My Weekly Money Check-Up! 7/3/12

(Photo is from My Pretty Pennies)

Hi there! Long time, no blog :(

Boy, have I missed you all! Being away from here, I realized how therapeutic writing can really be for me. In addition, blogging about my money helps keep me on track for success. I need to continue to find ways to fit it into my schedule.

Anyway, it's been almost a whole month since I've blogged! It's been a pretty busy month. I traveled to two of our other facilities, in addition to a conference. I'm starting to rack up the frequent flyer miles and hotel rewards :-) It's funny how when your job doesn't include traveling, you think it's so glamorous and get excited about the opportunity to do it, but after one bad or aggravating trip, your mood can change. That being said, none of my trips were bad (yet!), I just realized how it could grow old - fast.

So, you may have noticed that there's been some changes to my status update (see the right side of the page >>>). We finished paying off credit card #2! That brings us to over $43K paid towards our debt. It felt amazing to make the final payment on that card this past Friday. I wanted to get on here so bad and share it with you all. But, as life would have it, things got busy.

Also, over the past month we moved! We are now renting a small cottage. Our rent did increase a bit, but so did our happiness and you can't put a price tag on that :-) Believe it or not, we moved from our small studio of 525 square feet to an EVEN SMALLER furnished cottage that comes in around 400 square feet. Somehow it seems larger though. It could be because the furniture is smaller than what we have or that the layout is better with a separate bedroom and walk in closet. We're not sure, but we love it. This place is "all inclusive", so our electricity, cable and internet are all included. (I'm excited because we get all the movie channels now! I can indulge my passion for movies more often.) We also get to enjoy having our own little oasis, with a tropical backyard and pool/hot tub set up. It's really nice to not have anyone above or beside us. We could get used to this! It's making us reconsider buying anything really big now that we've seen how small we can comfortably live in.

On the money front, I have some small updates to share... In about 2 years of blogging, I finally hit $100 earned from Google. Yippee. I received a deposit of $103 in my checking account and put it right towards our debt. I didn't get into this to make money, so it didn't matter that it took so long. It was just a nice perk of being able to share my financial journey with you all. Another small money change was that my car insurance went down by about $100 per year since we moved to a safer area. Unfortunately that savings was eaten up by the fact that we now have to have renter's insurance. The good news is that it is almost a complete wash... our car/renter's insurance combo only increased our monthly bill by about $5 a month.

Here's My Weekly Money Check-Up, courtesy of My Pretty Pennies.

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on our final payment to credit card #2!

2. Today I am thankful for my hubby. He is a great partner. We're counting the days until our trip later this month and are both looking forward to dropping a few pounds. It makes it easier when you have a supportive partner who is willing to eat the healthy stuff and put the time in for exercise. I am thankful for his support.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was ate my lunch over near a local dog park and watched the owners with their pets and kids running around. It was a  peaceful and enjoyable way to have my lunch.

4. I will consider this week a success if I exercise each day. As I mentioned above, we are trying to lose a few more pounds before our vacation and the plan is to walk each night after work. I will consider this week a success if I do!

5. This July 4th I am  probably going to have a cookout, get some exercise and watch the fireworks. We've moved to a new town, so I'm curious to see their display. Fireworks are one of my favorite things, so I hope it's a spectacular show!

Happy 4th of July!