Sell it all!!

One of the key strategies of getting out debt in Dave Ramsey's plan is to sell everything you can to pay down your debt. I had already started to get our DVD's organized to try and sell them so I was getting started.

We are in the process of refinancing our home, so Friday we had an appraiser come. To get ready for the appraiser we were doing a massive decluttering. Even better than spring cleaning. We have about 15 bags of garbage to go the curb. I also realized we had a lot of other things that we "needed" at different times in the past sitting covered in dust in the storage area in the basement so we are starting to get it all organized to get out of here. So I will have some things in here for sale, selling some at work in the ALFI, EBAY and on Amazon.

I am organizing Sherry's Pampered Chef supplies from when she was a consultant. I am working on a list of what she has for sale, and believe me there is a ton of stuff here. So if you are interested in any Pampered Chef items let me know and I will get you the list.

We also have a recumbant bike for sale. I will get the specs up soon on that.

High Cost of Medications

Thankfully we have insurance that covers prescriptions, but some of the copays are getting up there especially when you purchase a 90 day supply. Luckily Sherry was checking on the internet for coupons for all of our drugs. I had to refill my migraine prescription that normally costs $50 for a 3 month prescription. Sherry found a coupon for a 1 month free trial, and $20 a regular presecription. When I called the doc for a refril script I asked them to write my usual 3 month prescription and a 1 month.

I am so glad CVS is in town now as this is the only place we can go locally to get our 3 month prescriptions. I ended up getting a 4 month supply for only $30 thanks to my lovely wife!! Since they just opened a new store in our area we received a copoun in the mail for a $25 gift card if you bring in a new prescription. Sherry had one of hers to fill that did not have any coupons so we were able to get the $25 gift card on a prescription that only had a $10 copay!!

Lets Get it Started!

OK, today is the official start of our “climb out of debt”. We are documenting all of our revolving debt, home equity loan, and mortgage. Sherry and I have been talking about the mistakes we made to put us in the situation that we are in now. It was not hard to see the big culprits such as building a new home before the old one sold, building to large of a home when we only had one child and planned on two incomes, vehicle purchases and all the eating out. There are a multitude of smaller sins that have added to this debt, but I do not have enough time to list them out.

We never regret Sherry staying home with the kids. Our mistake was not planning earlier for her to stay home with them, and then not making adjustments after we made the decision. It is a hard decision to sell a “dream” house that you designed yourself. However in the end the dream was not so sweet!

Now that we have all of our debts documented we are working on a workable “debt snowball” plan to pay them off. This link from Dave Ramsey does an excellent job of describing the process and the emotional aspect of it. There are many debt snowball worksheets and calculators out there. I am looking for the one that will suit our needs the best. Once we decide on one we will post the link and our expected date of being debt free. I will also post more of our tactics and tribulations. It is guaranteed there will be some tribulations as Murphy is always around the corner lurking!

Anyway! Pray for us and check in on us from time to time to help hold us accountable!

Thanks!!!

New Addiction

Well I have been bitten by the free and cheap stuff bug. Sherry is somewhat happy about this one, i have been coming home with some pretty good deals on things we use. If I can get items dirt cheap or free I will also get them and take them into Church for the food pantry.

Hannah and I went to Walgreens tonight. Using information from Money Saving Mom and STL Mommy I was able to get over $25 of items for less than $5 cash after coupons and register rewards from last week.

Walgreens also takes coupons printed off from the internet. A lot of grocery stores do not take the coupons off the internet. Money Saving Mom and STL Mommy detail the saving you can get based on the weekly flier, coupons available in the paper and online.

Easy Money for Research

I am participating in my 3rd allergy research study. I like to crack jokes about it and make comments about growing a 3rd nostril, but it is pretty easy money for not much work. And by the time the medications have made it this far in research they are pretty safe.

I finally found something good about being allergic to rag weed and pollen. The current study pays $75 a visit. The first two studies that I participated in I was paid $299 and $399. The hardest part is filling out logs, but that takes about 5 minutes a day.

If you are interested contact Sneeze, Wheeze and Itch Associates. Or you can call them at 309-452-0995.

And I thought CVS was good!

A good friend of mine recomended checking out www.moneysavingmom.com. I did and wow tons of great tips on saving money with coupons. Austin and stopped at Walgreens after his football practice tonight and in about 15 minutes we purchased 8 items. The bill was $24 before $7 in coupons, most from the walgreens flier when you walked in the door. I ended up paying $17 and walked out with hopefully more medicine than we will need for the winter, some skin lotion for the lovely with and some floss. Oh yeah, and $21 in register rewards good on my next purchase!!

They were out of the Fusion Razor, so I will check another one on my way home for work, by the time I use my $4 coupon from the paper this Sunday, and get register rewards back from Walgreens I will be $1 ahead. Oh yeah, and I will not be using my money when I but it. I will be using the register rewards Walgreens so kindly gave me.

I am going to keep track of purchases I make with these $21 register rewards that I recieved from my initial investment of $17. I will let you know how long I can keep the streak going and how much merchandise I get in total!

And Diedre, thanks again for the tip!!

CVS is awesome! - Great way to save some money!

I finally went to the new CVS in town. I have heard from many the great deals when you use your CVS ExtraCare Card. You can usually get quality products that you use for close to if not free after all of the incentives. When I was reading more of the information this is a great program.

You will definitely want to get this card. The first benefit you receive is extra money off products in the store, they also track you spending and every 3 months you receive a check to use in store for 2%, you also get $1 for every two prescriptions you fill. There are also weekly deals where you get instant Extra Bucks to use on your next purchase.

So tonight I went in with the kids and was using coupons from the Sunday paper, and incentives from the flier. We purchased items we use all the time so we were not buying things we will not use. We bought some Tide, toilet paper, paper towels, dish soap and some other supplies as well as some medicine.

Our initial total bill before any coupons were taken off was just over $84.00. We used $7 in coupons, so our final bill was just over $77. However based on the products that we purchased we received $20 in instant Extra Bucks. We will also get extra bucks for 2% of pre tax total for $1.46. So our total cost after all of this is just under $56.

Another bonus is that we also tied our CVS ExtraCare card to our UPromise account. Some of the items that we purchased will also earn us earn us money towards our kids college education. I will right more about UPromise in another post soon.

You need to be sure to compare the prices of these deals with generics that you might already use. We did pass on some tissue that would have gotten us extra care bucks, however all things considered we are better off with the brand we always use.

To any of our friends and family who might read this we would appreciate if you would follow this link to UPromise to sign up and help us save money for the kids college education.