School's Out!

Today on my walk into work, I noticed the usually busy elementary school was oddly quiet. As I got closer, I saw the sign that said school was closed for summer break. It will reopen on September 6th. This made me smile.

I thought about how I would receive 4 paychecks between now and September 6th. I calculated this to be about $6K more that we would pay towards our debt before I see those little munchkins again. Wow, by then our debt will be a good amount lower! I can't wait!

This was a happy thought to start my Friday off. I hope you all have a good weekend!

Ups and Downs

I was reading a great post over at My Pretty Pennies about how Life is like a game of Chutes and Ladders and I couldn't agree more!

Honestly, think about it... just when you are doing great and get to climb a ladder (make a good size debt payment), a few steps later you find yourself going down a slide (Murphy strikes). I'm sure we've all been there in our debt repayment journeys.

MPP had a positive way of looking at things that I wanted to share: "Life is just unfair sometimes, just like the game of Chutes and Ladders, where the steps are chosen by a dice. Cars break down when you need them. People who do less work seem to get the promotions. Emergencies happen. But the best thing to do in these situations is acknowledge that it sucks, see how far you’ve come since you started the game, and quickly move on. Because after you slide down a chute, there’s usually a ladder coming up. And the only way to win the game is to keep playing."

It's so close, I can taste it!

Next Friday – May 13^th (oh crap, now that I wrote that I’m getting a little superstitious, but I digress…) Next Friday we will make the final payment on our taxes ($2472) and pay off one of our credit cards ($952) – I am so excited! We are finally moving in the right direction. It's such a great feeling!

As I shared before, I was slightly torn on paying the credit card with the highest interest first or this smaller one to get us going and I'm really glad I decided to pay this one. I NEED to cross something off of our list, even if it's relatively small, compared to the others. In this regard, I agree with Dave Ramsey's Snowball Theory. The interest that I will pay on the other card really isn't that much and the great feeling we'll get from knowing we're paying stuff OFF is going to be worth it!

Have a good weekend all :o)

Today is a Good Day!

I'm feeling good today and I wanted to share it! I was just reflecting over the last 24 hours and realized that I'm having a good day and I wanted to take a moment to share and appreciate it.

It started yesterday when a co-worker asked me to have lunch with her. I didn't bring a lunch so I agreed to go. I only had a $5 on me and I didn't want to use my debit card to spend more than that. (That money is set aside for our taxes.) So I suggested going to Subway (thinking I'd get their $5 special, have 1/2 for lunch one day and 1/2 the next) but she needed to run an errand on the other side of town, so she suggested we go somewhere else. I started to get nervous that I'd go over budget, but I was able to find something cheap for only a few dollars. Yippee! (Don't mind me, I'm appreciating the little things...)

Then last night I had to stay for at work late for a function and we had food brought in for dinner, so that was a free meal! My hubby came to pick me up (since we car pool) and I was able to score free dinner for him as well.

We also looked at an apartment right near my work (I could actually get some exercise and WALK to work each day!) that would save us about $170 per month in just rent, not to mention gas money! We're going back to check it out again later today.

I just got another free meal at work today because of training we're having - they always order too much food! So, that's lunch money I can save. There was actually so many sandwiches left over that I wrapped 2 up for our lunches for tomorrow... ahhhh, the taste of SWEET SAVINGS!

Last, but certainly not least, my husband has a job interview tomorrow for a full time position! Oh, I am so excited about this one. We could really use the extra money, for sure! The only weird thing is that it's closer to where we currently live. 6 miles from the house to be exact. That would be perfect for him, if we stay where we're at, but kind of a bummer if we end up moving.

Not sure how it will all play out, but please keep your fingers crossed for us. We'll certainly have lots to think through and talk about as we take this next step in our lives.

Oh yeah, and tomorrow is FRIDAY, so that's another great reason to smile :0) Enjoy the rest of your week!

Determined

First off, my apologies for not blogging much this week. I've been on a quest this week to find ways to lower our bills. I'm determined to find us less expensive housing and get my husband a new, better paying job. So, any downtime that I've had has been put towards those efforts. I think my eyes may fall out of my head! I've spent so many hours online searching and searching for housing and jobs.

The quest will continue into the weekend, as we tour local apartment complexes and search the want ads. Hopefully I'll have some good news to report next week! Have a great weekend everyone :)

Reading Debt Blogs!

I'll admit it... I've become a bit obsessed - with reading debt blogs! Debt is something that is on my mind multiple times a day. I'm anxious to get my new plan/budget going, but I'm holding off until after the wedding. Which is in 17 days, by the way :) Come on, 10-10-10!

So, it looks like the official new budget will start in November. In the meantime, I've been reading blogs and working on the budget through 2011. I found a great list of debt blogs to read and I plan to work my way through them, one by one. Like a boxer before a fight, I want to get myself pumped up, mentally, to take on this challenge!

One that caught my attention mentioned a $100-A-Day-Rule, to prevent impulse buying. Basically, for every $100 that a new item costs, you must wait one day before making the purchase. You can read about the concept in more detail by clicking on the link above.

I really like this idea! Although my new budget doesn't have much wiggle room (read: none, really) for any random $100 purchases, I know it could come up and I plan to implement this new rule.

Good Idea : Implement $100-A-Day-Rule

Question : Do you currently do this? If so, how is it working. If not, do you think you could do this?

Time To Change