Going Paperless

So, i know this year i haven't taken the time to blog about any of my new year's resolutions. maybe i'll TRY to get to that before the end of the month, it will still kind of be the new year, right?

BUT, one of my new year's resolutions (and resolutions since getting married) is to cut down on the amount of paper in our household. as my husband recently found out i was in the save the earth club in high school... we cleaned up trash on the jersey shore (the situation and snooki weren't there yet, so we unfortunately couldn't clean them up yet. hehehe...) and now i'm going to clean up our home finances in an eco-friendly way. if it were up to him, we would either keep OR trash every piece of paper that came our way. i know that sounds like a contradiction in itself but for example, he has EVERY pay stub from every job he's had in the last 20 years... yet he'll trash anything healthcare related, doctors bills, mortgage payment stubs, etc so his methods are kind of wacky. i didn't even know when we were supposed to turn in his car from the lease because every month he was throwing out the statement before i could see it and then i couldn't call because he had nothing with the account # on it!

ANYWAY. back to my original point. besides having switched over to paperless statements for most of our bills, i've decided to try to scan everything i get in the mail that needs saving and file it electronically. so far, this has been more of a challenge than anticipated...

how do you organize all the categories of stuff you're filing? by year, by name? i decided to start out doing it on a monthly basis... i took all the bills i had for the month of january and made a folder titled january and dumped everything in. this was 2011's method and while i was just starting to go paperless, it was still hard to keep track of if i was saving everything monthly. looking back, apparently, i was not.

so i decided to categorize by bill type (i.e. JCPL [power company], AT&T, Cablevision, etc.) which so far, this is working out OK. I download the statement off the internet. then once it gets paid, i download the payment confirmation, so i will have 2 pdfs per month... all good? sureeee... so far this is working out ok, for the TWO weeks i've been at it. LOL

then i decided the rubbermaids i saved full of old bills should be scanned and categorized too... so i started going to thru them, and MAN, i have bills back to like 2002! way way longer than you need to save them for. but hey, IN CASE i ever get audited, i'm covering my arse. hehe... i decided some of the old ones could be shredded/stamped (see below). i mean, the IRS doesn't REALLY care who i was calling back in 2002, do they? nor would my hubby like to see the plethora of boys on speed dial back then, right? i kid, i kid...

don't forget to guard your identity!

then i saw this commercial on tv and almost bought this:

NeatReceipts is a mobile scanner and digital filing system that helps you manage all of your paperwork on the computer. NeatReceipts includes NeatWorks software that identifies and extracts the important information from receipts, business cards and documents and automatically organizes it for you. All scanned documents can be searched by keyword so you can find exactly what you need.

i held off because not only does my printer have a scanner in it, but my printer at work is one that can do a multipage scan by just feeding it through the top, so i figured i'd save my $80. but it looked pretty neat.... no pun intended. i liked the probable scam of "automatically organizes" but why do i have a feeling its not as seamless as it sounds?

so this undertaking is pretty large. and i haven't gotten too far... so i figured i'd take ideas/suggestions from any of you who have them? how do you keep track of your monthly bills? do you think its important to save receipts/old bills/the kitchen sink like i do? so far the only thing i'm worried about is having enough room on my hard drive to store all the information i'm scanning.

I'm trying to be good...

but i just can't control myself! Went to Kohl's on lunch break with C today... i was doing really good, til i spotted this:

via

Luckily this is the only thing i bought... i was able to restrain myself from further buying shit i don't really need. However, i do have a family BBQ on Saturday and this pretty sundress will look perfect with some brown flips and a braid of some sort! Oh and it was on sale from $50 (crazy, i would never have spent that much) down to $35. Just gotta go home and try it on and see if it fits...

My budget is usually not so tight that i can't afford to spend $35 on a dress. i usually end up buying tons of random crap during the week. However, next month dad is turning 70 and we're having a surprise dinner party for him, and i have to help foot the bill. ah yes, the joys of being an adult with a better job than the rents... but you only turn 70 once, right? so i want to go all out.

i also calculated how much its costing me to have doubled scooter's dosage of allergy pills. $35 - A WEEK. so that's $140 a month. for dog medicine. just shoot me. i'm now attempting message #3 for the vet to see what she says about the dosage he's on... long story short, we upped the dosage, its working great, and i'd like to switch him from two 10-mg pills to one 25-mg pill. just waiting for the ok from her. which would drop the price to $80 a month though i found a generic, so if she approves that it will be like $5 a month which would be a godsend on my wallet.

so because of that, im just trying to watch my wallet... How good are you at refraining from spending when you're on a tight budget?

Over Budget, or almost...

So i started May with high hopes. I had consolidated all my debt. I had my income tax refund - some going to savings, some going to debt, some going to fun. I was on track with my crazy excel budget that I obsessively look at and track EVERY penny that is in my name.

And then wednesday hit.

Dog food shopping - $50 Bam!
Mother's Day gift - $100 Bam! Bam!
Food shopping - $182 Bam! Bam! Bam!
Scooter Vet Appt - $250
And ladies and gents, shay is DOWN FOR THE COUNT! Tee Kay OHHHHHHH!

via

Just when you think you're getting ahead... it's all these little and not so little set backs that knock ya back down...

I was supposed to use $1000 of my tax return to pay "extra" on my debt... instead, it was spent on the hotel for Myrtle Beach (which I'm getting reimbursed for, so not sure if that really counts), vet bills (though, poor Scoots has double ear infections and mega bad allergies. Poor guy...), and general nonsense!

Somehow I managed to still stay within + numbers on my spreadsheet. But that's only because our natural gas bill wasn't as high as I anticipated.

So. 10 more days surviving with $47 to my name. Think I can do it? I hope so! The good news is that the fridge is stocked so G and I can cook at his place all weekend. I have a "Lunch-n-Learn" in the office tomorrow, so free lunch...

Just gotta make it thru next week... cross your fingers for me that i can make it! Do you keep crazy budgets to keep track of your money?

PS this was written yesterday with the intent to publish last night. Instead I spent my night at Cinco de Mayo festivities and am now down to about $10 for the next week. Sweet. LOL

Finally Friday!

Happy Friday everyone! Very glad this week is coming to a close. I had some super extra special moments this week (all little silly stupid things).

• Changed into my gym clothes an HOUR before work was ending, instead of 5 minutes before (i obviously read the wrong time on the clock)
• Kept throwing trash into the space where i THOUGHT my trash can was, only to realize i kept throwing it on the floor.
• Cancelled a dinner date with a friend for next week because i thought it was conflicting with another dinner which is really 2 weeks from now.

I blame it on lack of sleep! I'm usually a person that likes to get about 7 hours of zzz's. This week i don't think i even got to bed before 11 and def didn't fall asleep before midnight. So with that said, it was a ditzy kind of week. I did however make it to the gym 4x this week so go me!

Anyway, saw this ring on daily candy yesterday and its been something i've been searching for (see my wish list on the side for a similar ring). Since it was 30% off and was only $28 to begin with, i figured this was a reasonable purchase! i hope it looks as cute on as it does in the photos! though im a little nervous since i didn't quite know what size to get.

Other than that, the plan for tonight is to do dinner with the BF and then go home and watch this:

Can you believe he's never seen any of them?! Thanks C for lending them to us, tell lil T that I PROMISE i'll return them to her!

In other news, i'm still waiting for my tax refund!! UGH! Apparently, someone somewhere -- either on the IRS side or on my accountants side lost my e-filing. so they had to resubmit it. I mean, i was on the ball this year, i did my taxes in early February- like as early as you could possibly do them! And still no money. Mama needs a new bag people! LOL i kid, i kid.
The good news is that in the meantime i was able to consolidate my debt using a website called www.lendingclub.com - now that i can consolidate everything into 1 payment (and hopefully pay MORE than the payment) i have to be a good girl and leave all the credit cards at home. so sad... but will only be helping me in the end. i think i've done a pretty good job (minus the ring above) on cutting back on the shopping, so now that i've reorganized my finances, i should be all set.

Anyway, happy April Fool's Day (yup, i got pranked today)... have a great weekend!

PS Might have an exciting HAIR post for you next week, hee hee... im so excited but its a secret!