Tag Archives: budgeting

Exchanging gifts with joint finances

My husband’s birthday is this Saturday, and I’ve been struggling to come up with a special gift for him that won’t blow our budget. Exchanging gifts with joint finances is tricky.

Our birthdays are 2 weeks apart, and we’re taking a trip to Seattle the week in between, so we both agreed to a very small gift budget. We considered skipping gifts for each other all together, but that just didn’t feel right. We enjoy choosing gifts for one another and exchanging. Our solution is to limit our gifts to something small and thoughtful.

When we first opened our joint account, we decided to keep separate personal accounts with a bit of money in them specifically for this purpose. The idea was that the personal accounts would be used for discretionary personal spending and gifts for each other. We didn’t plan on the personal accounts getting lumped in with our regular money. That’s kind of what happened, though.

Now I’m faced with two dilemmas: he’s requested ideas for what I’d like for my birthday, but I’ve kind of shut off my “want” mode for the past year. It’s easier to live frugally if I’m not constantly wanting things. You would think I’d have a ton of ideas built up over time, but I don’t. Everything I think come up with just seems so frivolous. Is it completely terrible that receiving gifts used to be a lot more fun when they were coming out of someone else’s budget?

I also have to figure out what to get for him. The problem is, when it comes to gift giving, I still struggle with the urge to go overboard. All of the ideas I’ve come up with are out of our price range. In short, I don’t want him to spend anything on my gift, but if I had it my way I’d way overspend on him. Funny how that works, huh?

So I’m asking you: Do you exchange gifts with your partner? If so, what kind of budget rules do you set? And how do handle the joint finances issue?

As a newlywed, I’d love to know how all of you handle all of this stuff.

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Menu Plan Monday & Grocery Round up: 9/20-9/26

This week was not as successful as last. Our grand total was $68! Bummer.

We’re entertaining some guests tonight, so a lot of the extra comes from a bigger, fancier than normal spinach lasagna that we’re making tonight. We also had to stock up on some staples like flour, peanut butter and jelly, soy sauce, tea bags and coffee filters.

I know – excuses, excuses. I’m consoling myself by reminding myself that grocery bills like this one have now become the exception instead of the rule. We’ve been within budget for the past three weeks, so I’m willing to cut myself some slack for going over.

Here’s our menu plan for the week:

Saturday: Spinach and four-cheese lasagna with salad and fresh garlic bread
Sunday: Roasted chicken with potatoes and green beans
Monday: Chicken quesadillas with refried beans
Tuesday: Leftovers/Sandwiches
Wednesday: French dip sandwiches
Thursday: Chinese style chicken and broccoli
Friday: Homemade pizza

As part of Menu Plan Monday’s Family Favorite edition, I’m also posting a recipe that’s been passed down from my mom. Her classic lasagna includes meat sauce, but we’ve adapted the recipe to be meat-free. It’s delicious. Hope you enjoy!

Spinach Lasagna

Classic Marinara Sauce:
1/2 of an onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 (14.5-ounce) can of diced tomatoes
1 (14.5-ounce) can of tomato sauce
1 (5- to 6-ounce) can of tomato paste
2 tablespoons of parsley
¼ teaspoon of sugar
¼ teaspoon of kosher salt
1 teaspoon of dried basil
½ cup of red wine

Cheese Filling:
3 cups of ricotta cheese
½ cup of Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon of parsley
1 teaspoon of oregano
1 package of frozen spinach, thawed and pressed to remove excess water

1lb. lasagna noodles
8 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese for sprinkling

Saute onions and garlic in 1 tbsp. olive oil. Add diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, parsley, salt, and basil. Stir until tomato paste is blended into sauce. Bring to a slight boil. Add red wine. Reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes.

In a large bowl, combine ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese, parsley, and oregano.

Thaw spinach in a microwave or stove top. When it’s cool enough to handle, put it in a clean kitchen towel and squeeze to remove excess water. Incorporate into ricotta cheese mixture.

Boil lasagna noodles for 10-15 minutes according to instructions on packaging.

Build lasagna in an 8×8 pan beginning with a small layer of sauce to avoid sticking. Lay down noodles with no gaps followed by cheese filling, sauce, mozzarella cheese, and Parmesan cheese. Repeat twice for a total of three layers. Top with a layer of sauce, mozzarella cheese, and Parmesan cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes until cheese is bubbly and beginning to brown. Allow to cool for 15 minutes before serving.

Serves 4-6 people.

If you’d like to make this recipe my mom’s way (with ground beef), just add beef to the onion and garlic and cook it completely before adding the tomato sauce. She also uses cottage cheese instead of ricotta. It’s saltier, and may be a bigger hit with the kiddies.

Keep in mind, this recipe is three in one. The marinara sauce is absolutely divine on spaghetti, and the cheese filling is perfect for stuffed manicotti. Mix it up to maximize your meals!

Check out OrgJunkie for more meal plan inspiration!

Our method for meal planning

It can take a while to get the knack of meal planning. We’ve been doing it for two years now, and our method has evolved into something that works pretty well and helps us save money, so I thought I’d share with all of you.

Every Saturday or Sunday morning depending on our schedule, my husband and I sit down with the store circulars for the two grocery stores near us. If we haven’t picked up the circulars, we can find the sale information at MyGroceryDeals.com. It’s completely free and easy. You just enter your favorite stores, and it gives you their sale information.

First, we go through all of the current sale prices to see if anything jumps out at us. There’s usually at least one meat sale every week for beef, chicken, or pork. Knowing which meat is on sale gives us an idea of what kind of meals we’ll be making. If there’s nothing on sale, like this week, then we stick with chicken, because we usually buy it in bulk and always have it on hand.

We also look at the sale prices for produce and dairy. A great deal on certain vegetables or cheese might encourage us to make one of our favorite vegetarian dishes.

If we’re crunched for time or we’re not feeling creative, then we stick to a basic repertoire of quick and easy meals that we make frequently. These include things like tacos, chicken quesadillas, BLTs, & chicken and broccoli. Our repertoire is constantly evolving and growing as we try new things.

If we’re feeling creative or we’re in the mood to expand our repertoire, we search for new recipes that include the sale items we’ve decided to buy. Our favorite website for this is FoodNetwork.com. It has an easy search interface that allows you to enter the ingredient for a list of meals that include it. Other good sites that we’ve used include AllRecipes.com, Elise.com, and Taste of Home. There are many recipe sites on the web based on the same principle, so sometimes all it takes is a simple Google search.

Once we’ve decided on our meals, we plan which nights we’ll eat them based on ingredients we’re using or reusing and other factors. For instance, if we’re having fish, we always cook it the same day that we buy it. If we’re roasting a whole chicken and using the leftovers for chicken quesadillas later in the week, then obviously the roasted chicken comes first. If we know we’ll be pressed for time on a certain night, then we’re sure to plan for a quick and easy meal. Ingredients with a long shelf life are saved until the end of the week, and weekends are reserved for more complicated recipes.

We organize our grocery list based on the layout of the store. All of the items are split up into categories: Produce, Dry Goods, Dairy, and Meat. We go through each recipe and write down its ingredients based on the categories.

Categorizing all of our items streamlines the shopping process, and makes it easier to remember everything on our list. We don’t run the risk of back tracking to the produce section for an item that was written in at the bottom of the list. If we’re shopping the sales at more than one store, then we note on the list where the item will be purchased.

Finally, once our list is complete, I go through my coupon stash to make sure I don’t have any useful coupons. I usually don’t since we don’t buy many processed foods, but it never hurts to check.

This is the method that we’ve found most effective for both time and money management. What methods work best for you?

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Menu Plan Monday & grocery round up – 9/13-9/19

Since we stocked up on 5 pounds of chicken breasts last week and I wasn’t thrilled with this week’s meat prices, we decided to stay away from the meat department today.

The result is our best grocery bill yet: $50.42! That doesn’t include $15 at Costco for our monthly purchase of coffee and mozzarella cheese for homemade pizza, but I’ve decided to leave that out so I can savor this week of budget perfection. Yes, I know it’s cheating. No, I don’t care. :)

And now for this week’s meal plan:

Saturday: Porterhouse steak, white potatoes, and green beans (We bought the steak on sale weeks ago, and one steak feeds both of us.)
Sunday: Late summer minestrone soup with garlic toast
Monday: Arroz con pollo adaptation (made with chicken breast instead of a whole chicken)
Tuesday: Leftovers
Wednesday: Italian grilled cheese & tomato sandwiches
Thursday: Grilled chicken breast sandwiches with oven fries
Friday: Homemade pizza

It’s so satisfying when I’m able to stay within budget!

Be sure to visit OrgJunkie for more great meal plans.

Why every couple needs a prenuptial agreement

This morning, I read this New York Times article on the importance of financial common ground in marriage. These are basic tips that we all know, but it got me thinking about the underlying theme of basic communication.The article discusses the importance of communication during marriage, but the groundwork for good financial communication begins before the wedding.

I am often surprised at how little my friends share financial information with their significant others. I’m not suggesting that you swap credit scores on the first date, but full financial disclosure is an essential part of engagement. It was easy for Tony and me to blend our finances because we started with so little; it’s more complicated for couples who have already acquired independent assets.

Drawing up a prenuptial agreement before marriage can help facilitate these discussions. A common misconception is that prenups are only for couples with huge amounts of wealth, or that their purpose is to protect one spouse’s assets from the other in the event of a divorce. In reality, a prenup outlines what will happen to all assets if you divorce, even normal assets like the equity in a home that you bought before you met your spouse.

The prenup has gotten a really bad rap, but it shouldn’t be viewed as a way to keep your spouse from getting your money if you divorce. If you come into the marriage with individual assets, a legal document that says what belonged to whom before the marriage and how shared assets will be distributed makes things clearer.

All couples need a “prenup.” It doesn’t necessarily have to be a formal legal document that distributes wealth. For young couples who have no assets, it can simply be a verbal agreement about how you plan to manage your finances.

A prenup allows you to lay it all out there before you’re married, take stock of your individual and shared assets and debts, and have some very important discussions about money that many financially independent adults are uncomfortable having with their partners. Through these money discussions, you’ll discover common ground from which you can build your financial goals and philosophies.

Tony and I agree that money will be an open topic in our family, not just with each other but also with our children. There will be no secrecy about our budget or how we manage our money. I want them to understand that money management takes hard work, and even a grown-up salary isn’t a limitless fortune.

We also share a mutual desire for security above possessions. We don’t want to spend our income, no matter how much we have, on a lot of “stuff.” Our frugality began out of necessity, but we plan to continue living frugally even as our income increases. We will always drive inexpensive cars, cut corners where we can, and live below our means. As our income increases, the only difference in our lifestyle will be that we’ll have more money to distribute in our savings accounts for emergencies, retirement, and education for our children.

We agreed that I’ll continue to work full-time until he finishes graduate school, and then he’ll take over the responsibility of earning our income so I can stay home with our children for a few years.

Finally, we agreed that once we got married, our assets and debts became shared. This may not work for everyone; for instance, your prenup may dictate that you’re not responsible for your fiance’s credit card debt. Tony and I decided it would be easier for us to blend everything and work as a team to pay down debt and continue saving together. The important thing to is figure out what you’re comfortable with before you tie the knot.

We moved in together shortly after we got engaged, and we opened a joint bank account. The lines between his and hers were immediately blurred. Communication eased the transition tremendously, and we’ve had no problems with this system.

Drawing up a verbal “prenup” made it much easier for us to budget, manage our money, and plan our future. We frequently remind each other of our goals during moments of financial weakness (i.e. the clearance cookware that nearly blew our budget last month). These shared goals have strengthened our bond.

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Being frugal doesn’t mean giving up the hobbies you love

In general, most frugal folks don’t like to admit that the frugal lifestyle deprives them of anything. We pride ourselves in the ability to find ways to get the things we want in life without spending too much money. There are certainly sacrifices involved, but for the most part, we’re able to find creative ways to live a full life on less money.

I’m trying to find balance between frugality and deprivation. It’s tricky to know the difference when you’re just starting out. But I think it’s crucial to balance the two, or you risk resenting your frugal lifestyle and giving up.

I love to quilt. I’ve been doing it to some degree since I was a teenager. It wasn’t until after I graduated college that I got my own sewing machine and started really getting into it. About a year ago, I gave up quilting for my frugal lifestyle.

You see, quilting is an expensive hobby. Compared to the high cost of beautiful handmade quilts, it’s relatively inexpensive. But fabric and thread and other notions can run pretty steep.

Over the weekend, I dug my two unfinished projects out of storage. I’ve put hours and hours of labor into these two quilt tops (one of which was sewn completely by hand), but I stopped short of quilting them a year ago because I deemed quilting a frivolous hobby that would have to wait until we had more income.

Well, now we have more income. I’ve decided that wasting my hard work and the money I already invested in the fabric is more wasteful than spending the extra money to finish them. All of that money and work, and we don’t even have the quilts to show for it?

So I headed to the fabric store and bought batting, quilting thread, and fabric for the backing. Even with a coupon for 40% off the fabric, I ended up spending $30. I’ll have to rework some of our unnecessary spending in our budget to make sure we don’t go over (with my husband’s blessing, of course). But now I have everything I need to complete two beautiful quilts that would cost hundreds in a store. Well, maybe not hundreds, but much more than I paid for supplies.

My point is this: being frugal doesn’t mean giving up the hobbies you love. Is there something that you really love to do that you’ve given up because it’s too expensive? See if there’s a creative way that you can reduce its costs or limit your spending on it without giving it up completely.

For me it was quilting. Rather than giving it up completely, I’ve decided to work it into my budget. Can I afford to spend $30 a month on quilting? Probably. But that seems a little excessive to me, so I’m compromising. I decided to attempt hand-quilting one of them. This will extend the amount of time it takes me to finish it. I’ll be able to enjoy this project longer if it takes me longer to finish.

Because I only quilt for a little while in the evenings, it will probably be another 3 months before I’m ready to invest in the materials to start a new project. Hopefully, I’ll enjoy hand-quilting more than machine quilting, and I’ll be able to extend the time it takes me to finish projects. That way I’ll always have something to work on, but I’ll spend less money.

My husband’s expensive hobby is movies. He would go to the theater once or twice a week and rent movies every day of the week in between if we could afford it. His solution is to rent old classic movies at the library for free. His university has a huge selection of quirky classics that he’s never seen before. We haven’t given up the theater completely, though. Every month or two, there’s something we really want to see, so we go to the last matinee on Sunday when tickets are cheapest. We still end up paying $10 for two tickets, but that’s a huge discount compared to the Friday night ticket price ($8.50 per ticket).

Maybe you love photography, but you don’t want to spend hundreds on equipment. Look into a used camera or get creative with the digital editing on your snapshots. Maybe your beloved hobby is scrapbooking, but you can’t afford all the materials. Limit yourself to a reasonable amount of scrapbook spending each month proportionate to your budget, and take a break when you reach your limit. It may take months to complete your projects, but that will just make them all the more satisfying when they’re done.

Above all, being frugal is about finding a way to live the lifestyle you want without living above your means. Get creative. Find a way to make it work. You might be surprised what you can work into your budget if you want it badly enough.

How do you make room in your budget for the hobby you love?

My thoughts on automatic bill pay

I’m a firm believer in online bill pay. Who isn’t? Just a few clicks and the bills are paid. No stamps, no checks. It’s simple and fast. Like most technological innovations, I don’t know how people lived without it.

I don’t feel that way about automatic bill pay, though. While automatic debit makes things even simpler (you don’t even have to think about it!), I’ve always been incredibly uncomfortable with the idea.

I really like sitting down once a month and mindfully paying my bills. I like the peace of mind that comes with clicking and checking those bills off my list.

I don’t like the idea of money being withdrawn from my account without doing it myself. We build a cushion into our checking account, so there’s no danger of an automatic payment overdrawing our account. But I like that there are never any surprises when I check my balance. I always have a pretty good idea of what my balance is because I know what’s coming and going from my account. I don’t want to be reminded that a bill was due when I log in and notice that the amount has been deducted.

I like having control over when I pay my bills, too. I like to sit down close to the first of the month and get everything out of the way. When I was in college, I used to wait until the last minute to pay bills. I would check my balance and mentally subtract the bills that were due in order to figure out my “real” balance. I never paid them until just before the due date. This got me into trouble more than once. Why I didn’t just pay my bills and be done with them is beyond me. I most likely procrastinated because I was always strapped for cash, and I didn’t like seeing my balance go down.

Now that we don’t live paycheck-to-paycheck, getting those bills out of the way is liberating. I don’t dread it because I know the money is there, so I like to check it off my list.

Paying my bills myself every month allows me to monitor charges and possibly fix errors before they’re posted to my account. I don’t trust myself to take the extra time to look at my statements if I’m not sitting down to pay the bills.

Does this make me a control freak? Probably. But I think if there’s one thing that we should be control freaks about, it’s money. For me, automatic bill pay is a dangerously hands-off approach. I understand that it may be a real time saver for most people, but even in this automated world, I still like to have some degree of physical control over my money. It’s not going anywhere until I say.

Taking 20 minutes out of my day once a month to look over my statements and send my payments gives me the time to give myself a financial checkup. It allows me to double-check my budget to make sure I’m on the right track, and reconfigure things if necessary.

When it’s over I feel a wonderful, peaceful feeling of, “Well, that’s done.” I don’t want to worry about whether a computer glitch might botch my payment or not send it at all. I just want to know that it’s done.

I also love that when I look at my balance a few days later after all the payments have been posted, I know exactly how much money we have. I don’t want to look through my transactions to see if a payment has gone through to figure out my “real” balance.

What about you? Does automatic bill pay save you time or cause you stress?

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Preparing for the storm

Looks like Hurricane Hanna is headed right in our direction. Yikes. Unless it drastically changes course (which could happen) it will probably get here tomorrow night or Saturday morning.

At this point it’s a pretty small storm. They’re not really sure if it will be a category 1 hurricane or a tropical storm. Either way, we’re not talking about massive destruction here. Whew.

But it could mean we’ll be stuck indoors for a day or two due to heavy rain and wind. It could also mean a power outage. We don’t really know what to expect, because we’ve never experienced a hurricane. That’s all the more reason to overprepare, though.

We’re headed out tonight for some provisions. Here’s what we’re picking up:

  • Batteries for the flashlight and radio
  • Ice to pack into the freezer so our meat won’t spoil if we lose power.
  • Foods that don’t require refrigeration or cooking (granola bars, applesauce, cereal, crackers, etc.)
  • A few gallon jugs of water

We may not even need this stuff if the storm is as mild as they’re expected it to be. We feel better being prepared, though, and we should really have a stockpile of water and batteries anyway.

Besides, we might need these provisions and more next week if Hurricane Ike (currently a Category 4) follows its projected path to the Carolina coasts. We’ll be more likely to evacuate than stick it out if that storm comes our way, but the snack foods might come in handy on the road. It’s too early to know for sure where Ike is headed, but my point is that we should be prepared for this storm and future storms now that hurricane season is upon us.

Unfortunately, we hadn’t planned for a mid-week grocery trip to stock up on convenience foods when we set our budget. This could throw things off for us in that department. It’s a bummer, but this is just a reminder of why it’s important to build an extra cushion into your budget. Luckily, I planned for a $400 grocery budget even though I wanted to shoot for $300-$350. So hopefully it won’t throw us off.

I’m hoping it’ll be some rain and wind and that we won’t lose power at all this weekend. I guess we’ll see! I’m just happy we’re going to be prepared.

To all of you who have experienced hurricanes: What else should we do to prepare?!

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Working an unexpected raise into the budget

Last week we found out that Tony is getting a raise for his monthly teaching assistantship stipend, which works out to about a $160 increase in our monthly income after taxes. Woo hoo!

This is particularly exciting because we weren’t expecting it at all. We thought it was a mistake when the deposit was higher than normal last week. But he called and they confirmed that yep, it’s a raise, and we can expect that amount every month from now on.

Today when we sat down to rework the budget for September, we were amazing at how much money $160 is when it’s put to work in a budget. In the past we probably would have blown that extra money and still felt strapped for cash at the end of the month. Now that we’re budgeting, this extra money will make it a lot easier for us to reach our goals.

We decided to divvy up the extra money between savings and debt. We’re putting an even $300 toward savings, which is about a $75 increase. We also upped our debt payment by $75, bringing it up to $325. We still won’t make our final credit card payment until November, but our final payment will be small.

We haven’t decided what to do with the extra $10 floating around in our budget. We might tack it on to our entertainment budget just to give us a little extra mad money every month. Snowflakes and other miscellaneous income will continue to go into our savings account to save for Tony’s tuition, our future expenses, and emergencies.

Yay for raises! We weren’t expecting to see an increase in our income so soon, but I’ll take it!

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