First thing I learned is that we make decisions on any given day that will affect us in the future. For instance I didn’t think I’d have to spend anything today, but then I got to work and remembered I’d signed up to eat lunch at work because it was meatloaf day, so there went $3.50. Then the Avon order I’d forgotten about was ready to be paid for. Another $11.50. And the fuel in the car is registering on the “low fuel” indicator.That isn’t a surprise – it was just that the $20 I had for gas is now only $5, which only buys a little over a gallon. But I made it home okay and I’m going to ride the scooter tomorrow if it isn’t raining.
But on the “win” side, we sold a couple of rings to a gold and silver dealer and got $200 in return. That is no small change for things we just had sitting and collecting dust. Who knows what else of value we might have if we look closely?
And another “win:” I changed telephone and internet plans a couple weeks ago and when we got this month’s bill it was only around $50 instead of $90 because of the credit we had on what we’d prepaid, plus our lower cost now. It will normally run about $75, which is still a nice savings, but I wasn’t expecting this month’s bill to be even lower than that!
So, when I changed these things in the budget, I now have about $221 left over at the end of the month, so I can decide what else to pay with that money. Nice situation to be in on the first of the month. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the month holds.
That’s AWESOME! 🙂
Congrats, Mom!
We’re working on our debt, too! We have 4 credit cards, an online credit line, and the car, outside of school loans. I just paid the second credit card down to $0 yesterday! And the other one *was* empty until I had to put a tire on my car last weekend, but I’ll have the money to pay that back down again once I get paid this Friday. So that’ll be THREE cards at $0 balance! The online credit line is zero interest for 6 more months, so that’ll be our next goal — to figure out how much per month we need to pay in order to get that gone in time. And then it’s just one more credit card and the car payment! (And then school loans, but that’s such a totally different story.) Justin worked the math and he figured we should be completely done with both of those by summer of next year (we’re halfway through paying for the car).
That’s the main reason why we decided to not move this year. We were thinking it’d be nice to get into a difference place, but we’re focusing really hard on getting this all paid off as quickly as possible, while still being able to travel for weddings and holidays and such, which is tricky.
But we’re making progress! 🙂 We’re all making progress!! Good luck tomorrow — hopefully it’ll be as positive as it was today!
The thing that makes a difference if you do it the “money makeover way” is that you put aside an emergency fund first thing. You find all the money you can from wherever you can and put at least $1000 in an emergency fund. Then when things like tires for the car come up, they don’t waylay your debt paying off. But a big congratulations for getting 3 cards down to zero! I know how good it feels to get each one paid off. The hard part for me is actually cutting them up so I can’t use them again. I’m easing in to just using my debit card and seeing how that works. Then I’ll pack those credit cards in the file cabinet. I will eventually cut them up, but I’m not quite ready yet.