Newlyweds and Nesting: Elizabeth Anne Designs Living: A Food, Lifestyle, and Craft Blog » Finance

What Will Cupid Bring This Year?

PJ — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:13:19 +0000

This year my husband and I will not be exchanging Valentine’s Day gifts. The decision was mostly his. He doesn’t believe in the Hallmark holiday and would prefer to save our joint income than spend it on jewelry for me. It’s not that he doesn’t love me or that he is particularly frugal. We show our affection for one another daily, and when we go shopping together, he hardly ever denies me the things that I “need.” I think it’s the idea that a token gift on a particular day of the year is supposed to mean something more than it would on any other day.

Although I understand the reason behind his decision, I can’t help but feel disappointed. I would be happy with a simple bouquet of flowers, or even a card, but sadly I don’t I’m going to receive either. Me, the lover of paper, who already has several cards picked out for him! Yes, I do tell him everyday that I love him, but I enjoy having the opportunity to really let my thoughts loose on paper. My husband has stood by me during a number of challenges this past year, and I want to thoroughly thank him for his patience and his love. It may not be reciprocated, but I’m still going to give him a card (or three!).

I suppose I should feel a bit relieved that we aren’t exchanging gifts for Valentine’s Day because surprising your significant other with a present is difficult when you are married to somebody who checks the credit card statements nearly every day. When I know I want to buy my husband a gift, I need to be sneaky. Sometimes I’ll plan ahead and take a little bit of extra cash out of the ATM for a couple of weeks before I actually need it. If I want to buy him a gift online, I’ve been forced to ask my parents if I can use their credit card and pay them back after the gift has been given. When it comes to gift giving, having a separate credit card or separate bank accounts would be ideal.

I know I covered a bunch of topics in the post, but I’m very curious to hear from you. Will you be exchanging Valentine’s Day presents with your hubby? How do you go about buying gifts without him finding out? Do you have a separate credit card for that purpose?

© Elizabeth Anne Designs, 2010 · Permalink · 13 comments · StumbleUpon It!
Posted in: Finance, Life

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Heirloom Cheesy Pasta Bake

Kate — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 04:48:01 +0000

Greetings from 2010, Lovely EADL Readers!

To say its been a while would be somewhat of an understatement, but there’s been some upheaval in our little household that’s kept me a bit preoccupied as of late. Like so many this year, I was let go from my firm right after Thanksgiving. While the day-to-day emotions after such a blow to your professional life can be depressing, I am thankful that the split was an amicable one, that Evs has a secure job which he loves, that we are debt free with savings, and – most of all – that I have the opportunity to find a career I am truly passionate about, instead of one that just pays for fancy shoes the bills.

Obviously, along with my sweet new unemployment status come some tweaks to our everyday life – no more premium cable channels, putting the kibosh on clothes shopping, downgrades on certain grocery items, less eating out and ordering takeout, etc. Complete and total lifestyle changers? Nah. But it is a great experiment in Need vs. Want!

My favorite “tweak” by far is cooking 90% of our meals at home. The past couple of years I’ve really discovered my love for cooking, but when both you and your spouse regularly stay at the office until 8 p.m. or later, whipping up a homemade meal isn’t terribly time effective or enjoyable. Now, with hours upon end to fill on a daily basis, spending an hour or two in the kitchen is fun and relaxing – not to mention a money saver! Additionally, I’ve started cooking larger batches, with the leftovers serving as lunch for Evs throughout the work week. Pre-unemployment, if I cooked, I only made enough for one dinner since I ate for free at work and Evs lunched out most days. Now, leftovers on hand save us the cost of all those lunches out – an average of $35 to $50 a week!

Anyhoo, all this jibber-jabber is my way of introducing my new favorite “make it in bulk” recipe… Heirloom Cheesy Pasta Bake!

Adapted from the Ravioli Bake recipe from Everyday Food: Great Food Fast, I’ve added my own recipe for homemade tomato sauce (inducing a full on jones for summer’s heirloom crop), but you could easily substitute your favorite canned pasta sauce if you’re short on time. Also, omitting the ground beef and exchanging the whole wheat bowtie for a stuffed ravioli or tortellini works nicely as well!

Ingredients

2 good glugs of olive oil
2 shallots, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely diced
3 – 4 lbs of tomatoes (use a variety of whatever is the most in season)
1 or 2 T. of red chili flakes (if you like spice)
1 good dash of oregano
2 good dashes of dried basil (or half a handful of fresh)
1 lb. ground beef (I like 93% lean / 7% fat content)
2 lbs. whole wheat pasta (I like penne or bowtie for this recipe)
salt and pepper to taste
2 – 3 c. of shredded cheese (I like Sargento’s 2% Italian blend)

Directions

Wash and coarsely chop tomatoes.

In a large pot, heat olive oil on medium high. Add shallots and garlic, sauteing until caramelized.

Add chopped tomatoes, herbs, and chili flakes. Liberally salt and pepper. Cover and cook over medium-high heat for about 8 minutes or until tomatoes partially liquefy. Inhale tomato-y goodness. Daydream of summer and flipflops and freckles.

Using a blender or food mill, blend tomato mixture into a smooth sauce. Return to pot. Meanwhile, fully brown ground beef. Drain in a colander, rinsing under cold water to wash off any remaining grease. Salt and pepper meat, then add to the tomato sauce. If you’re a glutton for spice, add some more red chili flakes!

Cook pasta according to package directions, except remove from heat and drain while the pasta is still slightly harder than al dente (the pasta will absorb some of the sauce and continue to cook in the oven).

Add drained pasta to meat and tomato sauce, tossing until the sauce is distributed evening. Pour into a shallow baking dish (I used a 9×13” Pyrex).

Top with delicious cheese. (I use less because Evs is lactose intolerant but feel free to blanket that sucker in cheesy goodness)

Pop it all into the oven, preheated to 425 degrees. Dance around your kitchen for 20 to 25 minutes – or until edges are browning and cheese is bubbling. Remove from oven and test your patience (ie: allow to cool for 10 to 15 minutes). Serve with crusty French bread.

Enjoy again tomorrow! And perhaps the next day!

Recipe makes 5 “man-sized” portions… or 7-8 smaller portions.

**all photos courtesy of author’s (/non-food-photographer’s) personal collection

© Elizabeth Anne Designs, 2010 · Permalink · 5 comments · StumbleUpon It!
Posted in: Finance, Recipes

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How We Budget

Jenna — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:00:06 +0000

I’m a spender, not a saver. One summer I made $12,000 as a waitress in Central WA and had it all spent by the end of the year. I spent it all during a time when my parents were paying for my schooling and housing and giving me a stipend for food. Very embarrassing.

When That Husband and I started dating, he made it clear that debt wasn’t ever going to be a part of his life, and if I wanted to be with him I would have to make some major changes to my spending habits. I began paying off my credit card debt and continued to pay off my car loan. I know, and he will admit if it you asked him, that he would have ended the relationship if he had not seen the changes he believed necessary in my habits for us to have a successful relationship.

When we got married, TH implemented a new approach to budgeting that has completely changed the way I approach my spending. Most people approach budgeting like this: Each month, you start out with $300 for groceries, then you spend until you hit $300 and try to stop spending. If you have leftover money it carries over into next month, but if you’re a spender like me you never have anything left, and you usually end up spending even more than your allotted $300. You start rich and spend until you are poor.

TH’s approach turns things completely upside down, approaching budgeting in a way I’ve never heard of, and most definitely would never though of. It’s based on 4 essential strategies.

Calculate what your total annual spending should be. We came up with a number by taking annual income and calculating money needed for savings, travel, housing, etc, and all other spending that falls under the “invariable” budgeting area. After we had removed all of the invariables we focused on creating a budget for the variables, the places where we would need to track my our spending most carefully. These categories include Groceries, Household, Jenna Clothing, Jenna Personal, Eating Out, etc.
Here is the step where TH’s system is so genius. Our Eating Out budget allots for$1200 of spending/year. Instead of starting out with $100/month, we started out with nothing and the amount we have in the budget grows day by day. It’s fun to say it that way. Instead of diminishing, our budget grows! Each day the Excel spreadsheet we use adds about $3 to our Eating Out budget total. If we only have $75 in the Eating Out budget and we overspend we have to wait until the daily amount builds up enough so we can afford to eat once more.
Credit cards only, no cash. Cash can’t be tracked as well unless you are incredibly diligent about keeping all of your receipts. Most avoid credit cards because you can spend money you don’t have, but in avoiding them you are also avoiding the rewards and bonuses that come with using them. Obviously, they must be paid off in full each month for this to work.
Using mint.com we can track absolutely all of our credit card transactions. We categorize them on mint.com and make sure that they go into That Budget on Google Docs as well.

He created an Excel spreadsheet that we use to keep track of our spending. It’s online using Google Docs so we both can access it at any time from our respective laptops.

I took a few screenshots to help you understand how it works. I wiped most of the tabs clean because spending is so personal (I admit, I didn’t want a bunch of people judging me for how I spend my money), but I left a few of them intact so you can see how it works.

By selecting “Budget” from the tabs that run along the bottom I am able to see a summary of all of our spending for the different variable budgets. The amounts you see under the “Per year” column comprise our actual budget. TH said it would be okay for me to share it with all of you because we spend so little on our variables (well I think it’s a small amount) it wouldn’t be possible for you to determine what he actually makes each year. :)

As I said, most of the tabs are wiped clean, but Clothing-J, Eating Out, and Entertainment have been left intact. As you can see, we have $82 in our Eating Budget to use this month, and $20 to go toward entertainment. Wondering why “Clothing-J” is jumping out at you in red parentheses? It’s because I’m actually almost $400 in the hole for clothing. $600/year might seem like a lot to spend on clothes for some, but I find it to be an almost impossible amount. I’m very, very, ready to pay off my photography debts so I can buy myself some pretty clothes with the money I make!

{click to enlarge}

Here’s what the individual tabs look like. Enter Date, Amount, and Notes about what the money was spent on so it can better be justified to husband later on. :) Sometimes I manipulate the budget by adding things to the wrong category to better distribute my spending. I added “Movie and lunch with Bees” to the Clothing budget because I didn’t want to put it in the Eating Out category and take away from money that could be spend with That Husband instead.

{click to enlarge}

The Eating Out budget. Every single time we spend money on food prepared outside of the house it goes into the Eating Out budget. Food bought at a grocery store, obviously, gets recorded under Groceries.

{click to enlarge}

And the Entertainment budget, which proves why we never do anything. This is absolutely everything we have done since the beginning of the year, and we still only have $20 to spend right now!

{click to enlarge}

If you would like to try this budget out for yourself you can access it here. Please don’t make changes to the original. Go to File->Create a copy and make a new version for your own personal use.

To customize it for your own personal use you need to go to the Clothing, Entertainment, and Eating Out tabs and delete all of the entries you find there. Then, go to the Budget tab and change the values under “Per Month” to match your appropriate spending habits. The values under the “Left” column will not change until you take the value under “Per Month” for each row, multiply it by 12, and then change the value under “Per Year” to match.

If you end up using this new budgeting system, I would love to hear back regarding it’s success (or why you think it failed, if it did). I’m sure That Husband would love to hear about it as well!

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Posted in: Finance

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All You Need is Love… & Separate Bank Accounts?

Kate — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:23:47 +0000

I used to scoff at couples who claimed to marry solely for love but yet still insisted on that ugly ol’ prenup… Talk about unromantic and pessimistic, right? Then I went to law school where I was introduced to Community Property States by adorable (but scary), crotchety Professor F. And as he lectured on survivorship rights and traceable mutations, two thoughts consistently popped into my head:

“Mrs. F is totally screwed if they ever get divorced.”
Charlotte York firmly telling Bunny McDoogle: “I’m worth a million.”

Now, this is not the post where I tell you that I hollered “we want prenup, we want prenup, yeeeah” (sorry: shameless pop culture reference) – quite the opposite, in fact. But understanding how our state views a married couple’s money and property (in Texas, what’s mine is Evan’s and what’s Evan’s is mine) gave me a whole new appreciation for having an agreed upon financial plan.

piggy bank by Esty seller Dog Star Designs

We started talking finances a couple months before saying “I Do” in an attempt to starve off those scenarios that result in money acting as the number one reason for marital discord. For us, its easiest to live off of Evs’ paycheck and (for the most part) save mine. Once every 2 months (so every fourth check) my check gets deposited into a “Fun Account” for travel or other large items we want but don’t need. The rest goes towards a down payment in the “House Account.” As far as day-to-day spending goes, we pared down the number of credit cards and set some ground rules. Before getting married, we each had various credit cards. We picked the two that give us the most bang for our buck (rewards wise), added us both to the account, and cancelled the rest. The majority of our daily expenses go onto those cards or onto our separate store accounts (Brooks Brothers, Banana Republic, Nordstrom, Neimans) – all of these accounts must be paid in full every month. We have a standing “consult if its a personal item more than $100″ rule”… Evs’ gets a gold star for following this rule, while my Marital Finance Report Cards reads “needs improvement.”

Its not for everyone but this situation works well for us for the most part. However, I can’t help but feel a little like I’m on an allowance. As someone whose been in school for twenty years, I still get a little thrill every two weeks when I collect my regular paycheck (yes, my firm does not have direct deposit…and yes, this is superbly annoying). And sometimes I just want to take that paycheck and invest a third of it on something pretty for my feet without a second thought.

But, then again, I’d also like to be sittin’ pretty in retirement before I’m 89 – preferably with a husband who hasn’t gone mad with rampant handbag bills.

How do you handle the finances in your relationship? What works for you?

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Posted in: Finance, Newlywed Life

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Organize: Your Finances

Rebekah — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:00:37 +0000

{via The Image Is Found}

I’d love to have enough cash to do this, but the truth is that I count my dollars obsessively. The husband agrees that I am the money manager in our house hold (I love the planning, he doesn’t). So here are some of my favorite website to help motivate you, organize, manage your finances.

Organize your Finances here:

Learn how to get out of Debt here:

Save your money here:

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Posted in: Finance

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Finances: Creative Frugality

Rebekah — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:00:21 +0000

We can all agree that finance and money management are rarely funny. Other than the creative tax deductions and “getting one over on the IRS” we have very little to amuse us. When I came across this post by Punny Money, I actually snorted.

A few excerpts on ways to creatively save money by using work resources….

Water. If your workplace has free exercise facilities, chances are it also has showers. Even if exercising isn’t your cup of tea, you can still take advantage of workplace shower facilities to cut down on hot water consumption at home.
Storage. This doesn’t apply to those of you who actually use your office or cubicle’s space for storing work items. But I know plenty of you administrative types have nothing but empty lockable drawers that you like to pretend are full of important papers. Why not use some of that space to store books, old clothes, and other stuff you don’t want cluttering up your house? (Not that you even need a house if your office is that spacious…)
Toilet paper. In general, you should be doing about 75% of your toileting at work anyway. You’ll find that doing so will really cut down on your household’s TP consumption. I’m pretty religious about my workplace potty break; stop by stall #2 on the third floor around 12:15 some day and say hi!
Landscape. You may not realize it, but that finely groomed campus landscaping you see outside your window at work probably costs more money each month than you make in a year. I think that entitles you to make off with some posies and maybe a few small bushes.

Nuf said!

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Posted in: Finance

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Finance: SmartyPig Savings

Rebekah — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:00:24 +0000

While cruising the Kiplinger website, I found an article on a new type of savings account called SmartyPig. They immediately sucked me in with their cool graphics and savvy website. I’m a sucker for good design!

I thought it was a great idea for short term savings goals. It has a fantastic APY of 3.9%. The best part is that your friends and family can contribute towards your goal. The account is free (as shown by the great graphics!). The constraints are a minimum goal of $250, a minimum time period of 3 months (but it can stay there for as long as 50 years), and a minimum initial deposit of $25.

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Posted in: Finance

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