More Money Than Expected

Well, I finally got my “bonus” check.

And it was more than I expected! That never happens! I estimated my bonus check, which has a onetime 2.5% raise, a $500 classroom supplies reimbursement, and retro pay for our raise that went into effect in January but started in July, to be $2000; and in all honesty, I thought I was estimating a little high. When I finally got the deposit into my checking account, the amount was $3003!!! I am so excited!

I had the money included in my March budget as I knew it was coming. I allocated $50 to savings, $200 to miscellaneous bills, $545 to finish paying our plumbing bill, and the remaining $1205 towards credit card debt. I was able to pay all that and have some extra money left over.

Ideally, I would have been able to send the entire extra thousand dollars to our credit card, but my budget had different ideas. The Boy has decided to play football next year. Registration was yesterday and I did not account for it in my March budget. I tried to think of all our unusual expenses for March here, but I missed that one. And it was expensive! $365 for the season. Ouch. On the plus side, we were able to pay for it with this check without going further into debt or robbing Peter to pay Paul. With the “extra” $1000 I received with this check, we paid $365 to football and the remainder went towards the credit card. This extra money really saved my hide as well as my March budget went. Football was a costly expense to forget. The extra money made it so I didn't have to charge the registration or pull it from different categories in my budget!

Originally, we were expecting to only be able to send $1205 towards the credit card, but we ended up sending a payment of $1835. That’s 50% more than our original plan and that is awesome.

I know it’s only $600 more, but it feels great to send more money than planned, because usually Murphy happens and we aren’t able to send as much as we planned. It’s always hard to remember that baby steps are what actually get you out of debt, not big one-two punches. And I’m in this for the long haul.

I know it’s a stretch, but I’m hoping with this extra money, and our planned payments over the next month, that we might be able to get under the $10000 mark for credit card debt. It’s a long shot, but it motivates me to think that might even be a possibility. I also have a little money, $25, in the jar at home that is allocated towards our credit card and I’m hoping to grow that amount too by the closing date of the credit card. Most of my envelopes carry over, but I’m hoping we will have some grocery money left over in the next couple weeks that can add to the pot. The Husband also told me he has almost 2 ½ hours of overtime coming on his next paycheck. Any amount over his normal pay will also go towards our credit card and our goal to get that number under $10000.

As a teacher, “found money” is very rare. We don’t get bonuses, no overtime, and raises are rare; so when I have the chance to get “extra” money, it’s exciting. It’s fun to budget it and figure out where it can help us the most.

I’m so excited that we are down 2 debts, those two debts totaled $2600. That would have been a great chunk to take out of our credit card debt, but then they would still be hanging over my head. I’m so glad to knock some debts off of our list and start seeing some progress with our debt payoff. It was only today, with my retro check, that we were able to fully payback our plumbing bill.  This money is such a blessing! It’s helping us to get closer and closer to our goal or becoming debt free.

We are working the baby steps. We have an emergency fund that grows ever so slowly each month. We have listed our debts and are starting to knock them out one at a time; 2 down, 4 to go. And we are saving for retirement. We aren’t working on some other long term goals yet, but we’ll get there. I’m so happy that we made progress on 5 of our 6 debts this month. Only one debt went backwards and that won’t happen again. On my next debt update, we will have four remaining debts and they will have all gone down!!!