making progress

Another week down, but as the month continues on, its getting harder to maintain our no spend month policy. South County Boy is getting a little antsy... and a little cabin feverish-ness...

To help inch him along, we did a $5 pizza from Little Caesars and I also used some pocket money to get us some frozen yogurt on another night were he was feeling antsy so there was some semblance of a date... and then i followed that up when we bought steaks at the grocery store so he could have a good meal too.

So we were making it work....

and then we also bought new sheets... (2 sets) off woot.com...

I know... I know...

But our spare set ripped and with Roxy taking refuge on our bed 95% of the time when we aren't home, we needed a few in circulation so we can wash them more frequently so i'm not constantly cuddling with excess dog hair... and it was $48.58 for 2 sets with shipping so I don't feel entirely that bad about it.

We've also have some birthdays coming around the corner... My mom's as my "aunt"... but that gift spending has been coming out of our birthday and gifts savings so it hasn't really effected our cash flow.... What is, is our cell phone situation.

My work is now requiring that I have a smart phone to check emails away from my desk because I work weird hours and am now a salary employee. Since its now a job requirement, they will be granting me a bi-weekly stipend on my paycheck to help out with the costs.

Its supposed to cover a phone itemized over 24 months, monthly insurance, accessories like chargers and cases, and the monthly service. I got a stipend of $43.84 on my check on Friday after taxes, so i'm assuming monthly I'll have around $87.68 for my work phone.

I looked into contract plans first, but i'd have to pay around $90 a month plus tax and at least $100 out of pocket for a phone with a decent enough memory and ram to last me the 2 years on a contract. Since I did NOT want to sign a new contract, I started looking into prepaid phones since our I.T. department's only stipulation was that it needed to run android or i-phone software. I found out that I could choose a no-contract prepaid plan an unlimited talk, text and 4 gigs of data for $70 a month (or $60 for 2 gigs) and all the taxes and fees are supposed to be included...  (If I go with the larger amount of data to start off while i guage my usage, its still $20 cheaper a month then the 2 gig, 2 year contract plan).

I just had to pay for a phone... Verizon Wireless had a deal online where you could buy a $300 smartphone for only $109... and they would waive the activation fee (which is normally $35). Now I could have selected a cheaper phone, but the one I picked up had 8 gigs of internal memory to hopefully keep it running for a good long while and I found a case for it off Amazon for only $5 with shipping. It also uses the same car charger I already have so I don't need to buy new ones.

All in all, after paying for one month of service (70), the phone (109), and the taxes ($24.99), I had to shell out $203.99 to Verizon. With the first stipend of $43.84, I'm currently out of pocket $160.15. If I look at just the monthly stipend, it will take me 10 months to break even and recoup my costs... but on the other hand, I won't have to buy a trac-phone card every other month for my phone, saving me around $20 a month... so basically its a little over 4 months and i'm reimbursed.