And So It Begins

I haven't posted in a while, I know. There are a couple reasons for that. Mostly, not much has happened, but the other reason is denial. Since I slipped and bought those jeans, I felt like a failure.

And then I was recently given a PC from my employer so that I can handle any emergency corrections that pop up. It's a desktop. I hate desktops. I'm someone who bought a Mac Powerbook because it was so tiny. It didn't matter that the desktop came with a very modern flat-screen monitor. It all ruined the look of my office. It's so nice and girly in there ... soothing. That big, dark grey CPU and the monitor were eyesores.

So I ordered a computer armoire. Charged it, too.

But as so often happens when I buy something that I shouldn't, it didn't work out. When it finally arrived last Friday, I noticed that the box was ripped in a couple places but most notably near the part of the armoire that would be the bottom. A cursory glance indicated that it wasn't too bad, but then when we finally got it up to my apartment and got it open, the delivery guy noticed that there was a crack right in the center of the front of the base. And one of the points of one of the little scrolls had broken off. I took lots of pictures of the box and the cracks, so I'm covered.

I refused the delivery. And at first I was disappointed. But then you know what? I was relieved. I didn't need to spend that money in the first place.

I called the company and told them what happened, so now I'm getting a refund. (Of course, now I just have to wait for however long until that processes, but at least it'll happen.)

In better news, I finally paid off the car. Yep, that's right. No more bank note. The last payment wasn't due until December, but I knocked that sucker out early. And it feels fabulous. I know that it would seem that I would immediately begin chipping away at the credit cards, but you know what? I've decided to give myself a break. I'm taking this month and August off -- no "extra" payments on credit cards until September. Instead, the goal for now through August 31 is to save the extra money. Try to hold onto it without spending it.

But in September, it begins.

So, to check in, these are the balances:

The Little Beast: $2,728.45
The Big Beast: $17,446.56
The Grand Total: $20,175.01

The goal is to knock out the Little Beast by August 2008. I was torn about which one to focus on first. I was thinking about knocking out the Little Beast first; it has a slightly higher interest rate and I figured that it would be more gratifying to see that one go down to zero faster. So that's the plan.

In other good news, I increased the amount of my automatic payment to one of my savings accounts. And I'm still contributing to my 401(k), so that's good.

It's still not an ideal situation -- that would be if I had no debt -- but things are coming together. And I'll try to do better about checking in with my progress. Stay tuned.