A Giant Checkmark

Guess what I did on my lunch break the other day?

Had some carrots, checked in on Facebook, and oh yeah, paid off another student loan.

That's 2 for 2012, which was the goal I set for myself back in January.  I'm thinking a new goal of 3 for this year?  Let's do this!

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Playing Catch-Up

Oops.  I did that thing again where I think of all these great post ideas and then go eat a sandwich or take a nap and never do anything about it.  So instead of working up the motivation to write a whole post about some mind-blowing theme, I'm just going to play a little game of catch-up with you!

First, I do want to share some fun financial news.  Fun is the only word that fully embodies the essence of finances, right?? Wrong.  But this one is pretty jolly: we have finally paid off all the interest on our loans!  So in essence, we are back where we started, which could be really depressing, but not for this gal!  From here on out, all we'll be doing is make progress, and that's pretty darn neat-o.  

Also, a small update about groceries because I told you I would. My savings for March were $83.42 and 29.8%, which is less than February, but we also spent $98 less on groceries overall plus I tried my hand at shopping at more than one store for the first time, so it obviously still counts in the win column.  

So I started a little countdown... 33 days of work left!  That sounds ridiculously do-able until I also tell you that it's 11 1/2 weeks, but I'm ignoring that part and focusing on the 33 thing.  About a month and a half from now, I'll be able to start looking for a new job and relive this and also this whole process over again.  Yippee.  But really, yippee!

What else?  I have been horrible to the dear H lately, I am sorry to say.  Last night, he said something along the lines of, "Why are you snapping at me like a gosh darned sea turtle?" and I sat for a good ten minutes thinking about it, and realized I just really wanted to fight.  Not with him, not at all.  But I wanted to give someone a good spank in the brain with my ferocious words, and he happened to be the only person close enough to practice on.  I took many deep breaths and re-calmed myself, and hopefully I learned that spouses do not make good practice targets.

In better news, I just got back from a wild spring break trip spent with my new baby niece, who is adorable beyond words.  I got sunburned twice and giggled like a schoolgirl about it, and also laid around and marveled at my niece who is so much better than your niece.  I am sorry about that part, but the truth hurts.  I may have cried after leaving her because my sister is one of the most important people in my life, and one of the most important people in her life will never really know me, and if that's not a cause for a good cry, I don't know what is.

Other than that, I spend my days on bended knee asking the good Lord in heaven above to please send some sunshine and maybe not so much rain?  And then to go ahead and send a massive heat wave while He's at it.

What have your recent days been filled with?

P.S.  I pretty much never take naps, so that beginning part was a lie.  Oops again.

Games

Money has always been just a little bit of a game to me.  I know that’s sounds slightly insane, but it’s true.  I Love with a capital L any sort of puzzle or game, and turning money into a game has allowed me to succeed.

Ok, so I can’t really say I’m succeeding yet, what with those nasty loans hanging over my head, but –sad as it is- I didn’t know better with those, and I’ll never make the same mistake again!  But because of those poopsters, I’ve had to get creative with our income so that our biggest priority can be to get rid of them.  We’ve already paid over $11,000 since Septemberish, so I’d say we’re doing just fine!

Anywho, I shared before that our grocery bill is one that hits us the hardest.  I don’t know why, I just have a really hard time saying no when the HB wants late-night ice cream or I become a chocolate goblin and absolutely positively canNOT live another second without it.

So, I’ve turned it into a game to help motivate me!  February is the first month that I started keeping track of every single trip to the grocery store, and therefore being more proactive about saving.  I looked for more coupons and sales, and tried to limit myself.

The good news is that over the entire month, I saved a total of $127.97 using a variety of tactics, and averaged 31% savings every single trip!  The bad news is that I went to the store a total of...  15 times.  Oy.  That’s almost 4 times a week, and sometimes I even went twice on the same day!  Obviously this is something I need to be more aware of…

Anyway, I’m going to keep updating this every month to hold myself accountable, and hopefully be a wee bit of a braggart when I get things more under control!

Taking a Deep Breath

Remember in this post when I briefly mentioned that I think God has been blessing all of our hard work and financial stewardship?  I had no idea what I was talking about.

Since that post, we have literally been overwhelmed by various things that keep popping up and providing us with more income than we know what to do with. (Okay, that is a complete lie.  I can always find something to do with extra income!)  It has come in the form of tax returns, random gifts of money or gift cards, extra vacation days discovered, and the list goes on.

I want to to share over the coming weeks what we are able to do with our excess.  Some of it comes in the practical form of finally getting our car registered as an Oregonian and paying off our next 6 months of car insurance that is due next month.

But the one I’m most excited about so far is that we were finally able to pay off our first student loan!!!!!! (Oh, and let me just add an extra !!!! for emphasis). I feel incredibly blessed to be able to accomplish this only a few months after we started tackling these suckers, and even though we have a Long (yes, with a capital L.  I don’t want to talk about it.) way to go, I am celebrating this small success that feels like a big one!  We have calculated how long it should take us to pay off these loans individually, and this one wasn’t supposed to be paid off until April, so I’m over the moon that we got to make it go away 2 months early.

However, even though we sometimes feel buried under our mountain of debt, I want to be really intentional about making sure we’re still giving back as we’re able.  I have tithed 10% to the church for as long as I can remember, and in college I also started a mini-hospitality fund that I use anytime I come across a personal situation I want to be able to help out with.  This has helped send friends on mission trips and give anonymously to people who need it.  But this recent flood of abundance has really been nudging me for something a little deeper.

So I’m really excited to tell you that my hubs and I are going to start building an additional act of giving into the budget each month that will allow us to give to a global cause we feel called to support.  What I love about being able to do this is that we already give locally to people we meet and the church/community we live in, but we can also do some research on things that are happening around the world and give where we find something we want to support.

Anyway, I invited you on this journey of rising out of debt, and I feel like we reached our first rest stop along the way.  We have some other fun (and smart) things planned for the rest of the money, and I'll be sharing as always!


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The Good, the Bad, and the Silver Lining

The Good:  So, I have this spreadsheet. (What good story doesn’t begin like this??)  It has all the information I could ever want on my student loans.  Every time I get a bill or a statement, I update it so I know where I’m at.  For some reason, my federal loans weren’t sending me bills, but I knew how much those loans were, so I just marked in the amount and called it good.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I got a bill.  My federal loans amount to about $27,000, and that’s what this bill confirmed.  So I went into my handy-dandy-nerdy spreadsheet and updated the information.  But as I was doing this, I got confused.  To make a long story short, by my own error, I had counted one of my loans worth $10,000 twice on my spreadsheet.  I did this because it was a federal loan, but it was being serviced by Sallie Mae, who I had received a bill from and therefore counted already.

Now, I know there aren’t too many of you out there with loans of my enormity, but I think anyone can relate to this feeling.  We had been telling ourselves (and you all!) that we had $105,000 in loans to pay off.  On this day, these were suddenly decreased by $10,000.  I was shocked.  Dumbfounded.  Blown away.  Whatever you call it, it was like a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders.  (Actually, a huge burden had been lifted.  In the form of $10,000).

The Bad: Last week, I had what some scholars might call the worst day in the history of mankind.  I was running around getting ready for work, and as I stuffed my water bottle into my purse, I noticed something didn’t seem right.  My wallet was missing.  Ohmygoshmywalletismissing.  I did a quick search, but I had to get to work, so I got in the car and drove to work (illegally).  

Well, about halfway to work, my engine makes a funny sound.  Being the expert in foreshadowing that I am, I think you know what comes next.  I look in my rearview mirror and see a roundish black thing bouncing in the road away from my car.  Hmm, I think.  That doesn’t seem good... Instantly, my steering wheel locks up and my battery light comes on.  I pull into the middle median and hold my composure for about a millisecond before freaking out.

A. I’m going to be late for work.
B. My knight in shining armor can’t save me because I have the only white horse our family owns.
C. That white horse just died.  Or is at least seriously injured.
D. I can’t call the cops because guess what the first thing they’ll ask me for is?  My license.  Which I do not currently have.
E.  We have very few friends, and they all live 30 minutes away.

So I called my employers, and they rescued me in 1,000 ways that day.  The father came and drove my poor sick horse to the vet.  This means the car repair shop in case you are bad at following metaphors.  It was expensive to fix, and we are obviously broke, but we did what we had to do.  At the end of the day, I wished I could karate chop that Tuesday right in the throat, but I just went to bed, defeated.

The Silver Lining: There are actually many of these.  First, the people of our church really came around us in love.  We had offers of services, books, and even cars.  We had prayers aplenty and loving emails in abundance.  Every time I began to despair, I would receive another reminder of love and support.

Second, we had an emergency fund.  I am the kind of person who doesn’t like using the emergency fund even for emergencies, but we did have it, and we were able to repair the car without biting into our savings/daily living expenses.  This whole disaster could have been an actual crisis, but it wasn’t.  It just sucked.  It might seem crazy, but I truly believe that emergency fund was one way God has blessed us for being obedient to Him and for attempting to be good stewards even when we don’t have much.

Third, though there were (of course) TONS of extra repairs they recommended, the ones we chose as necessary all came in under estimates, and we ended up spending about $400 less than what we thought.  Again, even though the day was horrible, God rescued us and provided for us, even though it may not have been in the way we would have chosen.   Fourth, I was (mostly) able to keep my perspective. I was able to come back, again and again, to a quote I read on another blog that I have tacked onto my bulletin board. "It's one thing to despair over a life or hard circumstances, but things- no matter their price tag- certainly do not deserve to fall into that category."

I’ll continue some of these thoughts in my next post!