Home Improvementing: Baseboards

Removing, Painting and Reinstalling Baseboards

When I started my flooring project, I initially planned to leave the baseboards in place and only add a shoe moulding to cover the gap left by the flooring along the walls.

After we did the flooring in my bedroom, I changed my mind. The original color of the baseboards did not match my new flooring. I also figured it would be easier to paint them after they were removed, and it would be easier to cover the gap along the wall left by the flooring if the baseboards went overtop of the floor.

This photo taken with my cell phone shows the original baseboards with the new flooring. It just didn't match, in my opinion, so I decided they needed to be removed and painted.

The problem was that removing the baseboards from my room after the flooring was installed ruined them. I had to buy new baseboards for my room, and I decided that was way too expensive for my budget. 

Besides, why replace the baseboards when the ones already in the room were sized to fit the walls? It made much more sense to simply remove the ones we had, carefully, and paint them to coordinate with the new flooring.

Getting them out is the hard part, but with a little practice and patience, it is not as hard as it seems.

My tools.

Items you might need:

Safety glasses
Gloves
Pry bars of several sizes
Hammer
Pliers to help pull nails, if necessary
Container to collect the nails
Wood glue for any broken baseboards
Clamps
Sandpaper
Orbital sander
Paint with primer in it
Finishing nails
Nail set
Optional: Nail gun and compressor

These make pulling out all the extra nails as well as the carpet padding staples super easy.

Don't forget the safety gear!

Again, follow the instructions that come with your tools, use safety gear, and, most importantly, use common sense when doing any home improvement projects. What I describe here is only what I've learned from my own experience and not the only way or best way to do things.

How I do it:

My technique is to take the medium pry bar, the blue one showing above, and try to fit it beside a nail near the end of the baseboard. I use the hammer to help the pry bar down between the wall and the baseboard. I wiggle the baseboard slightly away from the wall, but don't force it. I apply even pressure to try to bring out from the wall.Then I proceed down the wall easing the baseboard away from the wall as I go. I work my way back and forth until the baseboard comes free. Depending on how long the baseboard is it may take a few passes to get it away from the walls.

The only ones I've broken are the smaller ones that make it hard to get the pry bar between the baseboard and the wall because of how close together the nails are. Sometimes those also have glue on them. When the baseboard did break, a little wood glue and clamps would bring them back together just fine. After sanding and painting, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference one bit.

I recommend coming up with some sort of marking or labeling system to mark the wall and the back of the baseboards. After removing the baseboards from most of the house, labeling them will go a long way toward identifying where they belong when they are ready to be reinstalled. In fact, it's made my job much easier for the baseboards I've reinstalled so far. You can use numbers or a combination of numbers and letters to identify the room they came from, like Up Hall 1, UH 2, etc. for the upstairs hallway. Going around the room in sequential order also will help keep track.

Painting goes better after the baseboards are sanded. The orbital sander makes fast work of sanding the baseboards. Once they are sanded, I recommend using the paint that already has the primer in it. You usually need one or two coats maximum.

Once the paint is dry and the floor is in, the baseboards can be replaced. Finishing nails are best to nail them to the wall. A nail set will help counter sink the nail heads slightly below the surface. Nail sets come in a kit. You place the nail set that fits the nail head over the nail head, hammer it and the nail sinks below the surface of the wood. You can cover the hole later with painter's caulk. It makes for a much nicer finished look. That is if you can get the nails in right.

I suck at hammering nails

Personal note: I tried this part, and I totally sucked at it. It was bad, horrible really, and took forever just to get one nail in correctly. I bent a lot of nails and had huge holes where I tried to sink the nails. I'm just not that good at hammering nails. Thankfully, my disaster was isolated to my closet, which won't be widely seen by the public. After that, I wisely decided that I needed to find a better alternative.

I shopped around and chose a compressor and nail gun. They were a little intimidating the first time I used them, but once I read the instructions several times and understood how everything hooked together, using them was much easier than I imagined. The nails sink below the surface automatically. A little painter's caulk fills those holes nicely.

In fact, just recently I replaced the baseboards in my upper hallway after finishing the flooring. Using the nail gun took minutes once everything was set up. It was also much cleaner, unlike the multiple bent nails and such that I ended up with in my closet.

A photo of the finished baseboard in the hallway I recently completed.

One of the lessons I have learned is that the right tools make all the difference. It's better to do the job right the first time than to mess things up and have to spend more money to fix the problem later.

Oh, I saved a good portion of the baseboards that I removed from my room despite their brokenness. I have a feeling that when I get to the bathrooms, some of the baseboards will be unsalvageable and need to be replaced. I can use the pieces left from my bedroom to replace those. It isn't a total loss, and the learning experience saved me more money in the end.

Credit Cards Are Evil

Credit Cards Are Evil

Yes, I believe credit cards are evil. It may seem like a necessary evil, but if we plan ahead for emergencies, we can avoid using credit for such emergencies. Once you whip out that card it's a slippery slope into major debt-hood. 

No judgement here, though. I get sucked in just as easily as the next person. I try really hard not to use them and, instead, use my savings for emergencies, but there are times when it just feels so much easier to put it on the card and give my savings a rest. 

This is how I've ended up with balances on a few cards after having paid all of them off last year. Ugh. I'm so frustrated with myself. I realize that I need to change my habits if I am ever going to get completely out of debt and stay out.

Facing up to the state of my credit card balances is feeling harder than I thought it would, but I've managed to screw up my courage and found the balances on two of them. My next step will be to dig out all of the cards - most of them I hid from myself to avoid being able to use them - and find out the balances on all of them. They all need to be checked just for good measure and make sure there are no balances on any of them.

Then I need to make a plan to get the ones with balances paid off, once I've rebuilt my savings up. Small steps, but each one gets me moving in the right direction.

What about you? What are your struggles with credit card debt?

Next steps:

Get real about the debt
Save $1,000
Keep working on the budget

Photo courtesy of chodra with morguefile.com.

Life Insurance

There are a few questions that need to be answered when buying life insurance.

What are your reasons for buying life insurance?

Do you have small children that need to be provided for in the event of your death? Are you their primary caregiver and need to provide for someone to care for them in your absence? Are you wanting to provide for your children's education after you are gone?

Maybe you have a home and you want to provide funds so that your loved ones can pay off the mortgage and have a place to live worry free after you are gone. Maybe you want to provide for your final expenses after your death, like final bills and funeral expenses.

Quite possibly you might own a business and want to set up a buy-sell arrangement. In a buy-sell arrangement, the life insurance provides funds to the remaining partners that is to be used to purchase the deceased person's portion of the business from his heirs. 

There is also key man insurance. This is used in situations where an employee is so integral to the life of the business that their death would likely cause some sort of business interruption. The financial benefit allows the business time to implement their succession plans.

When should you buy life insurance?

Adverse selection is a term that refers to that those who need insurance the most are the most likely to apply for insurance. Life insurance is bought to insure against the risk of a person's death. Therefore, the health of the individual is important and will be reviewed by the insurance company in many cases.

The age of the individual is important, as well, because the older we get the closer we approach the natural end of our days. Age and health impact the rate a person will get when applying for life insurance. Buying when you are young and healthy will afford you the best rates.

Additionally, be honest about your health when filling out the application. You can be denied insurance if you are untruthful on your application. Likewise, if the misrepresentation is discovered during the claim, your beneficiaries might not receive the death benefit you intended for them. 

How much should you purchase?

It really depends on how you wish the funds be spent in the unfortunate occurrence of your death. You might want to add up your debts and use that as a factor in deciding the amount. 

Or you may decide to use your annual salary as a factor. For example, if your children are young and you wish to provide an amount equal to your annual salary for the remaining years your children will need to be cared for.

A good insurance agent will help you decide how much insurance is right for you and your family or situation.

What type of life insurance should you buy?

The most common type is a term policy. Term products are purchased to provide a particular face amount of insurance during a specified period of time. For example, if you purchase a 20 year term policy, your premiums remain the same during that 20 year period of time. 

A term policy makes the most sense for most individuals. There are other types of policies. Some can earn a small interest during the life of the policy. If you are looking to earn money on an investment, a life insurance policy is not the best option. Typically, the guaranteed interest rate is so small that other investments make more sense.

Should you insure your children?

Yes. Funerals are expensive and the last thing a parent needs is to worry about the cost of a funeral when their child has just passed. 

The face amount of the policy for a child will be much lower than that of the parents. It is unlawful to make a person more valuable dead than alive. This is why insurance companies evaluate the purpose for the insurance and the reasonable need for the amount. They also look at the beneficiaries to make certain there is insurable interest for the beneficiaries to need the funds when the insured passes.

How should you go about purchasing life insurance?

The best way to go about purchasing life insurance is to find a reputable agent who will sit down with you and go over your family and life situations and recommend the best policies for each of you. Life insurance can be complicated and the advice of a qualified insurance professional will help you navigate the many options out there so you can make an informed decision on how best to protect your family's financial future.

Links:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/money101/lesson20/index.htm

Photo courtesy of earl53 on morguefile.com.

Gone Too Soon

Gone Too Soon

Photo courtesy of wallyir at morguefile.com

Last night I learned that a family member had passed away yesterday. He was young, too young. I have no idea how his loved ones will get through the next few days, weeks or even years. I'm still in shock myself. I can not begin to imagine what they are feeling right now.

It might seem crass to mention life insurance at a time like this, but I worked for many years for a life insurance company. We don't buy it for ourselves. We buy it for the ones we leave behind. We buy it so they can have the financial resources to follow through with our last wishes and grieve without worrying about how the mortgage will get paid this month or next month or the one after that. 

Life insurance can never replace a life that has been lost, but it can ease the burdens that loved ones carry after we are gone. 

I won't go into definitions of what types of life insurance you can buy. That is for another post. I urge you, if you have not added purchasing life insurance to your financial plan, call your insurance agent today and make that appointment to discuss the options that are right for you and your family. It's an important part of planning your financial future.

Solavei Special

For a Limited Time Only

Visit www.solavei.com/sjoh441574 for more information.

I've mentioned before that I use Solavei for my cell phone service, and I love it. I've been using it since October 2012, and I have been very happy with the service. 

Solavei runs on word of mouth marketing or what they call Social Commerce. They do not pay for expensive advertising like the other big cell phone carriers do. They choose, instead, to reward their members, people like me and you, for using their service and for sharing it with others. 

Has your cell phone every paid you?

If you share it with others and three people sign up, called a trio, you can earn $20 off your monthly bill. (See the website for details on the compensation plan.) If you sign up and do nothing, you still get to enjoy unlimited talk, text, and data, with no contract, for $49 a month.

Awesome Special

Hurry! The sale ends soon. Don't miss out on this amazing opportunity! www.solavei.com/sjoh441574

For a limited time, until September 3, 2013, Solavei is offering new members $39 a month for their first three months. 

Seriously?!? How many out there get unlimited talk, text, and data with no contract less than $39 a month?! Yeah, me neither. 

Check out the link below and see if Solavei is a fit for you. It's one debt-busting way to grab control of those finances and make your money work for you.

Link:
www.solavei.com/sjoh441574

Questions:
adventuresindebtbusting@gmail.com

Home Improvementing: Carpet Removal

Carpet Removal

Let’s say you are replacing your carpet and would like to find a way to save some money on the installation. One way you can do that is to handle the removal of the old carpet yourself. It’s not complicated, but it is hard work. If you aren’t afraid of a little hard work, read on…

In my case, I was replacing the carpet with laminate flooring and the color of the baseboards did not match the color of the flooring. I decided to remove the baseboards, sand them, and paint them. After I did the first room, I decided that the best time to remove the baseboards was before removing the carpet. Removing the baseboards is another post, though.

Here I just want to talk about removing the carpet itself and cleaning up the crud underneath it.

Items you might need:

• ·         Carpet removal knife with replaceable blades
• ·         Work gloves
• ·         Safety glasses
• ·         Twine
•         Scissors
• ·         Extra garbage bags
• ·         Needle nose pliers
• ·         Pry bars
• ·         Hammer
• ·         Bucket
• ·         Vacuum cleaner
• ·         Broom and dust pan
• ·         Dust mask
• ·         Long sleeved shirt
• ·         Long pants
• ·         Sturdy closed-toed shoes

As always, read the instructions that come with your tools and ask questions of the folks at the hardware stores to make sure you understand your project. Use common sense and be safe when doing any home improvement projects. I am describing here what worked for me. You may decide other tools or methods may work better for you. More power to you.

After all of the furniture has been removed from the room, open your windows or at least give them a crack. You will be stirring up a lot of dust when you start ripping up the carpet and the open windows will help provide some air circulation.

Using your carpet knife, wearing your gloves, long sleeves, pants, sturdy shoes, dust mask and safety glasses, begin making cuts into the carpet about as wide as you want to handle when it is rolled up and tied. Bigger is not always better here. You need to be able to remove it from the house and get it to the curb or garbage container so be smart about how big of a roll you want to deal with. Consider also that the carpet is probably going to be pretty nasty once you get it up off the floor. Trust me. 

Roll up your strips of carpet and tie them up with twine. Check with your local garbage service, but mine would not take the carpet unless it was rolled and then tied.

You’ll want to do the same thing with the padding underneath. That rips a little easier so use the garbage bags for the random pieces that don’t get rolled up.

It gets pretty gross at this point.

It doesn't matter how often you vacuumed or if you just did it before taking up the carpet. You will be really grossed out by how much dirt is under that padding. For those of us with dust allergies, you will want to take frequent breaks and wear your dust mask during the carpet removal.

Sweep and vacuum as much of the crud up before you begin taking up the tack strips and staples. You’ll probably want to vacuum one more time after you've removed the tack strips and staples, but since you are going to be kneeling or sitting on the floor, you don’t want to be kneeling in that grossness.

Use your pry bar and hammer to pry the tack strips up from the flooring. It helps to aim the pry bar between the nails and don’t force it too much. Aim to loosen the entire strip by applying steady pressure with the pry bar along the length of the strip, and as you loosen it, more of the strip will come up without breaking into small bits. The more you do it, you will develop a feel for it. It's the same technique with the baseboards.

I like to use the WonderBar for the nails that remain stuck in the floor. It does a great job of getting those out without snapping off the head of the nail. Again, loosen the nail by applying steady pressure, but don’t force it or you run the risk of snapping the head of the nail off.

For the staples, take your time and go methodically around the room prying up the staples where the padding was stapled to the floor with needle-nosed pliers or other implements that seem to work for you. I even used a paint key that opens paint cans at one point. Use the bucket to collect them as you go. It will make clean up easier. Also, you want to collect them so you don’t accidentally step on one or lean on one with your hand. Not pleasant.

Take your time.

Allow plenty of time for the carpet removal and the removal of the tack strips and staples. Take plenty of breaks because the dust you stir up will be really disgusting. Removing the staples is tedious and getting all of that dust and dirt up off the floor is nasty, but the subfloor will be in much better shape for whatever floor treatment you decide to go with in the end. If you are paying someone else to install the new flooring, doing the removal of the old stuff yourself can save you hundreds on the installation costs.

More on Creating a Budget

More on Creating a Budget

Photo credited to chodra on morguefile.com.

In researching other blogs on personal finance and budgeting, I came across a blog called Get Rich Slowly. This blog has a lot of great information on managing one’s personal finances. In one article titled “HowDo I Create a Budget?”, Richard Barrington writes about how important it is to find a budgeting system that works for you. Keeping good records is vital to maintaining any budget. This is an area that I struggle with greatly. Barrington stresses that the method you choose is less important than committing to it. My goal will be to find a record-keeping system that I can keep up with and manage. No small task with my ADHD.

Another point he makes is one I made recently about using the income you can count on in your budget. Bonuses are not static and should not be included as part of a person’s regular income. When you receive two paychecks every month for 10 months out of the year, the two paychecks is the amount you should use in your budget. That makes it easier to manage expenses month to month. That is one thing that I have discovered over the years. 

Barrington also mentions that when you find yourself with a surplus, such as those two months when that third paycheck arrives, be smart about how you manage those funds. You should decide ahead of time how that money will be spent. Either add it to savings, put it toward debt, or spend it on something you've been putting off, but make sure you allocate it somehow or you could end up spending more than you intended. That is an important point. I often find that I overspend those funds simply because I did not allocate the funds appropriately ahead of time.

Next Steps:

Continue work on my budget

Get real with the debt

Damn! Grilled Peaches

Damn! Grilled Peaches

I was going to write this post about eating healthy on a budget, etc. etc. 

And then this happened. Yep. 

Grilled peaches with a butter rum sauce and vanilla frozen yogurt for dessert. 

My daughter's response was, "Damn!" The fact that she responded at all was pretty amazing. Most days the best response I get from her is a grunt.

To tie this into the whole budget-friendly theme on this blog, I will say that the peaches were overripe and needed to be used up. That's a theme in my grocery shopping lately. I'm trying to focus on fresh foods that I can buy cheaply and dress up somehow. 

I grilled the peaches in coconut oil in the grill pan. I put nothing else on them when they grilled. I kept it simple. If I were going to do this on a grill, I would brush the peaches with the coconut oil.

Then I did a version of the butter rum sauce from this recipe here. I made about half a batch, but I didn't measure anything. I had just a bit of rum left in a bottle so I used it up. The sauce was slurp-worthy.

I had one peach half left that I poured the rest of the sauce over. I had to resist the urge to whip out a straw and slurp it from the pan. 

This morning I made some French toast. I cut up the peach that was leftover and reheated it in the sauce to make syrup.  Mmm... I like using up leftovers like this.

Overripe fruit can often be used to make desserts by making them into a cobbler, fruit crisp, or using them in a syrup that can be used over ice cream or to top pancakes or French toast.

Create a Habit of Saving

Photo provided by mconnors at morguefile.com

Savings Habit

Several years back, when things were really tight, I managed to open a savings account with a very small amount of cash. The key was that I had to set up an automatic recurring draft from my checking account to my savings account. I set that draft up for every payday. At first it was something small like $10. At the time, that was hard to adjust to. It's sad, but true. Over the years, that amount has increased, and I am grateful that I set up that account when I did. It's proof that even with the small amount that I had to work with, I could still establish some sort of habit of saving. If I can do it, anyone can.

Start an Emergency Fund

Dave Ramsey in his book, The Total Money Makeover, discusses what he refers to as baby steps toward getting out of debt. It's the focus on each step that makes the difference and gets a person out of debt. The first baby step is to have $1,000 in an emergency fund. The idea is that if you have an emergency fund to draw on when a tire blows or the hot water heater fails. 

Once you've saved $1,000 or $500 for those who make less than $20,000 a year, put it someplace where it won't be easy to get to. If the emergency fund is too easy to get your hands on, it will be dipped into every time there is an "emergency" that it isn't really an emergency. 

That has been part of my problem. I haven't saved as much as I would like, in part because I've dipped into it way more than I should. Yet, I am extremely glad to have the account and a little cash set aside for emergencies. One of my goals will be to save $1,000 and move it where I will have less access to it for impulse purchases, and yet, still be able to get to it when there are real emergencies.

Next Steps:

Continue working on the budget
Save $1,000
Get real about the debt

Links:

www.totalmoneymakeover.com

Adventures in Home Improvementing

Home Improvementing

I think I briefly mentioned some home improvementing that I have been doing lately. It’s been a drain on my finances for one, which has prompted me to rethink how I handle my finances which, in turn, prompted me to start this blog. In other ways, though, it has been rather enlightening and even liberating.

The perpetrator showing off his new haircut last year.

Blame it on the Cat

In March 2013, I came home from dinner out with my daughter to find that the cat had gotten locked in my bedroom. In his attempt to free himself, he clawed at the carpet at the doors until he shredded it down to its tack strips. This was more than a little Duck tape could cover so my plans to buy a new appliance for the kitchen was shelved and it was decided that it was time to replace the carpet.

The carpet needed to go so this was not a huge surprise. I had wanted to replace it with laminate flooring for years. Laminate flooring would be better for my dust allergies and easier to take care of, too. The problem was that I figured that I could afford the supplies, but not the installation. I was going to have to screw up my courage and face this problem myself. I work full-time and my schedule can be rather demanding so I've been doing most of the work myself on the weekends.

The landing at the top of the stairs finally finished. The door to the left is to the bathroom, which will be rehabbed at a future date.

Big Honking Milestone Achieved!!

This past weekend, I finally finished the flooring on the second floor. An enormous milestone. HUGE. Dance-worthy. Seriously. I even opened a bottle of Prosecco in celebration. Yes, it's that big. I still have a lot more to go on the first floor, but I am gaining confidence as I go.

You can look forward to a few posts about various steps of the project that I've accomplished along the way and how I feel you can use a little elbow grease and an aptitude for learning to save a little money if you decide to take on similar projects.

In the meantime, here are two things I've learned about myself during this process: 1) Burning your elbow with a heat gun is a great way to remind yourself to keep them off the table; and 2) I am capable of far more than I ever realized. Far, Far more.

The Cost of an Education

Photo provided by chrisof4 at morguefile.com

A personal finance blogger was criticized this week for commenting via twitter that he wouldn't be paying for his son's photography degree. The article wondered how much influence parents should be able to have when financing a child's college degree. I have a child that has just graduated high school. I have also completed two college degrees within the last 5 years so this is a topic that resonates with me.

While we know that college graduates earn more over their lifetime than those without a college degree, I believe the type of degree matters, especially after the recent financial crisis. The purpose of a degree is not studying a fun subject or partying for several years. The purpose of a degree is to give the graduate an advantage in obtaining employment after the degree has been earned. Some degrees are naturally more in demand than others. 

Maximizing A Degree's Earning Potential

A photography degree might seem like a great choice to someone with significant aptitude in that area, but it is unlikely to guarantee the graduate an ability to earn an income, at least not at first. It will take the graduate time to purchase the right equipment, build a portfolio and develop clientele. What stands out to me is that a photographer is typically self-employed, and a self-employed individual could benefit from a business degree. If the student wanting to pursue photography would also obtain a dual degree in business, they would be maximizing their earning potential.

The student would have a much better chance at finding employment after graduation because of the business degree. The earnings from that employment would allow him to pay off any student loans and dedicate some funds to building his photography business on the side until he was able to live off of that income exclusively. It would also give him the knowledge to know how to run a business - handle permits he might need for a shoot, lease office space, obtain insurance for his equipment, etc. Knowing how to manage such details would help him not let his photography business get sunk over small but important details. He would always have the business degree to fall back on during hard times, but it would complement his photography passion by allowing him to develop an effective strategy to pursue it and make it a profitable career.

Passion Tempered by Common Sense

I'm not saying that someone shouldn't follow their passions in life. What I am saying is that today's high school graduates entering college should look at their degree options objectively and make degree decisions that will create a solid foundation for their future, no matter what that future might bring. By tempering that passion with a little common sense, a person can protect themselves from becoming another drifting college graduate unable to find decent employment, which could also prevent him from pursuing his passion.

Looking back on my own decisions, I wish I had finished my bachelors degree when I was in my early 20s. Being a single parent would not have been so difficult financially if I had earned that degree instead of putting it off. 

Link:

http://thecelebritycafe.com/feature/2013/08/personal-finance-blogger-hits-nerve-about-paying-children-s-college-education

Budgeting for the Broke

Photo provided by cohdra at morguefile.com

In my search for tips on budgeting, I came across an article that gave several very good tips that those of us who are broke can employ to create a workable budget. I decided to share a few of the tips here and encourage you to read the article in its entirety at the link provided.

Take Stock and Prioritize

One of the first steps is to prioritize your bills so the most important bills, like housing and transportation, are paid first. You need a place to live and a way to get to work more than you need cable. Another important step is to make sure that you know the due dates of all the bills you owe and the minimum payments on all the credit cards.

Negotiate Rates

Try contacting your credit card companies and see if they will reduce the rate you are being charged on your cards. A reduced rate could help pay that balance down a lot faster. This is one I haven’t tried yet and will look into soon.

Review the Past Spending

Go over bank statements for the past month or two and evaluate where the money is really going. Often we think we know where the money is going, but doing an evaluation can help see where the spending is really happening. This would help identify what expenses can be cut to help pay off debt.

These are a few tips I will be studying as I build my budget.

Next Steps:

Continue developing the budget
Get real about the debt

Link:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/budgeting-youre-broke-080000891.html

It Starts With a Plan

Photo provided by gracey on morguefile.com.

Budgeting

Budgeting scares me. Let me just say that right now. Every time I have tried to create a budget with all of those spreadsheets and columns including the extra stuff that you should be setting aside money for like tires and eyeglasses, I would get a little nauseas and have a panic attack. I still do. The problem was that a lot of these budgeting tools are not realistic for most of us single parents or those with limited means. To be quite honest, to actually budget for everything I was supposed to be including in the budget would have required me to work multiple jobs. As a single parent, that was not a feasible option.

I believe the key is to work with what you have. Work with the cash you have in hand every month. Start where you are. For example, if you get paid every two weeks, you will get 26 pays per year. That means that two months out of the year, you will get three paychecks instead of two. Some budgeting tools give instructions to average that out to a monthly amount by multiplying the average paycheck by 26 and then dividing by 12. Then use that monthly amount to work out your budget. That might work in theory, but it doesn't work in reality.

Instead, I suggest creating a budget based on the actual money in hand each month. This means that if you get two paychecks a month for 10 months out of the year, budget on those two paychecks every month. It’s far less stressful to budget on what you can count on every month. I feel the same way about child support, especially if it is not very regular as in my case. That might be a post for another time, though. The bottom line is that you should create a budget based on the money you know will be available each month.

Bonus Pays

What do you do with those bonus pays or those two months when you get that third paycheck? When those extra paychecks arrive, utilize the income to your advantage. Set some money aside for those eyeglasses, tires, or even Christmas presents. Put some money aside for nonperishables or pay down a credit card or doctor bill or just add it to your emergency fund. It's up to you to decide how that extra cash can be put to best use. Just make sure to use the money wisely, and that it helps you reach your financial goals.

I'm still working on my budget plan. I've been doing some research to decide what resources work the best for me. I have an old copy of the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey that I plan to review, but I intend to take my time with this and work on a plan I can live with. Ultimately, for any budget plan to work, it has to be one you can stick with over the long term. I’ll keep you posted on how it comes together. Meanwhile, you could add your budgeting tips in the comment section below. 

Here are some online tools I plan to explore as I work on creating my budget:

Dave Ramsey's Budgeting Tools

Budgeting help

Budgeting Software Options

Next Steps:

Start planning a budget
Face the music with regards to the debt

What is Solavei?

What is Solavei?

Solavei is a social commerce company that began offering cell phone service with no contract and unlimited talk, text and data for $49 a month nearly a year ago.The idea of social commerce is that word of mouth advertising can be incredibly powerful so harnessing it through social media can create a win-win situation for both the company and the consumer. In Solavei's case, they created a compensation plan that allows members to earn income by sharing Solavei with friends and family. Please review the company's compensation plan at the link provided below to understand how the plan can work for you, if you happen to be interested.

First, let me say that $49 a month for unlimited talk, text and data with no contract was the exact plan I was looking for when I was shopping for cell phone service last year. I'm not going to lie to you, though. Eliminating this bill would be a big deal for me and allow me to put more income into paying off debt so I decided to share the opportunity with all of you folks out in internet-land.

If all you want to do is bring down the cost of your cell phone service to $49 a month, I totally understand. I've been paying that each month for nearly a year and am thrilled to have a cell phone bill that low when others I looked at wanted more than $100 a month for similar service. I've saved almost $1000 since joining Solavei. That's nothing to sneeze at. However, if you would like to make your cell phone service work for you and pay you for sharing the opportunity with others, I'm behind you and so are all the people I am connected with in the Solavei network.

Great things are coming down the pipeline, too, regarding social commerce so now is the perfect time to learn more about Solavei and how it might benefit you.

Here is a link to my Solavei page: www.solavei.com/sjoh441574.

Solavei in the News

This is Me

Photo provided by andyk at morguefile.com.

Introduction

I'm in my early forties, and I've spent the majority of my adult life either in debt or struggling to make ends meet. It’s a depressing existence and one that I am determined to change before I pass the lifestyle of debt and despair on to my daughter.

Who am I?

I am a single mother who found herself several years ago stuck in limbo. I decided that if I wanted a better paying job, then I would have to finish my college degree. In my mid-thirties, I went back to finish my bachelors degree. After I did that, I decided that if one degree was good, two would be even better. Now the chickens have come home to roost, so to speak, in the form of student loans. Lots of them.

For several months since the loans came due, I’ve been struggling to stick to a budget. Child support has dried up now that my daughter is over 18, and, on top of all of this, I decided to take on the project of replacing all of the carpet in my house with laminate wood flooring. Yeah. The added financial stress has not helped matters.

But it will get better. I've been in worse situations so I know that things will improve. I just have to face the music of where I actually stand debt-wise, and create a strategy that will lead me out of this financial desert.

Money-saving tips and ideas

I'm hoping to use this blog to motivate myself to come up with some creative and realistic ideas for how to save money on a day-to-day basis and stick to my debt-busting plan. These ideas might just allow me to funnel more cash into paying down the balances I owe and bring financial freedom a little closer, one small step at a time.

This is going to be a huge learning experience for me. I am totally stepping outside my comfort zone here by putting myself on the line and committing to living and experiencing life in a way that not only will lead to financial independence, but will, hopefully, add more meaning to my life as well. 

I invite you along on this journey and welcome your ideas and suggestions. 

Next steps:

Start a planning a budget
Face the music with regards to the debt