The Debt Diet Challenge Week #5: Our Participants Weigh In

This is our weekly installment of The Debt Diet Challenge, in which we follow the progress of participants selected to take Jean Chatzky’s Debt Diet as they work to get themselves out of debt and on track to a better financial future. Every week, the participants blog about their experiences with the program.  Here are their latest dispatches…

Erin

We were fortunate to have a four-day vacation this weekend; an under-budgeted holiday weekend. What I thought would cost around $500 total cost more like $1200. What’s that saying about “Best laid plans??”  Well ours went massively awry. We had fun. We spent money. Now I have a debt hangover.

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So do you have any good news for us, Erin??? In fact, I do! Only $250 went on the credit card for the hotel rooms.  I had used them to prepay for our rooms (many months ago) to get a low room rate.  However, I didn’t plan for enough money for meals and drinks.  I didn’t plan on replacing lost sunglasses.  I didn’t plan on our trip to the outlet mall.  We made several “quick” trips to our local drugstore to pick up things we forgot or just had to have.  Overall, the weekend went very well and we followed a budget to a certain extent.  I’ll be honest, though—I padded our checking account by not paying as much towards debt this month so we could enjoy ourselves the way we wanted to.

[Related Article: Jean Chatzky’s Debt Diet – A Behind the Scenes Look]

Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having padded us for this trip either.  I’m not looking forward to discussing it with Jean (again, the benefit of having someone hold you accountable) but I think she’ll be proud that we’re not in more debt.  We will have to follow our budget very carefully these next few weeks so we’ll have the right amount of money ready to pay off two credits cards but I believe we can do it with careful budgeting.  In fact, I’m so excited about getting rid of the Lowe’s and Best Buy card, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure we get there—even eat Ramen noodles if I have to!

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The kids will start back to school in a few weeks which frees up daycare money and allows more to go to debt.  The hubby will be back to traveling in a bit, which decreases my food budget for a few weeks—which will also go towards debt.  Overall, I’m feeling pretty good about our current position but I do wish I had budgeted more carefully for the trip and taken out cash so we wouldn’t have been able to stray from our bottom line as easily.

Until next week,

I’m Erin

“Just say ‘no’ to spending!”

Read Penny’s story »

Penny

OK, so the car repairs were as bad as I suspected, just under $700.00.  I was able to use the money I had planned on paying on my high interest credit card and some money I saved.  I paid it all in one lump some, cash.  It was all I could do to walk away from the man at the garage without saying that I felt raked over the coals, and that is putting it mildly.  On the other hand, I suppose I should be happy that I didn’t use my credit cards.  My husband says the brakes are better than they had been in a long time.  Yikes, not sure why he didn’t tell me earlier that we needed them.  I wasn’t able to pay anything extra on the high interest card with this paycheck, but did increase the payment with our next check.  Not as much as this would have been, but still substantial.

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I talked with Jean about how to cut back on eating out and she said to cut in half the number of times I am eating out to start with.  Then when I get that down, cut again.  I am going to try to do this.

My husband and I went to Bass Pro shop (avid hunters are we) and we spent more money there than I had planned.  We were doing well, only getting a few things, when my husband saw a range finder.  It was on sale with a $20.00 rebate to send in, so in the cart it went.  Needless to say, the money that was budgeted for groceries went to this.  I was shocked at what we spent.  We both have cash in our wallets, so I made sure my husband knew that it was all we had until our next paycheck.  I haven’t touched the money I have put in savings and actually added to it because I paid myself first.

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The next day after our Bass Pro trip, I received a text from my oldest grandson.  He was going to be camping a few hours away from us next weekend.  I gathered all the information and reserved a campsite.  I was able to pay for the campsite with what little I had left in our account, but it may cost more in the long run.  We have a camper, but reserved a “basic” site.  No water/sewer/electric and my husband can’t imagine being without air conditioning, as hot as it has been.  I am asking friends to see if I can borrow a generator so I don’t have to buy one.  I have plenty of groceries and our gas budget is OK, so I’m not worried about that.  I found my weakness is that it is hard to say no when it comes to my grandchildren.  I am hoping this works out with little or no extra cost.  I am really going to try to make that happen.

I find myself thinking of ways to save like never before.  I wouldn’t have thought about asking to borrow something, or where the money was going to come from, but working this program and being held accountable is changing all that.  I really do want out of debt, because I see how less stressful people are when they have financial freedom.  I kind of like my new way of thinking.  I am going to continue tracking my spending and looking for more ways to save.  I am gaining confidence each day.

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Read Chris’ story »

Chris

I took Friday off work so that I would not lose vacation time. I worked for 4 hours in the yard pulling ivy from the house.  What a horrible job—I generally pay about $100 a year to have it done. I saved $100—score for me!! It was not hard, just dirty and hot.  I finished the side of the house and about 3/4 of the front of the house when the rain started.  I was able to pack 5 lawn bags of ivy before the recycle truck came, so that was wonderful.  My unexpected expense for the week: Generic pain reliever!  I really need to get in better shape and do more of the routine maintenance on my own! It felt good to see the progress that I made on the yard.

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My daughter’s 21^st birthday was on Thursday, and she chose to spend it with me. I let her choose the restaurant, and she selected a really nice Italian restaurant. We had a $25 Restaurant.com coupon off the meal with a minimum of 2 entrees.  We arrived during happy hour, so our cocktails and a great bruschetta were half off the normal price. We ordered two entrees to share, ravioli and pizza.  Incredible meal—everything was perfect, including the salad, which was an Italian mix with house balsamic vinaigrette. We checked into foursquare.  The waitress noticed and we got our appetizer free. We had her pack up pizza and bruschetta to take home and she asked about dessert. I told my daughter to order something since it was her birthday.  The waitress told us it was free on a birthday.  We split the most incredible dessert, a brownie-type cake with dark chocolate and cherry sauce, molten inside, it was awesome! By the time our coupon, birthday and foursquare discounts were applied, the bill with tax was $10.47.  We tipped the waitress beyond 20% and went away with a wonderful meal that was an incredible deal.

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The rest of the weekend was normal but great. I met a friend of mine and spent Saturday exploring the city.  It is always a fun adventure—a huge farmers’ market and antique and indie shops in the city. We met for breakfast at a local green organic market, I ordered from the side menu and had 2 eggs scrambled and a really dense and wonderful whole grain toast for $3.18. I devoured my friend’s fruit side: free! We ate again in the late afternoon, I had turkey wrapped in romaine with cheese for $6.63.  My verdict: A day with a friend, so worth the cheap and healthy meals!

Kudos to Jean, I am feeling energized and confident.  I have my aggressive budget, and a step-back budget planned.  The step-back is my ’emergency’ budget. If something breaks, I have a plan.  I have never planned before! I never had a budget before.

Still on track, still energized and looking forward to the end of debt and focusing on the end of the journey! Still losing weight—a great bonus!

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Image courtesy Debt Diet Challenge blogger Chris

Read Melissa’s story »

Melissa

This week I spent a lot of time reviewing every option I could think of for daycare expenses that will increase in September.  My husband and I were able to save a lot of money during the summer months by taking vacation time to save on babysitters and daycare.  This really helped jump start our debt reduction.  I am sickened at how much it costs for decent childcare in our area, but I think I came up with a plan that we can live with that will still allow us to send a lot of money to our credit cards plus give us flexibility to use more vacation days to save additional money.  My husband and I have a decent amount of vacation days at both of our jobs and since we are no longer taking any trips for awhile—this is a much better use of our time.  I will really miss Mickey Mouse next year, but the little devil has wrecked us financially with a trip or two every year racking up major credit card damage.

[Article: To Save or Pay Down Debt? Budget for Both.]

My other challenge for this month is to cut back on eating out and coffee.  I have failed in my need for my $2.11 plus tip iced Dunkin Donuts French Vanilla in the morning.  There is just something about the icy coldness combined with the double dose of caffeine that really gets me going in the morning.  I may have to deal with this summertime addiction when the weather starts getting cooler and focus instead on not eating out.  I get together with two different groups of friends each month for dinner and drinks.  I canceled one group last week.  I can probably just catch up with them every few months as they like to indulge with appetizers, meal, drinks and dessert, so it can get expensive.  I did meet up with my other group of friends and recommended a cheap restaurant and told them I was on the “Debt Diet.”  I even had a coupon, too.  They thought it was good idea to cut back on how much we spend out because we don’t care what we eat, just as long as we get together to catch up.  We even thought next month we may bring a picnic on the beach.  I will say the “fair share bill splitting method” is very awkward to bring up even with my close friends.  I would rather skip a few months and go to an inexpensive place than to feel cheap at the end of the night.  I know I should get over it, but it is still too awkward a conversation.

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My husband had to go away on business this week and he said for the first time in a long time he wasn’t afraid of what credit card bills would come in while he was gone.  These would always turn into a fight when I discovered what latest electronic item he purchased in the last month.  I am proud to say neither one of us are using our cards, and there was no fight when he got back.  Progress yet again!

I am definitely saving a lot on groceries now.  I monitor the fliers for 3 different stores, use coupons and stock up on sale items.  Also one store that I usually frequent has a promotion with gas savings and I saved .60 a gallon this week just from doing my regular grocery shopping with them. I never paid attention to these sales and promotions before the Debt Diet. I was always too busy. Now I have fun seeing how much I can save.

The debt crisis with the nation has had us very worried with what could happen to interest rates on our cards.  We are trying to attack as much as we can while still allowing us a little wiggle room to live.  If things get as bad as they say, we may need to go more radical.

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