#budget2019

My splurge for this week was $7 on a Swedish Sponge. What is a Swedish Sponge you ask? It behaves like a hybrid towel sponge that was invented in Sweden and is made from 70% cellulose and $30 cotton. It’s fairly thin but can hold a lot of water which makes it perfect for cleaning off my kitchen counter. When it gets grungy, I can throw it in the wash along with the rest of my laundry and keep using it for another 199 washes. When it is finally done I can compost it with the rest of my kitchen scrapes. 

It’s July and that means GO PLASTIC FREE this month. Since my gradual process of going zero waste I have yet to accomplish this task. I’m hoping 2019 will be my year. In addition to plastic free July, I’ve added a new category of Carbon Footprint to try and push myself to reduce my impact in a way that may not be covered by minimalism, zero waste, debt free, or relationship.

Minimalism: Institute a no buy weekend July 4th, while organizing a holiday party with my family and neighbors. I love me a potluck.

Zero Waste: Make my own ice-cream, bread, and cookies for snacks this month.

Debt Free: Try to put $1100 towards my car loan this month in total.

Relationship: Take my partner out on a no-spend date at least once this month without our son.

If you don’t believe in climate change you’ve come to the wrong blog. I am an advocate for reducing my carbon footprint in nearly everything my family does year round, including the summer.

I will always remember summers being stiflingly hot as a kid growing up on the coast,but it recent years it seems the Mid-West has given my hometown a run for its money with non-stop rain for weeks, followed by scorching temperatures, and brief thunderstorms. As a result whenever I step outside I hear the constant hum of air conditioning units and loads of shut windows and close doors. It is sort of sad to me as a shut up house often looks uninviting and forbidden. For the most part until it reached 90 degrees we kept the windows, front and back doors open,and turned on fans which successfully cooled down our home significantly and allowed for four kids to run circles around and through my house. 

Better yet I like paying off $11,611 in a little over 8 months. I’m not sure I’ve hustled harder, sold more goods and turned down more freebies than I have in these last eight months. Doing some basic math, I realize that I can realistically cut TWENTY FOUR (24) months off my debt repayment plan and be debt free in 2021! 

Ahhhh! That is so insane to me everyone! I never ever thought I would be thinking about climbing out of debt before my son turns ten! For the first time in my adult life I can dream about home ownership and buying property! AHHH this is amazing!

Over 500 of you have subscribed to this blog about minimalism, going green, budgeting, and paying down $51,000 worth of debt! I love you all so much!

Like the old adage says, “ ...in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes” which means that if you don’t consider taxes when planning your budget Murphy’s law will probably slap you with a $5,000 tax bill. 

I’m very lucky that my partner enjoys doing taxes and has always been very frank and open with me about the state of our debt and timeline to pay it. I withhold a large chunk of my paycheck every year in fear of the above mentioned $5k tax bill so when we received a nice chunk back (not as large as previous years mind you) we decided to pay down our car debt.  Doing this effectively cut out four months from our payment schedule with money that we didn’t even need.