Yep, I'm kicking the home equity loan with another $12.00. This is interest from our money market account for this month. Can't wait until rates go back up!!

I also sent away for another $10 mysurvey check. It will be here in a few weeks. It will also go to the loan payoff.

My daughter turns 8 on Saturday. This means a $1 increase to her monthly allowance. The girls receive $1 for every year old they are. So, starting this month I pay out $19.00 instead of $18.00! I should teach them to save their increases...hmm, I wonder if that would go over?

I'm fired up!! I made another payment to the home equity loan today in the amount of $5...yes, $5.00.

Why such a small amount? It's my Pinecone survey check I received in the mail yesterday. All survey money is going to the home equity loan.

In the last 7 days, I have made three extra payments to principal on the loan. Two for $25.00 and one for $5. My regular payment on this loan is only $118...so I've almost made an additional half payment.

I'm so excited to get moving on this, even if it is just a small dent at this point. Having paid off some debt in the past I know that the small payments make a difference, too!!

Some of our goals for 2008 are:

1)Save 15% of gross salary - retirement
2)Save $2000 for each child - college
3)Save down payment & purchase newer van
4)Begin to payoff home equity loan. (Really would like to pay off by May 2010)

We are on track to meet goals 1 & 2. We make contributions monthly to meet our yearly goals. Retirement is automatically. I do write checks for the education accounts...same time every month.

Goal three was accomplished last month with the purchase of a 2007 Honda Odyssey. We've been waiting over a year to make this happen.

I began working on goal 4 as of last week when I made my first extra principal payment of $25. Today I sent another $25.00 payment towards the loan. By the end of June, I hope to be able to send over $350 extra per month. I also intend to put any extra money on I make on ebay, craigslist, garage sales, and surveys toward this loan as well.

I did go to Aldi for my first time yesterday. I took my girls. They loved that you had to put a quarter in to get a cart. We didn't actually get a cart, but the liked the idea. My daughter even brought her own quarter to use!

We picked up 3 things. Baby carrots, bag of red onions and ice cream bars for the girls. My total was $4.29. The woman ahead of me had a cart full of groceries. Her total was $79! I was very impressed with many of the prices. I'm sure I will be back.

This morning we traveled to our downtown farmers market. We bought 1 quart of strawberries for $5, a quart of sugar snap peas for $4 (later saw these for $2 at another stand), a dutch letter for the girls to share for $1.50, and romaine lettuce for $2. Parking was free as was the poetry reading, the music, the view of the river that is finally beginning to recede but is still higher than normal. We saw a three month old puppy, cool art, and many pretty flowers.

I really would love to make this a regular Saturday event for my family. It is just a good time. I think I need to go just a bit earlier next time, so that it is cooler and the crowd is not as thick.

We received $25 rewards from my debit card the other day. This is the extra money that I sent off to the home equity loan payoff. I expect to get a little interest on our money market account and some funds from ebay sales...all will go the home equity payoff.

Today was the sign up for dance and tumbling classes. I paid for the year in full in cash...$730. One daughter decided not to take dance because we expect she might be a bit busier in middle school with homework. This saved me from spending another $300. Love that!! I will hold on to it, in case we did to make a payment towards braces.

I reworked out escrow account today, too. I decided to start saving for dance classes for next year. Turns out instead of my previous monthly amount of $124, the new amount will be $200. I will split this evenly between the two checks we receive each month.

It was a good money day. Tomorrow I must grocery shop because my dearest soldier husband is coming home from three weeks of training. Can't wait to see him.!!

If you don't know what ETE is...read my post from yesterday. I did great with it today!

Some of you may have noticed that my goal of home equity payoff is going very slow. So far, I have only made regular monthly payments. As a result, I'm only paying about $23 towards principal each month.

Today I have made an extra principal payment of $25. I know it is a bit small. I'm a bit out of shape with debt payoff. The last debt I paid off was about 4 years ago. It's hard to let go of what I feel is extra money...money to hold in my savings account or even spend on something else.

The $25 that I paid today is a symbolic of my desire to really pay off this home equity loan. Did you hear that home equity loan? I'm coming to get you. You are not going to survive my extra payments for long!! There are more to come.

With the recent van purchase, our debt has increased. We have two loans now other than our primary mortgage. The home equity loan is the smaller of the two, and sits at 7.5% interest. The van loan is larger at 3.9%.

Our home equity loan needs to be paid off in about 2.5 years or December 2010. Or at least that is my preferrence to have that money ready for the next home we purchase. It is very likely that is when we will need to move a few months after that.

It looks like if I add another $435 to the regular payment we can meet this goal on time. I will also put all extra income towards this loan as well.

I have another $1K, that I'd be willing to put towards the loan, but I'm holding off. DH needs new clothes...really he's now a size medium after our weight loss, but he's wearing Large shirts...he's just swimming in them. We bought the girls bikes and we would like them also. The van would then need a bike rack.

I really should hit the garage sales for these things...so that I can put more towards the home equity.

It's really amazing how an increase in income after a long time of sacrafice can put one in a spendy mood. We're still saving and investing on top of all the spending...so I can be too upset at myself. I need to get back into the debt payoff mode!

This has been a fabulous month for me with Pinecone surveys. I have completed 5 surveys for them. I received a check yesterday for $5.00 that I will add to the challenge.

New Balance = $168.42

Our regular home equity payment of $118 was posted yesterday. Only $23.22 went to principal. There will definitely be more money hitting that account in May. We are just waiting to pay for a few large dollar items before we start kicking in down.

I just realized that I did not add in the April ebay funds to the challenge. So that creates a new total of....

$520.86

Our focus has been to save money for a down payment on a new to us Toyota or Honda van. Now, we are changing plans.

The new plan is to pay off our home equity loan as soon as possible. I estimate it will take us at least the rest of the year to do this.

We really need to hold on to some equity as we move around the country with the Army. It looks like we will have at least two more years here. When the time comes, I would like to have that loan paid off so the money can be used as a down payment on the next home.

After the loan is paid off, we'll save some more for the van down payment and then finance the rest. The van we are replacing is a 1997 Dodge Caravan with over 120k miles. Right now it needs new tires and power steering pump replaced. We will take care of those things in the next two months with cash.

We were really looking forward to getting a newer van. In some ways, we are disappointed, but we know it is the right thing to do. Finally, we have our heads on straight!!

If anyone, has any thoughts or inputs I'd be happy to hear them.