A whole latte budget

To know me is to love me. Seriously. I am many things, funny, smart, strong, (in)&dependent, beeutiful, loud, animated, polite, spontaneous, goofy and a little ghetto. But in FABULOUS way.

I am an avid coffee drinker. I like all sorts of coffee, lattes, any kind of "ccinos", you name it- I'll drink it.

At work, the people at Starbucks were gracious enough to pass on the recipes for all their signature drinks. Thankfully they are not as expensive as they are at the real Starbucks, though they are the real deal, taste the same. Still it can get costly.

Grab a pencil:

A.M : Grande Verona - $1.50

Mid day Tazo tea- .75c

P.M Grande Latte ( mocha, chai, americano, etc)- $2.75 ish

TOTAL: $5.00

X 5 days a week- $25.00

Remember kids this is just on your daily fuel (coffee in case you were following along) and if you don't brown paper bag it for lunch, you will spend a minimum of $5 a day.... again $25.00/ week

grand total $50.00 week!! That's over $2,500 a year!! {gulp} Truth be told.

That was me.

So what does someone, who's a little ghetto fabulous, and on a budget do?

My friends I give you- Lolos 'faux'ocha

Colombian Instant Coffee

Ghirardelli Ground Chocolate w/ cocoa

Marshmallows ( of course )

This set me back about 12 dollars. Half a weeks worth of coffee, 3x's as much coffee. =-)

Look at that marshmallowee froth!!

Oh SN: I also have 3 different boxes of tazo teas at my desk. And i seldomly buy lunch at work now. This means im saving tons and tons of money... I think someone deserves a new pair of shoes as a reward. Just saying.

i {heart} Target

I absolutely love target. I do. I was forced stopped going to walmart years ago. I know walmart has better prices all around, but you cant beat Target's friendly team members, their clean stores, starbucks, and great selections in their clothing line, plus they also have awesome guest designers.

(you like the makeshift photo shopping?...)

While Juj was in Michigan for his uncle's funeral i went to target to pick up a copy of Toy Story 3 ( which i adore!) As i was checking out, the cashier asked me if i wanted to apply for the Target REDcard or Visa. I politely said no. She then asked me if wanted to apply for a Target REDcard DEBIT card. Before i had a chance to speak, she began rambling on how great the target debit card was and how convenient, and no annual fee, and how its like using your regular debit card and how you save 5% every time you shop and how you can choose a charity to get that xx% cash back.... i jumped in as soon as she took a breath. I asked her to let me see the terms and conditions.

 I read the fine print.

She was right, no fee, no charges, no nothing. Just drafts directly from your checking account and you get 5% off. I know 5% isn't much, but its something.

 So far, just by using the card we've saved about 18 dollars and on a separate shopping earned a $5 gift card. $23 big ones. I strongly recommend the card if you're an avid target shopper like we are.

Smart Man = Awesome Purchase

For a while now, I have been going to school sans a laptop. We have a home windows desktop and a mac laptop. While the mac laptop is functional, it has limited mobility due to battery life and a few technical flaws. So Juj and i have been talking about getting me a laptop for some time now. We both knew that it would be a mac operating system- that right off the bat puts me at dropping at least a grand for a barebones minimum Macbook. We searched and researched and contemplated purchasing a used Macbook/pro. We didn't want to spend too much on used laptop either, for the obvious reasons.

So ladies and gents, you are looking at the proud owner of an iPad!

The iPad was only a fraction of the cost of a entry level Macbook and cheaper than tons of used laptops that we found.

Juju helped determined what I would use my laptop for the most. We made a list and figured out that i would realistically need it for school work (word, powerpoint, excel), personal use (web[blogging],apps and [i'm very excited about this...] it doubles as an E-Reader [like the kindle/nook]) and just for fun stuff like youtube, netflix, etc. etc. Matter of fact I am blogging this from my iPad as we speak!

I'll have to learn and review more about all of its functions. I was just too excited to not say something!

Eatin' Cheap

I find that this post is perfect after my rant about budgeting. Last week Thursday, i think, i was reading a post about Restaurant.com and an amazing one day promotion they had going on. I rarely ever "take people up on discount offers", plus it sounded too good to be true so i wanted to check it out myself.

I browsed through the restaurants in my area and found a lot of restaurants that i have been to, like, or would like to try. So there i was loading my cart with tons and tons of gift certificates to all these restaurants. I know what your thinking, what about your budget? Well amigos... take a gander- this is what i got:

$50 Restaurant.com gift certificate
$50 Wards house of prime
$25 Houlihans
$25 (3)Kil@wat
$25 (2)Molly Cools
$25 Bistro Bar 333
$25 Pepino's Pizzeria
$25 Libiamo
$10 (2)Marchese's Olive Pit
$10 (2)Antigua

Ok, lets add those bad boys up... Ok, lets see carry the one... $365 dollars worth of gift certificates. Even if i got them at 50% off i would never spend that much, specially up front for them.

Grand total $17.60

And if my math serves me correct, we got all these gift cards at about a 95% discount. I know, what.a.deal!!

Please hold your applause. Seriously, sit. No need for a standing ovation.

Something funny though, Juj must have looked at the account afterwards because he was like... "wait!?! what is this purchase for restaurant.com?" He thought it was fraud since i did 2 separate transactions and they were both very small.

Shoe Strings : ONLY

We aren't broke broke. We are cant-afford-to-take-a-vacation broke. We have food on our table and a roof over our heads. We have clothes on our back and a borrowed washing machine to wash it in.

I joked with a coworker saying "We're on a shoe string budget, meaning, i cant afford to get the shoes, just the shoe strings"

Its difficult trying to work with a budget because you know that you cant "splurge" on much. We have done very well trying to cut down on unnecessary expenditures. We have reduced the number of times we go out to eat or get take out. I try to keep the fridge stocked with food so we can eliminate the "There's nothing in the fridge" thoughts, that have so easily led us to go out to eat. No one said budgeting would be easy, but if they did, it was most likely because they had a large budget. With Juj working less, we became more aware of what, how, where we are droppin' the dough.

I've been doing some research and according to many budgeting websites and tools your budget should looks a bit like this:

Housing- 25-30%

Food-15%

Gas/Transportation-15%

Utilities-10%

Payments on Debt-10%

Savings-10%

Entertainment-5%

Medical-5%

Charity-5%

Clothing-5%

Now I'm not going to bore you to death with all the details of our finances, but we tend to shift around the allocated percentages.

Housing-  23%
Food-10%
               -I tend to be a very smart shopper, finds sales, stock up on BOGO (cheese freezes well) and
                since for the most part we don't consume much meat we tend to not spend too much on food.
Gas/Transportation/Ins-28%
               -This is for our car payment, insurance & gas
Utilities-12%
               - This includes household and our cell phone bill we pay for 4 lines ( juj, MIL, mom, & I)
Payments on  ALL Debt-25%
               -Oh this is high. too high, but it does include just about everything, credit cards, student loans,
                regular loans etc etc.
Savings- ~%
              - Some months are better than others, some months we are able to save 10% others 1%
Entertainment-5%
              -This is varies, we can go weekends with out spending anything, then there is times when we
               drop F-bombs when we pay our part of the tab/bill. We for sure spend 9 dollars on netflix/mo.
Medical-0%  
              - Thankfully we've got more than enough money set aside in our Flexible Spending accounts to 
                cover any medical bills our insurance doesn't cover
Charity-0%
             - Though I volunteer my time at different charity events, we give no monetary donations.
Clothing-5%
             - I can seriously say that i have not spent much out of pocket money on clothing. For example, i
               had gift card to kohls, a merch. credit, kohls cash and my employee shop day and employee
               discount. I purchased 3 tops for roughly 25 dollars. NOWHERE near the 5% that I we should be
               using.( hint hint babe!)

I know that by this time you've take out your calculator and figured out that totals 108% and taking into account that a few of our areas fluctuating, such as savings and entertainment. Well ladies and gentlemen, somehow, i make it happen. Well, we make it happen. Even though i do most of the bill paying we both try to keep within our budget. Over time things such as the debt area will go down, perhaps we'll take a leap and purchase a home, but a lot of things can throw a monkey wrench into our budgeting plans, i.e. Cookies expensive medical bills, new brakes, etc etc. Conveniently, I just got a sweet raise at work- so that's always a plus!

Overall its not difficult, it would just be a lot easier to manage if we were just given one big lump sum at the beginning of the month =-D

Mo' money Mo' problems

Generally, there is 3 things i dont like to discuss with people: Money, Religion & Politics.

But lately all i have been able to think about is money money money money mo-ney... mah-nay! (sing to the tune of the money song) But i've been thinking about it in a good way. Everyday as i read through my status update feed on my facebook, i see people talking about how much money they have, or how much they make, or at least make it a point to insinuate that they have money. I loathe those people. Not because im envious, nor jealous... But because it shows how superficial those people are- always talking about what they have, where they are going or what they just bought.

Its funny because Juj and I were having a conversation about people who have money, or at least try to front like they do. Those people, who brag about how much they made, or how much they shop, really don't have money to live the lifestyle they say to have. Those people tend to live out of their means just to keep up with the Jones's- or simply to keep up with their own charade. That's why mo' money comes with mo' problems.  People who have real money are not running around spending it frivolously- and then talking about how much they spent. People who have real money are humble, hard working, financially responsible and don't have the need to proclaim how much they have.

My good friend is quite loaded. She and her husband own a few businesses and recently built a gorgeous home. She takes simple vacations and is modest in her appearance, never flashy- but always put together. Her children aren't spoiled and her parents are never in need. She never talks about money- but she is quick to help friend in need. That my friends, is people who have real money.

Money has such an affect in our lives. I've never been a conformist, but I'm not money hungry either. Money changes people both in a good and bad way. Not having money really makes you take a step back and realize how truly blessed you are to have what you have- very humbling. Not having money makes you aspire to have it, but for all the right reasons.

One day, i want to have money... by the butt loads if possible. I want to do good things in this world, i want to give back to every person who has ever been there for me, i want to be able to provide for my family, my friends or a homeless man in on a corner.