Wisdom In A Cup Of Coffee

Woe Is STILL Me.

It's been a couple of days since my dentist appointment, and although it's not as bad as it was, my tooth is still hurting. It's down from a scream to a more of an annoying whimper. Less an ache than it is sore when I bite and it feels almost itchy in the gums around it.

The good news is I think I'm going to like my new dentist. He seems kind and willing to work with my anxiety and sensitivities. The bad news is that he's going to a two week training seminar before he can do my sedation appointment. I'm glad he's keeping up on dental technology, but did it have to be right now?

He has put me on antibiotic pills and assures me that as the infection goes away, so will the pain. He's also assured me that he has given me enough pills so that the infection won't return before my appointment. As I said, it's feeling better. It's just not pain free yet.

I have to say, though, that having a toothache and sore mouth has really put a damper on my eating and cooking. Most foods sound like they'd be irritating, not soothing. I've not done well at sticking to my menu this week and have typically not been eating the same things as Shane and Kat. I'm also not feeling very enthusiastic about planning next week's meals. I often do that on Thursdays, but I'm not sure it's such a good idea today. I don't think my family will be happy with nothing but mashed potatoes for a week straight.

Having dental problems has also put a big damper on my plans/hopes for paying off our van this year. It could still happen...maybe. But even after insurance, a big chunk of our savings is going to go to the dentist. But that's what the savings is there for - to cover unplanned expenses, including my denta-phobic ones. It's a good feeling to know we won't have to use our credit card or get a bank loan to cover the expense.

It'll all get better soon, I know. I'm just feeling a little down in the mouth today.

Small Milestone

I called our credit union this morning for our loan balance. Our van loan (which is the entirety of our non-mortgage debt) is now below $10K!

I truly think we will be able to pay the van off this year.

Just Some Thoughts

Kat and I are home sick today. Both of us are feeling under the weather a bit, but I just wanted to direct your attention to another blog post I read this morning by Karen at Living Well On Less. She writes about finding your own optimal comfort zone when living a frugal lifestyle.

This is something I think about often. In living a frugal lifestyle, Shane and I encounter opposition (for lack of a better word) from two distinct camps: those who "get it" and those who don't.

We know plenty of people who just don't get it. They don't understand why we strive for the best value on everything we buy, or why we deprive ourselves (in their eyes) of things we want because we refuse to put our latest whims on credit. They don't understand our goal to become entirely debt-free by retirement, if not sooner. They don't understand that often, less is more. Many of the men Shane works with fall into this category.

On the other side of the coin, there are those who do get it...in a big way. Sometimes they are even harder to deal with, because frugality suddenly becomes a competition. Nearly everyone in my family is frugal, but unfortunately some have become very competitive about it. To me, the competitive nature cheapens (pun intended) the concept of being frugal.

I guess my point is....there's no wrong way to be frugal. Use coupons or don't. Shop at garage sales or don't. Focus on smaller savings or just the larger ones. It doesn't really matter, as long as you are working toward the goals YOU set for YOUR family and situation, and that you try not to judge others who choose to go a different route.

I think Karen says it better than I can. Check out her post here.

A Good Time To Review Your Budget

I take time to review our budget and spending at the beginning of each year and again around July 1.

I'm a few days late this year, but I finally have it finished. I'm happy to say that we were fairly successful with sticking to our budget in 2008; there were only a few categories where we spent more than planned and the overage was minimal. Happily, there were a couple of categories that were significantly below budget (vehicle property taxes, for one). Only minor changes need to be made for the first half of 2009, such as our new lower house payment and subsequent increase to our van payment.

Reviewing our budget biannually helps us stay in line with our spending, savings and debt reduction goals. Other folks may need to review their budget more or less often, depending on their goals and needs.

When was the last time you reviewed your family's budget? How often do you make updates?

Refinancing Again

First, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas yesterday (or simply a nice Thursday, if Christmas isn't your thing.) I've been busy here with holiday preparations, working at getting out of my recent funk, and also working a on big non-holiday task, which was refinancing our home on Christmas Eve.

Just six months ago, we were happy and relieved when refinanced from an adjustable rate mortgage to a fixed-rate FHA mortgage. We were surprised and pleased when our mortgage lender called us about 10 days ago to tell us that our FHA loan was eligible for their streamline refinancing program. It's "streamlined" in that we were able use the same application, appraisal, credit reports, bank statements, etc., that we used in June. We had the option of reducing our 7.12% loan to a 6.25% loan.

We also opted to go ahead an have a new appraisal, because if the property appraised high enough, we could lock in at an even lower interest rate. Good news! Our property appraised at $7000 more than it did in June and we were able to lock in at 6.00%. Despite the current economic climate, our home increased in value for two reasons. The first is because we've added a large utility shed, a privacy fence and a sump pump since our last appraisal. We were told the other reason was that our home was compared to a house adjacent to ours on the street behind us. It has the same floor plan as ours and it recently sold for price considerably more than our last appraisal.

Ours was a "no-cost" refinancing. This is a little misleading, because there ARE costs, just no out-of-pocket costs. The closing cost were added to our mortgage. This means that our current payoff is now higher and it will take us a quite few years to break even on the closing costs. However, since we don't plan to move for many years (if ever), we will save about $15,000 over the life of the mortgage. The amount we will save will far exceed the cost of refinancing. In addition, our monthly payment has decreased by about $40.

Although this is good news, and we'll be saving money in the long run, it seems a little depressing to me (and probably confusing to others) when I update our debt reduction progress in my sidebar. It looks as if we're further in debt (and indeed we are, if we were to pay off the mortgage right now).

In that light, I've decided to change my sidebar to reflect only our non-mortgage debt, which for us, is our van payment. I'll be applying the $40 monthly mortgage savings to our van payment. While we would probably save more money in the long run by applying it to our mortgage principal, we've decided to apply it to our van loan. The van will only depreciate, while our home will (we hope) hold or increase in value; it makes more sense to us to pay off the van as soon as we can.

A Year Already?

I was thinking this morning that this blog's first anniversary must be getting close. I was a little surprised, when I checked to see how many days I have left to compose some kind of year-in-review post, that TODAY is my blogiversary!

While this blog is a place for me to share recipes and homemaking/frugality tips, when I started the blog a year ago, it's main purpose was to help keep Shane and me accountable as we work toward becoming debt free.

We've made some progress toward debt reduction in the past year, and I truly believe that "going public" with our goals has made a positive difference. It's difficult to run up credit card debt or engage in reckless spending when you're reporting all you do to the entire blogosphere. It would be embarrassing as well, I imagine.

Now, I'll be the first to say, though, that we could have done better. We could have paid off the van by now. It very clearly could have happened, but we chose to spend in other ways.

Let me explain. You see, the arrangement in our marriage is that Shane makes the money and I spend it. OK, let me rephrase that. Shane makes nearly all the money and I manage it. Meaning I allocate our income to our various budget categories and do my best to keep spending below those allocations. I pay the bills. I move money to savings. I do all of the food shopping and most of the household shopping. Basically, I make most of the decisions on what gets spent where.

This isn't to say that Shane and I are locked into these roles. I do bring in some money, averaging about $300 a month. It's not much, but it helps. And Shane is always aware of what's going on with the bank account, how we're doing on spending, where we need to be watchful, etc. There are no secrets...no covert stashes of money and no money spent by one of us without the other knowing it. And speaking of spending, Shane does do his share of it, but it's mostly money spent for home improvement projects.

Although, as I said, we are not locked into our roles when it comes to finances, it's sometimes hard to step out of them. So when we received the small windfall from the lawsuit over Shane's dog bite, close to the same time we received our stimulus rebate check, it was very difficult for me to NOT want to put all of those funds toward our van loan. Had we done so, the van would be paid off by now.

At the same time, it was difficult for Shane to NOT see funds available for home improvement projects. Projects that needed to be done and/or would make our home lives much more convenient.

Had he wanted to spend the money on frivolities (insert your definition of frivolous spending here), I'd have argued my case. But how could I argue with needed home improvements. After all, it was Shane, not me, who took the dog bite that kept him from working for 9 days. It was he who dealt with the lawyer and insurance companies. I felt it was only fair that he decide how we'd spend the money.

So, much of the year -- the last six months, anyway -- has been an exercise in agreeing to disagree and in compromising. I've mentioned before that I don't regret spending on home improvements. I just wish the van was paid off, too.

Having said all of that, we didn't do so badly over the past year. Here's the recap:

• We paid off a small loan of $600 from Shane's dad.
• We paid our 2007 property taxes without having to put them on a credit card.
• We paid for all of our 2007 Christmas spending without having to put any on a credit card.
• We were in a bind needing tires for Shane's truck and financed them on our Sam's Club card at 12 months 0% interest. We made two monthly payments, then were able to pay the debt in full with our tax refund.
• We paid off our credit card debt of $1600.
• We have used our credit card since, to keep separate some of Shane's work-related expenses, but paid the balance in full once he was reimbursed for those expenses.
• We purchased two used vehicles for their fuel efficiency. While one didn't work out for us, we didn't lose any money on it, and we were able to buy both vehicles with cash.
• We made a cash purchase of a used pop-up tent camper. While we've only had time to use it four times, we may still get another camping trip in this season and plan to use it quite often next season.
• Our credit has improved enough that we were easily able to refinance our home from an adjustable-rate mortgage to a fixed-rate mortgage with a decent interest rate. While our mortgage balance is now higher than it was a year ago, we have the peace of mind knowing that our interest rate won't increase.
• We have funds earmarked for this Christmas and will not have to finance any of our purchases.
• We have funds earmarked for our automobile property taxes and will not have to finance them. (Our real estate property taxes are now escrowed from our mortgage payment.)
• We have paid all medical bills without using our credit card (including those that were outstanding pending the dog bite settlement) . This includes dental, optical and veterinarian bills.
• We have paid down our van loan from $17,500 to $13,000. We are slightly ahead of schedule getting it paid off.
• We have erected privacy gates on either side of the front of our house. They are done pending the purchase of some latches that Shane is having trouble locating.
• We installed a much needed sump pump in our basement.
• We purchased a year-old 12' x 16' foot Tuff Shed for an amazing price of $750 from someone whose Homeowner's Association made him get rid of it. The catch? We had to partially disassemble it (done) and move it to our home (done) to reassemble (not done yet).
• We have purchases about 2/3 of what we'll need to remodel our bathroom.
• We had new brakes, front and rear, put on our van and paid the bill with cash.
• We have amassed a savings of $2000. It isn't much, but it's a start.
• On a personal/relationship front, I went back to work for a while to help the bottom line, and we quickly realized that for our family, me being at work outside the home doesn't work. We learned something very important about our family dynamics and what we desire as a couple and as a family.

So, we've done OK. Not great, but some progress has been made. I'm certain some if it wouldn't have been made without the blog and it's attached sense of disclosure and accountability.

I want to thank all of you who read here, whether you're here regularly, occasionally or are just visiting this once. I'm not sure if it's the financial accounts or the recipes that bring you here, (my stats say it's the Amish Friendship Bread and my opinion on the Green Bags that bring most of you here) but whatever the reason, I'm glad you are here.

Year Two starts tomorrow!

Visualize This

While catching up on some of the personal finance and frugality blogs, I found this idea helpful at SavingAdvice.com.




This a visual representation of what we still owe on our van. Each toothpick represents $100. There are 130 in the jar right now (no secret, I keep a running account of our debt reduction progress in my sidebar).

The goal, of course, is to have an empty jar. The sooner the better. The reason for the visual is to help remind us to consider our spending, and whether we'd rather make certain purchases or eliminate another toothpick from the jar.

While I don't actually regret the money we've spent recently for worthwhile home improvements (money we received from Shane's dog bite incident), had we put ALL of it toward the van, fewer than half the toothpicks would be in the jar by now. Had we seen the visual impact of removing all those toothpicks beforehand, we might very well have decided to do that.

This type of reminder can also be used to save for a specific purchase by putting toothpicks into a jar for each increment saved. Naturally, it doesn't have to be toothpicks. It could be beans. Or marbles. Or even candy.

Sometimes a tangible reminder is all we need to stay on track -- or get on track.

Why Yes, That Is A Garbage Bag In My Freezer

As much as I've enjoyed getting the weekly vegetable bundles from the CSA farmers, I don't think I'll be signing up again next year.

In terms of flavor and quality, it's been worth the $16 a week fee. Although I have to drive to another part of the city (approx. 12 miles each way), I've been able to work in my other errands to save on gasoline, or even do a mystery shop on the way to pay for gas. So it's not really the cost of driving that bothers me. It's the time involved. Pickup times are during the afternoon rush hour, so by the time I drive there, choose my veggies, and drive home, and hour or more of my day is gone.

Next year, I plan to take advantage of our local farmers' market on Thursday evenings. I (finally, after two years) checked it out last week and was very pleasantly surprised at how many people participate. Not everything there is organically grown. (In fact, not everything there is food; there are some crafts sold there as well.) However, the produce that is there is locally grown, looks wonderful, and seems to be selling at a slightly better price than the CSA farmers charge.

Although we don't especially enjoy gardening, Shane and I have also decided to grow a few vegetables next year. Our past attempts at gardening have been semi-successful, depending on what we planted and where we lived at the time. Next year, we're going to start small, growing only three or four things, and see how it goes.

Which explains why I have a big, suspicious-looking garbage bag in my freezer. I've been saving all our fruit and veggie scraps for compost. The compost bin is part of the current fence project that Shane's working on.

While the idea of composting isn't new to us, the practice is. Anyone have any composting tips or recommendations for a good composting book?

Updates

I wrote on May 14 that we'd accepted a settlement from our neighbor's insurance company from when Shane was bitten by their dog. The check finally landed in our hands (and bank account) a couple of days ago.

All the medical bills from that incident have now been paid. The attorney has his cut. We've paid our savings account back for the money we "borrowed" to buy our pop-up camper and gas-saving car.

Now it's time to decide what to do with the rest. I would really like to put all of it toward our van loan, but that isn't going to happen. Shane insists the first thing we are going to do is buy and install a one-way back flow valve to keep our basement from flooding again. I really can't argue with that idea.

He'd also like to buy and put up privacy gates on either side of our house. I like that idea, too. Our patio is located such that we can see and be seen by passers-by in front of the house; some neighbors see us relaxing outside and assume they have an open invitation to join us. Gates will remedy that, not to mention they will improve the curb appeal of the house, in my opinion.

Finally, Shane would like to build a shed. He has the know-how to build it himself, and most of the materials already on hand, but there will be some expense involved for a concrete floor and roofing materials. Again, this is an idea I like. Our garage is small and basically useless for sheltering vehicles (although our Aspire might actually fit there), so we've been using it to house our mowers and other lawn care equipment. It's also home to Shane's tools, our freezer, our second refrigerator, our outdoor Christmas decorations and a host of other things. No big deal; that's what a garage is for, especially if you can't fit your vehicles in it anyway. The problem is that 9 times out of 10, I can't get into the freezer because stuff is piled on it, or I can't get into the spare fridge because the door is blocked. A separate shed for the lawn equipment and Christmas decorations is something we really need.

After that, if there's any money left, we'll probably pay it toward our van loan. At this point, though, that's looking like a pretty big "if".

More Good News

Today we closed on the refinancing of our mortgage.

If you've read my early blog posts, you know that we bought our home a couple of years ago on our way out of some major financial problems. Perhaps not the only way to get into our home, but one of the only ways we were able to find, was to sign an adjustable rate mortgage. The initial rate was at 7.89%.

With an anticipated increase of about 2.5% with the first reset on June 1 of this year, we began looking in to refinancing a couple of months ago. We learned that qualifying for the new mortgage would not be a problem, but we'd have to wait until after May 10th to close to avoid hefty pre-payment fees.

What we have now is a fixed-rate FHA mortgage with an interest rate of 7.1%. Our new monthly payment is within $1 of our old payment.

I don't fully understand the ins and outs of the current sub-prime mortgage crisis, but I do think I know some of the reasons why refinancing was not a problem for us.

First, when we bought our home in 2006, we were told over and over by our lender that we would want to be sure to refinance as soon as our two year lock-in was over. The lender really drove that point home, so it's been on our minds for the last 24 months.

Second, for that reason and others, we've made sure to keep our credit clean and did what we could to improve it.

Third, we bought a modest home in an established and stable neighborhood, and our home's value has appreciated in the last 24 months. Had we bought a more extravagant home in an up-and-coming neighborhood, we may very well have found ourselves "upside down" in our home.

Fourth, we got lucky. When we signed the original mortgages, neither of us felt as if we were taking a huge risk, and we both felt that buying a home was a good investment and, done correctly, a huge step toward the repair of our credit rating. But it was a risk just the same, and smarter folks than us probably wouldn't have taken it at all. It worked out fine for us, but I certainly wouldn't want to do it again.

So, that's one more financial goal met and marked off our list. Our new immediate goals are to pay off the van as quickly as we can (which should happen much sooner than we first thought), while simultaneously adding funds to our savings and home improvement accounts. Stay tuned for further updates.

Of Dog Bites and Law Suits

For those of you who don't know, around this time last year Shane was bitten by a neighbor's dog. The bite was quite serious. Because of its location (about 6 inches above the wrist, where there are many nerves, tendons and ligaments that operate the hand), and because of Shane's type of work (he's an ironworker), our doctor would not release him to return to work for nine days.

The neighbor in question is a ne'er-do-well sort, and true to her nature, she took no responsibility for her dog. She didn't even offer an apology, let alone offer to help with bills or provide us with the name and phone number of her insurance agent.

Our city does not require a vicious dog to be euthanized, and in fact, it took many conversations with our local police, animal control and city councilman to force her to get rid of the dog, which was a pit bull mix. But she finally did send the dog elsewhere.

However, there was still the issue of recovering our financial losses. In addition to the ambulance bill (which the EMTs insisted on), the emergency room bill and our primary care physician's bill, there were nine days of lost wages to consider. Shane also lost 72 hours worth of benefits that would have been paid into his retirement and pension accounts, had he been able to work. All together, it amounted to a few thousand dollars.

When we retained our attorney, that's exactly what we asked for, with just enough extra tacked on to cover the attorney's fees. We weren't asking for a "pain and suffering" amount. We simply wanted to regain what we'd lost.

Our attorney, however, was more aggressive, as I suppose a good attorney should be. He called today saying that a settlement had been offered. It was a good offer, yet he advised us to counter offer for a little more.

Shane and I took some time to consider the offer separately, then compared notes and had come to nearly the same decision. Call it superstition, or karma, "what goes around comes around" or maybe just doing the right thing, but we each had decided we didn't want to counter for more. The offer they were making was considerably more than we'd asked for or anticipated. Neither of us could see the point in being greedy. Things have been going very well for us lately, and I, especially, felt that to ask for more was tempting fate -- opening a door to negativity.

We also agreed on what we should do with the small windfall after the outstanding medical bills have been paid. After toying with the idea of using the money to building (or at least start) a detached garage, which we need badly, we decided instead to apply most of it to our auto loan. It won't pay it off, but it will put a very big dent in the balance. First we are going to take a portion of the money to put privacy gates up on either side of our house, effectively extending the privacy fence the neighbor installed after it was to late to keep her dog contained. Whatever is left will go toward the auto loan.

What do you think? Would you have countered for more? Would you have spent the money on things you needed or would you have done something fun with it, like take a vacation? Would you and your spouse have disagreed on these things? Shane and I were completely in tune with our decisions; I'm curious how others would have handled it.

A Post About Finances

Lest this become a food-only blog, I thought I should post an update on our financial situation. In a nutshell, it's getting better. Our only debts now, albeit big ones, are the loan on our van and our mortgage.

We are in the process of refinancing our ARM to a fixed-rate mortgage. I'd love to tell you more about it, but there's nothing to tell yet. All I can say is that we can't close before May 11 (to avoid prepay penalties), and there are no anticipated problems. I'll let you know the specifics once it's all done.

Meanwhile, I'm "snowflaking" the van loan, putting any small amounts of "extra" money I can toward the principal, while at the same time making sure I add a little to our savings account and to our "unplanned expenses" fund. Shane's overtime hours help a lot.

Our stimulus rebate will be here soon, and we still plan to use it to buy the rest of the supplies we need to build a second bathroom (in the basement). Now, if only we could buy more time to get it done!

Hurray!

Finally, a little progress! Our tax refund was deposited today and I immediately paid off the Visa and the Sam's Club cards. We even have enough left over for a nice start to an emergency fund/savings account.

We're down to just the van payment and the mortgage now!

Budgeting Blues

With me back at work and Shane getting a pay raise, we decided it was time to revamp our budget a little.

We try to review it and make small adjustments every six months or so. Since we track all of our spending in Budget for Windows, it's easy to go back and see how much we have been spending in each budget category and decide whether adjustments need to be made.

This time around, our numbers were still on track. The dilemma comes into play when we try to decide where to allot the extra money*. A portion of my income will go into our current budget to loosen it up just a little. But what about the rest?

• Do we pay down/pay off our small debts (Visa and Sam's Club totaling about $2K)?
• Do we put everything we can into savings as a hedge against the second half of the year when I won't be working full-time?
• Do we pay any extra toward the principal of our van loan?
• How much can we earmark from each check for home improvements?
• How much cash out-of-pocket will we need, if any, to refinance our home when the ARM resets in July?

The same questions apply to our anticipated tax return. I'm still waiting on W-2s, so I don't know how much it will be yet, let alone how we should use it.

These are difficult decisions and we don't want to develop a case of "analysis paralysis" because we can't decide on the best route to take. So, we've decided that paying a little extra toward our small debts and socking the rest away in savings is what we'll do until we know more about both our tax return and the home re-fi. Then we can reassess and readjust.

Just curious...how would you approach things if you were in a similar situation?



*Extra money? Hahahaha. We have debt. There is no such thing as "extra" money.

Little Things Mean A Lot

There isn't a lot we can do on a daily (or even weekly or monthly) basis that will result in a substantial, immediate improvement in our financial situation. We're planning to refinance our home in a few months to a get a better interest rate, and I'll be going to work in January, adding substantially to our income. Unfortunately, those opportunities don't come along every day, and it sometimes feels as if we're just treading water instead of moving forward toward our goal to become debt-free.

Therefore, we spend a great deal of our time focusing on the small stuff. I plan meals ahead of time to save a few dollars a week on groceries. I take time to monitor our monthly utility usage to make sure we aren't using more resources than necessary. We recently switched bank accounts to earn a couple of dollars in interest each month. Unfortunately, because the impact of each small change is so subtle, many people don't believe the effort expended toward small savings are worth the payoff.

I disagree. Small savings add up over the long run. Opportunities for small savings happen daily, several times daily, in fact. They are easily performed and controlled. They are risk-free investments. Generally, all they cost is a little bit of time and forethought.

Not only do small savings help us feel as if we're doing something to improve our lot, they help us develop other frugal habits and they allow us to practice good stewardship. We believe both skills are valuable in our fight against debt. Little things often have a positive impact on our environment, as well.

As a new feature here, at the bottom of each post, I'm going to list one "little thing" either Shane or I did to save money that day, and one "little thing" one of us did to either save time or make our lives more simple.

*****

A Little Thing To Save Money: When the dishwasher hit the dry cycle, I opened the door, letting warm air and much-needed moisture out into the cool, dry house.

A Little Thing To Save Time: After grocery shopping today, instead of putting my meat purchases into the freezer, I went ahead and cooked four entrees, cooled them and packaged them for the freezer. I had time to cook today; we'll enjoy my efforts on a day when time is at a premium.

Setback

I mentioned a while back that our next short-term goals included buying tires for Shane's truck without putting them on our credit card. But Shane has missed work again because of the weather and with no temp jobs coming in and my start date on the seasonal job still more than a month away, it no longer seems likely.

After driving in a recent light snow (the first time he's driven this truck and the current tires under slick conditions), he's decided it would be foolhardy to wait any longer to buy new tires. We don't have ready cash for them, so on credit they will go.

After researching durability, traction, road noise and a few other factors, including price, Shane determined what brands and styles will or won't work for his truck and what we're willing to spend.

Instead of putting them on our major credit card, however, we've decided to take advantage of our warehouse club card and their option to charge certain items for 6 months interest-free. They have some tires that meets our needs and qualify for the offer; we'll divide the balance by six and pay that much each month between now and June. Of course, we'll pay them off earlier if we're able.

This illustrates again just how important it is for us to work toward paying down debt and building up our savings. This isn't the way we wanted to handle this purchase, but it's certainly a better choice than having Shane in an accident because we didn't go ahead and get the tires.

Success, A Step At A Time

In one of my first posts, I explained our financial situation, our goals and why I felt "going public" with it would help us stay on track and reach our goals sooner. So far, it's working.

In less than two months' time, we've reached several of our smaller goals:

• paid back $600 in cash that Shane's father had loaned us
• paid our property taxes on our vehicles without going further into debt
• paid our property taxes on our home without going further into debt
• bought everything we need for Christmas (except groceries, which we'll buy later) without going further into debt
• paid at least a little extra on our credit card debt each of the last three payments

Making sure we had the taxes covered was the biggest obstacle. Now that those are paid, here are our next couple of small goals.

• buy a set of new tires for Shane's truck (without using the credit card, of course)
• get our credit card balance completely paid off

I'll update again when we reach those goals.

Sooner Or Later, I'll Prove 'Em Wrong

While the work involved with the temp job I did last week went well, I was a little dismayed at the man who was my supervisor.

Specifically, as we were driving around the city, we spotted a couple of Dave Ramsey billboards advertising his radio show. One billboard said "Act Your Wage", and went largely unnoticed by anyone in the car but me. The other one said simply "Live Debt Free".

My supervisor chuckled at the billboard and scoffed at the idea, saying "Yeah, I like that sign. Like living debt free is even possible."

I tried to explain that was exactly Shane's and my goal. The supervisor said, "Well, good luck with that." He was clearly skeptical.

He then went on to complain about his $375 cell phone bill and brag about the plasma TV he'd bought last a week or so ago.

Debt has become such a part of American life that most folks don't even stop to consider that there might be an alternative.

I intend to become an exception to the rule.