Category Archives: Breaking News – “I’m Broke!”

What happens when you decide to live on one-fourth the income your family is used to? You’re broke, or at least that’s what I’m expecting to happen to my family.

Blogfessional

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  Okay, I think I found out why I decided to share my money journey from queen of the mall back to broke mountain (No brokeback mountain for me dudes, though I loved that movie).  You all are keeping me honest.

   I have to confess my lust for a MacBook Pro is about to overwhelm my patience.  I’m supposed to be getting one as a goodbye present from my former employer, but last I heard it still wasn’t in.  Turns out, I need that puppy…you’ll hear why shortly, so I threw out the idea of buying one.  One of you, and you know who you are remarked on Facebook about which envelope I’d find that money in.   I am after all, cash only and on a tight (can you say mind-crushingly tight) budget.  The Dave Ramsey envelope idea is in it’s second full week and they are so empty I almost threw them all away as trash.  Good news, it’s payday, when I get the guts to go through my bills I’ll get to “fill” the envelopes again, but I already know, there’s no way we can find anything to put in the MacBook  envelope.  Therein lies my dilemna.

     Okay, I don’t have the money for the Mac but I can’t make enough money without it.  I have credit cards, but remember I don’t use them anymore.  I have some in savings but we’re going to be down to the wire if this house doesn’t sell, that must be reserved for a van to live in down by the river.

    What’s a girl to do?  At this point, I’m going to enter the confessional of Anitacochran.TV and admit, I wish I had more money.   I’m not willing to sell my soul to get it.  I’m not willing to give up my nights, my afternoons at the pool, playing house and getting to know my kids…so basically, I’ll keep pounding things out on a used up e-machine and dreaming that a MacBook Pro 17″ with Final Cut Pro shows up at my door.  It could happen, just with my luck, it’s far more likely to be delivered next door, and the bastards will keep it.

Just Call Me Envelope Lady!

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    This “Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey,  that I’m now attempting, has given my purse a whole new look.  He’s the dude who says, “Hey break the CREDIT addiction and go cash only!”  Which turns out, was exactly what I was doing, but with no real guidelines.   Now, with his help, my purse will not exactly scream “BAG LADY,” but it most definitely will mark me as an “Envelope Mama.”

Nothing but Envelopes  See the rule goes like this.  Every dollar of the paycheck must be spent before you get it.   Then when you get it, you put the cash in an envelope appropriately marked for each expense.  When that envelope’s empty well, you steal from another one, when they are all empty….you’re broke.  

    For the first time, that required I do a budget.  Well I did one, but it sucks.  We should fire the chick who came up with those numbers.  Oh wait, that’s me, and I’m already unemployed.  Er, SELF-employed.  Let’s just say my budget is going to take some adjusting.

  I found that out at K-mart when I went to outfit the girls in some summer clothes.   Now I’ll be the first to admit, I wasn’t going for runway ready….I was just going for NOT NAKED.  It went fine, we found lots of goodies and nothing over 12 dollars.  When it came down to check out though, that K-mart crap added up, to $215.  I had budgeted $70 out of this paycheck for clothing. The rest I stole from entertainment, groceries, and (add little sobbing sounds here) my very own birthday money that my Dad and Step-mom wanted me to spend on me.   

    There is some good news in all of this, when my 8-year-old turned to the 12-year-old and said, “Mom just spent 215 dollars in CASH!” I knew I had finally made a point.  Money doesn’t grow on trees and as we are all finding out, it doesn’t just appear in your envelope either.  Damn.

Garage Sale Goddess

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  I know by the title you are expecting me to proclaim myself a Garage Sale Goddess.  NOT SO!  The Garage Sale Goddess I’m referring to was brought to me by God, via, my very own website.    Now that I’ve done my homework, I know what she was there for and I am sharing her with you.

   Early on the first day of my garage sale, a woman named Dara stepped up to pay for her purchases and handed me another $20 bill.  With it, she had a note, and she said, “I found your blog and think you need to read this book.   The $20 will make sense after you read it.”

   The book was Dave Ramsey’s “Total Money Makeover” and I read it that weekend.  Dara is following the TMM and has her own blog about the process.  The crazy thing about all of this, it’s almost exactly what I had started doing on my own.  

    Now I’m no financial whiz, I was just going by common sense and found that someone else had already laid the groundwork.  Dave Ramsey’s book is the how to, Dara’s blog is a great resource to guide you along the way (check out her many coupons and tips), and my take-away from it all is I don’t have to reinvent the wheel.  As I mentioned in my commencement speech to Wichita State University’s Class of 2009, when something works STEAL IT.

   The other really great thing about this, it was a sign that what I’m doing does work.  Heck Dave’s getting rich off his book, Dara’s living with less the way I want to, and Allelulia, this may just mean I am indeed heading down the right road.  

   Thank you, Dara, for coming into my life, and starting that emergency fund.  Since we’ve met, I’m starting my fund, and I’ve taken Kent’s credit card away.  (He now has his own DEBIT travel fund for work).   The debt is completely paid off save for the house, and that’s the next step!!    Just when I think I may not be able to do this someone tells me I can.  Who am I to say THEY are wrong?!


Garage sale “sign”

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 So you are all wondering, “How did that garage sale go?”  Let’s just say, I asked for a sign and got one.

   Leading up to the big “Sale”, I’ve been dealing with building our smaller, debt-free home, and let’s just say building is NOT for me, even though I’ve done it several times.    Everything, and I mean everything, costs more than you think it will, and more than they gave you credit for in the sales price.

   The real problem, of course, is we haven’t sold our current larger home yet.  Because the contract on the new house is written with a contingency clause based on selling our current home, we’d come to a point where we could walk away.   But was it too early?  We decided yes, we needed to stay the course, go ahead with the trim stage of the new home, and believe that our home would sale in time to pay off and move into the new one.  Leap of faith but one I think God has given his blessing to.  Why would I say that?

    Well he’s finding the money for me to come up with MY share of the mortgage payment even though I’m unemployed.  Take for instance that garage sale.  As the garage sale queens ran the numbers, my tally came up just shy of $1,700.00   My PORTION of the mortgage.  By the time all the money was counted, I deposited that and had enough left over for our annual “School’s Out” dinner that night.  In my mind, God’s helping us make it till the buyer comes along.  That, or he’s saying, “Sit Tight Blondie, You’re headed back to WORK.”  Oh, I hope he’s telling me the buyer is coming.  

   And there was another sign from the garage sale, that I’m doing the right thing.  More about that next time!!

The Garage Sale from Heaven or Hell?

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Heaven orWhen I open my garage door at seven tomorrow morning, some will think I’m opening the newest SuperTarget in town or least a mini Hobby Lobby.  I’m not.

   I’m sitting here mortified that two of my best friends, my sister and I had enough, shall we say…..crapola to fill a three-car garage.  In fact, there’s so much stuff, we can’t really get to all of it till we can pull some of the big pieces out in the morning.  

  I wasn’t all that impressed with our …..crapola, until BFF’s sister-in-law came over to shop and couldn’t keep from saying, “I’ve never seen this much stuff!”  It totally reminded me WHY I decided to downsize my life.  Not only do I not need or want this much stuff, I despise it because it kept me on that constant spinning wheel to make money and feed what I fear now may have been a shopping addiction.  I had at one point thought I was not a shopaholic but does a garage sale lie?

 Had I only known then what I know now, that the money spent on this crapola could have been better spent on buying my free time, I’d be able to sleep in tomorrow, and somone else would be trying to decide if a little used bottle of Chanel perfume should go for $10!

   If you want to hit our garage sale, the address is 8522 W. Meadow Park….in Wichita.  We open at 7 am, Thursday, May 21 and Friday, May 22nd.Hell?

Getting There

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  Let’s face it, you can’t go debt-free overnight.  It takes a plan.  Okay, maybe you can, but since I’ve used credit cards as a supplement to my once meager paychecks for let’s see, ummmm, almost 30 years now,  I’m gonna have to go think this through a little.  Then I’m gonna have to sign up all the people around me to hop on board.

   Did I mention I’m married?  To a man who works out of the house, travels for his job, and uses a credit card like he uses his finger to pick  his nose.  Actually I’ve never really seen him pick his nose, but come on WE ALL DO. 

  And, I’m pretty sure, I haven’t told you I’m the mother of two beautiful daughters, who screamed, “NOOOOOOOOO!” when I first broached the idea of not being in TV anymore.  See told you I have work to do. 

    Anyway, back to my plan.  This all started, thanks to Quicken.  Did you know that damn program has this little button you push and it charts your spending like from today, back to prehistoric times.  Well as I started deciding whether I could afford to walk away from TV, I clicked that button.  Two things jumped out and slapped me in the face.  (and yes, it hurt like hell.)

    Most of my money, imagine two thirds of the pie GONE, for just two things.  My house, which I LOVE,  and business expenses (the alias our Visas use when we make the payments), which I HATE.

    If I tackle both of those…..(insert cold hard truth:  don’t use credit cards, and downsize to get the money out of this house so we can live mortgage free.  I’ve cut our expenses by about two-thirds!   My need to work, would be replaced by a want to work…..or at least a want to make money for a specific reason.   

   The best part of this, the further I get into this journey, the less money I want for ANY reason.  Then again,  that’s how I feel now when I still have to report to work in an hour and will bring home a paycheck come Friday.  By my count, I have just six paychecks left to make this whole thing work. 

   

Confessions of a “Shopaholic” NOT

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Okay, I remember reading those books in my spending days thinking they were wildly entertaining.  I couldn’t wait to see the movie, which my BFF and I did when it came out.  Can you say PATHETIC?

   Manolo’s and Loboutin’s were never in my budget, and anyone who lives like that deserves what they get.  A shopaholic I am not.  But, yes, my butt is big enough to admit I do have a problem.

   Example, St. John Suits.  Now….I was in the news business.  Looks matter.  Nothing on camera GLOWS like a St. John knitted suit.  I can thank my Stepmom for introducing me to them.  She was a former Attorney General and would have been Kansas Governor had she not decided to marry my dad instead. (Her look mattered to her and her voters too).   As a millionaire’s wife, she can afford St. John suits (though she almost ALWAYS buys them on sale.)   As a millionaire’s daughter, who supports her own family, I could afford them while I was employed, but seriously, did I really need one in every color?

    The greatest part of seeing that movie was that it confirmed for me, that I was never a shopaholic.  Okay, #Twitterfession,  I may at some point have suffered from a shopping disorder (one level below -Aholics are Disorders).

   Today,  I might even still have inappropriate shopping tendencies, which we will discuss only on an AS-NEEDED basis. But I was NEVER a SHOPAHOLIC.  I simply didn’t make enough money to qualify.  Damn it.

     The good news in all of this, the overall theme of excess in the “Shopaholic” movie made me sick.  Honestly, people who sat through that crap and laughed deserve to pay 154 percent interest on their purchases.  It isn’t funny.  It’s disturbing.  So today, as I’m preparing to live debt free and I am dressed in a sharp Navy blazer, red tank and slacks….I resisted the urge to run out and buy matching shoes (albeit from Payless.)  I wore nude ones, and while I look a little silly, I still have money in my pocket.  Too damn bad, I couldn’t paint those dollar bills Navy and strap them to my feet.

  

 

Breaking News – “I’m Broke”

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Day one of the rest of my life. 

Oh shit!   It’s all I can think of that accurately and succinctly sums up my recent life choices.  That’s not to say, I’m rethinking the decision to turn my life upside down. I’m not.  I’m just actually a little bit surprised that I did it.

    We need to back up a few months to really understand the leap of faith I am about to undertake.  Then again, that’s a totally separate story.  So let’s just say I’ve decided at the age of damn-near 45, to walk away from my dream job.  

    Yep, I’m leaving the glamorous, high-paid life of a local TV news anchor.  The part I’ll miss the most, the paycheck.

    The funny thing is, when I first toyed with the idea of saying, in a much nicer tone, “Take this job and Shove it!” I fully planned on replacing that paycheck with another, perhaps even BETTER one.  But a funny thing happened on the way to my first “informal” interview.   The recession hit, and I thought heck, if everyone else is unemployed, I can be too. 

  And, that’s when it hit ME.   I was living the same messed up way most of you are. Within my means, and every now and again, outside them thanks to Visa.  The last few months I’ve read nightly stories on job losses,  businesses closings and industries crashing….all the while the experts keep telling us “SPEND MONEY.”  I said, that’s what got us into this FIX in the first place.  We SPEND TOO MUCH MONEY.

     Okay, I’m gonna make this really personal.  I spend WAY too much money. Some of that was good, some was really just stupid, and now I am going to fix it. 

    I am about to be unemployed BUT debt-free.     No more mortgages, loans or credit cards.  What my family brings in, we will live on.  What will my new life be like? My first thought is, “Oh Shit.”