A Penny Saved 2.0

Last year I posted about our 2016 savings plan. You can read about it here. Well since this plan worked for us last year we are going to try it again. If you want to try it with us here is the new chart for 2017. Click view image then save as. Best of luck to all!

A Penny Saved

For a couple a years now Trey and I have wanted to do a "savings plan" that go around every year. Where you increase the amount you saved every, week, month or whatever. But each year we look at them and they just don't fit our budget. By the middle of the year at the latest we are cutting directly into gas and food money, having already lost our limited fun budget to the savings plan. This year we found one that will still require self control but we can do on our budget. It's the "Penny Saver Challenge"

You've probably seen it. For the day of the year, based on the Julian Calendar, you put in that many pennies. The logic is as follows; January 1st = 1 Penny, January 14th = 14 Pennies, May 7th= 128 Pennies, October 14= 248 Pennies. By the end of a leap year you have $671.19. For a non leap year it's $667.95. Now this idea sounds all well and good until you think about keeping that many pennies around. Not to mention remembering to count out that many pennies each day, ugh. For me I knew that was just setting myself up for failure. I really want to save up some money so I needed a new plan.

I made myself a chart. A chart that said each week what I needed to put in the jar with a little box for a check mark to track my progress. I found a large jar at Dollar Tree and taped my chart to it. I now have a savings jar. I'm thinking of doing it backwards so my highest amounts go in first. Don't we all seem to have more money at the beginning of the year? Or if I get a bonus pay a larger amount. Leaving the smaller ones for weeks with less money. I'm being pretty fluid now that I know what needs to be paid. I figure as long as I have a check mark for each week by the end of the year then I'm good.

You may wonder what am I using this money for? We are being practical. It's going to be our cash reserve fund. It won't go in the bank it will be cash we keep for emergency needs or emergent times. For instance when the power is out in most of the city and stores only accept cash. Or you are going to the fair and you don't have time to go to the bank and don't want to pay the ATM fee. We've never really had a cash reserve and it's time we got our act together. You can use it for whatever you want but that's our plan.

Here are the two charts I made.
Option 1- Download JPEG or PDF

Option 2- Download JPEG or PDF

They are pretty big they are 6.5in by 7.5in. You can try to shrink it but it gets harder to read. I like the larger size. If you are putting in on a bottle just make sure you get a bigger one.

If you are just moving the money from checking to savings in a bank account you may want to print the chart put it on the wall and mark it as you go.

Best Kept Secret

I'd hate to say it but the government (federal and state) has been keeping a really big secret from you. Big surprise, right? Well you maybe surprised to hear that they are keeping affordable children's health care a secret.

It's probably not intentional because they want kids to have affordable health care otherwise the program wouldn't exists, but it's not like they do a whole lot of advertising. We've all heard of Medicaid for poverty level families. There are many people who don't qualify for Medicaid because they make too much. But they either have a job with no benefits or like us can't afford the jump in premium.

As we were preparing for Squeaker's arrival we were looking at the cost of adding her to our insurance plan. Trey's work offers pretty good medical coverage, the only problem with adding Squeaker would take us from an employee+1 plan to a full blown family plan. A premium jump of about $200 a month. Now the family plan covers up to five kids I believe so for having two or more children it's a great premium. For our budget (which still included utilities for the house we hadn't sold yet) we couldn't afford it. I started looking into state and federal aid but we didn't qualify for any of it.

One day Trey was talking to a friend, Scott, at work and explaining our insurance conundrum. Scott jumps in and says, "Apply for All Kids". His daughter was diagnosis with a heart condition shortly after birth and one of the nurses suggested they apply for All Kids so they wouldn't be stuck with horribly large medical bills. They had never heard of the program but of course Scott filled out the paperwork and a year or so later when their daughter needed heart surgery

it cost them $300. Yeah you bet we applied.

For three years All Kids as been our saving grace. When we needed a nebulizer we had one, fully covered. Extensive blood tests covered. X-Rays, CT scans, Ultrasound, Barium Swallows, Ear Tubes placed, teeth removed a small copay. Then of course all the medicines $5 a piece! Even as cost have gone up it is still far cheaper than Trey's work plan.

Every time we think about applying for a management job we look to see how much the cost of living is. Including if the state has a supplement insurance program and it's requirements. Most states only have income requirements, paired with the number in your family. Including unborn children. Some of them though have exceptions for children with high medical needs, or mental
impairments such as autism.

Take a look and see what your state offers.
http://www.insurekidsnow.gov/

Food Storage to the Rescue

So the last couple days have proved the importance of food storage to me. As a Mormon I was raised with food storage and taught the benefits of always having a little extra on hand. Even in AmeriCorps where all my meals were provided my roommate and I kept a few snacks, microwave meals, and drinks in our room. So of course the older and more space I've had the more food storage I've tried to keep.

A few months back while trying to buy the high calorie snacks for Squeaker I started really getting into couponing. Squeaker really preferred the name brand items and would eat more of them. So with coupons and sales I was able to keep the foods she liked in the house. Once I got a handle on it I started saving 30%-50% on our grocery bill. So I started putting money into our food storage building.  We acquired a couple of shelving units from Lowes. Then we spray painted them some wonderfully bright colors since I don't have a closet or basement to hid them in. Once they were painted, and built I filled them with food.

This picture is actually a few months old but it gives you an idea of how much you can store on these shelves. Recently I've even put more food on there. I would take a new picture but today one shelf and it's contents were moved to the new house. I also have a small freezer as part of our food storage system. It's a major part of what I can store. I can store meat, pizza, frozen juice. All sorts of fun things.

Now how it has saved us recently. Firstly was yesterday our water was unexpectedly shut off. Our complex didn't realize our building was on the water line that was being fixed so they we didn't get a notice. Because we had food storage and water storage we did just fine. Plenty of food that didn't need water and what we did need water for we had a about 4 gallons on hand. So no water from 9-4 was not a big deal.

Then today hit. ACK!!!! There was a mess up in payroll and our gross pay was a little less than half. So once you took out taxes, insurance, FSA, and other things we ended up with one tenth of our normal take home deposited into our account. Someone made a big boo boo, but even by notifying them today it will be next week at the earliest before we get the rest of our check. But guess what I don't have to buy food. :) YAY!!!

What about milk you ask? Well we had 1/2 a gallon of whole milk (that what we drink). And no that won't last a week. So I took my Dry Nonfat Milk and reconstituted half a gallon and mixed it with my whole milk. Now it's like 2% milk WAHOO! Much better than skim in my opinion. Then when that runs out I'll make more Nonfat Milk and add the Half and Half I keep on hand for ice cream making. So I have enough to make nearly two gallons on milk.

I have pizza already in the freezer for pizza night, everything I need for my fabulous tuna casserole, and Lasagna. Plus I have salmon, chicken, ground beef, hamburger helpers, other skillet meals. Lots of pasta, soup, mac and cheese and hot dogs. Oh and lets not forget frozen/canned veggies and fruits. I will need eggs and bread soon but there is a store in town where I can get each of those items for about $1 each. I have a few dollars in change just for situations like this.

So with a little planning and keeping things on hand that we eat I don't have to worry about food. Bills maybe late but my family wont starve and in the grand scheme of things that's far more important.