Tidbits

From last month to this month we "dropped a decade" with our credit card debt! We went from over $11000 in credit card debt to under $10000! I'm so excited! Our credit card debt stands at about $9400; a downward trend that I want to continue!

We currently have about $27000 in our savings account right now, (not including our baby emergency fund), I'm so tempted to pay off our credit card with that money. But, being in a new house, with new bills, is scary and I want to be prepared for anything that comes along. Not to mention, that we do have repairs that have to be made. We have to repair the roof, do some drywall work in the garage, and make some other minor repairs to the tune of about $6000 total. We also have things we want to do, like remodel 2 of the 3 bathrooms, new counters in the kitchen, and a new mantle, to name just a few. And all those things take money. For now, we are going to sit tight on the money in our savings account and continue to pay off as much debt as we can each month, but it's oh-so-tempting to pay it off now.

One goal I wanted to hit in my debt pay-off, was to "have more available on my credit card than I owed", in other words, I wanted my credit card debt balance to be less than half of my available credit. This month, I met that goal. Two months ago, unsolicited, our credit card company increased our limit by $2000, but I was basing our goal off of our original limit. This month, we met that goal too. We owe less than half of our available limit. It's a small milestone, but another step in our debt payoff!

The new house has a pool, so with that came added expenses. The most expensive one is going to be that we hired a "pool guy". He will come once a week and do the chemicals and brush and skim the pool. It's going to cost us $80 per month. I hate the added expense, but I think it will be money well spent since we have no idea what we are doing.

Lastly, we have some small snowflakes to throw at our debt. We received a small check from one of our old mortgage companies for over-payment when we sold our house. We also received a small check from our pediatrician because they charged us for a co-pay when we are double covered and we shouldn't have been charged. I also rolled our change and ended up with $22.50. Altogether, these things added up to a $100 snowflake; not too shabby. Any extra money is money going towards our debt.