#budget2019

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I do a lot of cooking from home and one of the things that I have relied upon are my knives. The two of the 4 I own are pictured above and I have owned for several years and do a majority of the heavy lifting in my house. When they are dulled I use a whetstone to sharpen them over a fancy sharper you can find at Williams-Sonoma or other kitchen shop. The whetstone was a gift from my dad who I fear doesn’t understand why I am so focused on zero waste and sustainability, but he does like doing things like teaching me to sharpen my blades and save money and space in my apartment. I guess that the side effect of saving money and buying less plastic is spending time with my father? Sounds reasonable to me, I think.

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My splurge for this week was $7 on a Swedish Sponge. What is a Swedish Sponge you ask? It behaves like a hybrid towel sponge that was invented in Sweden and is made from 70% cellulose and $30 cotton. It’s fairly thin but can hold a lot of water which makes it perfect for cleaning off my kitchen counter. When it gets grungy, I can throw it in the wash along with the rest of my laundry and keep using it for another 199 washes. When it is finally done I can compost it with the rest of my kitchen scrapes. 

As for the image? I was listening to Amon Amarth and couldn’t help myself. LoL!

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Monthly Goals: July 2019

It’s July and that means GO PLASTIC FREE this month. Since my gradual process of going zero waste I have yet to accomplish this task. I’m hoping 2019 will be my year. In addition to plastic free July, I’ve added a new category of Carbon Footprint to try and push myself to reduce my impact in a way that may not be covered by minimalism, zero waste, debt free, or relationship.

Minimalism: Institute a no buy weekend July 4th, while organizing a holiday party with my family and neighbors. I love me a potluck.

Zero Waste: Make my own ice-cream, bread, and cookies for snacks this month.

Debt Free: Try to put $1100 towards my car loan this month in total.

Relationship: Take my partner out on a no-spend date at least once this month without our son.

Carbon Footprint: walk 100 miles this month. This means walking to the stores, the library, to get ice cream, to go to the park, etc. I only want to use my car to go to work this month.

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Air Conditioning

If you don’t believe in climate change you’ve come to the wrong blog. I am an advocate for reducing my carbon footprint in nearly everything my family does year round, including the summer.

I will always remember summers being stiflingly hot as a kid growing up on the coast,but it recent years it seems the Mid-West has given my hometown a run for its money with non-stop rain for weeks, followed by scorching temperatures, and brief thunderstorms. As a result whenever I step outside I hear the constant hum of air conditioning units and loads of shut windows and close doors. It is sort of sad to me as a shut up house often looks uninviting and forbidden. For the most part until it reached 90 degrees we kept the windows, front and back doors open,and turned on fans which successfully cooled down our home significantly and allowed for four kids to run circles around and through my house. 

Additionally, while it has been roasting here at 95 degrees (that’s 35 degrees for readers outside of the states) we’ve managed to keep the air on during the days, but turn it off at night and run just the fans instead. Doing so has paid off as our electricity bill for June was $27!

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I Like Money

Better yet I like paying off $11,611 in a little over 8 months. I’m not sure I’ve hustled harder, sold more goods and turned down more freebies than I have in these last eight months. Doing some basic math, I realize that I can realistically cut TWENTY FOUR (24) months off my debt repayment plan and be debt free in 2021! 

Ahhhh! That is so insane to me everyone! I never ever thought I would be thinking about climbing out of debt before my son turns ten! For the first time in my adult life I can dream about home ownership and buying property! AHHH this is amazing!

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Thank You!

Over 500 of you have subscribed to this blog about minimalism, going green, budgeting, and paying down $51,000 worth of debt! I love you all so much!

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Taxes

Like the old adage says, “ ...in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes” which means that if you don’t consider taxes when planning your budget Murphy’s law will probably slap you with a $5,000 tax bill. 

I’m very lucky that my partner enjoys doing taxes and has always been very frank and open with me about the state of our debt and timeline to pay it. I withhold a large chunk of my paycheck every year in fear of the above mentioned $5k tax bill so when we received a nice chunk back (not as large as previous years mind you) we decided to pay down our car debt.  Doing this effectively cut out four months from our payment schedule with money that we didn’t even need. 

So I post this to you dear readers of the Tumblrverse don’t buy a new bag or “treat yo self” to a fancy dinner with your tax returns pay down your debt or invest a little ie. treat yo future self by getting rid of the debt now.

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Project 406: Day 19 (Items 172 - 190)

Who would have thought my linen closet would hold so many useless towels and bed items that I never use? I actually struggled to figure out where in my house I should try and clean out next. As my linen closet is tucked inside my reading room I didn’t realize that I had gone past these items over a hundred times since starting this project. These 19 items will be donated to my local animal shelter. I am really seeing the positives to this 406 project.