We Saved By The Bay

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sarahhendershot — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:43:53 -0700

New debt totals posted! By applying our June savings of...

sarahhendershot — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 07:27:00 -0700

New debt totals posted! By applying our June savings of $2,859.90 to my student loan on top of our monthly minimum payments, we saw a reduction of $3,292.17. But the most exciting news is the side by side comparison of where we started last year on July 1, 2011. Since that time, we have managed to reduce our debt by $24,900.84!!! If you would have asked me a year ago if that was possible, I would have laughed. It seemed so far fetched of an idea. By embarking on our spending lockdown(to see our list of spending guidelines, click here), we took control of our life and money. There was nothing fancy to our strategy. It was simple, we just cut out the excess spending that was draining our bank account. And we are not talking one major expense, we are talking countless mindless minimal expenses that emptied our wallet week after week. We have many friends that still say they want to do something like this, and I encourage them, but it’s important to remember—personal finance is 20% head knowledge and 80% behavior(a common Dave Ramsey quote). And that’s the most difficult part of the task, changing your behavior with money.

Now that we have officially ended our yearlong spending fast, what do you think we did to celebrate? Favorite restaurant? Movie? Concert? New clothes? Umm, sorry to disappoint, but none of the above. Instead, this weekend, we took a trip to Trader Joe’s and the local produce stand to stock up on our regular groceries for the week. We also made sure to use our cash envelope which has our allotted amount for food during the month of July. In fact, since ending our spending lockdown, we’ve been talking a great deal about how to budget ourselves through the next year. We are living in possibility.

To check out our month-to-month savings from the past year, click here. To view our month-to-month debt reduction from the past year, click here.

(Art: Jenny Hart)

sarahhendershot — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 11:00:56 -0700

(Art: Jenny Hart)

June savings is tallied, and although we’ve spent the...

sarahhendershot — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 08:48:00 -0700

June savings is tallied, and although we’ve spent the month more relaxed with spending because of a friends’ destination wedding and out of town guests, we still managed to save a chunk. If your asking how in the world do we do this? How ? Here’s how—we follow our guideline of spending restrictions(although a little loosely this month), as we’ve been doing for the past 12 months. On top of these rules, Brad received pay in a timely manner from some of his freelance contractors. Amazing, right? If you’ve followed this blog for a while, it seems like I’m always complaining that he is never paid on time. At the beginning of this month, we were predicting another month of delayed pay. But his invoicing went through without a hitch, and to our surprise, he started receiving payments last week.

However, it was a socially interactive month, which makes saving money difficult. I admit, we make exceptions to our spending guidelines with out of town guests and travel, and this month had both. But we didn’t blow the bank! With our visiting friends, we ate the majority of meals at home and participated in free fun sightseeing activities. When we actually did venture out with them to restaurants, we sought out budget friendly eateries. Also, nowadays, we order menu items that can be easily split—pizza is a favorite for this reason. While on the road to our friends’ wedding, we shared a budget motel room with another couple for 2 nights. On the third night, we slept on couches and air mattresses slumber party style with our old college friends. Brad and I look forward to the day when we can afford ourselves a little more luxury when we travel, but for now, these money saving actions are necessary. Besides, we had a blast with our old friends! That’s what this trip was all about anyways—not fancy hotels or fine dining.

So, we’ve managed to tally up a total of $2,859.90 in savings. Impressive as that number may be, it might be just shy of meeting our $25,000 debt reduction goal for the year. I will apply this total savings to my student loan, and post our July 1 debt totals on Monday. We’ll do a side by side comparison from where we started with our debt from a year ago, and where we are today.

And that’s a wrap folks!

This month rounds out our year long spending lockdown (no restaurants, bars, entertainment unless free, coffee shops, bakeries, generic brands, no clothes shopping, and on and on). This time last year, we were preparing to embark on this spending fast, and to this day, my first post on this blog remains my favorite—Acting Our Wage. So does this mean, we’re done saving money? NO WAY! Our life has been forever changed because of this spending fast, and the length of time (1 full year) has impacted our spending behavior greatly. We’ll continue to penny pinch, save money and pay off our debts, but we realize we don’t need a set of guidelines anymore. We feel like our money saving is more ingrained in our psyche now. As for the future of this blog, I have yet to decide, but most likely, I will keep it up however post less frequently. I would still like to share our savings and debt payoffs as they occur. Our ultimate goal is to be DEBT FREE, and it would not be any fun if you didn’t get to witness this journey.

July 1 debt totals coming to you on Monday! Have a great weekend!

Today, I’m calculating our June savings, and for once in a...

sarahhendershot — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 08:32:00 -0700

Today, I’m calculating our June savings, and for once in a very long while, our savings is looking better than we originally expected. As always with my husband’s irregular freelance pay cycle, we were unsure if income from his completed jobs would actually enter our bank account by the end of the month. But lo and behold, we’ve received the majority of his due pay. Is it enough for us to make our $25,000 debt reduction goal? Check back tomorrow!

"…look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about..."

sarahhendershot — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 08:06:53 -0700

“…look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them. Sometimes our thoughts act like dream glasses. When we have them on, we see dream children, dream husband, dream wife, dream job, dream colleagues, dream partners, dream friends. We can live in a dream present for a dream future. Without knowing it, we are coloring everything, putting our spin on it all. While things in the dream may change and give the illusion of being vivid and real, it is still a dream we are caught in. But if we take the glasses off, maybe, just maybe, we might see a little more accurately what is actually here”

- — Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are

(via katyuno)

My lack of updates recently has been due to our heavily booked schedule—both personal and...

sarahhendershot — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:24:39 -0700

My lack of updates recently has been due to our heavily booked schedule—both personal and business. I feel that my once Gung-ho money saver energy is quickly depleting. We’ve been more than a little slack with our spending this month which will probably reveal itself in our end of the month savings. Yet, we are not giving up on our goals of paying off a chunk of student loan debt this month. Next week will be our big end of the month savings reveal. Until then, happy saving!

(Art: ValerieLorimer on etsy)

sarahhendershot — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 08:57:01 -0700

(Art: ValerieLorimer on etsy)

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."

sarahhendershot — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 09:31:55 -0700

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

- Albert Einstein

Updates

sarahhendershot — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 08:44:00 -0700

Almost halfway through the month, and we are not even at the halfway mark for reaching our goal of saving nearly $3000. And you know what? It’s okay. This year has taught me that if the savings doesn’t happen this month, then it will happen next month or the one after that. Life doesn’t always fit neatly into a box tied with a pretty bow.

So far in June, we have spent money on servicing our car and buying Brad some new summer clothes. I know, I know, this breaks our spending lockdown rules of no clothes shopping, however, he has dropped nearly two sizes since last summer!* We wanted to wait until July when our spending fast officially ends, but my husband was desperate for some warm weather clothing during this unusually hot weather we’ve been having in the bay. We were modest with our purchases, and to be honest, we found shopping exhausting and cumbersome after swearing off clothing stores for a year. Shopping, in general, has probably been ruined for me because of this spending fast—hey, I’m not complaining.

Lastly, we are attending a friend’s wedding in Southern California next weekend which will require some travel expenses. We are trying to make it as cheap as possible, but it will eat up some of our would-be June savings.

Truthfully, I would feel ridiculous complaining about not being able to save money because of these insignificant expenditures. There are much bigger problems that individuals and families face when it comes to saving money—kids’ and medical expenses come first to my mind. I’m thankful we are in good health and can enjoy our life right now. I’m not going to waste time worrying about buying my husband a new pair of shorts in lieu of saving that money. That’s the balance you have to strive for.

*Note: this is a side effect of eating at home for an entire year, along with exercise taking on the role as our main form of entertainment lately.

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sarahhendershot — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 08:40:41 -0700

Unrestricted Spending Anxiety

sarahhendershot — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 11:12:00 -0700

As July 1 quickly approaches, I find myself more than a little nervous about jumping back into the world of spending unrestricted. Is it really possible for Brad and I to save money to pay off our debt without a strict set of guidelines? This entire year on spending lockdown catapulted us into saving money simply by making a declaration to friends and family that we would not be spending on this list. We made some exceptions here and there, but for the most part, we stuck to our guidelines. It has been one big experiment—how much could we feasibly pay off in debt in a year by simply cutting out the extras? We’ve proven that this spending lockdown was not pointless and resulted in big savings and big debt payoffs. But really, we desire a more practical approach to spending and saving. As artists, in general, we have lived our lives scoffing at rules, so we don’t desire to conduct our spending by a set of rules forever. But the question is, have our behavioral patterns with spending really changed in a year? Will we be able to continue without a strict set of guidelines? These are the questions I find myself asking over and over. Only time will tell.

Bringing Debt Baggage Into A Marriage

sarahhendershot — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 08:44:00 -0700

Bringing Debt Baggage Into A Marriage:

Tis the season of weddings, so when I stumbled across this article, I thought it’s worth sharing. One thing is for certain in our marriage—we share our debt and combine all our finances. But over the past year, as I’ve engaged in more discussion with friends about couples’ finances, I’ve come to realize this is definitely not true for everyone. I thought this brief article makes an excellent point about the “team spirit” attitude with finances that we should have upon entering a marriage.

Closing in on our final month of our year long spending...

sarahhendershot — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 08:27:00 -0700

Closing in on our final month of our year long spending lockdown, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting over the past year. Next month, I think I’ll be ready to slow my roll, which doesn’t mean I’ll give up saving and start spending. I just want to find my “natural setting” somewhere in between.

(Art: artsyville on Etsy)

(Art: MursBlanc on etsy)

sarahhendershot — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 09:47:00 -0700

(Art: MursBlanc on etsy)

The past couple of months have been lousy in our debt reduction,...

sarahhendershot — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 07:54:00 -0700

The past couple of months have been lousy in our debt reduction, but this month, we’re finally making another big dent in our debt. After applying $1590.03 from our May savings to my student loan, we have brought that tally to the teens. There is something psychological about seeing my student loan dip into the teen range—I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not too distant. Considering that we have paid $21,608.67 on debt in just an 11 month span, I feel it’s in the realm of possibility to actually pay off my student loan within the next year. It wasn’t that long ago that I believed it nearly impossible to ever pay off my student loan. I was resigned to my 20 year pay-off plan making minimal monthly payments. This yearlong spending lockdown has changed my entire outlook on money, saving and what I’m actually capable of when I simply apply intense focus in my life.

Now we’re on the final month of our spending lockdown, and we’re eager to meet our recently set 12 month $25,000 debt reduction goal. To achieve it, we need to save close to $3000 to apply on top of our minimum monthly loan payments. We’ll remain tight with our spending this month and hope that Brad’s freelance income trickles in as expected. Although the goal is set, we’re not going to feel devastated if it’s unattainable at the end of the month. It’s just a number, and we’ll eventually get there.

To check out our total debt reduction over the past 11 months, visit here.

After a 2 week absence from tumblr, I’m back with our end...

sarahhendershot — Thu, 31 May 2012 11:46:05 -0700

After a 2 week absence from tumblr, I’m back with our end of the month savings post! I feel great about this tally, especially after experiencing sluggish saving months in March and April. Our May savings got a boost with Brad finally receiving some income from freelance work, although not all of what we anticipated. But that’s okay, we know it will be arriving next month. Whereas, I used to experience frustration with the irregularities of freelance pay cycles, I’m now learning to be patient—the money trickles in eventually. Actually, we are anticipating record savings next month when Brad finally receives a large amount of pay for freelance work, and I receive my first paychecks with my new raise! YUP! That’s right! My absence from blogging these past couple of weeks was for a work trip back east to my company headquarters. My job is slightly changing for the better, and I’ll be earning a bit more which will surely help with our saving and debt reduction. Our stars are aligning for the final month of our yearlong spending lockdown.

Tomorrow, I will post our new debt totals. I will be applying $144.88 of our May savings to our emergency fund and then the rest will be applied to my student loan.

To check out our savings progress for the past 11 months, visit here.

My company is going through some changes right now which means...

sarahhendershot — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:19:00 -0700

My company is going through some changes right now which means my job may be changing and hopefully for the better. But it requires a business trip back east, which I also plan to squeeze in a personal family visit. Due to these travels, I will not be able to post until the end of the month with—fingers crossed—an awesome May savings post!

(Art: breedingfancy on etsy)

(Art: LuciusArt on etsy)

sarahhendershot — Wed, 09 May 2012 08:00:00 -0700

(Art: LuciusArt on etsy)

Fun and Cheap in the Bay Area If there is anything I’ve...

sarahhendershot — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:41:00 -0700

Fun and Cheap in the Bay Area

If there is anything I’ve learned this past year on my spending lockdown, it’s that there are countless free things to do in the Bay Area when you need a little entertainment or fun time. I’m always on the hunt for “free” events especially when I know I’ll be hosting out of town visitors. I usually never have to look further than FunCheapSF which offers up free or cheap event info for “cheap bastards like ourselves” (their words not mine) that are looking for frugal alternatives in this typically expensive region. I’ve attended free music and dance performances, street festivals, museums, wine tastings, fashion shows, art gatherings and so much more just by receiving their weekly mailings.