My great money idea

So I think I'm cool cause I've been reading all kind of Financial blogs lately cause we are finally going to open up an IRA with some of our tax returm. In the process I have found a bunch of other useful financial information. One thing that I keep reading about on the blogs is creating a price book which is basically a list of your normal grocery and house hold purchases and their prices so you know when you are at another store if a sale is really a good idea. You are also supposed to put typical sale prices in the book so you can know the lowest price an item will be that you frequently buy and stock up on during sales. Well I finally decided to start making one of these (I'm in the process of putting prices into an Excel spreadsheet and then I'll play with it from there - I just sat down with my last two weeks of grocery receipts to get started with prices and what we normally buy. This is going to be a really big task, to actually get all the prices in there and set it up in a useable fashion, but I really think it will pay off. We were just recenly at a store we don't normally shop at and saw some things that appeared to be cheaper than they were at walmart and now I know that if I had a price book in my purse I would have know what things were a good deal and what things weren't.
I've really been trying to make a budget and stick to it and since we don't have a lot of things that I can cut back on (we are going to be switching to a prepaid cell phone instead of my $50 a month plan I have right now), but really groceries are the best place for me to cut. So I've been setting us a strict limit each week and trying really hard to stick to it. Sometimes it works sometimes I am shocked when the checker rings up my total. Well I had a brilliant idea (or at least I think its brilliant) that once I get my price book all set up in excel and start making my grocery list from it I can know how much we will spend at the grocery store before I get that shocking total from the cashier. So I'm planning on getting this all set up soon and then I can know what I will spend and decide what we can stock up on or what we need to do without that week while I'm still at home instead of trying to figure out a running total at the store while I shop. So that was my big idea and I'm excited to try it out.
I'm also excited cause as soon as our tax return gets here (we are hoping to file tonight) we can pay off our discover card and actually be ahead a month instead of always being behind. (We basically put all our expenses on the discover card each month and then pay it off at the next bill cycle, but it is always stressful when the bill comes cause we always spend more than we should. Now we will pay for things out of the checking account and if we don't have the money we can't buy it, instead of just putting it on the card and worrying about how to pay for it when the bill comes.

Anyway I'm excited about getting our finances in line and actually controlling them rather than them controlling us!

We are going on a limo ride tomorrow!

So Jay and I are going on our first ever limo ride tomorrow for Valentines Day!! I'm so excited. We found an ad in our local paper for a February Special from a limo company that includes a limo ride and dinner for 2 at a local steak house. All this for $85. It seems like a crazy amount to pay for dinner (even if it is for valentines day) but I think it will be fun. I still can't believe that they weren't booked up (the weekend before valentines day), but it is a small town. Hopefully it will be worth it, makes me a little nervouse that when we called he said I could choose any time I wanted to. Does everyone else know something we don't? None the less this girl who gives her husband a strict lecture about not buying roses on valentines day because they are way over priced is going on a limo ride and having a steak dinner for $85! We deserve it! And the kids have been super crazy, so its way worth it to get out of the house with out them. Jay's sister will be here watching the kids so we don't have to worry about them. Yay! We are getting really dressed up and everything! This is the first year since we had kids that we are actually getting to actually go out on valentines day!! I'll post later to let you know how the evening was.