{Money Smarts} Our Budgeting Basics

We've always had a budget, but staying on track has been a learning curve.


I'm sure most of you are already in on the basics--you know your monthly income, you know your expenditures, and the second needs to be less than the first.

Income

So, first, income. Since the hubs is in school and I stay home with the kiddos, we have an atypical situation for people our age. Our income comes mainly from three places:

1. A stipend from the Air Force (we are doing their health scholarship program, which means they pay for school and a stipend, and we pay them back with 8-ish years of service during and after residency),
2. A scholarship (but this obviously isn't a dependable income source) and
3. A small student loan (which gets broken up monthly).

None of these things alone are enough to support a family of four, but we've worked out a budget based on these income sources that should be fine. A few factors have contributed to our inability to budget without the student loan, mostly my undergraduate loan payments and our car payment.

Expenditures

Expenditures we've been working on. At first we tried to live an intensely frugal lifestyle, but we noticed that after a couple of months we'd both feel this pent up tension, which usually ended up in a big financial splurge. Not good. So over the past couple of months we've come up with a number of categories and numbers that will keep us honest (so to speak) but still keep the reigns on the spending. We have a LOT of spending categories, but it makes it easy to track stuff without putting anything into a "miscellaneous" category. If you're interested, here they are:

• Jamie Student Loan
• Health Insurance
• Medical Expenses (Dr. visits, Rx, etc.)
• Rent
• Car Payment
• Car & Renter's Ins
• Gas
• Groceries
• Baby/Kids (Supplies/Diapers/Wipes/Clothes)
• Cell Phones
• Internet
• Utilities (Water, Trash, Sewage)
• Electricity
• Play Money - Steve
• Play Money - Jamie (we each get an "allowance" each month)
• Dates
• Family Outings
• Gifts/Christmas
• Household
• Tithing
• Fast Offering
• Netflix
• Gym Membership

Our Strategy


In theory, I love Dave Ramsey's cash envelope system, but it just doesn't work for us. The structure would be fantastic, but we'd miss out on other money saving opportunities--which for us is points (or miles, depending) on our credit cards, which help pay for us to fly cross-country to see our family. I also have a Target card, because I shop there a ton and it gets a 5% discount.

So right now we mostly use credit cards, except that Steve likes his "allowance" in cash. We pay off the balance each month so there is no interest charge. And I track everything on a kind of intense spreadsheet I made. When we stay on budget, this works really well for us. If we can't get it together over the next month or two, though, we might have to try switching to cash only, just to get ourselves focused.

So here's where we're starting from. If you haven't already told me, I'd love to know your take on budgeting. :)

{Money Smarts} The Starting Point & Goals

November is my Financial Fitness month!

Are you guys so excited???

I actually kind of get a rush when I do a good job saving or score a really good deal, so I actually am pretty excited. I'm excited to learn more, save more, and get my butt kicked by budgeting as hard as it did by getting healthier last month (that goal is ongoing, so you'll see stuff about that when I check in on that, too!).

Oops.

So we did a little trial run last month, just to see how we'd end up if we spent normally. We have had a budget for a while, but when the end of the month rolled around (or if I wanted something extra like a new lamp to replace the one my sweet baby boy broke by trying to climb it) we just kind of let go. So, the final numbers went in yesterday and we didn't do so hot... In fact we were over by about 20%.

Um yeah, oops. Which is why financial fitness needed to be the big next goal. The frustrating thing is that none of this came out of some huge purchase; it was all little things adding up.

The Mini Goals

1. Stick to the budget. If I only do this, I'll be happy. Steve and I have laid out our budget for this month, figuring in some overages, and we should have about $100 left at the end of November, but I will be happy if we break even.

2. Look at the finances every day. Everything is online, this is easy. I want to pay bills as they come in, track spending as it happens, and basically just stay on top of things.

3. Learn more ways to save (or earn). I've dabbled in couponing, but I'd like to do a little more. We're also in the process of changing banks (for better interest rates). I like when I can save on little things, because they add up quickly, especially on a budget as tight as ours. I'm also trying to figure out if we can save on any of our big expenses like heating/cooling the house, cell phones, etc.

That's pretty much it. Basically self-control and getting creative. :)

{Fitness} A Personal Trainer's Flat-Belly Advice

I thought this photo of leaves would be better than another look at my non-flat belly. ;)

When I walked in to the Y last Thursday I saw a sign up for free Q & A with their personal trainers. Yay! Except I felt really shy walking up to someone and saying "How come I still have baby fat when even my baby doesn't have much baby fat?"

So I went and did my cardio, came back to the lobby, pretended to read some other signage, and finally went to the member's desk and asked. Trainer-Luke gave me some great advice after I said something almost unintelligible about my belly being "floppy" (classy, I know) and even, if you can believe it, grabbed a fistful of said floppy part to demonstrate. (Hi, my name is Jamie, and I am socially awkward.)

What I Was Doing

• Elliptical 3-4 times a week for 30-ish minutes, occasionally other cardio
• 2 sets of 4 different kinds of ab exercises, 20 reps each
• Counting calories (ugh)

Turns out that was only sort of okay, but not great.

What I Should Do

Here's what you (I) actually need to do to burn belly fat.

Alternate different types of cardio. You can't target-reduce fat, so cardio is it for fatburn, people. And your body adjusts to exercise if you do it too frequently, growing more efficient (and thus burning fewer calories. DOH!). He suggested alternating between bike, elliptical, and treadmill, and there are also some great classes I could do.

Count calories. Booyah. Still trying to do this. I forgot to share my strategies; I'll have to do that later.

Strength train. I have been ignoring it, because typically it doesn't burn a lot of calories. BUT apparently muscle mass increases your metabolism which burns more calories! There are also many other benefits, obviously. So, need to do that, either with machines (they'll show you how to use them for free at the Y) or classes like Muscle Max.

Work out 5+ times per week. He said typical recommendation is 5x week for... I think he said 30 minutes. To burn this off faster, he said I need to do more than that. I'm probably not going to. But I could definitely log more time at the gym when I go, so maybe that will help.

I'll keep you posted as I go along. :) Right now my weight loss has flatlined at around 111ish. (I am short. Remember this.)

Oh! And November's focus is finances! I've got some really great tips to share (my own and a bunch that people submitted via a little email poll I sent out). If you have some, too, please email them to me!

{Fitness} Recognizing Why We Eat

This past month of diet change and exercise has been eye opening for me. Not only have I discovered that I like (what????!?!?!) exercise (once I let go of pressure and found the things I enjoy), but also I discovered that my eating habits are not solely hunger-based.

Finding My "Tell"

Last month I was perusing a website and found this post about finding your "tell"--the thing you do outwardly that shows inner turmoil. As I read the post I recognized some of the things that I do when I'm upset--snuggle under covers, watch TV instead of doing my chores, and eating.

The past month has been an interesting test of that, because watching my calories has made me stop to think every time I reach for a snack. And I noticed in the first week that when something went wrong in my day, I immediately thought of grabbing a handful of chocolate chips. Baby woke up early from nap and is screaming for no reason? Man, I need a pudding cup. You see where this is going?

A sudden chocolate craving is one of my "tells." It actually freaked me out a little bit, because instead of dealing with the problem, assessing the situation and how to deal with it, I added this weird crutch of food-will-make-me-feel-better. Instead of thinking that I should make myself feel better by focusing, planning, or accepting whatever was happening.

Other Reasons I Eat

So then I started thinking about other reasons that I eat:

• Boredom
• Socializing/peer pressure
• Relaxation
• Because I just like food
• Oh, and hunger.

A couple of these are okay on occasion (like socializing at a baby shower or whatever), but should I really be eating because I'm bored? Or stressed?

I just found it interesting that there were so many reasons other than hunger that I strolled my little tushka over to the fridge.

Food for thought. (...get it? Sorry. That was a bad one. :p)

{Fitness} Tools: Scaling Back

Steve and I used to eat pizza while we watched the Biggest Loser. Terrible. It was a "healthy" pizza. But still. And many, many times while they were cooking in the kitchen I watched them weigh food on a scale thinking WHAT a pain in the butt! I would NEVER weigh my food!

I've got to learn not to say I will never do things that are good for me. Because I end up eating crow.

Anyway I finally realized that I was going to have to weigh my food if I didn't want to eat solely pre-packaged calorie-labeled stuff, so the kids and I made a pilgrimage to Macy*s to use the last of a gift card I had and I picked up a shiny silver food scale. (It is not the pretty and expensive one pictured above. That is the one I wanted, but I got the one I could get for free-with-my-giftcard instead. It is not cute enough to share a picture of it.)

The Verdict

Thumbs up.

It is a little more work, yes, but I am getting used to it now. It has become part of the cooking routine, and it is pretty fast. (It doesn't take as long as that 1-minute-to-weigh-a-human Biggest Loser scale. That thing drives me crazy.) It has made calorie counting way easier and more intuitive.

And the BEST PART is that I was over-estimating some things. A chicken breast I thought would weigh like 6oz, but it is only 3! And 1oz of cheese is enough to make a nicely cheesed grilled cheese sandwich. So that means I can eat more than I thought I could, and that is a big relief.

Because I love eating.

...wait, did I already mention that? Like 12 times?

{Food} Summer Salad, 248 Cal

Summer Salad (even though it is Fall) 248 Calories

7 oz raw spinach
1 oz strawberries (about 3-4, cut up)
2T Black River Blue Cheese crumbles
1 Jonagold apple
1T Ken's Light Poppyseed dressing

{Fitness} Why I'm Finally Calorie Counting

Okay, first of all, I'm not going to be talking about calories all the time. I do not like it when women obsess about "their" calories. So don't think we are going to be having real-life conversations about how many calories are in things for the rest of forever. I am still just figuring this all out. I would much rather talk about your baby, a book you're reading, how you scored a sweet deal on your super fly jeans, or whatever.

So this is just for the purposes of learning how calories feed our bodies energy and how weight loss happens. And I will get to that. But first let me show you WHY.

Why I'm Calorie Counting

So, before we had kids, I weighed 111 pounds. Right now I am swinging between 111 and 112, which is great post-10lb-second-baby. That is in the healthy BMI range for my height (crazy, crazy short: 4'10") but it is at the upper end of healthy. I want to be more in the middle.

Also, I may have gotten down to my pre-both-pregnancies weight, but I have NOT gotten back to that body type. I know that my weight distribution has forever changed. But I would like to NOT look pregnant when I'm not sucking it in. So here, at long last, are those before pictures the hubs was teasing me about because I don't look happy. I think I was just focused on trying to get the right angle so you could see the weird poochiness in all its glory.

9/30/11 - 113 lbs, no regular exercise

There it is. I am to embarrassed to show you the stomach itself, at least until I have a better "after" to show you. You're not missing out, though, I promise.

Anyway, that view in the mirror was my why. I decided it was worth the work.

Calories & Weight Loss

You probably already know this, but basically to lose weight, you need to take in fewer calories than you expend doing exercise and your daily activities. I've been learning healthy ways to do this, but I didn't start out doing a very good job.

Here are some basics:

• Bodies need a baseline amount of calories just to function, that means your heart beating, breathing, all that stuff your body does even when you're sleeping, requires a certain amount of calories. This is called your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), and it is basically the number of calories your body would burn even if you stayed in bed all day. You can calculate it here or if you sign up for a calorie counting program, it will probably have a calculator there, too. I did mine at MyFitnessPal.
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• Burning more calories than you take in USUALLY means weight loss. If you take in 1700 calories, do 200 worth of exercise, and your BMR is 1500, you break even. Sweet! Your body will need to dip into its energy reserves (aka fat!) to fuel your body. But...
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• Taking in less calories than required by your BMR is STARVING. You don't want to do that, not only because starving is obviously unhealthy, but also because it is bad from a weight loss perspective. When your body goes into starvation mode, it freaks out and starts holding onto fat even harder, because it thinks you are in some crazy Hunger Games situation and have to forage for food and might die. So it is really important to get your baseline amount.
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• Calories aren't everything. Your body needs nutrients: vitamins, minerals, fats, proteins, etc. to be healthy. So eating a bunch of low-calorie junk food isn't going to cut it. You need real food, healthy portion sizes, and reasonable calories.

Calorie counting has been a humbling--very, very humbling--experience. I love food. I look forward to eating; lunch alone while the kids nap is a big treat for me. So finding out how many calories are in the food I thought were healthy was really a blow. Cereal and milk? Surprising number of calories, when you realize how many "servings" is in a normal sized bowl of cereal.

How I'm Doing

I'm doing okay. My weight loss has kind of plateaued the past two weeks at about 111.75 lbs, but there could be numerous factors contributing to that including:

(1) not drinking enough water
(2) hormones (we love them, right?) and
(3) inconstant eating, especially on the weekends

I am, however, doing great at my 3x week gym goal, sometimes I even hit 4 times. And things there are getting easier, so I'm having to increase intensity to keep it challenging.

I'm also learning to estimate calories in my head, which is making my eating habits a little easier.

And I'm doing crunches. I hate them more than most any other exercise, but there was no way around it. Baby bellies don't disappear on their own.