Shopping for tires

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We are trying to balance debt pay off with taking care of car maintenance, clothing needs, etc. It’s really hard spending money when we’re so focused on getting out of debt. Each month, we take a look at our finances, determine what our snowball will be, and decide if there’s anything we need that month. This month, we were planning on new tires. Next month, we will be ordering hubby a six month supply of contacts. December will be all about credit card progress, unless an emergency arises before the end of the year.

We’ve known we need new tires for awhile. We have two tires on the car that are a year or so old, one that is several years old, and one tire from when we financed it in 2005! The plan is to replace all four tires so that they match and will wear evenly.

Hubby had a client appointment this afternoon and walked out to the car only to find that one of our tires was flat. Interesting timing, as we’re currently searching for good deals and can afford the tires tomorrow! Hubby changed the tire out for the donut and realized that we had no tread left on that tire and that’s why it finally gave out. We are overdue!

It’s confusing shopping for tires. I’m looking at an ad from Tire Pros that has free installation, free balancing, and sale prices on the tires. Pepboys Auto is offering that if you buy any three installed tires, you get the fourth for free and, if I’m reading the website correctly, they offer free installation. Discount Tire Company has a $40 mail in rebate on one of their tire brands but charges for installation. Walmart has decent prices on tires and $5 installation fees but I don’t really trust Walmart to take care of my car. All of the companies charge outrageous prices for disposing the tires but I’m having troubles locating a company that recycles the tires so that we can avoid the disposal fee.

I think we might have to just pick a company and go with it and hope we got the best deal. They all carry different tires, so how are we supposed to compare? I’m so confused!

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Art Appreciation

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My hubby and I visited the Phoenix Art Museum tonight. We visit almost every week and love browsing through the European section. Most of the paintings are gorgeous and we learn something new every time we visit.

When I was growing up, my only exposure to art was photography. My brother and I have been interested in photography for as long as I can remember and our parents encouraged us in it. We were poor growing up, but my parents still bought both of us cheap film cameras. As I was responsible for funding most of the film development, I didn’t take that many pictures. However, when I was in high school and was hired at my first job, my photography took off. I have thousands of pictures in our spare bedroom, mostly taken in high school and early in college. Hubby and I bought a digital camera last year and I’ve been digital ever since (I prefer print, but my budget demands digital).

Hubby is an artist, a painter. Even though I knew of his talent, I still didn’t have much of an appreciation for painting. My only exposure to paintings was my art appreciation class in college. The only paintings I was familiar with were photographs of painting in my textbook and the ones my professor projected onto the wall. Still, I didn’t have much appreciation for art because I didn’t realize just how detailed a painting could be.

When hubby and I first learned the Phoenix Art Museum had free admission once a week, we visited on a date. I fell in love with paintings, mostly the European art. I love visiting the museum and only wish that they had a larger European section. Someday, hubby and I have determined to visit New York City’s Met. Maybe when we get all of our debt paid off, we can vacation in New York and visit some of the cultural sites.

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Kitchen doings

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What a great success. For the first time since we were given it a year ago, I opened the box and used my new Crock Pot. I filled a pot with water and soaked black beans overnight. This morning, I rinsed the beans, pulled out a couple bad ones, and covered them with water in the Crock Pot. I cooked them for eight hours and they tasted really good! I wasn’t sure how to long to cook the beans or how much water to use, so I searched the internet and found A Year of Slowcooking‘s recipe for cooking dried beans. What a great website! I’m drooling over a few of the recipes and have already determined to make apple butter this weekend if I can find a deal on apples.I also made homemade tortillas and rice. We really wanted to make enchiladas but the tortillas are too small for me to roll and then bake. Instead, we filled them with black beans and rice (plus sour cream for me) and then poured hot enchilada sauce over the top. We ended up eating them with a fork. If I can wean myself off the sour cream (or switch to vegan sour cream) and find a homemade enchilada sauce recipe, we’ll have ourselves a very healthy meal! Between the black beans, tortilla shells, and amish bread baked this morning, I had a very productive day in the kitchen! 

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Easy-peasy

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Today was a pretty easy day for work and I’m glad. I’ve been feeling under the weather all day so I was quite happy when I completed three hours of contract work and was told that would be all until tomorrow.

So instead, I did some cleaning. I washed two loads of laundry and washed the dishes. If I’m feeling better tomorrow, I might tackle the kitchen floor. It’s looking kind of grimy in front of the closet where our trash can is stored.

I also worked on my Nano outline for awhile, putting together some information for my first two chapters. It’s been very interesting trying to imagine what it would have been like to live through the plagues. How hard would it have been to find drinking water by digging in the banks of the Nile? What would it have been like finding your house overrun with frogs and being able to do nothing about it? Most of the plagues affected both the Egyptians and the Hebrews so no one was immune.

I wonder how much the Hebrews remembered about God. They were in Egypt for a really long time with no prophets. The 10 commandments reminded them of God’s precepts, like keeping the Sabbath. Does this mean they had forgotten to keep the Sabbath or were just keeping it incorrectly? Or maybe they knew about the Sabbath and wanted to observe but couldn’t because they had to work every day. Do we know for sure? I’m not sure that we do, but it’s been enlightening trying to imagine what life would have been like.

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Mini-milestone and goals revisited

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Last week’s progress on CC1:

$1,448.98 starting balance
– $176.00 contract paycheck

$1,272.98 current balance (20% paid)

We’re finally making some progress on this credit card! I received my paycheck last week for time completed in August. It’s the first of several large paychecks, my next coming 10/1.

This week hubby and I will be shopping for new tires for our car. We are overdue and the goal is to pay for four new tires by the end of September. We have to wait until his next paycheck (Friday) to have the cash, but that’s where most of our snowball will be directed this month. Unfortunately, we can’t neglect essential car maintenance just because we’re focused on paying off our credit cards.

Hubby and I have decided that we’re going to start trying for a baby when all the consumer debt is paid off. I’m so excited about this as we now have a concrete goal of when we’re going to start growing our family. Before, we just talked about “when we can afford it,” “when the debt is paid off.” Well, we have $69,500 in total debt and that pay off is years away.

We’re following Dave Ramsey’s baby steps:

1 – $1,000 emergency fund DONE
2 – Pay off all debt except the house
3 – Build an emergency fund that covers 3-6 months of expenses
4 – Retirement savings
5 – College funds for kids
6 – Pay off home early
7 – Give like you’ve never given before

Because we have no house and no plans to buy one… we’re rearranging the steps a bit so that we can start growing our family:

1 – $1,000 emergency fund DONE
2 – Pay off all consumer debt (credit cards and car)
3 – Build an emergency fund that covers 3-6 months of expenses
3a – Start trying for a baby while building our emergency fund
4 – Retirement savings
5 – Save up a minimum 30% down payment on a house
5a – College funds for kids
6 – Pay off home early
7 – Give like you’ve never given before

That’s the plan for now, though things will probably change once our consumer debt is paid off. What’s left for consumer debt?

CC1 – $1,272.98
CC2 – $3,037.29
CC3 – $4,363.78
Auto loan – $4,565.83
CC4 – $9,105.16

We are $22,345.04 away from having our first child! I am very excited. That’s so much more optimistic than the original figure of $69,444.98 for our total debt.

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End of the week and now we rest

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I am almost ready for the Sabbath. It’s been a busy day but I feel accomplished. Before breakfast, I went grocery shopping. Walmart was very quiet this morning and it made for a relaxing trip. Then I spent the morning on my contract work, ate lunch, visited the post office, and completed some housework.

The only thing left to finish is putting away the clean dishes on the counter and in the dishwasher. I also have to clean out the litter boxes. Fun fun! Then I can relax and enjoy the Sabbath.

Shabbot Shalom!

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Randomness

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I’m not sure what I want to write about today. The only thing I accomplished today was six hours of work and I finished reading a book.

I’ve been dragging a bit lately when it comes to doing anything but my contract work. My energy levels are low, reasons known but not welcomed. Our house is passable but I haven’t continued work on the 31 days to clean challenge. I intend to return to that project.

So I guess I will conclude by admitting I have nothing useful to say. 🙂

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Writing Challenge – National Novel Writing Month

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This year, I will be participating in National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to write a 175 page novel (50,000 words) during the month of November. Nano starts on November 1st at 12:01 AM and ends November 30th at midnight. The rules state that I have to write a novel completely from scratch, no rewrites or finishing drafts that have already been started. On November 1st, I will sit down with a blank Word document. Hopefully, by November 30th, I will have written an entire novel of at least 50,000 words.

It’s fun! I’ve participated twice before. The first time I attempted this feat, my story petered out and I wasn’t able to finish. The second time I tried, my novel was complete, over 50,000 words, but was terrible. I couldn’t even bear to read it. It might be saved on my hard drive somewhere, but I don’t even really remember what the story was about.

This year, I’m preparing myself ahead of time. I’m going to write a “Biblical narrative,” a novel that tells a Bible story but is written from the perspective of fictional characters. I’ve always wondered what it would have been like to live as a slave in Egypt, experience the plagues, and see firsthand the awesome power of God delivering His people.

The novel will be written from the perspective of an Egyptian male who is involved with the Hebrews but I’m not sure exactly how. He will be either a scribe in Pharaoh’s court and will thus witness Moses’ demands regarding the Hebrews or he’ll be a tax collector who deals with the Hebrew farmers who grow part of their crops for Egypt.

The second character is a Hebrew slave, a young girl who lost both of her parents early in life and is no stranger to hardship and grief. I want to explore what it may have been like for both the Egyptians and Hebrews as the plagues progressed and the Hebrews were finally allowed to leave Egypt.

That’s what all my research has been about lately. I’ve been reading books on Egypt, the plagues, and Mt. Sinai. There are some very interesting theories about the 10 plagues, whether they were supernatural occurrences or natural events controlled by God. I’m not sure anyone really knows.

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Free emergency fund and shopping sales

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Dave Ramsey is giving away a $999 emergency fund. I didn’t find out about this until after it started, but he’s giving away an emergency fund every day until 9/17/09. You can enter each day for a chance to win. We already have an emergency fund in place ($1,000) but I’m still entering the drawing. If we win, we’ll use it to pay down our credit card.

I had an excellent shopping day. We don’t usually shop at Albertson’s, but they were having some good sales that I couldn’t pass up. They have selected cereals on sale for $1.50 each box, taco shells for $1.25 a box, and enchilada sauce for $1.25 a can. For the Mexican food, you could buy any combination of taco shells, enchilada sauce, and another product and the price would come out to 6 for $1.25 each plus a coupon for $3.00 off your next Albertson’s purchase.

I purchased:
1 box multi grain Cheerios
1 box Golden Grahams (hubby’s request)
2 packages of taco seasoning (free – “buy 2 boxes of taco shells, receive a free package of taco seasoning”)
4 boxes of taco shells
2 cans of enchilada sauce

Grand total: $9.62!! I also received a coupon for $3.00 off my next order. I saved 63% ($16.70) on this trip.

After work, hubby and I returned to Albertson’s to use the coupons I received this morning. The first coupon was for $1.50 off the purchase of three boxes of cereal. The second coupon was the $3.00 reward coupon off the next shopping trip. Because the boxes were $1.50 each, we got all three for free! We now have three extra boxes of Cheerios in our pantry.

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