My first day back after 10 years of not delivering pizza was interesting. There was nothing new about it, not much has changed aside from a few extra items on the menu. I have to admit there was a certain amount of comfort knowing exactly what needed to be done, how it was to be done, and when it was going to be done. I go in, do my job and leave. I had forgotten that the drivers do some of the more unpleasant parts of maintaining the pizza shop. Yesterday I had to clean up the trash that was overflowing around the garbage bin out back. Trash gets picked up on Monday so there is a whole week of now rotting food, broken bottles, and whatever else that may be under the cover flaps of the bin and the now half dumped garbage bags over the asphalt. It had been raining a wet snow/cold rain mixture for the past two days that left the cardboard pizza boxes, half eaten slices, and broken glass a bear to pick up. A dirty job for sure. After this I ran to Staples to purchase replacement ink for the cash register only to find out they open at 11am and not the 10am that everyone thought. No big deal, I would pick that up later on the way back from one of my deliveries.

I made nine deliveries yesterday in the course of 7 hours of working between 10am-5pm and drove 30 miles that day. The guy slinging the pizza said that usually they are much busier, but without a major game on and the weather being much nicer that it had that people were probably just out and about. I made $25 in tips over that 7 hours, I assumed I would make closer to $40-50, maybe next time. If you include my hourly wage and tips I made just over $70 that day. That is $70 more than I had last month and if this happens every weekend for a month that is an extra $300 a month towards the plasectomy. Not an earth shattering amount, but it works. I hope to pick up a few more days or nights during the week to bring in some more money. My goal is to have this pan out to be about $600 a month. At this pace combined with some overtime I intend to pick up from work we should be able to knock out that the remaining credit card and begin to pay down the van.

A couple years ago I stumbled across the Grocery Game website and was encouraged by the idea of saving beaucoup bucks on the grocery bill, after a quick search using their zip code locator it revealed only a measly three stores within a 25 mile radius of where we live, two of them drug stores. That quickly blew that idea from my mind and we continued along doing what we always had. Currently we do most of our grocery shopping at a store called Aldi’s. The food is cheap compared to other grocery chains and they do have some deals on well known brands from time to time, but mostly it is from random brands I have never heard of before outside of Aldi’s that attempt to duplicate the name brand items. Our hope is to beat those prices or at least bring the cost of other items down so we can afford to cut the budget down to increase the rate of the plasectomy.

I know of Coupon Mom and The Grocery Game, I know there is more out there, could you point me to some?

Let me share with you things that we found and other ideas to stop the leaking from your wallet.

1. Scale the cable service back or get rid of it entirely.
Did that free promotion of HBO end? How much does your bill run? $80, $100, or $150 a month? Watch for those promotions on TV where you could combine your services. Give your local provider a call and threaten to cancel. You would be amazed at how quick they will offer to lower your rates to keep you as a customer. We recently did this and brought our internet service down from $44.95 a month to $29.95 a month for a year.

2. Cell Phone
Take a look at your monthly minute usage, text messaging, and premium services. Are you paying for insurance at $5 or $6 month on a phone that is 2 years old? Have an old phone sitting in a drawer? Use that if something were to happen to your current phone. Reduce your minute plan if you are not using all the minutes an instant savings of $20. Check to see if you have an employer discount. You could save as much as 22% of your service.
• Verizon Wireless – Dial #646 to check your minutes. Click here to check for employer discounts.
• AT&T – Dial #646 to check your minutes. Click here to check for employer discounts.
• Sprint – Click here to check for employer discounts.

3. Sell Your Storage Unit
Do you have a bunch of stuff? Does your stuff charge you rent? Have you visited your stuff recently? Your stuff doesn’t miss you and you will not miss it. Sell it! Apply your cash to your plasectomy. Two great avenues to get rid of your stuff is to sell it on eBay and Craigslist. For those items that are rare I would personally choose to sell on eBay as you have a global customer base. Craigslist is fantastic for local selling saving you on shipping and it’s free to post. We just sold several small kitchen appliances generating over $100 from Craigslist

4. Gym Membership
Bally’s Total Fitness, Gold’s Gym, 24 Hour Fitness are you a member to one of these chains? What does it run you? A few hundred a year? Have you tried your local YMCA/YWCA? What about running in your local neighborhood? It is still technically winter, but spring is right around the corner and it’s free.

5. Cut Your Electricity Usage
Are you using compact fluorescent bulbs in all lights in your home? Do you know how much electricity is being used by your computer, tv, dvd player, etc? If not, I would highly recommend purchasing a Kill A Watt meter to determine how much your idle electronics are costing you. By using this tool I have my computer that I was leaving on 24/7 was costing me $12-14 a month. That is over $150 a year.

Are you doing anything to stop the budget leaks in your home? Will the money you save by stopping these leaks be applied to your plasectomy or appropriated somewhere else?

This year we are expecting a significant amount back, I know I know, you need to change your deductions….I did that. We now claim 8. The issue is that I was in sales and had a commission check where the government finds it prudent to take 45% of that check, FORTY FIVE PERCENT! Which, come tax season, I do get see some of that money back less social security, medicare(is that even in there), yada yada yada…

Anyway, where is this money going? To a big screen TV? A new car? Furniture? Clothes? Dining Out? The answer is a resounding YES! I bet you were not expecting that answer. I know what you are asking, what is the catch, I thought this was about getting out of debt? I will tell you, we already bought all of that on plastic and now it is time to pay the man and then violently cut him up to never be heard from again. Parting is such sweet freedom, I can’t to move onto Sallie in 6 months and kick her out as well.

How about you? Tax refund? What are you doing with it?

I would say the idea of doing this again is humbling, romantic, depressing, and encouraging all wrapped into one. Humbling knowing that I will probably be one of the few besides the owner that would be above college age. Romantic, well maybe more nostalgic than anything reliving those days gone by as I did really enjoy the job. Depressing knowing that we dug ourselves into this and now have to get out. Which means I miss the standard 9-5 monday through friday schedule with weekends off, having family dinners, tucking the kids into bed, and spending time with my wife. Encouraging as we are FINALLY going to do this, finally going to kick Sallie Mae, EdFinancial, Mastercard, Visa, and Discover out of the house. 

It will be a journey that will not be forgotten and to hopefully never be repeated.

How about you? What are you doing?