Simply Budgeting: My Dirty Little Secret

Last month I talked about Organizing Your Coupons. This month I am posting this last minute but had the topic here for a week or so.

So now I have you wondering … what is her dirty little secret? Well all this time I have had this blog where I have talked about budgeting, we have had one budget item I never shared. The budget item was cut back once since then and now has been cut completely. What was it? I hear you asking me to just get to the point! =P We have had a cleaning lady. I hired her back when I was pregnant with Sophie (our second kiddo) because I physically couldn’t keep up with the house plus my job, plus little Gracie, plus my husband being a full time graduate student on top of being pregnant. Something had to give and it was cleaning the house. So we skimped in a lot of areas to have someone clean twice a month. That was part of the reason I clipped so many coupons and shopped so many sales. When my husband didn’t get a full time teaching job last year, we cut her back to once a month. I wasn’t willing to give up a fully clean house once a month. So I cut back other areas and keep working the coupons more and more.

Just over two weeks ago, our minivan died. It was going to cost double its worth to fix it. We bought it used and it served us very well. We had to make a hard decision on if we wanted to fix it again or just bit the bullet and upgrade. Out came the budget. The budget was such a HUGE factor in this decision, I can’t even stress it enough. To fix the van was going to cost our van payments through the end of this calendar year. Next year, our budget changes some so we had to factor that in since a payment would keep going. We also had to realize that we have been pay for a large repair every year we have had the old van. So the decision was made … we have a new van. YAY for the new van BUT in order to get the new van, I had to give up my cleaning lady. That was one of the hardest calls I have had to make in awhile. I hope to use her from time to time still as I know I will run short of hours in the day at some point.

So now I am cutting out a heck of a lot of coupons for cleaning supplies that I have ignored. Last week my score was toilet bowl cleaner for 49 cents a bottle … I bought four! My cleaning supply stash is pretty good right now and I know I can get cleaning supplies super cheap. Now to find the extra time in my day to keep my house looking and actually being clean … it will happen. I know it will even it means less sleep and I have believe … actually I KNOW that having a van that won’t break on us is worth it.

Our NEW 2011 Honda Odyssey Budget Line Item

(We seriously LOVE it. I think I will cry when the first payment comes due though. It has been forever since we have had a car payment!)

Do you have a dirty little secret in your budget? Do you check your budget before you make big decisions like a new vehicle? Do you clean your house one room at a time? That is how I have been doing it so far since I don’t have full days to do this task!

Do you have a budget question/idea/topic/blog post? Let me know in a comment or email to simplybudgeted at gmail.com!