Our Emergency Fund Is Coming Along

Since we have been using HSBCdirect to grow our emergency fund, our account has been growing slowly but surely. I've also been very happy with their service, seeing that I locked myself out of my account a couple of times and was always able to reach someone from customer service to help me out. We have enough in right now to cover a small emergency, but I would like to save enough to where if something came up, we wouldn't have to go back to charging on our credit cards. So knock on wood that nothing comes up. Anyway I am very happy with the service that we have been getting from HSBC and would recommend them to anyone looking for an online savings account.

Eating Out Less

Last month we noticed that we had been going out to eat too much and spending way to much on restaurants. So we decided to see what would happen if we cut out eating out and spent more time making meals at home. Well we have spent about $300 a month on groceries, but we have saved a ton of money by just eating at home. We have still gone out a couple of times, but not as much as we were before. Hopefully we can keep up with this trend because we need to be saving as much money as we can for when the baby comes. Which means we will be spending a lot of time at home and with family for a while. I am new to fatherhood so I am not sure about how soon you take your baby out and all that stuff, so it should be an interesting experience.

1st Payment on Loan

Today was our first payment on the loan that we got to consolidate all of our credit card debt. It felt really good just to be making one lump payment and not a bunch of small ones. The other good thing is that we can actually see the light at the other end of the tunnel. Unlike when we were just paying on the credit cards, we actually know that we will have everything paid off in 4 years. So I am pretty excited about that. I have also been slacking on my blogging duties, part of it is writer's block, and maybe a little bit of laziness. I will get back on track and try to start posting more often.

Cold Turkey, Cutting Our Spending

In an attept to cut our spending and save some extra cash, we took a look at our budget and bank statements and realized that we were going out to eat way too much. So this past month we hit up the grocery store and have been eating and spending more time at home. Turns out our budget looks a little better this month and our dollars are stretching a little more than they have the past couple of months. We still went out to eat once or twice, but nothing like we had before. I guess you don't actually know how much you are spending on junk or wasting money until you actually sit down and look at it. This month may actually turn out to be a good one after all.

Our Love with Debt

I just read an awesome article on debt called, "Deep In Debt, Deeper In Denial" by Laura Rowley. It talks about a documentary that is coming out called "Maxed Out", my life story. Anyway it talks about how bad Americans are in debt and how much creditors and collection agencies are loving it. Pretty sick if you ask me, especially since I am in debt. I am looking forward to checking out this documentary. Definitely read the article, it has a lot of great information.