Day 167 and Driving 55 Update #3

Tom filled his car up yesterday and we figured the gas mileage. He had driven 65 on this tank, and only got 19.96 mpg! That was quite a difference, he had got 25ish mpg driving 55. So I'll keep you posted on our continued quest to save money on gas!

I had another child care class this morning. Afterwards, a friend and I visited a couple of thrift stores in Enid. I'm looking for a vanity table and mirror for Tasha's room. I didn't find that, but we did find two huge bags of wood macrame beads. We each bought one, and then split them. The kids will have a great time with those. Then I found a book I'd been interested in over in the clearance center for 23 cents! It's called "Raising your Spirited Child" and I've borrowed it and read it before. I had planned to buy it, but never had. Then I found a new to me purse for 1.99, but it turned out to be 50% off yellow tag days so I got it for 99 cents. The only bad thing was that my total was $6.66 and that kind of creeped me out! LOL!

Josh's car is acting up, it overheated on him today. Tom has decided that our EF is a car repair fund. LOL. Whatever it is, I'm just so glad we have it!

Day 166 and a Debt Update

Well, we are slowly plodding along. As of Tom's paycheck today, our debt list looks like this

DLO: $14.40-PAID!
DLO: $34.11-PAID!
Radiology: $37-PAID!
Urgent care clinic: $46.15 (August 2007)-PAID!
Urgent care clinic: $40.55 (November 2007) PAID!
Urgent care clinic: $21.50 (February 2008) PAID!
Dr. Office: $79.20-PAID!
Dr. Office (June 2006) $105.02-PAID! Dr. Office (March 2008, Tracy & Tasha)-$63.44
ER Doctor: $93.54-PAID!
dentist: PAID!!!
Auto parts store: $161.73-PAID!
Josten's-PAID!
Second half 2007 real estate taxes: $148.64-PAID!
Hospital: $261.16-PAID!
Car loan: Balance: $1791
House: paid $1675.30
Credit card #1: $2970-paid $225
Credit card #2: $1104-paid $75
Credit card #3: $990-paid $75
Credit card #4: $899-paid $454.19 (balance $445)
Credit card #5: $908-paid $75
Credit card #6: $2509-paid $225
My student loan: $12, 913 (in deferment due to my full time student status)
DH student loan: $53, 248(in forbearance)
As of June 27^th: $6082.54 in debt paid off!

So in less than 6 months, we have passed the $6000 mark! That's an average of around $1000 a month towards debt. Some of it probably would have been paid anyway, but maybe not all of it and what was paid probably wouldn't have been paid on time. Some months we have paid more, other months (like this month), we've payed the bare minimum. I think what feels the best is that we are caught up on our regular bills, even with $'s being tight during the summer. Pray that we are able to continue and that I have patience on this journey!

Day 165 and Random Thoughts

I was thinking today how Tom & I have been getting Sonic drinks more frequently lately (although not as frequently as in the past) and we ate out tonight (we're definitely not doing that nearly as frequently as we used to). I had been struggling with feeling guilty about it, but then I realized something. When we were eating out all the time before and getting Sonic drinks all the time before, we were behind on almost everything, including our house payment, our utilities, medical bills, auto parts store-you name it, we were behind on it! We didn't have any money to fall back on if something happened. Now we are paid up on all of our bills, we are making regular payments on our credit cards, and we have an emergency fund (up and down though it may be! LOL). So, although I think we need to be extra careful about not overdoing it on the Sonic drinks or the eating out, I'm also starting to realize that it's okay if we do it occasionally, and we should try not to feel guilty about it. It's when these things are keeping us from providing the needs for our family that we need to worry about it. So, we are going to continue to be careful about this stuff, but I am also going to work on not feeling guilty when we do sometimes do it.

Day 164 and 6 Months until Christmas!

Can you believe that this year is already almost 1/2 over and that Christmas is 6 months from today? My goodness! Anyway, I've already started working on my Christmas list, and have bought 3 gifts. For a few years, I did that faithfully (shopped early) but then I got out of the habit and I'm trying hard to get back in this year.

I've come to the conclusion that I actually function better when I'm busy. When I'm not super busy, it's hard for me to motivate myself to get anything done. Crazy, isn't it?

I got my first phone call in quite a while from a creditor this morning. Remember I mentioned that one of the checks that I sent in May has never cleared the bank and so it was one of the ones that I sent certified mail last week. Well, apparently, the account is with a different collector now! So I don't know what happened to the payments I've already sent? I guess I will pull out my notes and call them and ask where they are. Anyway, the new creditor did the same "we want access to your checking account" nonsense. The lady just kept on and on about it. Finally, I firmly, but politely said that I had children who needed my attention and I had to go and I hung up.

Day 163 and I think Summer's Here

Wow, the heat is on, isn't it?! It went from being mild to feeling like we're roasting in an oven. This is great news for the farmers, they can finish getting their wheat out. It's also good news for my kids, maybe we'll finally get to play in the sprinkler!

I have several speakers lined up for the child care association, in fact I got them lined up through the end of this year, I've just got January, Feb., and March of next year to worry about. I feel good about that. Still have to get to work on getting the stuff ready for the club audit and get the July budget ready.

Can you believe that I spent 50 minutes on the phone today trying to get Tom's phone delivered to our address? Because we don't have street delivery in Pond Creek, the USPS doesn't have our address in their system and so the cell phone company wouldn't deliver to our house. But they've had it delivered to our house before. So guess what we had to end up doing? Sending it to the post office here in town's street address. I called and the postmaster said it was fine. What a pain in the hiney!

Day 162 and Baby Steps

I've been thinking about Dave Ramsey and his baby steps. I feel like we are permanently stuck at #1: Getting $1000 in an Emergency Fund. We get that done, then we have to use it for an emergency and we're right back to where we started. Now I know we're really not back to where we started, we have made amazing progress, but it seems that the progress isn't as fast as I would like it to be. It's kind of like the prayer "Lord, grant me patience and give it to me now!" I want things to be moving faster and to be making more progress. I don't really have a point except to ask again for prayers for us and for me. I have an opening that I need to fill in the child care and I'm still struggling with my emotions from something that happened last week.

Tonight I have an officer's meeting for one of the child care associations that I am involved in. We will be planning out our 2008-09 year which will be starting back up before I know it! So I need to set some goals for myself so that things do not snowball on me.
1. Get things ready for an audit meeting with the mother's club. Do that by Sunday.
2. Work on getting some speakers lined up for the child care association. Work on that all week.
3. Get July budget ready by Sunday.

Day 161 and Driving 55 update #2

I filled up the van today and figured the gas mileage and was totally bummed! I only got 21.25 mpg this time! So I'm thinking that the positive results last time were because most of the driving in the van had been done by Tom while Serenity had his car. Therefore, more highway miles. So I'm going to drive 65 this time with the van and see what I get.

We also figured mpg for Tom's car and he had got 25.9 driving 55. Now he's going to drive 65 on this next tank and see how it goes. I'll keep you posted!