Paying down the mortgage

I am working on our monthly budget for the new year in my Quicken program and just realized something. In a few months we will have more of our monthly mortgage payment going toward principle than toward interest! That's never happened before!! We used to have a 30 year mortgage and only about $200 each month went toward the principle...way less than what was going toward interest. We refinanced last year to a 15 year mortgage and I'm so amazed at how quickly the numbers are changing.

Another exciting thing for us is that my husband just got a sort-of promotion at work and will be getting a raise along with it. Since we have a fully funded emergency fund (baby step 3 per Dave Ramsey) and are already putting 15% of our income into retirement (baby step 4 per Dave Ramsey) we will be able to dump all of his raise onto our mortgage every month. I'm excited to see those numbers go down even faster!! Take a look at your own budget and your mortgage and see if you can do the same thing. What a great feeling it will be when we can finally say that we OWN our house!

Little People Big World

Have you ever seen the show "Wife Swap"? I don't even know if it's on anymore but I saw one episode a few years ago. A friend-of-a-friend was on the show and so I watched it. Basically, two families have the mom swap families for a week or two. They are usually drastically different families and they are supposed to learn something from walking in someone else's shoes.

I was thinking about this show the other day while I was watching an episode of "Little People Big World" that I taped a while ago on my DVR. I would LOVE to see the mom on LPBW trade places with Kate Gosselin from "Jon and Kate Plus Eight" or maybe Michelle Duggar from "17 Kids and Counting". ((Yes...I'm a little bit addicted to these shows on TLC.)) I felt so bad for Amy Roloff on LPBW -- her kids seem to treat her like crap quite often. They never pick up after themselves (she admits it's because she never emphasized it while they were growing up) and often ignore her when she tells them to do something. Let me tell you -- I'm FAR from the perfect mom but my kids don't get away with ignoring a request from me. I'd like to see her trade places with a mom who has trained her kids to do their share of chores around the house just so she knows that it CAN BE DONE.

And speaking of the Duggars, did you see the latest episode of their show?? The new baby is so adorable! While I am fairly certain God is NOT calling me to have 17 or 18 kids, I admire her for listening to Him and following what she feels He is calling her to do. Can you imagine how much better this world would be if more of us actually listened to God in prayer rather than just blindly doing whatever we want to do? That's my goal for this new year -- listen quietly to God in prayer. It's quite a challenge in my house since quiet time is rare. But I WILL make it happen even if I have to take my prayer time out to the van in the garage all by myself. :-)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

Want some Cash-Baq?

I signed up for a great site called CashBaq the other day. It's free to sign up and you get $5 in your account just for registering. You can earn cash back on all sorts of things. I bought an Entertainment Book for 2009 and ended up getting it for free with the cash back. They have a "deal of the day" each day as well as lots of other specials. If you want to sign up, I would really appreciate it if you did so with this link -- http://www.cashbaq.com/?refer=456913

Thanks!!

Cash for Christmas

Have you started your Christmas shopping? Do you have a budget? Do you make a budget and then end up spending more than you intended? Many people do just that so you are in good company. But remember -- just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean it's a good idea!

Ideally you want to plan for Christmas spending all year long. Remember -- Christmas comes at the same time every year so don't let it "sneak up on you". Set aside a little money every month and then next December you will be ready to go. Remember those "Christmas Club" accounts that your parents might have had at the local bank? I wonder why those fell out of favor with people? It's a great idea to set aside the money every month. I bet it was when the banks started issuing credit cards; they would rather you spend using those and then take half of the next year to pay them off.

At the first of December go to your bank and withdraw CASH for the amount of your Christmas budget. Put it in an envelope and make your spending list on the back of it. Decide ahead of time who you will buy for and how much you will spend. If you budget $20 for Uncle Joe and end up spending $40 on him then you will need to take $20 away from someone else to make it balance. When the money is gone, that's it -- you're done!

The first year we did this was was just amazing! We ended up finding sales and stayed under budget. As a result we were able to make a larger donation to a local charity than we had planned. Every year I feel such power and control when I spend cash for Christmas. I pay more attention to what I'm spending than if I were just swiping the debit card ) or worse -- the credit card. I do still use the debit card when I shop online, though. I simply make sure that I have enough cash in my envelope first and then set it aside to deposit back into the bank the next time I am out running errands.

This system has worked for us for many years now and I know that if you give it a chance it will work for you, too.

"Black Friday" is black in more ways this year

I was really saddened at the state of humanity when I read the newspaper online this afternoon. One story from the AP was about a WalMart employee in New York who was killed by a stampeding mob of customers when he opened the doors this morning. These people couldn't even be bothered to stop to help him -- they just stepped over him. Then some were actually upset at being told that the store was closing for a few hours because of the DEATH of this employee. Yes -- he died. Yes -- they whined about how long they had stood in line to get in and didn't want to leave. Yes -- their ability to purchase crap from China was more important than the life a another person. You can ready the rest of the story here. The second story came out of California. Apparently 2 people are dead after a shooting in a Toy's R Us store. Now, I need to point out that authorities have not yet determined the cause of the shooting and won't confirm that it was because of a toy. Perhaps it was gang-related. The real question is "who in their right mind brings a loaded weapon into a TOY STORE?" You can read that story here.

Bottom line -- Black Friday is truly a black day for our society as a whole this year. While there are innocent people being taken hostage and killed in India we are fighting over toys (probably imported from China) that will break and/or be forgotten shortly after Christmas morning. Pretty sad. Maybe we should all think about this and let it affect how we celebrate Christmas this year. What's more important to us? And what are we teaching our children? Is a pile of bargains under the tree more important than human life?

Here are my little Trick or Treaters this year -- at least the 3 big ones. Rebecca (age 7) is dressed as Mary the Mother of Jesus. Melanie (age 5) is dressed as Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, a Native American who has been recognized by the Catholic Church and elevated to the status of "blessed". Olivia (age 3) is a tiger. The older girls were dressed also for All Saints Day so their costumes were doing double duty. Olivia was supposed to be Saint Elizabeth of Hungary for All Saints Day but she decided she liked the tiger costume more. We told people she was either the tiger/lion who ate Saints Perpetua and Felicity or she was one of the tigers on Noah's Ark.



Here's my littlest Trick or Treater with daddy. Stephen is just barely 6 months old. I have an angel costume that the girls wore for their first Halloweens but it did look a little too frilly for him. Plus it was long sleeved and long legged...not a great combination for Halloween in Texas this year. I think the high that day was about 82 degrees.

Has the real John McCain come back??

I absolutely LOVED John McCain's speech at the Republican convention in Minnesota. He was full of spirit and energy and exhorting Americans to "stand up and fight" for their country. Then that John McCain sort of disappeared and this mousy guy took his place. I kept yelling at the TV screen, begging him to show that he has some fight left in him. Well, this morning I heard a clip of him at a rally in Ohio and it actually brought a tear to my eye. He was full of life again and ready to fight for the traditional America that we all love and don't want to lose. He was ready to fight to repair the economy. Best of all -- he was ready to fight to beat out Barack Obama. And the introduction he received from Rudy Giuliani was AWESOME! Now, Giuliani wasn't my favorite candidate in the primaries (that was Mike Huckabee) but I have to admit that he did a great job supporting McCain today. Why hasn't McCain had him along the campaign trail in recent weeks? Why did it take this long? Or maybe he's been there and I just haven't heard about it. It could be that the liberal media simply didn't report it. Who knows. Who cares. What I'm excited about today is that JOHN MCCAIN HASN'T GIVEN UP. We've still got a chance next week!