Saturday, January 31, 2009

February 2009 Update

It's a day early, but the numbers are in, so I figured what the heck:

The Debt:
$12,393.73
The Savings: $4,939.20

At least this month the numbers are going in the right direction. :-)

I don't have much else to report. Things seem to be settling down somewhat, and I'm grateful for that. Things tend to get wonky during and after the holidays, and this year was no exception.

I am happy to report, though, that the family dog, Daisy, no longer requires surgery. By some miracle, the growth under her eye fell off on its own last month. My father went to put drops in her eyes one morning and it was just gone. She wasn't even in any pain. Nature took care of the whole thing for us.

Anyway, that was a potential expense that I don't need to worry about anymore.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Motivation

This time last year I was very frustrated. It seemed every credit card payment was a mere drop in the bucket, that I would never see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Well, I see the light. It's faint -- the merest glimmer -- but it's there. By golly it is there! I just paid this month's payment on The Beast, and I'm ahead of the curve right now. I may make it below $10K sooner than scheduled.

The excellent thing is that the more that gets paid, the less finance charges get applied, so my payments go farther toward the balance. I'm seeing greater results more quickly. And this is going a long way toward my motivation.

In fact, I'm so motivated that the TV purchase I was planning for next month will likely get postponed. My parents had offered to give me money toward the TV for my birthday, but I don't expect much from them, despite their intentions. So I'll just wait until I have the resources and then go from there.

But for now? The important thing is to keep on keepin' on as far as the debt is concerned. And that's just what I intend to do.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

... And Comes

Tonight, my boss ordered pizza for us since we've had such a hard week. So dinner was taken care of. This means I can now have the second dish of leftover Thai food for lunch tomorrow instead of having to buy something.

Thank you.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The Food Comes

I've mentioned in the past (here and here) about how no matter how broke I am, I don't go hungry.

No time has this blessing been so prevalent as the last week.

I don't know how it happened, but I cut the last paycheck very close. By Wednesday of last week, I had all of 14 bucks in my checking account. Granted, I could've transferred some money from savings, but I've been doing that way too much lately. I feel I should be doing better budgeting, not hitting the savings, so I denied myself that option.

Last Wednesday at work, while I was eating an enormous sweet potato (courtesy my parents when I went home for Christmas), a friend approached with a plastic container full of chili for me. The funny thing about this is that over a year ago, this young lady's boyfriend was in our lunchroom heating chili and I told him how yummy it looked. He let me taste it and it was every bit as delicious as it appeared. This sweet man doesn't even work at our company anymore, but when he fixed chili last week, he remembered how much I liked it and put aside a container for me and had his girlfriend give it to me. It was enough for two meals.

Saturday night, I had a company party to attend. Appetizers and dinner were served, so that meal was taken care of.

At work on Monday there were leftovers from that party, so I had lunch.

Today I attended a baby shower at work. A delightful assortment of hors d'oeuvres were served, enough to fill me up for lunch. But later, while I sat there wondering what I was going to eat for dinner tonight, a friend who works upstairs called and asked if I'd be interested in some leftover Thai food he had. Turns out there's enough for two meals. Rather, it was enough -- I just had some for dinner. :-)

Sometimes financial blessings come in ways other than cash. And while I did get paid this week, the food that's shown up for me has gone a long way in helping me get things back on track, and for that I'm very thankful.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

January 2009 Update

Happy New Year! I hadn't planned to update until tomorrow, believing that because of the holiday, the banks wouldn't have updated the balances. I was wrong. So without further ado:

The Debt: $12,897.44
The Savings: $4,811.90

The debt balance is a difference of $708.12 since last month. Not too shabby! The savings picture, however, blows. It's down by $185 and some change. I know a big part of it has to do with yoga -- I paid for the next semester -- as well as the extra I paid toward The Beast. Still. Ouch. I don't like seeing it going in the wrong direction.

I'm also terribly broke. We got paid this week, but the bulk of that check went to rent. There were a couple items that weren't in the budget, as well as some groceries. I now have all of 22 bucks. I suppose it's a good thing that I woke up with a cold this morning and have zero interest in going anywhere or doing anything. (Talk about finding a silver lining!)

Speaking of silver linings, let's reflect on the debt: The difference from last January 2008, when I embarked on this journey, is a respectable $6,125, and I'm more than $200 ahead on my payment schedule. So while my savings balance isn't where I want it to be (or thought it would be), I think I make up for it with the change in debt.

Also on the horizon is my next freelance check and my IRS refund. I don't know how I'm going to divvy up those checks between my savings and debt. I'd really like to get my savings back up so that I'm closer to my October 2010 goal. We'll see.

Here's to a 2009 as progressive as 2008 -- and then some.