Some debt reduction

Since I have been working between 8-9 hours a day and driving for a total of 2 hours a day, I don't have time to do anything, let alone blog. Nonetheless, here's a mini update for today. I have an interview next week for a full time position that pays almost the exact amount that I made at my last job plus it's only 30 minutes away. I'm putting my faith in God for this position because I really need full time employment. Luckily that job have flexible hours and days so I will be able to maintain my prn position to bring in extra money to go to debt.

With me working this month, we've made an extra mortgage payment and paid a little extra on the credit card. I'm very thankful the money and hope it continues.

Next week we plan to pay off what we owe to the Indiana IRS! I'll update when we do.

More to come later...

God's plan

Now that hubby has turned in his notice at the second job and informed the day job that he will only be working there, the day job has informed him that there will be big changes for him next week. They will begin training him next week in the office to eventually take over an office and he will officially start for the company on Monday with a full time, insurance eligible position. God definitely had His hand in this one. No way could this have worked out any better for him. He so deserves it, too, for working 85 plus hours a week outside in the elements busting his butt and now he will be working in a temperature controlled room. Thank you, God!

Exreme couponing & cooking

Last week my company had a class on extreme couponing. I decided to go because I have always been interested in it & have always used coupons. I was never getting anything for free, but I was saving some dough. This class taught me how to organize the coupons, where to shop, when to buy, and how to combine coupons. My hubby and I decided we would give it a try this weekend and it seemed that we did pretty well. We got all the following items for $22:



My favorite purchase by far was the free shirt I scored from Kohls. When we get a pretty good stock pile going, we are going to start donating to our local food bank. I am excited and hope we can do well at this.

In other news, our church is finally offering Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University again. It starts up next Sunday afternoon and we are attending. Yay! My hubby has been on board with the finances and food since we had the talk, which has been wonderful! He is also quitting his second job that is from 6pm-4am. They increased his hours and he has been working from 5:30pm-5am and then going to the other job at 7pm. Crazy. Next Friday is his last night there. His day job has been wonderful for him in working with his exhaustion and schedule. They are starting him on the management track so he can take over an office. We will be super tight on money for a while, but we are putting our faith in God.

Since I lost my job back in July, I really started watching food shows and have been getting more into cooking Here is my latest creation. I surprised my hubby when we came home. When he walked in the door, he said, "mmm, smells like olive garden in here." He loved it! I will continue to make it because it's yummy and cheap to make. Sorry for the picture quality. There from my cell phone.

I put olive oil and a little butter into a hot, hot pan and then added cubed chicken to brown it along with my homemade cajun seasoning. Cut up purple onion, red peppers, and green peppers. Put them in the pan with more cajun seasoning once the chicken was cooked and removed. Once the veggies were done, I removed them. Keeping the pan on high, I added a little homemade chicken stock, cooking sherry, and whipping cream. I let it thicken and then added more cajun seasoning. Once it was thickened, I tossed the chicken and veggies back into combine. When everything was coated, I added the noodles and more seasoning. When I plated the pasta, I added fresh parsley. YUM!

The Talk

My hubby and I did finally sit down and talk about our finances and health. I explained all my fears and unfortunately being the crybaby that I am, I cried. I backed up all my fears with solid reasons. He said he has noticed some of the problems with his health because he is just continuing to gain weight and is always crashing after junk food indulgences. He has agreed to eat whatever I make and take to work what I make for myself. He says he will try it for a while to see how it goes. Today he took the grilled chicken and steamed veggies that I made last night to his first job. For his second job he took what I made for dinner: steamed rice and grilled pork. I haven't purchased any junk food other than the baked chips that I have always bought. The snacks that he now takes includes baby carrots, kiwi, strawberries, bananas, peaches, and cheese cubes.

I added up all the purchases that he has made on junk food and he was surprised to see that he spent over $10 in less than 8 hours on junk food simply because he was bored. He doesn't use his debit card unless he talks to me and the same goes for me. He is much more aware of our spending. He admitted that he has no idea how much our bills are or even when they are due. We sat down for over 2 hours and went over all the bills and the budget. He was shocked to see that we have so much debt. We went through the bible to see what it says about money and debt. We are both now working on the same bible study we downloaded to our iphones to reconnect with each other and God.

This is still a new change so we will have to see how everything goes. I'm hoping for the best. So far we havent put anything on our debit cards without clearing the purchase with each other. He even became upset with me today when we were talking about lunch and I mentioned that I had subway. He said we didn't talk about that purchase and I wasted the lunch that I packed myself He forgot that today a medical rep at work was paying for my lunch and that I planned to take that packed lunch on Tuesday. I'm glad he is paying attention now!!

I'll keep the updates coming. Now it's time for some NFL!!!!!

Stolen

We had a very scary morning today. We were awoken a little after 230am this morning by our dogs going crazy with their barking and growling. Unfortunately we did not think anything about it because once we yelled at them to hush they did pretty quickly. My alarm went off at 430am so I got dressed and ready and headed for the kitchen to get my lunch and work stuff together to leave for work. When I went to the kitchen I found the back door half open, I quickly looked around the house but didn't notice anything out of the place. My stupid self didn't think much of it so I gathered my stuff and headed to my car and left for work. About halfway to work I realized that there was a bunch of stuff missing from my car (iphone charger, converter, my makeup, sunglasses, cds, and my ipod. I freaked out and realized that all my car doors were unlocked. I called my sleeping husband and said that I think the house and car were broken into. He said he would check his car and house. He found his car trashed. Apparently they pulled everything from the glove compartment, center console, and storage areas and threw them around his car. He said stuff was missing from his car (my camera & accessories, our sunglasses, car charger, jump box, and his meds) and from our back yard (our copper fire pit). He said that someone had tried to pry our shed doors open, too, but were unsuccessful. I called the police and they were meeting me after work. I met up with an officer I knew after work and he took all my information and checked out our property. He said it was evident that someone pried our back door open and tried to pry the shed open. Apparently they used our alarm clicker to disable my husband's SUV alarm because his keys were at the back door and they pried my car door open leaving a nice dent in the side of my passenger door.

I am scared to be home alone now, but we are prepared in case this happens again. We are adding extra locks to our shed and changing all the locks to our home since on of our spare keys are missing now. We have unlocked our shotgun and shells. They are sitting beside my night stand. We will have to replace all my makeup (the essentials at least), the jump box, and the phone chargers. We found that turning this into the insurance is not going to replace the items due to our deductible and the fact that they are making 3 claims for the break in (my car, my hubby's car, and the home). We are just going to pay for everything from our emergency fund, which unfortunately will wipe it out. Since my birthday is in 2 weeks I'm going to get new sunglasses and cds. We have decided not to replace the ipod since we both have iphones. We aren't certain what to do about my camera because of the cost to replace it ($900). I'm crushed because I lost so many pictures, but there is nothing to be done. We have to move on

**We have since found a bottle of my hubby's pills in floor board of my car and part of one of my car chargers down our alley broken. I also found the serial number for the missing ipod and camera. I turned them into the police and they are checking the pawns.**

Working for the money

I made it my first week of work on the floor. I am exhausted this week. All I can muster when I get home from work is to cook dinner, clean up, lay out my clothes for the next day, and then veg in front of the tv until I pass out. It'll take a little time to get used to it, but I'll manage. I am having to get up between 4:30am-5am for work, but I am home by 4pm every day, which is so nice considering that I used to not get home until 8pm every single night. I think my feet have adjusted better than my body because I figured they'd be killing me since I am running around a hospital for 8-10 hours a day. I still must get used to running up and down 6-8 flights of stairs several times a day...my calves hate me! I'm very thankful for having lost 80 pounds because it could have been much worse. When I get a little more sleep and re-energize (hopefully by tomorrow!), I'll post about money, budgets, & relationships.