Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Milestones

Its been a steady buzz of activity around here. There's always something to do, now that the weather is improving. I'm happy to say that bodes well for our financal plan, which is also humming along.

This past week, I made the decision to pay off the entire balance on my personal credit card this month-the remaining due from loaning my dad funds for his divorce attorney. It was $2500, and it was staring me in the face for months. Based on the interest rate which was high, and the company was no longer willing to lower the rate, I decided to bite the bullet and pay it off. It will take time to rebuild our savings, but I'm already putting the checks aside from mystery shopping towards it. Also, once my dad repays me for his lawyer, that money will go right back into our savings. That should happen over the next few months, but at least the debt will no longer be accruing interest, and I'll get better sleep at night.

I also have one final payment $100 to make on our dental bill next month (or sooner if I think we can hang with $100 less to spend), and then that money as well as the money I was paying towards the debt on the credit card will be rolled to our next credit card bill. Nothing has added to it-since we're now paying either cash or making payments on the card as soon as we use it, which has been very little, considering we've only hit up Costco twice, each time under $50 (so we can still reap the rebate reward perks of the card).

We've continued in our quest to eat at home. Its been another 10 days so far this month, and we have yet to eat out. We're still eating from items in the pantry, supplemented by the produce and dairy from Costco and the grocery store. Some nights are better than others, it depends on my creativity, how mellow the kids are, and what we're in the mood to eat. We have been tempted to eat out, but have avoided it thus far. Last night R came home from work with a splitting migraine, I almost took the kids to McDs so he could rest. However, I decided for an easy meal of ravioli turned lasagna, and called it a night. The $15 I would have spent is still in my pocket.

Last weekend we took advantage of the beautiful weather and hit up two different parks on Saturday and Sunday. We ate beforehand, and came home in time for dinner. We also hit up Goodwill, and I found a few more pairs of Gap and Old Navy capris and blue jeans, for the smoking deal of $4 for four pairs-turns out that day everything was 1/2 off! Yippee! I didn't bother looking for the boys this time, they have enough clothes, but I figure we'll head back another day and look for them too.

Because we're doing so well eating at home, I'm going to take $30 we would spend on eating out and apply it towards a parking pass for the local parks in an adjoining city. We used it frequently when we went to the zoo last year, and it quickly paid for itslf (otherwise it would have cost us $3 per trip, yikes!). I need to review our budget for the remainder of the month, but since I covered so much ground right now, I'll save that to my next post. Have a great day everyone :-)

1 comment:

Melanie said...

Wtg on paying off your credit card. That is excellent!! That must be a great feeling.

I am totally amazed by how well you are doing! You are certainly sticking to your goals well and making incredible progress! You rock!