College Education on a Budget

I realized I never blogged that I graduated from college last month. :) I earned my B.S. in government, and graduated Magna Cum Laude.

One of the things about going back to school that I am most proud of, is that I did it without any student loan debt. I went back to community college in August 2005, and at that time we were so poor that I got way more financial aid than I even needed to go full time, buy books, etc. I am now a huge proponent of community college, and will encourage my children to go to community college after high school. Some of my professors were really wonderful, and you just can't even compare the cost. When I went to school in 2000-2001, I made the financially dumb decision to go to a private university. Neither of my parents went to college, and I honestly never realized that there was a difference. So imagine my shock when I found out that a class at a community college costs $200, instead of $4,000! What a deal! Especially since I can honestly say that the education I received at the private school was just not worth that much more than the community college education. In the Fall of 2007, I transferred from community college to a state university. I got a part-time job and started feverishly saving money to pay for what financial aid I didn't get. I was determined not to take out loans--we are done with that. The first two semesters I had to pay out about $1200 plus books. I also got very creative about purchasing books--I NEVER went to the college bookstore. For the most recent summer and fall semesters, I had enough money in grants and scholarships to pay for everything I needed and then some. I made a hobby out of finding scholarship money. In my last semester I still needed a math class, so I made the decision to take it at the community college, saving a bundle. I was also able to take that class online, saving gas money.

Me and my brood on graduation day:

Blog of Shame

Apparently, I've already broken my New Years Resolution. Sigh.

Saved some money yesterday by cutting Ethan's hair at home. I think I did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself :)

$327 Snowball to Discover

Our Discover Card is our last little bit of consumer debt. The balance stands at $2800. We'd like to have it paid off by March. It's got a big minimum payment of $150, and it will be awesome to free that amount up every month. My goal is to send them a total of $1100 this month. We divide our budget up in half, since Michael gets paid twice a month. I just sent them the extra $327 that we had in the first half of the month, and I'm hoping to send them $785 from the back half of the month (barring anything unforeseen).

We've already paid off:
My Car
A family debt to Michael's brother
A family debt to my grandparents
Capital One
American Express
Michael's Car

Once we pay this last consumer debt, we're left with two private student loans, and one big hairy federal student loan that's going to take a while to pay off.

I refuse to turn the heater on

Our electric bill was really high last month (almost $200), so I'm going back to being a thermostat nazi. After being 80 degrees yesterday, it is currently 36 degrees with a wind chill of 25. Gotta love Texas. In the past, I would get up in the morning and stay in my tank top and pajama pants and crank up the heat. I was just too lazy to get up and put on some extra clothes. I got up, and instead of turning on the heat, I put on an extra layer of clothes. Seriously, how hard was that?

Found money

That was a nice surprise! Yesterday, Michael and I were getting organized to go grocery shopping. I checked the budget so I could go to the bank and pull out cash for the grocery envelope. I had budgeted $180 for two weeks worth of groceries. Michael pulled out the grocery envelope and I guess I had forgotten that I still had $40 from December. So we only needed to budget $140 for the next two weeks. I've actually had leftover money the last couple of months, so I think I'm going to experiment with lowering the grocery budget.

Another cheap (not healthy!) dinner

Tonight we had grilled bratwurst and french fries. The package of brats were $1.99 manager's special at Kroger. I got a bag of French fries at the 99 Cents Only Store (we ate half the bag), and bought some buns at the Mrs. Baird's Outlet for 0.79.


Total cost for the meal: $3.28 or $0.82/serving, and we still have three buns for another meal.