Smarter Bucks soon. Do you have any tips for getting the most out of the program?
Your best bets are the cash back for shopping online and the referral bonuses. I don’t do surveys since I rarely qualify.
Congrats on another good month 🙂 and good luck with the impending birth – hope all goes to plan 🙂
Thanks Nicola! We’re excited!
I’m so excited for you…. that new bundle of joy will be here any day! I just found out that I am expecting too! Yay!
Nice job on the debt repayment!
CONGRATS Monica! That’s so exciting!!
By the way, have you guys considered trying to refinance through SoFi or someone else? It’s less about getting a lower interest rate, and more about not having to deal with your weird loan servicer. I don’t know if your income/debt level would qualify you for a refinance, but it’s something to think about as you make more progress maybe, even if it wouldn’t work now.
I have had other people suggest SoFi to us as well, so we looked into it a while back. Right now we are choosing to keep our loans where they are because of the benefits of having them be federal loans. For example, with IBR, we don’t have a minimum payment at all right now. Of course we are still paying as much as we can, but since we aren’t putting any money elsewhere (like a car replacement fund, or a medical fund) if something comes up, we may need to have a month with a low (or no) payment. Not having a minimum payment on our student loans also frees us up to do riskier things like we’re doing with the balance transfer, which makes the interest $0.
I just love reading your debt repayment reports and I can’t wait to see and hear about your newest bundle of joy! 🙂
Thanks for always being so encouraging Jessi! I’m so excited to hear that you’re expecting too!
As usual, super impressive. I love how much you’re able to put towards loans every month. Good luck with the impending baby!
Thanks! 🙂