Dave Ramsey Would Be Proud!

We did it! We paid off one of our credit cards! I logged into the account today and this is what our account profile looked like:

Previous Balance (04/21/11)	952.04
Minimum Payment Due (05/21/11)	.00
Transactions Since Last Statement	.00
Payments Since Last Statement	952.04
Current Balance	.00
Available Credit	1,000.00

We can officially cross one of the credit cards off of our list. This is a great feeling! We also mailed in our final payment to the IRS today, so make that 2 bills we can cross off. Yippee :) Have a great weekend! Hopefully by Monday Blogger will be working normal again - fingers crossed.

Blog Love and Secrets Shared

So I was doing my normal blog reading and read a post from Cash Only Living, in which she talks about the joy of paying bills - which we can all appreciate :o)

In her blog she references another blog called Married with Luggage. I wandered over there and found myself suddenly reading for hours. What an interesting story they have! They are traveling the world for 3 years. In one of the blogs she mentions starting over and shares some things that she's never shared on her blog before. It was so honest and real. I loved it. She explained that she got the idea from Corbett Barr on his blog.

Next I went over to check out Corbett's blog and he has this great piece called "How to Re-Introduce Yourself and Kick Your Watered-Down Self in the Ass!" He's right on many levels! There is "Real Me" and there is "Business Me". You guys have been getting "Business Me". It's kind of a challenge for me because my career requires the "Business Me" to be on all day. I find it hard to let the "Real Me" come out sometimes. I decided that it's time to try!

Here are some thing about the Real Me:

- I'm an ISFJ. I'm super introverted! I'm very flexible in my thinking. I can go either way on many topics. I am turned off by super opinionated people.

- I'm a craft whore. You name it, I've probably tried it. I am creative by nature and I think I can turn each craft I try into a big moneymaker. This is how it goes down - I find myself intrigued by one craft or another, go to our local craft store, spend way too much money buying all the supplies I think I need to get started and then get bored with it and give it up. They've all ended up in this huge "Crap Closet" (as my husband lovingly refers to it as). These crafts have followed us around from move to move. I think it may be time to let it all go.

- I'm not an angry person but I find it hard to forgive certain things.

- I swear a lot! I tend to use swear words more as adjectives but not from a negative place. I just find that it makes my vocabulary a bit more colorful when I throw an f-bomb out.

- Gambling is my release and I probably spend way too much doing it than I should! Long ago my husband and I discovered our mutual love for casinos. They are fun and exciting. We tend to go there regularly to have a good time. We get free rooms and food for playing. We find that we'd rather spend our "fun money" doing that than going to the movies or an expensive dinner. Looking back at what we've spent over the last few years though, we could have probably bought a car!

- I've been married before. I married a great guy that I thought I'd be with for my whole life but along the way we grew apart and I realized that the lifestyle he wanted was not the one that I wanted. I'm a free spirit, I love to travel and try new things. He's very set in his ways and wasn't willing to change. I decided that I had to end it and move on. To this day, I carry a huge amount of guilt because of this decision. I'm lucky to say we are friends now. I shared with him that I was getting married, he has recently found someone and he is now engaged. I truly wish him the best.

- I love a good cigar.

- I'd cut off a finger if it meant I could have free massages weekly for life. There are a few things that really relax me and they are in order of awesomeness - a glass of wine, a soak in the hot tub and a kick ass massage.

- I've lived in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, California and Nevada. California has been my favorite thus far. Although it's super expensive to live here, I tell myself it's the cost for rain/snow free days and warm nights. I enjoy being near the ocean and always need to be a short drive or walk away from it (that's why Nevada didn't work so great!). Sure, the seasons are wonderful, but I've had it with shoveling snow and shivering. I can't do it anymore! Life is too short to live somewhere that you don't love. My environment is really important to me. I need to enjoy it.

- I'm not a super physical person and it kinda freaks me out when people are with me. My family was not a bunch of huggers. I'd honestly like to be that person, I really would. It just doesn't come natural.

- Too often I take on the personality of the people around me. This can be a positive and a negative.

- I never really met my biological father. I saw him once at my Grandparent's house but that was about it. Although I have a good step-father, I always wished I could have had some type of relationship with him.

- I don't have much interest in politics. I guess I'd label myself as liberal if I had to give myself one. I think people should be free to do what they want. Life is too short to restrict people. I love gay people (my sister is) and I believe that anyone should be able to marry anyone they want. I support a woman's right to choose. Who am I to tell someone they should or shouldn't do something?

- I don't watch the news. I find it too depressing. People who know me think I'm ignorant at times but I don't care much. If it's a big enough deal I'll hear it on the radio or catch people talking about it. The news just makes me sad.

- I love being spontaneous. I used to be a planner. I used to need to have everything planned out but as I get older, I love spontenaity. I love the idea of packing a bag, getting in the car and seeing where we end up. Sure, there's still a small part of me that wants to research hotels and restaurants before we go so we don't end up somewhere crappy, but I guess that's all part of the experience. I'm learning to let go as I get older! This is a good thing.

- I look forward to retirement. No, I REALLY look forward to retirement. I have a vision of sitting on the porch on a rocker with a glass of pinot in my hand while I play a game of scrabble. To me, that would be wonderful.

- I have the hardest time saying "NO"! Ugh, this is something I want to change. I'm so worried about being polite that I don't always do what I want to do. Then later, I resent that I didn't. Same thing goes with speaking my mind. I don't do it enough and when I do, people think I must be having a bad day or pms'ing because it's so out of character for me.

- I love tattoos! I only have one but would love more. I feel as though your body is your canvas and a cool way to differentiate yourself before you go is to color it up a bit.

- I have a pretty long bucket list. I feel as though my life really started once I left my ex-husband. Before then I was too timid, too scared to take chances and try new things.

- I always wanted to work in film. I have had a passion for film as long as I can remember. I wanted to go to film school but it didn't happen. Who knows what the future holds though? That's one thing I love about my husband, he supports my desires and is flexible with our lifestyle so if I wanted to pursue this in the future, I know he'd have my back.

- I have a death mix. It's a mix of songs I'd like played at my memorial service when I die. It's a compilation of songs that have touched me along the way. I try to be pretty choosy with it since I don't want to put hundreds of songs on there. I see myself being cremated and having some pics around celebrating my life and this mix playing in the background. Some friend have told me that it's creepy but I say fuck it. I don't care. This is my life and I can design how I want to go out. Oh speaking of that, I fully support Euthanasia! I think that people should be able to check out whenever the hell they feel like it. Pull the plug, pop a pill, whatever they damn well please.

So, that's a little more about the real me. I just felt as though I should put myself out there a little more, share who I really am. I challenge you to do it too if you aren't already.

Weekly Money Check-Up

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a nice weekend. Here's my Weekly Money Check-Up, courtesy of My Pretty Pennies.

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on an old emergency room bill. My husband was having panic attacks last year that ended with him going to the ER a couple of times. We had one outstanding ER co-pay for $100 that I had been putting off paying. I just sent the check in so that's another bill crossed off of our list!

2. Today I am thankful for where we live. Having mild temperatures and little precipitation really makes riding my bike to work possible and more enjoyable.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was started to "make our house a home." I finally got about half our of boxes unpacked and started to hang curtains and some pictures. Things are really coming together nicely! It's starting to feel homey.

4. I will consider this week a success if I don't have to take from our remaining food money ($23) to put more money in the car for gas. Jeepers! It's so expensive out here. I originally only budgeted $50 per week for gas, but when you end up running a few errands or take an unplanned drive to the beach, that extra gas money has to come from somewhere. I may move things around next week so we officially have $10 less for food and $10 more for gas or something so we have a little buffer.

5. The summer movie I am looking forward to is The Hangover Part 2. The first one was a laugh and the previews for the second one look funny too. Not sure yet if we'll actually catch it out at the movies or if we'll wait until it's on NetFlix. The cost to go see it in the theater may be a little too steep for us right now. We'll see!

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)

Planning out purchases...

For the first time in a VERY LONG TIME, I'm actually waiting to purchase things. I know, it sounds revolutionary, doesn't it? I've been creating a mental list of the items I'd "like" to purchase once I have a little money.

-A new pair of black flats for work.

-Replenish my ancient makeup (I've literally worn a hole through the bottom of my 2 year old blush container)

-Buy some night cream as I'm starting to notice wrinkles on my neck :( (Although I fear, it may be too late!)

This is real progress given my previous behavior was to just go out and buy whatever item I needed. Our new budget is set up so that we each get spending money (aka "Mad Money") weekly. This week my Mad Money went to send my Mom a Mother's Day gift, so maybe next week I can get something off of my wish list. If our gift fund was built up a little bit, my Mom's gift would have come from that but we're just starting those funds now.

For anyone out there thinking they can't do it, YOU CAN! You just have to make changes. I'm actually getting excited about the changes we're going through. There are challenges that I look forward to succeeding at -

• Can we afford groceries on what we've budgeted?
• What fun things can we come up with to do with our limited weekly date night funds?
• Where are we going to find more snowflakes along the way to help us move even faster?

Question : Have you gotten to the stage where you plan out your purchases now or are you still just buying things on a whim? If you are pretty diligent about planning out your purchases, when do you find yourself straying?

The Tuition Refund Check Arrived!

I'm happy to say that the tuition refund check arrived in the mail! That didn't take long at all. I'm still nervous that they're going to tell us it was a mistake and we'll have to pay it back or something. Until then, it's getting deposited. (The hubby and I chatted and he is in support of us depositing the check and having a little safety net - yippee!) We've now fully funded our emergency savings account! Sweet!

I came across this quote the other day on The Quest to Be Financially Abundant and I liked it and wanted to pass it along. Her advice was to -

Ask for what you want and be open to receiving it.

I love it! I think it's great advice. I'm asking the universe for help to get out from under this debt and somehow things are falling into place. I know it's still early and there's a long road ahead of us, but there's progress and hope. Right now, that's all I can ask for :)

My Weekly Money Check-Up

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

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on a ticket I got a few months back. I went to court and had the payment postponed, but I finally had to pay it... $450.

2. Today I am thankful for my strong legs. They helped me bike the 3.5 miles into work this morning. We are now in our new apartment and luckily a friend gave me her bike for FREE this weekend, so I was able to ride that in today! I felt like a kid riding down the street with the wind in my hair. I think I may need to invest in a helmet though. Not sure how much that will run me but it's probably worth it. I recently learned that an old acquaintance was riding his bike down in Florida and got hit and died. It really makes you think how safety comes first.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was got to ride a bike again for the first time in manyyyy years!

4. I will consider this week a success if I get all of our boxes unpacked! Our place is very small and we have a hard enough time just maneuvering around the furniture and each other, but when you throw a few dozen boxes in there as well, it's like a bomb went off! I'm going to challenge myself to get 1 or 2 boxes unpacked nightly. My goal is to have it completely done this weekend.

5. One thing I appreciate about my mom is her thoughtfulness and her sense of humor. (I picked two!) She is always doing sweet things for family members and remembering special days, even if it's just with a small gesture. Her thoughtfulness is appreciated. I also love her sense of humor! She is quick and witty. She's given all of us her fast sense of humor and I really appreciate that.