Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Quick check-in

Very quick check in.

I've spent a total of $96.52/$150 since the start of the year. That means that if I intend to save $50 of those, I really shouldn't spend another penny until the end of January (or Feb 2nd, to be exact).

I have also saved a total of $11.60 extra in coupons, bringing my total up to $44.54. Who knew small value coupons actually added to so much so quickly?! Go me! I am almost at 1/3 of the way and it's not even the end of January. I am definitely increasing my goal later on. Coupons are addictive.

I made my second snowball payment of $150 to my CC1. I am thrilled about this, really. Snowballs really do get going once they start going. However, once I get all of my tax paperwork settled, I know I will have to redirect half if not all of that fund to pay for taxes. But again, not thinking about it until I get the last of my tax forms, hopefully by mid Feb. Although I dread it, I want to get it over with. I hate waiting in limbo. They don't even have good wait music in there.

I honestly think I need to laugh about something...
We switched to Progressive auto insurance a while back because of a bad situation I won't get into, and I've been rather pleased with them. I pay the full amount monthly, since I refuse to leave it to someone else and get it cancelled (again). We all signed up for the "Good driver discount" with the Snapshot program. For those not familiar with Snapshot, they send you a little device to plug into your car, and it records your speed and stops and trips. It doesn't record destinations, locations or anything like that. I told everyone to drive carefully or at least mindfully for the following few months. So far, only I have qualified for a 10% discount of my portion, which is awesome. Then I needed to renew the 'student discount' for my two younger siblings. The youngest sister had an A average in HS, so that was easy. She's always been the bright one. The youngest brother, lucky to get a C. But it turns out, my sister's grade slipped on her first semester in college. Badly. So the money I'll be saving for being a safe driver will be overturning by the extra we'll have to pay for the lost of the good student discount.

Yeah, yeah. I hear you. I ought to force her to pay for the increase. But that gets into the "make everyone else pay a portion of it", which still doesn't quite work in that house.

I have locked the cellphone account for my youngest brother starting tomorrow morning, and will put strict limits on his phone usage until he starts paying a monthly fee, including the fee to activate parental control ($4.99). The younger sister is already paying for her portion of her phone, so heck with it. See, I am trying to make them pay for something! It's all about the baby steps.

I hope things settle down for me. I miss reading posts and actually having time to reply to them! I've seriously been MIA in January.

Ok, I lied about the "quick" part. Hope everyone's having a fun week! I'll return tomorrow to update the Low-spend January, since I should be done spending until Feb.

7 comments:

  1. Your spending is going great! And I know what you mean, my car insurance was under my family's house for awhile, and my sister gets average grades but is a horrible driver, so my insurance went up. Ugh!

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  2. I am really proud of you! Standing your ground is the hardest. Get ready for yelling and screaming about the phone when I limited Laurens she thought the world ended(and she was 16) but oh well. Maybe once your contract is up you should think about prepays and let them fend for themeselves?

    I am with Geico and really like them. We get a discount for my son being a teacher and the good student discounts but we also get a discount for lauren taking drivers ed and my mom taking the aarp class every year. Check and see if there are more discounts you can get.

    You have come a long way!

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  3. Thankfully I have only two people to "make" pay for their share of things - the worst offender is my daughter. She's used to everything being FREE and now resents having to contribute...like you said...baby steps. She now pays me her share of the car insurance which is $50 monthly, its a beginning.

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  4. You're doing great, Tanner! And look at the coupon savings!! Awesome!

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  5. I love Progressives Snapshot program, I qualified for a 30% discount and didn't need to do anything other than plug in the device. So easy.

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  6. I switched to Progressive last year and saved a ton over who I had before. I so wanted to do their snapshot program, as I know I would get discounted, but they don't offer it in my state. Have no idea why some states aren't eligible. But other than that I am totally happy with Progressive and at my 6 months renewal my premium actually went down! I have had a premium go down the 10 years I was with my other insurance.

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  7. get in an accident and have your care deamed a total loss and end up screwed. Then lets see how well u like progressive. Cause i would not recommend this company to my worst enemy.

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