A couple weeks ago I asked what I should do with my money. I received several suggestions and took them into consideration when making my decision. This is what I’ve decided to do for now. I’m getting health insurance first. I’m also going to open a Roth IRA and contribute $50 a month. With my surplus money, which should be a few hundred dollars, I’m going to put half towards my emergency fund and half towards debt repayment. When the emergency fund is fully funded I’ll divide the surplus between debt and fully funding the IRA. I may temporarily put more towards debt repayment to make sure my credit card is paid off before the 0% balance transfer offer ends.
Andy Hough
Grocery Challenge-Update 2
A slight setback on the grocery challenge this week but successful completion is still possible. I slipped up and bought some McDonald’s costing me $3.52 of my $5 budget for the month. I can still make it though. I have another mystery shop next week. I’m going to buy some nongrocery items and use them to offset the cost of milk I’ll have to buy later in the month. I also have a coupon and a gift card that will allow me to get a couple more free meals. I haven’t eaten much the last couple days due to my oral surgery. I’m getting bored with the soft food but my mouth is still too tender for regular food and I don’t want to take a chance of messing up one of my stitches or releasing a blood clot.
Had Oral Surgery Yesterday
I had all four of my wisdom teeth plus three other teeth extracted yesterday. I meant to schedule some posts on Wednesday to cover my time away but my hosting company’s server was down. I’ll try to get some new posts up over the next few days. I have to go to the library for internet access though and right now I don’t feel like spending too much time away from the couch.
If you might need wisdom teeth surgery you should get it done while you’re young. The older you get the more impacted the teeth get. This advice was too late for me but maybe it will help someone out there. They gave me Vicodin for the pain but it made me sick so I’m going without for now. One thing I do feel good about is that I was able to pay cash for the surgery. I’m not going in debt for anything from now on except my last year of law school and maybe a house someday.
Sorry if this is rambling, I’m not completely clear-headed right now.
Review:Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover Live
I attended the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover Live event here in Kansas City on Saturday. Overall, I really enjoyed the event. Dave is a very energetic and exciting speaker and kept me entertained. There was more humor than I was expecting, which was a plus. The Christian stuff was kept to a minimum. As an agnostic I prefer it this way because it makes it easier for me to ignore. He did make the common mistake of thinking he was in Kansas. The Kansas City is in Missouri! Other than that my only complaint would be that there was too much time spent hawking books and other products.
If you have read any of Dave Ramsey’s books and/or listen to his radio program than the material covered during the event will be familiar to you. Despite that, if you are a Dave Ramsey fan than going to this event would probably be worth the price of admission. If you don’t follow Dave Ramsey you would probably be better of checking out one of his books first before deciding whether to attend a live event.
Thanks again to the Prince of Thrift at Debtfree4ever.net for the free ticket.
April Expenses
Here are my April expenses by category:
|
Rent/Household |
$450 |
|
Transportation |
$247.40 |
|
Utilities |
$49.58 |
|
Food |
$110.11 |
|
Entertainment |
$13.43 |
|
Debt |
$35 |
|
Medical/Dental |
$40 |
|
Total |
$945.52 |
My transportation expense went up a lot because I’m using my car for my delivery job. Food expense also went up since I bought too many groceries and ate out too often. Food expense will definitely come down this month as a result of my current grocery challenge. Medical/Dental will have a huge increase because I’m paying $830 to get my wisdom teeth taken out. I hope to increase the amount paid towards my debt also. Everything else should remain roughly the same.
I thought I had previously posted my March expenses but I can’t find them on my blog. I’ll be posting them later this week.