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Nov 13, 2006    |       4 comments

Credit Card Debt Update = $25,310

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I spent the weekend paying off some debt that was coming due, and paid $300 extra to one of our credit cards. That brings our credit card debt total to $25,310.

I changed my chart up in the top right hand corner. It was getting pretty long (and will continue getting longer as time goes by), so I decided to put the chart on it’s own page. Just the starting and current balance will be shown on the front page of the blog. I also put how much we paid off, to help keep me motivated. This time of year will be rough with the holidays, and I want to try to keep the progress going strong.

You may remember that I had some home repair that I needed done before winter. Well, winter is now here and the repair is not done. I couldn’t get someone out here to do it. That’s sad when you have work for someone and no one seems to want to do it (probably because it’s not a huge project). So, that will lead us to be a little creative and try to “rig” the repair to make it through until spring and we’ll try again to get someone out here. If we can’t get someone to do it, I guess my husband and I will have to give it a shot. That will be funny LOL.

So that money that was saved up for the repair ($900) will now be used to pay our first two months of health insurance and will pay for me to further my education by getting some books. I really wanted to put $310 more towards our debt to bring the total under $25,000 right now – but that would have put things way too tight for my comfort. I will have to wait until later in the month after more paychecks arrive. But, if for some reason the health insurance only needs one month in advance, then 1/2 of the money set aside is going towards the debt 🙂

Nov 12, 2006    |       4 comments

October Income and Expense Report is Finally Here!

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Last month was not a good month in terms of keeping track of receipts. I have been trying to find them all, but I still ended up missing two. I decided to split the money spent on those receipts between groceries and household since they were Walmart purchases. I know we did spend some money getting some things for travel that I consider household because they are reusable.

Ok, here are some other things I saw to note about the report…

Groceries – They were under $300 this month. I like seeing that, but I do know that it is mostly due to being gone 6 days on our trip.

Toys – We spent a little bit more on toys than normal. All of the spending there was to purchase things for my son to keep him busy on the car ride. New toys work wonders when traveling with children 😉

Travel – Wow. I didn’t realize how much it really costs for us to take the trip to see our parents. This is the first time I have kept the receipts separate for trips like this. I don’t think we did too bad, with spending $513 to travel around 1,300 miles in 6 days. That amount includes lodging, gas, pet boarding and meals on the road. Yes, there were places we could have saved money (like the hotel rooms), but we made a decision to splurge a little there.

Overall, we are still spending less than we earn and our net income for the month was almost $1,300.

December will be the really challenging month with Christmas. We decided that we are going to create a budget and stick to it for Christmas this year. It is so easy to get caught up in gift-giving like I have done so many times in the past. Christmas has actually been one of the major contributors to our credit card debt. I like to give, and give big. I almost feel like Christmas will be the true test of how far I’ve come with trying to live within our means.

Back to discussing October, here’s the report. Feel free to comment and ask questions.

1 … 1,754 1,755 1,756 1,757 1,758 … 1,941