FPU Update #4

BANK ACCOUNTS- I forgot to mention in my last update that I had opened up a new savings account specifically for our Emergency Fund.  I also opened a savings account for Quin.  The big kids have had theirs for several years, and I was a little behind on getting him one.  I've kept pretty good track of how much we "owe" him (birthday and Christmas checks from grandparents and great-grandparents) and will be transferring that into his account.  Our hope is that the kids will have enough money in their savings to buy a decent vehicle for cash when they are 16.

CREDIT CARDS- I've called and cancelled most of our credit cards.  We had two main cards and a bunch of store credit cards.  The only store cards I ever used were Kohls and Gap and that was because I liked the perks and coupons that I received.  At this time, we are planning on keeping one credit card until we're comfortable with the idea of not having one.  I know that the idea is to have no credit cards and no credit score, and we don't plan on taking out any other loans and already have a mortgage, so having no credit score shouldn't be a problem.  I have heard stories of people having a hard time renting cars and hotel rooms without a credit card though, so we're holding onto one until we experience renting easily without. We got our statement for our second credit card.  Again, we didn't have the $0 balance I was expecting.  Instead, we had a negative balance!  I returned a swimsuit back in February and the return was just credited to the March statement, so now I have to use the card somewhere and have exactly $17.59 put onto it in order to not lose the money.

SELLING STUFF- We're still working on selling "stuff" that we don't need.  A few things are pending sale and we're hoping to hear back about a biggish sale today.  I'm usually a bit of a pack-rat, but the purging feels surprisingly good.  Ryley and Quin's outgrown clothing is now going out the door as soon as they don't wear it anymore.  I'm holding onto most of Zeke's stuff for Quin, and by next year, I'll be at a point where I won't need to buy very much in the way of clothing for the little guy.   Our adult clothing goes to a local consignment shop that supports the school that I work at.  The kids clothing either goes there or to a resale shop that pays on the spot and offers a higher percentage if you take store credit.  Either way, we get a little bit back from our old clothes.  Sometimes I deal with trying to sell things on eBay, but I am finding that I don't have a ton of extra time for that right now.

THE BUDGET-  We sat down again with our planned budget for April and adjusted a few numbers.  We assigned certain categories to envelopes and put the budgeted amount of cash into them.  I'm not expecting things to work out perfectly this month as it's our first shot, but the sale of "stuff" will hopefully make up for anything that we didn't think to budget for (like dog licenses). A friend who has gone through FPU gave us an Excel budget template that was designed specifically for a zero balance budget, and using it made creating a budget a lot less work as the calculations were all done for us.