Dailies... How we spent our time, money, energy and what we ate. An accountability process.

Ok, so this is the first post of our 'Dailies' feature... I didn't get a chance to do it last night because I wasn't sure how it was all going to shake out and Kyle was running out the door for game night at One Up, so I didn't get a chance to sit and interview him about his first day on our new plan. What I gathered and what I can contribute from my own experience is this:

We spent about $30 dollars between the two of us on groceries/meals (I bought a coffee and low fat cheese sticks for breakfast yesterday and he bought two slices of Pizza for supper... the rest was spent at the grocery store) This only happened because a) I haven't been shopping in a while and b) we were both on the run... I woke up late and didn't have time to grab anything, anyway and he didn't have time to stay home long enough for me to make something. I think we can remedy these occurrences when he starts getting regular paychecks again. I have big plans for going back to shopping at the farmer's market and cooking more often/pre-preparing meals for the week. Anyway, I usually spend a lot more on snacks and drinks while I'm at work... mostly because I get so bored that I end up emotionally eating, just to keep from going crazy. Thinking about having to share all that with you guys pushed me to abstain. It's embarrassing how I have spent my days here and I am happy that I can be open and honest about my relationship with this job and what's become of me being here. It feels good to talk about it, to address it and hopefully definitely kick its ass! More importantly, kick my own ass. Sorry for the language, I just need to get super intense right now about all of this. I digress.

Now I have to share about how I ate. It's not going to be pretty... The day started off ok. I ate one and a half low fat cheese sticks, two packs of instant oatmeal, coffee with french vanilla creamer and sugar (its all toxic, I'm aware, but its a step up from where I've been, trust me) I then just drank water for the rest of the day because I didn't bring lunch with me and I didn't want to spend any more money out... But I didn't really feel hungry, so I let it go. By the time I got around to 5 o'clock, I still wasn't hungry but I was so stressed out from being supremely bored, anxious, tired and feeling trapped at my desk in addition to my excruciating commute home in the dark that I got out of control when I went home. I had sushi AND mac & cheese plus a piece of pumpkin cheesecake and chips. I then felt too tired to do anything that I wanted to accomplish and I promptly laid down with Ellie and watched cheesy Christmas movies until 1:30 am. Kyle did a little better, I think. Oatmeal for breakfast, eggs for lunch and pizza for supper with chips as a snack. Not the healthiest but he didn't eat a bunch of snacks like we are used to. I still need to research the two diets we are thinking about switching to. We really do have a desire to eat better and more healthfully, we are just trying to cut back on the junk and get a better grip on how to feed ourselves well. More specifically for me, get over my addiction and stop eating when I can't handle my life.

As far as the other things I want to try to start doing on the daily, I didn't read or pray, budget my time or do any chores. I don't know that Kyle did either. But he IS already up to season 6 of Doctor Who, so he will be ready for the Christmas Day regen... haha. I'm joking, but still. It's all a work in progress and so far, it has already inspired us to be a little more intentional. That's all I wanted. I pray that we will continue to think and grow in this way and talk to each other more and more.

I'm not going to be able to post the link to any of my social media until later tonight, because, guess what!! Our phones got shut off yesterday!! Haha. I'm not upset. Just another obstacle to overcome. And we WILL overcome.

Thank you all for the continued support and encouragement. XO!


Currently listening to: Desert Soul by Rend Collective Experiment

Budget & Debt Snowball

As promised, I want to update the details of our budget meeting and debt snowball. Probably, our debt snowball will be on pause for a little bit while we get ourselves together, but I will keep everything update as neccessary.

Budget 12/1/13:
Phone bill for November $400 (putting my cashed out sick days onto this immediately, $170)
Car for November $180 (paying this week with my last Nov. paycheck)
Water for November $60 ($30 today, $30 with next bill)
Electric for November $299 ($75 today, $225 with Kyle's first paycheck)

Tires for Kyle $300 (Kyle's first paycheck)
Spark plugs, brakes, oil change for me $100 (Kyle's first paycheck)

Regular expenses:

Electric 70
Water 70
Gas 180
Sewer 20
Auto/Home ins 125
Fuel 200
Life insurance 37
Alarm 37
Internet 75
Hulu 8
Car 180
Gym 25
Host Gator 10
Pets 75
House Supplies 50
Phfa 54
Food 300
Phone 400
-------------------
$1916

We have decided to stop paying the credit cards for now because there's a lot more important things on our plate at the moment... like eating and keeping the lights on. Also, as soon as we are caught up with the phone bill, I'm going to see what I can do about making it cheaper. I may be going back to an inexpensive phone for the moment. You'll notice that our mortgage isn't included in this budget and that is because we are in the process of a short sale. I don't have the energy to talk much more about the house; it has already sucked more life and energy from me than I'd like to admit. You can use google if you are curious about all that a short sale entails. As soon as Kyle gets his first paycheck, we are going to catch up our utilities, take care of some neccessities, (such that I have on my list: new tires for my car, house repairs, get all of our pets to the vet) and then as much as we can is going to go into saving up 3-6 months of rent for our new place in Philly.


Also, here is our debt snowball... We are going to begin working through this, smallest to largest (because we all need wins to keep us going... at the point that we get intense, interest rates don't matter...)

Medical bills:
$60
$60.34
$61.88
$99
$100
$150
$164.25
$395.72
$532
$1000
--------------
$2, 623.19

Credit:
Lindsay $281
HSBC $387
Capitol One $348.70
Belden $469.55
Kyle Best Buy $579.31
Express $590.32
Usaa $600
Capitol One $610
Alana Best Buy $789
Boscov's $798
Lowes $959
Chase $988
Citizens $1900
-----------------------
$9, 299.88

Other:
Car $2600
PHFA $3672.25
-------------------
$6, 272.25

School:
Racc $789
BTI $2755
School $45,000.00
----------------------
$48, 544.00

All Together: $66, 739.32
Paid: $24, 480.07

More to come later with our daily update. Thanks for tuning in!

XO.

The Fadigans Move Forward...

This is my first post from the mobile app. Hopefully, it turns ok. You'll have to let me know, because I probably won't see this post from a desktop until tomorrow morning. 

Anyway, Kyle and I had our first budget meeting in a very long time. Although, a little frustrating trying to stretch every dollar, it felt really good to be working on the problem together. I was very grateful that he was so understanding and thoughtful about his input. No fighting this time. I will post the details of our meeting tomorrow, as my notes are away already and I'm in the bath. I really just want to give you a run down of the new features that I will be running on Girl Forward that highlight mine and Kyle's journey as we restart our debt free goals and spiritual/mental/physical strengthening. 

Kyle and I decided that we are much more likely to follow through with our goals and plans if we had an audience and readers to be accountable to. With that in mind, I'm going to be faithful to record our progress here. This is tentatively what the blog schedule for posts featuring Kyle and me will look like: 

First of the month: monthly budget and debt snowball progress. 

Weekly ( I haven't decided which days yet) : Mine and Kyle's health numbers, body fat, weight, inches etc. We have made a committment to ourselves and each other to get into better physical shape. Not only are we going to work out but I'm going to research between two plant based diets and see which one works best for us. Also, weekly, I'm going to include progress of house projects as we attempt to fix up the house for resale. Sundays, I'll update each of our take away from the morning's service. 

Daily: We figured if we had to be honest about what we were spending our money on, what we were eating and doing with our time, we'd be more intentional about all of it. So daily, I'll post mini updates of all of those things. 

We have lived a prodigal life for the last five years; our unrealized motto being 'Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die' .... I have no desire to live a frivolous and wasted life any longer. Neither of us do. Kyle says we had to learn things the hard way so that we'll never do it again. His words are true and I am interested in righting our ship to the proper course. Desperately, as apparently is needed. 

Please stay with us as we sort through our mess and learn to live well.