I Can't Live Without You
Author: Cheryl
•10:57 AM

My dryer is getting fixed as we speak. Belt was shot and needed new ball bearings, which was exactly what went wrong with my mom's dryer, and we have the same model. We have both had our dryers for years, so they are well beyond warranty. Total cost for repairs and labor $160.00 which is still cheaper than a new dryer. And I had set that money aside in our budget with our last paycheck, so we didn't have to touch the emergency fund.

I have to admit. I cannot live without the dryer. Yes, we have dramatically cut down our use of it in the past 6 months, but to go at least two to three weeks without it at all was not fun. For towels, it is a must. My towels came out like rocks hanging on the line down the basement, even with fabric softener added to the rinse water. I cannot hang a clothesline outside for many reasons. My mom actually washed and dried our towels twice for us. Thanks mom.

This past weekend our toilet overflowed sending water all over the bathroom floor and then seeping some into the basement. We had to use every sweet smelling towel my poor mom just cleaned for us to sop up the water. I didn't want to make her wash all these wet towels again, so I did washed them myself and hung them all on the line. It took days for them to dry and when done we had fabric bricks.

As for the regular clothes, we only throw them in the dryer for 5 minutes when they first come out of the washer to get the wrinkles out, and then I throw them in another 5 minutes when they are all line dry the next day just to soften them up. And believe me I noticed a difference these last few weeks in not getting to do it. They felt much harder, had more wrinkles.

We are still living without a dishwasher. And that hasn't been too bad at all. The dishes still come out clean by hand. But my dryer, I need it. Case closed. Welcome back friend.

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Time To Get Back On Track
Author: Cheryl
•3:34 PM

With using a portion of our emergency fund, putting some money aside for our little anniversary excursion (which was fun) and all the doctors stuff with my head in this past few weeks, I feel off track with our whole financial budget world and I don't like it.

I am looking forward to getting back on track. However I do have a couple of extra things I have to add to our budget in the next few weeks. I have a pet that needs to go to the vet, a dog that needs to be groomed, a dryer that desperately needs to be repaired and my husband is going back to school so a portion of that needs to be paid.

I want to get our emergency fund back up to where it was and above. I want to keep up on the credit card snowballs as much as I can with putting more into the emergency fund. I want to get back to my normal grocery shopping and our normal budget amounts without all the extras. I want to get back to making weekly menus and building back up my ECB's with CVS.

Hopefully when I get paid this Friday it seems a little more like old times.

Patience my child. Patience.
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So That Is What An Emergency Fund Is For
Author: Cheryl
•9:52 AM

As I mentioned in my grocery shopping post, I have been having headaches. I've had a tension headache now for 14 days. We are pretty much convinced it is eye strain, as me and my eyes have never been too friendly. And the headache gets better when I sleep and when my glasses are off my head. So after seeing my regular doctor and medicine not working, I made an appointment with my eye doctor.

He is an awesome doctor and checks every inch of my eyes and runs every test. And he recommended lowering my prescription and putting some glare protection on my lens. And that meant new glasses. I already used my eye insurance allowance for the year, so all I had left was our vision discount plan under our medical. And under that plan it was cheaper for me to get a whole new set of frames and lenses than replace the lens I have. Plus I would be without glasses if I had to get the ones I had replaced.

So we ordered new ones and of course it cost a little bit of money. So we had to use a little of our emergency fund. Right before I paid I must have stared at my wallet for 10 minutes trying to figure out some way not to use the emergency fund. That is when my husband said "Hey, this is what we have the fund for. Your eyes and head are killing you. It is okay for you to use the fund for this.".

So the fund dipped down a little bit. It is just a hair under $1000 and we still are putting money in it every check. So we will get it back up there soon.

The next day my dryer started making a horrible noise. They say when it rains it pours. My mom has the same dryer model and when her's made the same noise a year ago, she needed new ball bearings in it. We have an awesome little repair guy that will come and do it. But with the dryer I can last a little while without it. I do have to get it fixed sooner than the dishwasher, cause our towels are coming out like rocks when we line dry them. So we are going to wait until our next paycheck and budget in the money for that repair and not touch the EF for this. Once is enough for me for now.

So I can't say enough about having an emergency fund. If you don't have one, please start it now. You won't regret it.


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Many Emotions
Author: Cheryl
•8:29 PM

I didn't even know what to call this post, as I have so much going on in my head right now.

I had been so torn since hearing Suzie Orman's recent advice that if you don't have a sufficient emergency fund that you should work on that first before paying down credit card debt. I knew she was right considering the current conditions. But it just saddened me to put my debt marathon on hold for a while after doing so well on it in these last few months. It has taken me a few days to swallow my pride and go along with the advice.

So I came home from work with a new yet slightly sad attitude of lets work more on the emergency fund first and then back to the debit snowball. My husband agreed.

Then I opened the mail...............

I'm gonna try to keep this post PG rated. But if this South Jersey girl could curse freely right now, your ears would be ablaze. What I feared would happen did. Bank of America, card #7 and the biggest balance and last of my debt snowball is raising my APR by 8%.

JHGH!!!FJ*%$GY%#TGVU!!!!

I had worried this would happen. That is my biggest balance and is going to make my monthly payment bigger. I had heard the horror stories, kept my fingers crossed. But our luck finally ran out. I so would love to cancel the card, but I only have two cards and don't want to completely kill my credit score. I've even thought about getting a side job to pay this down. But then most people can't find one job let alone, me thinking I can have two.

So, how do I feel.....

I am angry at myself for ever have accumulated credit card debt. What an idiot.

I am starting to regret that I didn't pay BOA of first and instead went for the smaller balanced cards.

I am angry at BOA for knocking people down further when they are just trying to get up.

I am annoyed that I have stop my debt snowball to build my emergency fund faster, although I know its the right move.

I am tired, feeling very defeated and my head still hurts.

I need a few days to regroup, pick my self up, dust myself off and get back on the horse again.
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I Don't Know Suzie
Author: Cheryl
•11:46 AM
I have been a big follower of Suzie Orman for quite a while. I have read some of her books, watch the show on Saturday night. But I have to say I don't do everything she says.

Yesterday, Suzie was on Oprah with her new advice with the recession. She completely reversed her decision on paying off your debt to building your savings first instead and just giving the minimum to all cards until that is done. I don't think I can completely go along with this. I understand her urgency to get people to build their savings. I just increased again our amount going to savings as we definitely are a long way from our fully funded emergency fund, but I am just not ready to give up on our credit card debt reduction.

I have come so far, and we have both worked hard to get it down. I am loving the results and still feel this is a good part of the process. I still feel we can do both. So as of today, I increase our savings but continue building the snowball.

How did her advice sit with you?
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Financial Update: April 2009
Author: Cheryl
•11:04 AM

I have been home from work for two days sick. I have an awful headache and other things on my head hurt. I hope I don't have a sinus infection. If its not gone by tomorrow off to the doctors I go. Fun, fun, fun. It does bother me just to stare at a computer, so I will make our financial update for April short.

1.) Pay off credit cards # 4 and 5. #4 has been gone for a little bit. Already sent our first snowball payment to #5. We have paid over a 1/3 of our total credit card debt off in 6 months, which is not too bad.

2.) Have emergency fund at $1500 by end of year. We are now up to $1212.75. Right on track to meet the $1500 goal by the end of the year, probably sooner.

3.) Buy chest freezer and stock with deals for dinners at home. Been done and keeping it full.

4.) Stop buying certain pre-made products and make them from scratch at home.

Laundry Detergent - Just a few bottles left and then we will start making it from scratch.

Fabric Softener - Still got quite a few of them left. I cut them in half, so they last me pretty long.

Household cleaners - Still have alot of those. I wouldn't be surprised if they last me until the end of the year.

Syrup - Still making it from scratch. Would like to get some flavorings to try different syrups flavors.

5.) Clean out the garage and sell unnecessary things. Still trying to sell a tv we have. We put it on CraigsList but have gotten no bites yet. Lots of people selling things on there right now, so its hard to stand out. We may need to have a yard sale when spring kicks in.
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Our Budget Process
Author: Cheryl
•11:53 AM

This is where the magic happens, my desk at home. I thought I would take you through my budget process. Not complicated at all. But a much better one for our family than the one we had before September 2008.

My husband and I get paid every two weeks, but he gets paid the opposite Friday of my payday.
So I choose to pay our bills and figure out our budget on a 2 week schedule.

1.) Money, money, money - The Thursday night before I get paid, I check to see how much money is left over in our checking accounts. We have two checking accounts. One for all of our bills and one for our budget money. I make sure that any outstanding checks or bills came out of the bill account and that what is left in both is free money. I then add those totals to my check total, which will direct deposited into my account the next morning. My husband's check is already in one of those accounts by then. All those amounts together is what we have to work with.

2.) Savings - The funds for our emergency fund are directly taken out of my paycheck every two weeks and deposited into an ING savings account. That way there is no arguing whether we have the money to save. As they say always pay yourself first.

3.) Bills, Bills, Bills - I gather all my bills. If you look on the picture above there is a small 4 drawer plastic filing thingy sitting to the left of my desk. That holds in the top drawer all pending bills. The others drawers I will explain at another time. In a notebook I list all the bills due, the amount due and the due date. I then total all the bills.

4.) No one said there would be math - I have had the same calculator since high school and it still works. I love it. I then subtract the bills from the total money we have to use. If that number is painfully low, then I know some bills will have to be pushed off. But since we have been better with our money this hasn't happened anymore. We are actually quite ahead in paying our bills, thank you very much.

5.) The Bi-weekly Budget - Our budget for ourselves is usually comprised of four categories: Groceries, Husband, Myself, Miscellaneous. Groceries is always $100, $50 for each week. My husband's portion is for anything he needs (gas, haircuts, etc). My portion is very small, as I only need gas, and I have a small car, and I barely buy anything else. Miscellaneous covers anything else we need for the house or for the pets (dog or cat food, CVS, litter, newspapers, etc.). If we have anything outside the ordinary we make up a new category and figure that into the budget (ex. doctor's appointments, prescriptions, presents, family events). But most of the time it is just the four categories.

I use Google Docs to keep track of our budget. The reason I chose this program, is that my husband and I can both view it over the internet with passwords, so we can both see how much is left in our categories and can update the budget anywhere we are.

Once I have the budget amount, I subtract that from what is left after the bills.

6.) Credit Cards - Whatever money is left over from all of that is our snowball amount that goes to the current credit card we are working on. In the bill totals for #3 are the minimum balances for the cards I current have that are due. So this snowball money is extra that goes to the current card on my hit list.

The budget is now done.

7.) Payday - When I wake up Friday morning, my check is already deposited into my bills account. In the morning I check all the final totals in the bank, and make sure they are still matching up from what I figured out the day before. I transfer the money we calculated as needed into our budget fund. And then I proceed to pay our bills from the remaining money in the bill account. I try to pay most of our bills online, but I do have a few old time companies that still make me mail in a few checks. I also make sure the snowball money goes to the credit card I am currently working on paying off.

8.) Wrap up - I put everything down again in my checkbook to keep on hand and check our balance in our emergency fund and update the blog with the new total.

Really easy and working very well for us.

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Thinking Ahead: Buying A Car
Author: Cheryl
•2:57 PM

I have something to confess. The cars that my husband and I drive are leased. I KNOW, I KNOW, leasing overall is not good. Its like renting your car. You never have an end and you are never without car payments. This is one of our many financial mistakes we made over the years. But just as we are fixing our credit cards, our lack of savings and our budgeting, we want to fix this to. We want to do this the best financial way possible.

Our lease is up in a year, and we will both need cars. Many days a week we work opposite hours and in opposite directions too. So going with only one car is impossible. We know we want to buy, and buy fuel efficient and practical. Drive them into the ground, as we will never lease again, but what will be right option for us then:

1.) Buy out our current lease, actually I should say I could buy out my lease. My husband hates his truck, so he would never buy it. Mine is fine, but I don’t know if this would even be right thing to do.

2.) Buy brand new ones. With all the dealers dying to sell cars, I can’t imagine they still won’t be dying to a year. There will be good deals and incentives if they can get you a new car.

3.) Buy certified used ones. Another thing neither of us have a problem with.

4.) Buy flat out used car from a place like CarSense.


The other issue is a down payment. With putting all of our extra money into savings and our credit card debt, there is no extra money for a down payment.

Do we try to get a car with no money down? Do we take a little money from the credit card snowball and put it away each check for a year for a down payment? Or do we just take some of our tax returns next year and use that for the down payment?

Of course the minute we would have a car payment and the credit cards are gone, I would then be working to pay off the cars as soon as possible.

A million questions I know. I’ve been doing as much research as I can. Any input you have would be appreciated.
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Just Gotta Say.....
Author: Cheryl
•8:46 AM

Paid off credit card # 4 today.

Doing my happy dance now. Its a nice high paying these babies off.

Now onto # 5.

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Wouldn't Be Fun If You Didn't Make It Harder
Author: Cheryl
•2:41 PM


On top of our salaries there were a few times a year when extra money would come in. In the past we didn't always spend or use it wisely, hence our debt. But now that I am on the debt paying train, some of those extra little checks have decided they are going to disappear.

Thankfully we had a nice tax return that went directly to card #4. I usually get a nice fiscal bonus from work in April/May every year. That would have made a real nice dent in one of the cards. I now say "would have". With the economy, the fiscal bonus' are good as dead. All pay increases and annual bonus's are on hold too. My review is not until October, so maybe if I cross my fingers real hard, the economy will get better by then (yeah right).

The lovely, and I say that with utmost sarcasm, Governor of NJ has made his suggestions for the state budget and one thing that will affect us is the elimination of a rebate we get every fall for our homes. Since we make above a certain amount (and believe me it ain't high), we will lose out on that check this year.

So there are a few extra's that are now gone for now. I should have known this would happen when I decide to pay off my debt. But we still have jobs, so thankful for that. I persevere, whatever I got I am putting towards out debt and one day, oh one day, we will be credit card debt free.
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Here Comes Capital One - Too Late Baby
Author: Cheryl
•2:41 PM
Well I told you how Chase raised its rate on me a little bit ago. That is card #5, so they are next to be paid off. Amex before that lowered their rate on my husband's card, have no clue why, still waiting for them to do something bad next.

Yesterday in the mail we got a nice pamphlet from Capital One saying they are raising our rate due to the struggling economy. But guess what Capital One? You were card #3 and you were PAID OFF in December So I beat you to the punch. Ha ha. That felt good.

Still not thrilled about the raised rate, but at least I don't have a running balance with them anymore, nor plan ever to.

Another reason to get these evil things gone gone gone as soon as possible.
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Financial Update: March 2009
Author: Cheryl
•5:57 AM

Four days into the new month and I almost forgot to do the financial update.

1.) Pay off credit cards # 4 and 5. #4 is almost gone. Just one more payment next week and I think it will be history. Then onto #5. Just in case you didn't remember before there are seven to get through before the end.

2.) Have emergency fund at $1500 by end of year. We are now up to $1051.24. I just increased my savings deposit starting with next week's check from $50 to $80. So we should have no problem with the $1500, in fact I am aiming for over $2000 by the end of the year.

3.) Buy chest freezer and stock with deals for dinners at home. Mr. Freeze is full and happy. My freezer upstairs actually could use a few things. We continue to make dinners from home. We really have even stopped the Starbucks dates since we are now biking on the weekends. This weekend it is supposed to be in the 60's and 70's after getting 8 inches of snow. So we are so excited to get out on our bikes.

4.) Stop buying certain pre-made products and make them from scratch at home.

Laundry Detergent - I would say I still have about 5 bottles of pre-made detergent left. Once they are gone I will buy no more. So maybe by the summer we will be into making the detergent from scratch.

Fabric Softener - Still have a few boxes of those left and since I tear them in half and only use half in each load, I will probably not be through those until the summer too.

Household cleaners - Still have alot of those. I wouldn't be surprised if they last me until the end of the year.

Syrup - Still making it from scratch. Would like to get some flavorings to try different syrups flavors.

Pasta Sauce - This one might be a problem. I could make sauce pretty cheap from scratch, but my husband is very particular on sauce and the only homemade sauce recipe he likes involves a ton of ingredients and gets expensive. Plus I have found some amazing deals on canned sauce that is cheaper than anything I could have made. So that one we will play by ear.

Meatloaf - I actually haven't tried to make a bunch of this in advance yet. I think I need to stock up on some more ground meat first.

5.) Clean out the garage and sell unnecessary things. With snow still on the ground, and my brothers things taking up residence there, I don't see a yard sale happening anytime soon. However I do have a TV and a cabinet I want to sell. Supposedly a friend of mine has a friend who wants the TV. If I don't hear from them soon, I am going to have to sign up for Craigslist or something and sell it there.
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Some Frugal Changes
Author: Cheryl
•5:58 AM

First of all, and for the first time in my life I am tired of the cold weather. I have always loved cold weather. But now I'm done with it. My skin is itchy, the skin on my fingers are split and they hurt and I can't get outside very much to exercise and I prefer to be outside to do it. I don't want summer however. Anything between a nice 50 and 70 degrees is perfect.

And to go along with that good weather, is a new endeavor that me and my husband are taking. We have started biking. Just regular pedal type bikes, not motorcycles. We need more exercise and we need something fun for us to do on the weekends together. Our weekend hobby used to consist of going out to lunch or dinner and then go shopping....hence our lack of savings and credit card debt that we had. Right now we are getting used to the bikes and getting our endurance up. Once that happens and the weather gets better we plan to start taking day trips to free trails and packing nice picnic lunches. So we get lots of exercise, spend lots of time together and it doesn't cost us very much at all. I'm excited.

The payments to the credit cards are moving along. Soon credit card #4 should be gone, baby, gone, and the mission continues to #5. One of the wonderful things about the first three cards that we paid off, is that I got my monthly statement on #3 the other day and for the first time I didn't dread opening up a statement. Because I knew it had no balance. It was so freeing and I felt so in control. Its an addictive feeling and something I want to feel with all the others.

Along with the biking I am making some more changes to my health. I am making myself drink more water everyday and am slowly lowering the amount of sugar I eat too. I do have a sugar addiction I admit it, but I am cutting it down little by little.

Hurry up Spring!


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The Good Benefits To Credit Cards
Author: Cheryl
•9:07 AM

While paying off all these credit cards, I made sure to check how many points we earned on each of them through their reward programs. With credit card companies making changes now everyday to rates and rules, I'm sure they are also going to or already have started adjusting rewards programs to give less benefits to card holders.

So to head that off I have been redeeming all of our points on these cards. I have gotten gift certificates, a free subscription to All You magazine and for the last one a wonderful anniversary present.

Our Amex card gives points for for travel, hotel, etc. We had enough points on my husband's Amex to get a $200 credit on a hotel room. Our 10 year wedding anniversary is in April. So last night we booked a super deluxe room in an awesome hotel in the city for that night. Total cost to us after the credit and taxes was $29.00 and we get free breakfast. Awesome.

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Other Things About Us/Tax Returns
Author: Cheryl
•2:54 PM

People probably wonder in my grocery budget where is the food for the 7 pets I have. Well in our total budget for our two weeks I have a separate pet budget of about $10 or $20 to get their wet food, dry food, etc. Once in while I increase the budget for vet visits or flea or heart worm medicine. I have several categories in our total spending budget:

Groceries
Pets
Me
My Husband
Misc

Those are the main categories. But every paycheck I always think ahead to see if we need to add a category for that period. Oil changes, doctors co-pays, prescriptions, etc, are all figured into the budget that day so that we stay in the range we have to. I'm surprised at how much smaller this budget is than what we used to spend with our leftover paycheck money and we seem to have more food and be more content.

Milk. I see so many people having to buy 3 or 4 gallons of milk with their budget. I so feel for them, as they usually have several kids that I'm sure just tear through what they buy. In my household, there is only two us, and I am the only one that drinks milk and it is usually for my coffee or sometimes cereal. So we only need a 1/2 gallon of skim milk a week at the most. My husband hates milk. I won't even go into details of what he thinks it looks or tastes like. But having not to buy much of it, helps on the budget.

Thanks to our tax returns we made some huge strides this week. We sent a huge chunk of money to credit card #4. And as soon as our state returns come in we have it almost gone say minus a hundred or two.

We also sent a balance to our emergency fund to bring us up to $1000.00. Even though in these economic times $1000 in your emergency fund is not all you need, its $1000 more than we had before. So better late than never.

And remember when I told you that our rate on our Amex card went down and that I wasn't going to get too excited, cause I was sure the other foot would drop. Well it did, today I received notice from card #5 (good old &^$##% Chase), that the rate was raising by 4%. Which is more the reason to get working on getting that one down and gone as soon as I have #4 gone.

Nonetheless, I won't let that rain on our parade. We are still making strides and keeping on track to our goals. It has been 5 months since we started this marathon.
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Payday Friday
Author: Cheryl
•2:56 PM

Our emergency fund is over $700. Not too bad. Would like it to grow faster. We are going to use a small portion of our tax returns as soon as it comes in, to get it up at least to the $1000 mark. The rest will go to finally pay off the rest of credit card #4.

This is also our first payday where we didn't have that extra money coming in and I was still able to send half a decent snowball amount to card #4. And I am actually a little ahead in paying all our monthly bills, so much that I haven't gotten most of them in the mail yet. I just pay them online and save the confirmation e-mails for when they show up in the mail.

And weird thing too, all you hear about lately is credit card companies raising rates on people for no reason, even ones with no monthly carry over balances and those with good payment history. Well I was checking all my cards for their balances and rates, as I do so every few days and I noticed that one of my cards actually lowered their rate for us. I never asked them or did anything, but it lowered. So I will just keep my mouth shut and take it as finally some good karma. But I won't get too excited the others may try to even that out.


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Update Cause I Feel Like It
Author: Cheryl
•11:08 AM

I got my first reward the other day for using MyPoints. I earned over 1500 points just reading surveys and looking at sites. And that earned me a $10 CVS gift card. I can use that for a few weeks for my out of pocket expenses at CVS! So I will actually not be spending a thing there.

We go get our taxes done tonight. We should get a nice sum back and that will all go to card #4. Which should make it gone for good. Fingers crossed.

I switched banks about a month ago and the last thing going into my old account has finally transferred over to the new one. So we will go this weekend and cancel those two old accounts for good. Goodbye annoying bank with stupid fee's. Don't let the door hit you. So far I am loving my new bank.

It was about 14 degrees this morning and is expected to be almost in the 60's on Sunday. Its nice to know the weather has multiple personalities as well. For the first time in my life I am looking forward to warmer weather. Not hot though, just a nice 50 or 60 is perfect for me.


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Financial Update: January 2009
Author: Cheryl
•1:05 PM

One month down in 2009 and how did I do on my new goals for the year?

1.) Pay off credit cards # 4 and 5. I have paid over $1800 to card #4 and with our tax returns in the next few weeks #4 should be completely gone. And I'm glad cause it has an awful interest rate. #5 will take longer as all this extra money that was coming in is stopping.

2.) Have emergency fund at $1500 by end of year. We are up to $676.56 so far. We are still on track with $50 from each of my checks. When hubby gets back to work full time we will make it $100 each payday.

3.) Buy chest freezer and stock with deals for dinners at home. Mr. Freeze is more than happy and settled in our house. We try to keep him stocked with meats and prepared sauces.

4.) Stop buying certain pre-made products and make them from scratch at home.

Laundry Detergent
Fabric Softener
Household cleaners

I still have alot of these left from my former deals. Probably won't use them up until mid-summer.

Syrup
Pasta Sauce
Meatloaf

I have actually made the syrup several times. We love it and no longer buy pre-made syrup.
We do make homemade pasta sauce on occasion when we have all the ingredients but I still can't resist buying jars when they are real cheap. Meatloaf I plan to try soon. Need to find an awesome recipe.

5.) Clean out the garage and sell unnecessary things. I have actually cleaned a few things in there. But unfortunately my brother is moving back home with my parents due to the lovely economic crisis and I am the only one with a garage. So his stuff will be storing in my garage for while. So I don't see if being empty and clean any time soon.

I also decided to get my spare room organized. For the longest time it was a catch all for leftover furniture, my cats toys and my vacuum cleaner. I needed a place to call my own, do my bills, write my blog, organize my coupons and listen to my music. So you see below my little desk area we created. I was able to get my file cabinet out of my poor husband's office. And once we had this up, I reorganized my file cabinet with folders, labels. Our paperwork is real easy to find now and hubby knows where everything is anything ever happens to me.

Yes you can see my Yoda and Animals dolls. Two of my favorite toys I couldn't part with.

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Do You Want My Money Or Not?
Author: Cheryl
•11:23 AM
I'm not asking you, of course. Don't send me your addresses.

I tried to sign on online about a week ago to one of my credit card accounts. I wasn't completely paying attention when I first typed in the user name and password and I messed it up. Try again it said. I tried again and my fingers must have malfunctioned cause I typed it wrong again. It then locked me out. When I hit the button to unlock the account, it asked me a bunch of questions. One of the final ones being the 3 digit security code on the back of the card.

I don't have the card. I shredded it up months ago and never wrote the number down. I didn't think I would need it again unless I was making a purchase. It won't let me sign back on or unlock the account without the code. So I called them and they told me I must have the code to get back on. So they will issue me another card. Once I get it then I can sign on.

Well you know that as soon as I get the new card, I will just write down the code and then cut up the card. I wanted to send them a nice payment this morning, but I can't do it online, and dummy me forgot to bring in a copy of my bill so that I could call them and pay it over the phone.

So here I have the money and no way to pay them. Guess it will have to wait until I get home, and maybe I can at least do it by phone, or just wait until the card or the next bill comes in.

Can you tell I am getting real inpatient to get rid of this debt?

Note: When I got home later in the day my card had arrived in the mail. I was able to re-register online and sent them a nice payment!!!
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Whats Going On...
Author: Cheryl
•11:27 AM

Well my ulcer is back. They originally found it when I was 19. And something I must have done recently has irritated it. So a call to the doctor tomorrow will be in order. I keep eating to keep my stomach full, which does make it feel better, but my pants are getting tight. That's not me above, of course. Just imagine longer hair and much more annoyed face.

I'm in my impatient stage again with the debt. Have to wait until I get paid on Friday before I can send more money to my debt. Not a race, remember, not a race. I am just so determined to get rid of it, that it can't happen fast enough. Emergency fund still chugging away. I couldn't decide to do the EF or the debt, so I keep doing both at the same time.

I switched to a new bank this week. None of those annoying fees for strange things anymore. So yahoo!!

Finally set up a little office for me in our extra bedroom. I was living out of a tiny corner in my husband's home office, with just an old metal file cabinet and Rubbermaid file box. I never felt like organizing it and doing the stuff I wanted to with our papers as I felt like I bothering my other half being in there. Now that I have my own space with a desk and cabinet, I am really getting things together. Making up new files, gathering info in correct spots. Have a calendar on the wall of all my bills due dates. I've shredded things I have kept for way too long. I'm a big girl now. I should have taken a picture of it.

Mr. Freeze is getting surprisingly full thanks to all the Eggo's I got at SuperFresh and the turkey I earned a few weeks ago that was taking residence at my parent's neighbor's house until I had a place to put it.


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