Tracking Expenses Manually (inspired by frugaldad’s blog)

A while back, I attempted to write down all expenses on a daily basis for 1 week. I believe I did spoke to my husband about it and he agreed to do that. It was an eye opened for both of us. I believe I’ve used excel to track that.

After reading frugaldad’s blog, I attempt to do it one more time. However, this time, we’ll log our expenses manually and we’ll do it for 1 month (my husband agree to do it for a month). I am excited that he agrees to do it. It’s not easy convincing one’s spouse and I’m sure some of you know what I am talking about.

My first response was trying to get 13 columns columnar paper from Staples or ebay because it’s a lot neater to track anything that way. I would keep double entry on the ledger. After reading some of the comments in frugaldad’s blog, I decided to just use spiral notebook which I have many on hand which I purchased them last year or the year before (before school year started). It was very cheap to get those spiral notebooks. It might be 10-20 cents each for 70 pages. I will have a 4 columns on each pager, they will be 1) date 2) description 3) expense category 1 4) expense category 2. I have about 8-9 categories of expenses and will take 3 pages both back and front. At the end of the month, I will tally up at the end of the page. And I will do this for all the months (if my husband decided to do this all the way through the year till 6/30/2011). We’ll sit down and look at the numbers each month and discuss it.

I’m excited! And I can’t wait to start officially on July 1st.

Planting herbs

Last year, I started some herb plants at home. I spent some amount of money on a light, pots and soil. It didn’t work out that well because it brought bugs. I’m not sure if it was the soil or the air. We tried different soil and try other methods of killing the bugs but it was not successful and I finally had to give up on them.

I did planted basil and parsley outdoors during the summer months and it worked great. The basil was very easy to plant either indoors or outdoors but outdoors definitely beat indoors. I had so much basil that I froze them with olive oil and kept in cubes in the freezer. I still have a lot in the freezer that I haven’t gotten a chance to use. I think it’s time to throw them out.

This year I am planting the basil again but I am not planting too many of them. I only have 2 basil plants and they are working well consider I only use basil every once in a while.

I wish the parsley plants are doing much better but they are not. Parsley doesn’t grow as fast as basil and I love fresh parsley in my salads and juice.

Emergency kit for auto and/or home in case of natural disaster, terror attack, hurricane, fire and etc…

I’ve been busy preparing for an emergency kit for auto and home. I’ve checked out some websites (one of them is the American Red Cross) on what is needed in first aid kit and in emergency kits. Since having a toddler at home makes me unable to go out as free as one pleases, I have order most of the stuff online. I got them through ebay.com, amazon, dealextreme.com and etoncorp.com. It’s been fun shopping and waiting for products to arrive in the mail. It feels like someone is sending me a gift everyday. I wait for the mailman to drop it off and see what is in the package. It certainly feels like gifts from the mailman except they are paid for from my bank account.

My emergency is still in the process of completion. I ordered some items from oversea and they are taking at least 2 weeks to get here.

It certainly feels good to have a kit ready in case of emergency. I hope I don’t ever have to use it.

International Students vs us – two different worlds

One day I was lying in bed with my toddler and I remember those good old days in college. I remember I used to work part-time and went to school full-time. I had no time for dating. Then there were students who always have so much time for fun and didn’t have to work.

Those were students that came from family that give them everything. They didn’t have to work part-time like I did. They always seem to have so much fun. They shop and dressed nice. They date and always have a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Oh those good old days!

They were international students whom have parents own hotels or businesses overseas and wrote them checks to pay for their rent, school, food and clothing. And on spring break or summer vacation, they always have plans to go somewhere.

Boy, what a different world we lived in.

So my friend and I was talking one day over the phone about one of her co-worker or ex-co-worker who didn’t have to worry about how much rent they are paying because her parents bought a place for her. My friend and I just working to make ends meet.

What a different world we live in.

After realizing we are living in two different worlds, we both sighed and move on with life!

Balancing Life Update

Back on 2/5/2010, I posted on my blog about balancing life and with 10 different categories which I took note of from the body and soul magazine. I haven’t really practice it until I notice tax date is due and a quarter of the year is gone and my life is not balance.

Everyday I wake up and seems to run around doing everyday chore feeding baby, entertain baby, cooking, cleaning, food shopping, pediatrician, paying bills, more feeding, cooking, food shopping etc…

So I decided to check off the month (rather weekly) of April for the 10 categories that is listed on balancing life. So far, I have done 8 out of the 10 categories and leaving community, dreams and goals not done anything at all. And this makes it clear that I am not living my life by my values.

There are a few very important items on my to-do list (in spreadsheet as I mentioned on my 8/30/2009) that have been lingering for the longest time. I have been ignoring them because I have been putting a lot of time into my everyday chores. Since checking off the categories on balancing life, I started taking action on those items. I do my everyday chores but I make sure I get started on those important to-do items. I finished one of them yesterday in one day. I started another one today but I got stuck. I am intent to finish this within the next 2 weeks.

This seems to work for me. Do my everyday chores; get started on a very important to-do item each day. And if I can’t finish it, I make sure I finish it within a time frame before going to the next one. I make sure I don’t start too many projects/to-do items. Otherwise, time and energy is wasted and nothing gets done.

Tax Date

Have your done your personal income tax yet? It’s due today. Your tax return must be postmarked by midnight today.

Have you heard of the term “tax freedom date”? If not, it was April 9 this year. You should check it out online and educate yourself.

Clutter and Depression

Recently I’ve been feeling depressed. I notice part of it is because of the clutter from incoming mails. I found myself doing too much with the incoming mails – especially the bills…I pay them, sort them, scan them, file them and then shred them and only keep the last three months in filing cabinet. All in all it’s a lot of steps. When I was ready to shred them, I have to take time to go to the filing cabinet to pull them out for shredding.

My husband and I finally come to an agreement to just keep important documents such as tax returns, insurance documents (life, auto, disability) and only keep the most recent bills that come in in one folder. So when bills arrive, I would pay them, scan them and then shred the previous month and only keep the current bill (in case we need the information when our computer is down or power is out). All of this saves me a lot of time looking into the filing cabinet and only keep the last 3 months of bills.

It’s been a little over a month and it is working very well.