What a weekend! SO had a work function and birthday party on Saturday. While he was covering all the costs, it still effects me since we're now an us for certain finances. What I thought was going to be a pretty spend-y Saturday ended up being pretty good. We took chips and dip (12 bucks) to the work function and the birthday party was at a restaurant for dinner. Since SO and I had eaten a lot through the afternoon at the work event, we decided to just split a small pizza and each had one drink. Towards the end of our meal, the waiter was clearing the other side of the table when he accidentally hit the menu knocking it into my glass of champagne which was completely full as I had just topped it off. Fortunately, the majority of it missed me. Unfortunately, the majority hit SO. He ended up speaking to our waitress about getting the champagne removed as I didn't particularly want a second one, but it was still mostly full. To our surprise, the manager then came by and not only offered to take the champagne off, but also to comp SO's meal (our shared pizza). Total cost for dinner? 10 bucks including tip. Poor SO, but that worked out well...

We also signed up for Verizon. What was originally a 134/month estimate is now about 90/month. We decided to go with the basic package, only 1 TV, and no DVR. SO also got us a military discount. We also decided to buy the router outright, so the first 3 months will be an extra 33.33. Plus, a $400 gift card!

I was looking at my fall schedule and it's a hot mess. 3 days/wk babysitting, 3 days/wk cheer practice, 2 days/wk other cheer practice, Saturday practices/games, and my normal full-time job, plus occasional Saturday shows with Sunday dance practices. Obviously, I'm going to have to work out the practice/babysitting situation, but I think it's safe to say that none of my weekday obligations will end before 9 or 10 pm.

What on earth does this mean, finance-wise? That I need to plan, plan, plan!! In the past, it's always been so easy to grab McDonald's or Taco Bell on the way to practice. Since I'm trying to save (and keep the weight off), I'll need to have food. Since I will not have time to run home, I'll need to have both lunch and dinner planned. Dinner will have to be something lighter, but filling enough to hold me until I get home around 9 or 10.

Any quick and easy ideas out there? Preferably ones where you can eat on the go as most of those dinners will probably be in my car...

On a more positive note, I texted SO because I was feeling really overwhelmed/my schedule will leave me very little time for him, and he was ridiculously supportive. That's something I'm not at all used to, but it was a very nice surprise.

I would say that this was a tough decision, but it really wasn't. Given my schedule and the exercise I get between polynesian dancing, coaching cheer, and outdoor activities with SO, I've decided to cancel my gym membership. I have gone twice in the past 6 weeks, and both times, I've left class early. There is a pretty basic, but usable gym in my work building, so no more membership! That's 30/month more for debt repayment.

I've been crazy busy, but I thought I'd pop in and give a quick update on how the food situation is going. I brought back a bunch of stuff from my mom's, so this week wasn't too bad. For lunch two days, I had a cheese flatbread with some mashed cauliflower and grapes. By Friday's lunch, I was running lowon momovers, but scrapped together a garlic biscuit, the last of the mashed cauliflower and pineapple slices. I cooked up a box of mac and cheese Wed. night, so dinner Wed. and Fri. was mac and cheese (one night with garlic biscuits; the other with chicken tenders). Tues. and Thurs. nights were frozen pizzas.

Overall, I haven't had a bad meal yet and haven't touched my bank account all week! I also somehow only managed to use a quarter of my gas tank so far, so double win.

The food thing is about to get significantly harder though, as I took inventory yesterday. I have half a bag of frozen chicken tenders, a pack of chicken that has to be cooked, a frozen meal, 2 bags of frozen veggies, one tortilla, and then 10 or so pantry items like mac and cheese, ravioli, and ramen. (Remember, I live in a basement, so I never keep too much food on hand.)

One of the other blogs I read regularly had a post about car insurance savings, so I decided to look at mine. While I didn't make any coverage changes, I did update my payment information to my bank account which saved me 4 bucks off each of the remaining 3 installment charges. Seriously?!?! 80% savings even though my debit card takes from the same bank account... Come June, I plan to pay the 6 month period upfront and then apply the budgeted monthly insurance to my extra car payments.

Looking at my

budget, the only things left that I could cut/reduce are Netflix, the gym, and the cable box. The cable box isn't an item in my budget right now as I don't actually pay for it. However, part of our agreed terms when I moved in with the family was that I'd cover my cable box since they had to add one. It's approximately 20/month.

I haven't touched Netflix in a very long time, but my family all uses it. I'm thinking I'm going to have us rotate months of paying for it. It's only 9 bucks, but if I can only pay that 3 times a year instead of 12 when I only have the occasional Netflix binge, it would be better.

The other thing I want to look into is Hulu Plus. My understanding is that it contains recent episodes of new shows which is what I keep the cable for. If I could cut that bill in half, then the vast majority of my paychecks would be going towards debt reduction!!

Side note: I'm keeping the gym for the time being although I do plan to put it on hold come cheerleading season since I won't be able to go to the classes I like.

I recently mentioned how I felt my family was holding me back in my journey. My biggest frustration with this isn't the one-off loans, but rather the phone bill. My phone bill is currently about 200/month for four lines for my immediate family. It's been like this for years and is something I've just always accepted. Recently, though, I've been trying to figure out how to cut back this expense. This past week, I'm very happy to announce that we switched to the mobile share plan and cut the bill to 135/month. Much better and I get to keep att which we're all partial to