Budget Buster

Well, my husband and I are in our 4th week of Financial Peace University, by Dave Ramsey. After doing our quickie budget, then our monthly cash flow, I was really excited. I had planned on changing my paycheck to be direct deposited into the mutual fund account I just set up in order to save for our emergency fund. Once it was up to $1,000, I was going to set up another checking account and direct deposit into there, to save up to start paying off debt.

My plan got blown out of the water when my sister let me know (without a previous heads up) that she will no longer be bringing her kids over for daycare. I will miss the kids, and am a little upset that I cannot use my paycheck from work to start paying off debt.

I am now trying to come up with ways to make extra cash, because for us, me working nights and weekends is not going to work forever. I am home with my kids during the day, my son is very active, and my daughter gets up by 5 am almost every morning. I get home from work around 10, in bed by maybe 11:30, mostly later because I need some quiet time to clean. And I wake my baby up to nurse her before she’s completely done for the night.

Here’s what I’m doing starting NOW to bring in some extra cash:

1. Use skills! Not my skills, my husbands! He is great at woodworking, so I took a picture of a small picnic table he built for my son, and I listed it on craigslist. Don’t worry; I’m not selling my son’s adorable table. I’m taking orders for the custom made tables!

2. Surveys. I am currently only signed up for one survey website, Opinion Outpost but I will look for more legitimate ones. I signed up for some a few years back, and they turned out to be scams. I should have known this because I had to enter my credit card into. I was charged for at least 8 subscriptions to various products!

3. De-clutter and sell! I am going through my house, top to bottom, inside and outside, and selling off as much stuff as I can. We have already sold quite a bit of items on e-bay. As Dave Ramsey says, "Sell until the kids think they're next!"

Here is my current plan for the extra money. This will change depending on how much extra cash we can bring in:

1. Pay off debt (with cash from sold items).
2. Have a monthly date night. The surveys don’t bring in a huge amount of cash, but even $5 a week would be a nice $20 dinner for 2 at some local restaurants (Applebees has a 2/$20 deal!).
3. Possibly pay a babysitter for a few hours a week so that I can do some stuff around the house.

I will be posting on what “extra cash” strategies are working for me, and which ones I choose to pass on.