I've been lurking way too long. I love reading the posts, it inspires me, but I guess not enough to post myself. I am a homeschooling mom of a 8th and 10th grader, we live in central Florida (moved here 2 years ago from Wisconsin)and hubby works from home full time (brought his job with him when we moved).

Today is a NSD, but I did finalize what I need to purchase for curriculum for next year. Its going to be close to $700 but what can you do? We took our children out of public school because, well frankly they stink. Certainly was a shock because the schools in Wisconsin are great but here, not so much.

Need to sit down and figure out the budget for the rest of the summer.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007IUGLYO/ref=tsm_1_fb_lk

The title is: How To Manage Your Money When You Don't Have Any by Erik Wecks I have not read it, so I can't say if its good or bad, but thought I'd post the link here.

I have good intentions of blogging but then I never seem to do it. I love reading other posts, because they really do inspire me, but it never seems to go much farther than that. I have the "spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" type of thing going on.

So I will start by confessing that I do not have a written budget, I do not have an EF, and I am probably one step away from disaster. But still life goes on.

My goal for this year is to pay off my credit card bills and set up an EF. But yeah, I have no game plan as to how to reach this goal. So I figure the best place to start is by blogging here.

We took our car in to the shop today to get it ready for the drive down to Florida. $675 it will cost tomorrow. :-( The big expense is the rear struts which need to be replaced, the other issues were minor. It's about $300 more than I wanted to pay, but what can you do? It needs to be done.

I just packed all the china today, and I also talked with the middle school regarding my son's IEP, so it all sounds good. Honestly I will just be happy when the moving truck is gone and we are just driving down the highway towards Florida. I'm tired of packing boxes, and tired of the stress of the move in general. 35 days to go, which is not long, but still seems like forever at this point in the game.

I dropped my son off at school, and then I went grocery shopping this morning for the week, and discovered I really like doing it at this time. I'm out anyways, the store is not busy, and I'm home before 10 and still have the rest of the day ahead of me. It didn't seem so much like a chore as it usually does.

My new goal is to only eat out once every two weeks. Lately we have been doing it way too much, and my checkbook and my scale has not been too kind to me lately.

This ties in with my next goal, which is to have $10,000 in our moving account by the time we move. This is a very achievable goal if we don't waste our money before then. I'd also like to pay down the credit cards, which have an approximate balance of $850. We'll see. Right now it's more important to have the cash available than it is to have the cc paid off. Ideally they will both happen, but the emphasis will be on bulking up the deposit account.

We did sell our car, and paid off our car loan, so we are officially car-loan free! What a great feeling, first time since 2006. We do intend to replace our car in a year or two, but want to have a nice downpayment (if not all) to do it with.

Easter shopping is all done, so the rest of this week should be no spending.

We're definitely making progress with our boxes, and hope to pack up quite a few this week. The master bedroom is done, so now I'm going to concentrate on the kitchen and sunroom. I think we've donated enough to Goodwill to open up our own store! :-) Basically, if we don't love it, we get rid of it. It doesn't matter how much we paid for it, it doesn't matter if we used it in the past, or might use it in the future, it has to be something that has meaning to us or that we use on a regular basis to make the cut. And that doesn't cost too much to move. One thing this move has done for us is really to prioritize what's important for us. And what's important is not our stuff.

Yesterday I balanced the checkbook. Not so unusual, except I had been spending money for the past week and had no idea if we were positive or negative. As I was recording entries, I had this sinking feeling that kind of resembles terror, as in OMG what if we don't have enough to cover the rent check I just mailed?

Well, thankfully the balance is positive. But this spurred my first goal, and that is to not be in that position again. I intend to keep daily tabs on where we are in checking, or at least every time I spend money. This includes balancing my checkbook to the online statement, which is balanced to the penny. I also want to update Quicken, which I stopped doing in June, for whatever reason. I'm curious to see what I spent in the different categories for the year. And maybe I don't want to know. :=)

I think I may start a binder, or maybe a computer file, to keep this information in. I'm trying to go paperless as much as possible. But a binder may satisfy my inner organizational geekiness, and help keep me more accountable. (I can ignore a computer file, but I can't ignore a binder).

now I hope that I can stay. I love reading all your entries, but sometimes I feel intimidated because I am not even close to doing as well as some of you in terms of my finances.

I do say that we are entering 2011 in a much better financial position. The garnishment is done. The payday loan is paid off. Those 2 things were huge in terms of reducing our income.

My goal for 2011, which coincidentally was my goal for 2010, is to get us in a better place financially. This means pay off the credit card bills, and start building savings. We still live paycheck to paycheck, and I want to get away from that.

I will post specific goals in a day or two, but I just wanted to pop in and say hi to all.