Like Gazelles

Several weeks ago, I finished reading Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Make-over. I know several people who just rave about Mr. Ramsey and felt the need to check him out myself. His money make-over emphasizes the need to get out of debt with "gazelle-like intensity." Although, I wouldn't consider us to be drowning in debt (besides our mortgage, we have my school loan, which has a fabulous interest rate, and a car loan), the debts we do have still loom over our heads and inhibit us from doing more things that we enjoy.

So we have decided to implement some of Mr. Ramsey's strategies. While I thoroughly enjoyed coupon-clipping and feeling the rush when I would see that I saved 50% on the bottom of my grocery receipt, we decided to step it up a notch. One of Mr. Ramsey's suggestions is to set a budget and stick to it. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong! We've always had budgets, but not complete budgets and would dip into our savings account when life insurance or car insurance was due. We decided to implement the envelope system, in which we put cash for some of our monthly expenses and also for those expenses that come up once or twice a year. For example, rather than transferring money from our savings account to pay Bentley's $300 yearly vet bill, we're stashing a set amount of cash aside in an envelope labelled "Bentley" to cover her yearly vet expenses, including meds, and dog food. Although we haven't been on the envelope system very long, I love it!!! Especially when it comes to grocery shopping. I know that I have $200 to spend on groceries in a month (this doesn't include diapers - we have a separate envelope for that) and once it's gone, it's gone. It forces me to hunt out the best deals, like the one below:

This was from the new and beautiful Rainbow somwhat near our house on Double Coupon Wednesdays. I paid $6.65 for all the groceries above (7 boxes of cereal, 1 box of Pop Tarts, 3 cans of beans, 2 deodorants, 2 boxes of Tornadoes, 4 cans of cream of mushroom soup, and a little over 2 1/2 pounds of bananas). How did I do it? Well, Double Coupon Wednesdays makes it fairly easy. At Rainbow, you must purchase $25 worth of items to be eligible for coupon doubling. They will only double up to 5 coupons per $25 transaction, and coupons will be doubled up to a face value of $1. They will also double coupons that say, "Do Not Double" on them. And, then I also have help from http://www.pocketyourdollars.com.
Carrie is local and she matches up store ads with coupons that are available and posts shopping lists for Rainbow, Cub, and Lund's/Byerly's. It has made my scouring the Sunday ads for deals 10 times easier!

So, hopefully, with this new and improved budget system worked out and "gazelle-like intensity", we will be debt-free, with the exception of our mortgage, by the end of next year. It's quite exciting, but a little nerve-wrecking at the same time. I'm hoping to use the blog as a platform to share how things are going and you, as well, are encouraged to hold us accountable to this task. Well, it's off to bed for this Little Gazelle (10:45 pm on 10/15). Happy saving money, friends!