The End of the Great Pantry Experiment

Yes, our posts are getting less and less frequent.  In my wife's defense, she's also taking grad school classes online which are taking up much of her time.  In my defense, I have none.

Well, like all good things, the Great Pantry Experiment has come to a close with the end of our credit card statement on February 10.  (Yes, I know it's the 15th.  Tough.)  Here is our final grocery break-down:

Bananas -- $1.73
Yogurt -- $2.40
Green Pepper -- $.90
Taco Saure -- $2.12
Milk -- $2.29
Potatoes -- $2.79
Bread -- $2.99 (but it was buy one get two free, so we got three loaves of really good bread for that price)
Ice Cream -- $2.99 (more on this later)
Pasta Sauce -- $2.06 (ditto)
Salad -- $2.00
Avocados -- $2.00

Total:  $24.27
Experiment total: $74.28

We had a couple of my piano students over for the day and sort of splurged on ice cream and pasta sauce for a dinner to celebrate their successes at contest.  Totally worth the extra few bucks.

So, was the Great Pantry Experiment a success?  I would say so.  We spent about $75 on a month and a half's worth of food (longer with some things like the extra two loaves of bread thrown in).  Our credit card statement for January 10 through February 10 was right at $1900.  Sounds like a lot, but when you take into account the following:

Grad School payment for my wife:  $1275
Grad School books for my wife:  $58
Oil change:  $42

it's not so much, especially knowing that out of that credit card bill comes our home and cell phone bills, plus about $100 in gas every month.  Is it perfect?  No.  Is it better than it would have been otherwise?  Well, since there were no restaurant meals on there at all, I'd say that in and of itself makes it a success.

In other news ...

Well, there really isn't any "other news", except for the fact that the latest rumors we're hearing around the school district make it seem like both my wife and I will still be gainfully employed next year, which is a huge burden off our shoulders.  What does that mean for our finances?

1) We're still going to keep adding to our Rainy Day account instead of paying off debt, at least until we have written confirmation that all will be well for the 2010-2011 school year.

2) We will probably go ahead and refinance our mortgage.  We're paying 5.875% interest right now, and we can refinance through ING Direct (where we have many of our accounts) at about 3.875%.  Not only that, but it drops our monthly payment from $1079 to about $500 (although we have to pay insurance and taxes ourselves, but that money may as well be earning interest for us instead of the mortgage company).  The upshot of this is that, if our financial picture does drastically change, the amount per-month we need to pay out of pocket drops drastically, too, which will let that Rainy Day fund last us just that much longer.

3) Once we feel like we're in the clear job-wise, we will begin accelerating debt payments again, although our current thinking is that we'll put that extra money toward the student loan instead of the mortgage.  Why?  The difference in interest rates (after we refinance) will be minimal (3.25% vs. 3.875%), and we can pay off the student loans in much less time than we can pay off the mortgage.  Once that loan is gone, that's $128 less we need to have on hand every month to make ends meet.

Regardless of the final outcome of this job "scare", we are being a little less cavalier about our finances.  We're making sure we have our safety nets in order, and doing what we can to make sure that the amount we have to pay out every month is as low as possible, so that should the unforeseen happen, we're just that much more likely to be able to stay out of the poorhouse.

We still haven't given up on our goal of being debt free in 40 months; we're just taking a different path to get there.  Same destination; different route.

I'll close with this ... I'm curious -- is anyone else out there doing anything different based on what they've read here?  I've already heard of one of our readers who forewent (is that the past tense of forego?) buying a piano because of what we're trying to do here.  Anyone else joining the debt-free bandwagon?  If so, let us know!