Words to live by

Never make a priority out of someone who only makes you an option.

Hello there!

I am still around! Life is crazy right now, and has been all summer. For a VERY short summary:

-Our puppy is now 90 pounds! And a total goofball. We love him.
-I passed all three summer classes!
-I'm taking three more classes right now.
-Still employed, and so is hubby (so thankful!)
-We put Sebastian down in August. He did great for several months with the cancer, but when he went downhill, it was fast.
-We did make it to Mexico in July! it was fabulous! We made some new friends from LA that we plan on taking more trips with!
-My best friend from here moved to LA in August.
-We are going to LA in October to visit.
-Debt is still going down! and savings going up!
-Reading is slow, but I've read some great books. Hopefully I can do a post with the good ones soon.

I have some pictures I want to share, but that will have to wait. I'm off to get some homework done and then get stuff for daughters birthday party tomorrow. We're going to play airsoft (like paintball, but no paint in the balls). Wait. Did I say we and play in that sentence? Ha, I'm going to watch!

Hope to catch up more very soon!

Procrastinating

I have one paper to finish, only about 2 paragraphs left.
I have one final to study for.

I left work at 2 pm today so I could get busy and get everything done.

I paid bills.

I watched the storms on TV.

I have not started studying.
I have not finished my paper.

The pigs are making me stressed/scared/angry

We have a vacation planned and paid for to Cabo in July. I'm trying not to think about it, but people will not stop talking about it!! I finally tried to do some research today. They are advising that you cancel any 'non-necessary' trips.

BUT, they are not giving a time frame! Is this just for trips this week, next week, all of May?? What people!!

I keep telling myself that this will be worked out by July. We have 2 months. Surely they will have it all taken care of by then.

And I double checked today that I did indeed purchase the travel insurance. Whew!

Now that I type this out, I'm sounding pretty selfish. I mean there are people really sick and some even dieing, and I'm bitching about a vacation. Oh well, it's a well deserved vacation. And I really do hope they get this under control before more people die. I'm really not that selfish, at least not all the time.

I'm losing my mind!

I got a book in the mail today. I have no idea where it came from. I used to sign up for the give-aways, but stopped because my to-be read pile got too high.

But, this is a book that maybe I saw on a give-away and thought "wow, I need that book!", and signed up for it. But I missed the winning part. Or I just forgot the winning part. Which really wouldn't surprise me.

So, if I won a book and you sent it to me, please refresh my memory so that I can thank you!

The book is, Real Solutions for Busy Moms. Which is something I need! Can't wait to read it.

Oh, and I have read a few books that haven't made it to the blog pile. I want to say that The Red Tent was awesome! I'll do a better review at some point :)

Money and Bank of America update

We received our Federal tax refund yesterday. I immediately transferred $4,500 over to our BoA card and $1,000 to our ER savings!

Take that BoA!! Hubby still has to call our other two cards to get the remaining balance transferred over.

When we had the horrible conversation with BoA and they cut our limit, DH kept asking to speak to a supervisor. They said there was not one available and someone would contact us in a few days. We never got a call. But, we did get a letter in the mail saying they were trying to contact us and gave us a number to call. So, he did. And guess what? There wasn't a supervisor available. So, we left another message. Someone did finally call and leave a VM, but DH hasn't had time to call back.
When he does and they see that recent payment, maybe they will take us seriously, but I doubt it.
I also still haven't wrote the letter. I need to get on that.

Anyways, I updated our progress bars! They are looking nice!

And we are getting new toilets next weekend! I'm trying to be very excited about that :)
It's not a new couch, but I guess I still get to sit on it, right?

It was really depressing to see a $5,500 deposit in our account yesterday and just watch it go away without having anything to show for it. (except for new toilets) If we were out of debt I could have saved half of it, bought the toilets, a new washer/dryer and a new couch! THAT would have been awesome................ahhh.........someday. Right?

2010 Vacation

My mom has a time share. She is giving us a week next year, but we have to make a decision soon. We can go anywhere in the US.

If you could take a family vacation anywhere in the US, where would you go? And what time of year would you go there?

Suze Orman, BoA, and savings.

Her new advice includes paying the minimum on your credit cards and socking some into a savings account. At first I didn't listen.

After reading a bit about this, and after Bank of America lowered our credit limit..........I started thinking.

We do have four savings accounts.
Travel, which is at zero.
ER, which is low
Mine, which is supposed to be at 1,000. But we've been using it for unexpected things.
DH's, which is used for yearly expenses such as car tags and birthday gifts.

If you notice, I've added a new side bar. It includes the balance on my credit cards and their limits. And how far I am to paying them down.
I also show a few savings accounts, I choose not to track DH's because it's more like a checking account that we only use every few months.

I've always felt like our small 1,000 savings would be good for us, and if anything really bad happened, we could use our credit cards..............
but not anymore! We're losing our credit, so we can't rely on having it there if we need it.

We're going to listen to Suze. On my credit cards with the lower balances, I'm going to pay the minimum due.........and put the extra that I planned to pay into our savings account. I have a new goal. I will still have the $1,000, but we're going to up our ING account to $5,000. After we reach our $5,000 we will figure 6 months expenses and put that as our new goal. But, the money we put into it will decrease, because at that point, we will start aggressively paying down our credit cards again.

We're also going to start adding to our travel fund. We have a trip to Cabo in July, but it is already paid for. In 2010 we are planning a long weekend somewhere in the US. Probably within driving distance. In 2011, we are going to Hawaii.

You see the BoA one over there? Since they lowered our limit we owe 98%. That card is getting zeroed out by May. We are getting a tax refund of $5,500. 1,000 will go to our new savings goal, and $4,000 will go to BoA card. We will also take some money out of DH's savings, transfer some with a zero percent offer to Chase, and some to Sears for a 3% offer. BoA will not get another penny of our interest.

The rest of the tax refund is going towards new toilets. We had to call a plumber in because our kitchen sink clogged up. We tried everything, but couldn't fix it ourselves. While he was here we had him look at our toilet, because it has been clogging quit a bit lately. He also looked at the other one. Both need to be replaced.