Small Victories

This week I have had three very small victories towards getting out of debt.

Before I reveal them to you, I have to tell you not to laugh. No, seriously, don't laugh.

My small victories will look so stupid to someone else, so I want you to realize these are victories and they are personal and they are mine.

So, without further ado, here they are.

Victory number 1: I didn't get a mani/pedi on Sunday. In fact, I haven't gotten one in over 3 months. I love mani/pedis and with all the stuff going on in my personal life right now, I really wanted one! But I resisted. Due to the stress of my personal life right now, my back and shoulders are all knotted up. I did get a massage on Sunday to help work some of those knots out. Although many people would consider this frivolous, I consider it health related. After said massage, I really wanted to go get my nails did; but, I didn't.  While trying to dig myself out of credit card debt, I should be able to paint my own nails. And if I had done this, this would have in no way been creating memories or experiences with my kids. It would have been purely selfish and really added no value to my life. As I said in my last post, I'm all for spending money to make memories, but in order to do that, I need to be sure to saving money when I can.

So, for now, no mani/pedis. I don't know how long my resolve will last, but hopefully until I'm credit card debt free.

Victory number 2: I didn't go out to lunch today. I know, another victory that sounds like a no-brainer to everybody else. Generally, I'm really good about taking my lunch to school and not buying lunch out, but today I'm at an all day district meeting with people I have a lot in common with and really enjoy working with. We often grab lunch together on these days. I only go about half the time because of the cost and today I really wanted to, especially because they were going to a restaurant that I love, but only recently opened in my town and I haven't been to it since it opened. But, again, I resisted. I had a PB and J waiting for me at home, along with a sliced orange and all the snacks I could want.

Since we are going out of town tomorrow to attend my grandmother's funeral, I used the extra time wisely to get caught up on laundry and glue some rhinestones on my daughter's dance costume. Which leads me to victory number 3.

Victory number 3: For the last 6 years, my daughter has been a competitive dancer. Every year, we add lots of bling to the costumes they wear to compete. In the past, I have always paid one of the younger dance teachers to glue the stones on my daughter's costumes. Originally, the cost was $10 per costume. Two years ago, the cost went up to $12 costume. Each year, my daughter has been on anywhere from 3 to 5 teams. Last year, the young lady we usually pay decided to hand that job off to another girl at the studio. I didn't mind, except as the competition season went on, my daughter's costume lost many stones. They just popped right off. The new girl apparently didn't use enough glue. I was out $12 per costume and constantly looking for stones on the ground that I had to then re-glue on. This year it just didn't seem worth it; so, for the first time in 6 season, I glued my own stones on The Girl's costume, and you know what? It wasn't too bad and it didn't take too long. Money well saved, in my opinion.

This may well be my last post for January, what with heading out of town for my grandma's funeral. Definitely check back next month when I will finally own up to how much debt I accrued in the month of December and how much money I owe altogether!

Best Intentions

There's a saying, it goes something like, "if you want to see God laugh, tell him your plans", that's how I feel lately.

In my last post, I alluded to some stuff that would cause complications with our debt repayment. My dad spent a week in the hospital in the ICU and now that he is home, he needs a lot of help. My mom fell and injured herself very badly while she was caring for him, and then to round out an already crummy new year, my grandma died last week.

It has made for a difficult 2017 for sure!

We are driving out of state to my grandma's funeral this week and staying to visit family for a few days; that's 5 days of unexpected expenses. We have to pay for gas, obviously. But in addition to that, we need to pay for 4 nights in a hotel and food for five days. Because it's my grandma, I get bereavement leave so I don't have to use my sick time, but the same can't be said for my husband. He's taking at least one day off work, and possible more. We are very lucky that his work and bosses are so awesome that they are allowing him the time off and supportive of us in every way. The downside is the loss of vacation time that he has to use to attend a funeral.

Grand scheme, this will only push our credit card debt free date back a month, but we already had a stretch goal so this definitely puts a cramp in our style, so to speak.

The last several weeks have really forced me to focus on family and what's important to me. Debt freedom is definitely high on the list, but if falls way below family, friends, and experiences. I think the next few months will really see a shift in my priorities. The one thing the last 3 weeks has taught me is, as cliche as it sounds, time is precious.

I've never been one to give something up in order to speed up debt repayment, and I don't see that changing any time soon. In fact, I see myself willing to stay in debt longer in order to spend more time doing "things" and creating memories with out kids. They only belong to us for such a short time that I want to make that time memorable, debt be damned.

I know this isn't a usual post for me, but it's what I'm feeling right now.

Balance: $0... Finally!

I already told you I paid off 25% of our debt last week, but for me, the most exciting thing, was logging into my online account and seeing a balance of $0.

We still have a long way to go to get out of debt, but knocking one debt out is a step in the right direction.

I logged into this account every day for three days in a row. It took a long time for the payment to post. That always irks me: banks take your money as quickly as possible, but they take a long time to actually give it back to you; purchases post almost immediately, but payments take several days.

I was super happy to finally see a $0 balance!

My only fear is that I'm going to have to make another interest only payment next month. I called the customer service number on the back of my card and asked for the payoff balance. The customer service rep told me the balance on my statement was the balance due.  Then when I actually went to the bank to make the payment, they said the same thing. I'm hoping they were both right, but I'm fearful that they aren't. I've told you before how we got out of debt the first time. Well the first time I thought we were debt free, we received statements the following month with money due... interest on the interest, essentially, because interest accrued daily. I'm hoping the same thing doesn't happen this time. I'm hoping we really are done having to pay off that credit card.

Now that one card has a $0 balance, we have one left to pay... We are going to work very hard to pay that off while still having a little bit of a life.

My credit card debt free goal was March 20, with a possible extension to May. It doesn't look like we are going to make the first date and probably not the second, either, but we are going to try.

Life has a way of happening and changing our plans. We've has some very unexpected expenses come up in the last week and once I'm a little more removed from them, I'll fill you in on what happened and why they might possible interfere with us meeting our goals.

I was still very excited to see a $0 balance and now we are going to work towards paying off the other credit card!

25 Percent Down, 75 Percent to Go

I wrote a big check today...

Of course, it wasn't big enough in my opinion, but big nonetheless. Today I wrote a check and wiped out 25 percent of my credit card debt.

Now I'm going to get back on the Dave Ramsey band wagon. I did a little rearranging of his steps to meet my current needs, but now I'm going to rock those baby steps.

Even though it didn't make the most financial sense, I paid off the entire balance on our smaller card. It didn't make a lot of financial sense for two reasons: first of all, I haven't created our $1000 baby emergency fund and secondly, the balance I paid off had an interest rate 5% lower than the card I'm still carrying a balance on.

There are plus sides to doing it this way though: first, one debt is completely paid off and I don't have to worry about it more, and second, now I only have to focus on one debt. Additionally, I was unable to pay the credit card I paid off, online; it had to be paid by check, in person at the bank. This was very inconvenient and I tended to not send extra payments to the card because that required a trip to the bank. Now, the only card that has a balance can be paid online at any time. If I have an extra $5, I can send that payment and I won't fritter it away.

I'm super happy to have paid that credit card off, but super sad to still have a balance on another card.

As of this morning, we had over $17,000 in credit card debt and I wrote a check for about $4600. With one signature, I wiped out 26% of our debt. I don't know that any other day. or month for that matter, will be as good, but I'm taking today as a win.

With The Husband's next paycheck, we will be able to create our baby emergency fund of $1000, or baby step 1. Today I jumped a little ahead and began baby step 2, paying our debts in order of smallest to largest.

Dave Ramsey works! I will get out of debt working his steps one at a time! Today was a win! One credit card down, one credit card to go!

2017 Goals

Hello. I know this post is a little late compared to most bloggers, but better late than never, right?

For 2017 I have 3 financial goals, Before I let you in on what they are, I want to preface them by telling you that they are all attainable. I also want to be honest and tell you that they have been my financial goals for the last 3 years or so, and I haven't reached them yet.

This year is going to be interesting. We are looking in to selling our house, and then of course buying a new one; and we have some travel planned, so although we should be able to meet our goals, I'm not sure what's going to happen.

With out further ado, here they are:

1. Get out of credit card debt once and for all and never to go back again!

2. End the year with $10,000 in the bank. (This would be across all of our bank accounts: our conventional bank and 2 credit unions.)

3. Get one month ahead with our finances.

Now that you know what they are, let's talk about them, shall we?

Goal number one is self-explanatory. I want to get out of credit card debt. I have set a super stretch goal to get out of debt by March 30. I don't know if that is realistic, but I'm shooting for it. If we are unable to hit that goal, the next date I would like to be credit card debt free by would be my 15th wedding anniversary in May. With all the travel we have planned, this goal is still a stretch, but we are shooting for it. In all honesty, I will be happy as long as we are debt free by December 31, 2017, but the sooner the better!

Goal number two has eluded me for years! $10,000 would only be an emergency fund of about 2 months of bare bones expenses, but I think it would give me major piece of mind. It would be enough money to break the paycheck to paycheck cycle and cover any emergencies that would come up. We have several bank accounts and I would be happy if we reached $10,000 throughout all of them.

Goal number three is really about breaking the paycheck to paycheck cycle. If we were a month ahead with our finances we would be living on last month's income, not relying on future income. Currently, the way we pay bills is with money we don't have yet. We pay bills with money we are planning on receiving, not money already in the bank. I really want that to change!

I guess I actually have a fourth goal, too: I don't want our consumer debt to increase at all, for any reason, in the year 2017. I will post a numbers post this time next month to see exactly where we are. Then I can use that post as a benchmark for the rest of the year to see if we are actually paying off debt.

As always, wish us luck!

"Cheap" Entertainment

As I am going to try really hard to get us out of credit card debt this year, with a super stretch goal of March 30, and a slightly more realistic goal of our 15th wedding anniversary in May, I am going to really try to cut back on spending, particularly our eating out and entertainment spending. In that vein, we had a pretty inexpensive weekend away this weekend.

We traveled to a small California town about 45 minutes from Yosemite National Park. Full disclosure, we go there every year on the same weekend. The difference for us this time, was that with the exception of $8 worth of cookies, everything I bought are things I would buy anyway.

Let me back up, first of all, we go to this cabin with 4 other couples and each couple has 2 kids, so 10 adults and 10 kids.  We each sign up to provide some meal(s) and we all bring snacks and fruits. My brother-in-law's cousin owns the property and they graciously share it with their family and friends.

Generally when I shop for this trip, I buy anything and everything that catches my fancy. I also take orders from The Husband and Kids, but this time that wasn't the case.  

I planned our meal, BBQ chicken sandwiches, tater tots, and broccoli, and only bought snacks we would normally eat at home. We make the chicken in a slow cooker and then put it on toasted hamburger buns. The broccoli was $2.79 for 3 pounds and I bought that in lieu of the husked and cut corn I wanted to buy that would have run me $19.50. The tater tots were about $6. I fed 20 people dinner for about $30.

Additionally, as I walked through the grocery store, I only added items to our cart that we would normally buy. All the snacks we brought home will easily be consumed by my family. In years past, I bought things that looked good at the time, but then tended to languish in our cupboards when we returned home. This time, that's not going to happen! 

As there are 20 people there, I do the majority of my shopping at Costco. There I spent about $120.  I spent an additional $20 at Winco buying some smaller snacks and cookies. For a three day get away, I feel like we got good value for money.

For a long weekend trip away for a family of 4, we spent about $190, including gas. For that $190, we got to hike, play football, play games, ride a rope swing, read, visit, cook, laugh, and enjoy the company of life long friends.  In my opinion, that's money well spent.

In truth, it didn't even cost us quite that much as we brought a lot of food home, many of our snacks unopened! These snacks will help to keep our grocery budget down in the coming month because I won't have to buy snacks for lunches, we will already have them!

Don't get me wrong, I know to a lot of people $190 would not be considered cheap, but I think we got a "great deal"!  Roughly $200, divided by 4 people is $50 per person, but then divide that by 3 days and we averaged a cost of less than $17 per day, per person... That's a good deal!

Come back often and check if our debt totals are going in the right direction and if I can come up with any more "cheap" entertainment!

Make Up Your Mind, Already!

I have issues.

As I was sitting here, writing a different blog post, it occurred to me that with the payment I was going to make to my credit card tomorrow, and the payment I was going to make on Friday, I had more than enough money to pay off our now smaller credit card, or what I usually call credit card 1. So instead of making small payments on that card, I am choosing to pay it off. By doing this, I might not, actually probably won’t, make my March 30 goal of paying of the other credit card, but overall, I think it puts me in a better place financially. I won’t have two debts to be worried about and I will be following Dave Ramsey’s baby steps of paying off small debts first (sort of).

Once that credit card is paid off, which it should be by Friday, I will back track a little and work towards saving up a baby emergency fund of $1000. As of right now, we have very little money in the bank. We do have about $1200 in another bank, but all that money is earmarked for something. If needs be, we could use it, but that makes other bills a struggle to have to pay.

By paying off the credit card before creating the emergency fund, I’m kind of putting the cart before the horse, but I think the psychological boost will be worth it. And, if I did my math right, the $1000 emergency fund won’t be too far behind.

The “I have issues”, is because I am all over the place. The only thing I’m consistent about, is that I want to be debt free… I just can’t decide how to go about that goal.

As I’m writing this, I’m working it out in my head. We are going back to the basics, in a backwards order. We are going to pay our “smallest” debt first.  We will pay off what we usually call CC1, then we will rebuild a baby emergency fund of $1000 and continue contributing $50 per paycheck into savings, and lastly we will attack “the credit card we pay off monthly” with vigor.

I still have a super stretch goal of paying off our credit card debt by March 30, but I am aware that is a super stretch! I will be able to contribute any tax refund we receive to our debt and the “lump sum” amount that I receive for our raise. We would also need to drastically cut back on our spending for a couple months. It’s doable, but it’s work!

I was reading a blog post today and it mentioned that in our journey’s everyone stumbles some time. December was a stumble for me; but now, I’m getting back to work and back on track.

Interest, Late Fees, and Stupidity, Oh My!

2017 is not off to a good start, financially…

In addition to not paying off our credit card, carrying a balance, and having to pay interest on a card that we haven’t paid interest on in over 5 years, I have to pay a late fee to DMV.

The late fee came about through a comedy of errors. First, our car registration was due on January 2, which was an observed holiday, which I didn’t pay attention to. I was going to pay it the 3^rd and hope for the best. (Knowing the DMV and the government, I wasn’t expecting much, but I was hopeful.) Also, with everything going on with my dad, the idea of paying bills flew out the window for a couple few days. However, stupid me, when I did finally go to pay it, I realized the car needed to be smogged this year. There is no excuse for that; it’s totally my own fault. The DMV sent me out the registration several months in advance and I just didn’t look at it closely until I went to pay it.

The whole point of this rant, though, is that in addition to having to pay interest on our credit card, I have to pay a late fee on our registration: that’s stupid tax times two (X2), and I have nobody to blame but myself! Our car registration was $112 and with late registration, we have to pay $132. On top of that $20 stupid fee, we had to actually pay to have the car smogged. We had $170 in our car fund. That helped.

Because we are trying to go back to all cash, at least until we get our credit card paid off, we took the rest of that money and used it for a couple different things. We paid to have another car’s oil changed, which was an “appropriate” use of the money. We also bought movie tickets and a pair of snow boots for Presley. Those were not what the money was intended for, but paying cash for those things kept us from going farther into debt. Our car fund now only has $30, but I budgeted another $200 into the fund over the next couple months.

The plus side of all this is that our car did pass smog.  We really weren’t sure. It’s 14 years old and has over 230,000 miles. It serves as an “extra” car for us. We use it if we are taking the dog somewhere or going to Home Depot, things like that. It has been very nice to have the extra car, but with its age and mileage, we weren’t sure it would pass smog; at least that wasn’t $53 wasted.

This isn’t the best start to my year, but I guess there’s not really much way to go but up.

Increased debt

I really blew our debt repayment last month.

I am going to try to go back to an all cash system until we can get our spending under control. Although I don't have the exact numbers yet, our credit card debt went from about $4500 to about $13,500. That makes me sick. To be that far in debt again, after only one month, is awful! In all honesty, I am beyond embarrassed and ashamed at our increased debt. I will tally up the final numbers and post them in a numbers update near the middle of February. I need to figure out a way to be held accountable and I hope this is it. For 12 months our debt total decreased and in just a few short weeks we blew it.

But no more! This is it! 2017 is the year I am getting out of credit card debt for good!

I am going to continue plugging away at credit card 1 as I have been - $150 - $300 per month, but I am going to get very aggressive with our other card.  My goal is to have our other credit card paid off by March 30th, including our normal spending, that's a pretty aggressive goal.

We have a couple things coming down the pipe that will help us to reach it. First of all, we should have a tax return that will help us to get there and secondly I received a raise that will help.  Our union negotiated us a a 3.5% raise and a one time lump sum of 2.5% + $500. It is this money that I'm hoping will really help us to get out of the mess we made for ourselves.  We are getting paid out for our lump sum on March 20. That's why I picked March 30 to have that credit card back down to zero.

Once we pay off "the credit card we pay off monthly" I will work hard to pay of CC1.

The way we got out of debt the first time, was by using an all cash system. Apparently it's time to go back to that.  If we don't have it in cash, we can't spend it. I'm also going to try to do a "low-spend February and March". During those months, we will spend as little as possible: no new clothes, no mani/pedis, no eating out, etc. We have got to get back on track whatever it takes!

New year, new financial me! The old me was in debt. The new me is getting out of debt. The old me, charged what I couldn't afford. The new me says if you don't have the cash, you don't need it! I'm one week into a 52 week financial journey to become credit card debt free.

Wish me luck, I'm going to need it!

Bring on 2017

Happy new year!

Sorry I dropped the ball in the month of December. I didn’t post hardly at all on the blog, I didn’t do a debt numbers update (and I can tell you now, it ain’t pretty!), and I didn’t budget well at all.

The last 4 weeks have been particularly hard. We had our annual Christmas party, Christmas, a small out-of-town trip, new years, and just this past weekend, my dad went in to the hospital. It’s been a tough few weeks; and I’m not saying that as an excuse, just as an explanation, because when you do finally see the numbers again, you’re going to want an explanation!

The last month of our kitchen remodel did us in, financially. We will be paying for that for months to come.

I hope to be better and more consistent about posting in the new year. Some of my goals, as far as the blog goes, is to post twice a week. I would like to have an average of 8 posts per month for 2017. Starting in February, I want to be sure to include a “debt numbers update” monthly. My last blog goal is to comment on two different blogs per month actually using my name and blog.

Wish me luck. 2017 hasn’t gotten off to the best start financially. I’m hoping that by the end of this year, I will be completely credit card debt free. However, in order to get there, I have to put in work, because during the month of December, for the first time in 12 months, we increased our debt instead of decreasing it. That has to stop!

In the coming weeks, I will be sure to let you know what my financial goals are for 2017 and some of the ways I’m going to try to achieve them.

New year, new financial me!