2022 Year in Review: Finances

 I received my 2022 year in review and thought I'd share. As a reminder, I follow The Budget Mom on Instagram. I have implemented her budget by paycheck and have seen great progress. 

My credit score went up by 83 points in 2022. Yes, you read that right; eighty-three points. I'd love to know how they calculate it because from the sounds of it I had a really low credit score to begin with, but in all reality I really didn't. 

I've been able to keep my average credit card usage to under 30%. This is a big deal for me. I used to high credit card usage. 

I was able to pay off $5,733 of credit card debt. My mind is really blown on this one. How?! It just goes to show a little bit really does add up in the long run. That is so hard to see in the beginning, which is one reason I never really tried before. When I first started this process, I did not have extra money to throw at debt. I had to wait until I was able to pay off a debt and snowball that payment into the next debt. 

I paid off $4,135 of my car loan. 

Other finance wins in 2022 include having a fully funded Christmas sinking fund. Whereas I did go over budget for Christmas this year, I did not accrue more debt. I started my house savings fund. We will just pretend it wasn't a forced savings lol. I feel very defeated in saving for a house. I feel like it will never happen. I'm trying to remind myself that much like debt, a little will turn into a lot in the long run. The last win is being able to afford new phones for my daughter and me. I did finance them through Apple; however, they are interest free for two years, and I have a plan to pay them off sooner than two years. Our phones were no longer going to be supported with the next update, so we needed to go ahead and purchase new ones. I now have a phone savings set up and plan to have it funded within the next four years. 

Was 2022 a good year for you financially? I'd love to hear about it!

Ways I Save Money

 I am always looking for ways to save money. Several years ago, I cut the cord to cable. I went from paying $100 for the basic DirecTV package, to paying $54.75 for Sling. That was almost half the price of what I had been paying, and I got more channels. In full transparency, Sling has gone up on their rates. I tried to figure out a way I could go to a cheaper streaming service, but at the end of the day Sling was still the cheapest. I purchased the 4/$10 entertainment package, which included all the hallmark channels. I found it was cheaper to drop the extra package and use frndlytv for hallmark and lifetime movie network. In dropping the extra package, I was able to get my Sling bill back down to $54.75, but I now have a $9.84 frndlytv bill. It saves me $3 doing it this way verses having it all on Sling. If Sling keeps increasing rates, I may just drop it altogether and solely use frndlytv and a few other streaming platforms.

Another way I save money is by using Ibotta. Ibotta gives you money back on certain offers. I was able to earn $79 last year through Ibotta. If you haven't signed up, I highly recommend in doing so. You can click here to sign up. I have a referral code you can enter when signing up: nhpkaw. When you use the referral code, we will both get cash back when you submit your first receipt. Just a tip for Walmart pickup orders. If you use Walmart pickup, you will need to choose online in Ibotta. I learned that the hard way and missed out on some cash back. You will need to make sure you add the offers in Ibotta prior to purchasing them, otherwise you will not get credit for it. I left .30 in my account from last year, so I am excited to see what the new year brings.

The next way I save money is by using Fetch Rewards app. This app just requires you to submit receipts and you will get points for each receipt. It's similar to Ibotta in the fact that there are certain offers that give you a lot of points, but even if you don't redeem an offer, you still get 25 points per receipt. I have not gotten a lot of rewards off this app just yet. I am less than 10,000 points away from getting a $25 Visa card. My issue is I primarily shop at Walmart for groceries and when I switched to curbside pickup I no longer get receipts to scan. 

The last way I save money is by shopping at CVS for household products. I shop their CVS bucks sale as often as possible to earn extra care bucks. I then use the extra care bucks to purchase household items, and sometimes you can get them for free. 

Do you have any tips on saving money? I'd love to hear.

What I'm Watching

 I cannot remember all the shows or movies I've seen since my last post, so I'm just going to name what I can remember.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - can we just talk about this movie for a minute? It was phenomenal! I was not a fan of Black Panther, no offense to Chadwick Boseman because he was amazing. It was just the movie itself did not capture my attention. Wakanda Forever was a different story though.

Fire Country - this has been one of the best new shows I've seen in a while. 

Manifest

9-1-1

Dead to Me

Stranger Things

Dog Gone - this was such a heartfelt movie.

Friday the 13th

National Treasure: Edge of History

Dead to Me

All Together Now

The Recruit

The Gray Man

Do you have any show or movie recommendations?

Current Beauty Favorites

I am by no means a beauty guru, but I have found products that work well with my maturing skin. 

I'll go over what little skincare I do first. The first product I use is Elemis Pro-Collagen Cleansing Balm. I like that this product melts my makeup off. To go along with this, I really enjoy using the Wonder Cloth. It works like magic! You simply run the cloth under water and then wipe off your make up. Once you run the cloth back under water the makeup disappears. I have found after I washed mine that the makeup no longer washes away. 

Another cleanser I absolutely love is Kiehl's Rare Earth Deep Pore Daily Cleanser. This makes my face feel so smooth.

After I cleanse, I apply the L'oreal Age Perfect Cell Renewal Midnight Hydrating Serum. I love the way it smells and feels. I am not sure if it really produces results, but I continue to use it in my routine.

After I apply the serum, I use Neutrogena Rapid Wrinkle Repair Retinol Regenerating Cream. This is my first time using a retinol cream and thank goodness have not had any issues. I've only been using it once a day, but plan to try to bump it up to twice daily as recommended. I've noticed while doing this routine, I do not wake up with sleep lines on my face. I'm not sure if the products are actually working, but I do like how my face feels after using them, so I continue.

Another product that I love is from Good Habit Skincare, and it is the Bright Bright Baby Glow On Oil Exfoliator. I don't use this every day, but when I do use it, my face feels buttery smooth.

I do plan to add a sunscreen and essence water to my routine at some point, but for now these are all the products I use.

The next product I have been loving is the Elf Halo Glow. This product evens out my skin tone just like a foundation would but doesn't give full coverage like foundation. It is great for a no makeup, makeup look. 

My favorite foundation is no longer available, and I am so sad! I decided to give Fenty Beauty a try and got the Pro Filt'r Hydrating Longwear Foundation. I instantly fell in love with it. I went back to try and get more only to find it was no longer available. Fenty Beauty replaced it with a skin tint. I guess it's back to the drawing board to figure out the best foundation for me.

These are the products I have been loving for now. I plan to update as I find other products I love just as much. These products, with the exception of Fenty Beauty, can be found at Ulta, Walmart, or Target.

We Lost Our Home

My original purpose for this post was to talk about my oldest niece moving out for college. Plans have changed and I'm now talking about Maddy and I moving.

We've rented our house for the last ten years. It's by no means anything fancy, but it was home. We have been working on becoming debt free in order to buy a home. My landlord texted me to let me know our house had been sold and gave me the new owners information. That was no big deal because our home had been sold before with no problems. Little did I know.

I received a letter in the mail from a lawyer to inform me I had thirty days from the date of the letter to move out or legal action would be taken. By the time I got the letter I had twenty-seven days to figure out where we were supposed to live. The housing market has been horrible, and rent has skyrocketed. Not to mention most places do not accept dogs. I was in a state of panic. How could this be happening? 

The only option I had was to move in with my parents. 

I found out from my neighbor that the new owner planned to live in our house. My thoughts were, "You kicked a single mom out of her house so you could live in it?! What kind of person are you?!" Obviously, that was during my anger phase of grief lol.

On our last night home, we sat on the floor; our couch had already been moved and we watched the last episode of Gilmore Girls. I thought it was fitting for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted to cry my eyes out and every single time I watch that episode that is exactly what I do. The second reason is it is about Rory getting her first job and leaving her hometown. It was just the perfect episode for our situation. 

It's too soon. If I stop to think about you leaving now, I'll fall apart. It's too soon." - Lorelai Gilmore

I can now share pictures of our house since we no longer live there. Again, it's nothing fancy or great, but it was home. We miss it, but we also know we will love our new home, wherever that may be.

Christmas was our favorite. Our house looked so pretty in our opinion.

We are looking forward to the day when we are posting about our new house. 

2022 Homeschool Curriculum

 It has always been helpful to me seeing what other people choose for their curriculum each year. I thought I would share our curriculum picks for the 2022 - 2023 school year. 

Our main curriculum is My Father's World, and we will be working through 1850 to Modern Times. Maddy is most excited about the U.S. History cookbook we will be using. My Father's World is very heavy in reading material. This year we are going to cut out a few of the extra readings. For bible she will be going through a book called A Young Person's Guide to Knowing God and Tales of Persia. History will be a combination of American History and Story of the World. Geography will be focused on map work. Science will be Science in the Atomic Age and she will complete labs each day.

We typically use BJU for English but decided to try Abeka. BJU English included a separate writing book. We did not need writing as we typically use IEW. After researching it appeared most curriculums would include writing. We decided we would try Abeka for writing as well and drop IEW. What I like about Abeka's program is it seems to be more student led instead of teacher led. She will be able to complete the assignments independently and I will just check her work.

The Abeka English curriculum also comes with spelling and vocabulary. 

We are sticking with the art program we used last year, Artistic Pursuits. She did not complete the first book last year, so we will finish book one before moving to book two. She is very excited about book two because she will be working with pastels and color. Book one mostly works with graphite pencils and black ink.

She will stick with Teaching Textbooks for math. She absolutely hates math, but out of everything she has tried she likes this one the best. We have talked about trying others just to see, but she has been very adamant that she wants to stick with Teaching Textbooks. As long as she shows she understands the concepts and her grades are good, we will continue with this curriculum.

She will also be finishing up La Clase Divertida for Spanish. We typically take two years with Spanish before moving on to the next level.

Rocktoberfest

 This is a really late post. We went to Rock City's Rocktoberfest on October 27, 2019. We've been to Rock City several times, but mainly during the Christmas season. We really enjoyed it and planned to go back more often. 

The views during this time of year were incredible. 

There is a swinging bridge at Rock City. Maddy has never gotten to go on it because it's closed during the Christmas lights. She went on the swinging bridge while I went on the solid bridge lol. 

It's tradition every time we go to Rock City for Maddy to get ice cream. We started this tradition when she was close to two years old.

We really enjoyed doing something we had never done before. It's so easy to take whatever city you live in for granted. We hope to continue finding new things around town to do.