Happy Independence Day!

Over a year ago we bought our daughter a used Subaru to drive. She had her license two years prior, but never had a need for her own vehicle. The purchase price was around $11K and it has a been a really great car so far. We put $3K down and she used the proceeds from a UTMA account she had which was maybe $3400. I'm being lazy, I don't remember all the exact numbers.

We did take out a small loan ($5,700 at 5.75%!) because we did end up buying a more expensive vehicle than we originally planned. The cars we found we could buy for cash, were just not good to buy for a young person living across the country from parents, at least in our minds. The loan was to help bridge the gap so that she could take over payments when she got a job, and at the same time get some credit in her name. She is still looking for a full time job in her field, but has an internship that increased her hours recently.

We are pondering paying off the balance of the car which is owned jointly between her and my husband. The balance is $4,293, with three years left. We have so much cash and now earning very low interest rates. We would then have her pay us back with interest. I'm thinking 3% interest, and we are open to a longer payment term if she wants. A lesson in how that changes the payment and the total interest she pays would be good I think. The vehicle would be owned jointly until the loan is paid back.

I will be running the numbers and offering her a proposal. I think she can start making the payments even on her low income since she is currently staying with my parents. Such an interesting time we are in.

I know many of you reading are regulars and for the most part I think you are all still employed. However, if there is anyone out there who has lost their employment, or has reduced hours I want you to know about the four walls that can keep you fed and in your home for as long as possible.

The Four Walls is part of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. There are six additional baby steps, but first you must take care of your four walls before you pay anyone else.

Read more

here.

Our oldest daughter received her housing refund of $963.79. It seems lower than expected and I haven't yet had the motivation to investigate and do the math. I don't see other parents complaining about wrong amounts, so I expect it is probably right.

My hope is that she will ultimately put this amount on her student loan debt, which she only had to take out this final year (her fifth year, two degrees). The total debt she took out was $5,500. Maybe she can round up and make $1000 her first payment!

Now she just needs to finish up these classes, graduation (ceremony cancelled, but can walk in future ceremonies) and find a job!

We are paying ourselves back for money we put down on our daughter's car in May 2019. I am putting all sources of extra funds towards that goal. Here's what I found in March:

US Bank $12.33
Chase Rewards $9.92
Amex Rewards $45.03
Swagbucks (Paypal) $25
Ebay Sales $22.28
Pinecone $3.00
USAA Rebate $3.00
Army Travel Excess $119.42

Total $239.98

Prior Payback Balance: $254.69
New Payback Balance: $14.71

Well isn't that interesting! So close to payoff. I think it is time to call it paid back though. I'm pretty sure I sold at least two items locally for $5 each this past month...a bit of a blur, but I know I didn't allocate those funds to any pot of money. And I know we added money to our emergency fund far in excess of $4.71, so....

it's paid off!! Happy, happy dancing'!!

New Payback Balance: $0.00

All of these types of funds will go towards the BIg Goal starting this month.

We are paying ourselves back for money we put down on our daughter's car in May 2019. I am putting all sources of extra funds towards that goal. Here's what I found in February:

US Bank $12.33
Chase Rewards $7.10
Amex Rewards $46.06
Swagbucks (Paypal) $25
Ebay Sales $30.81
Army Travel Excess $122.15

Total $243.45

Prior Payback Balance: $498.14
New Payback Balance: $254.69

So tempting to just throw some extra funds we had at the end of the month on it, but I also know that we have another round of airline tickets needing to be purchased, possibly this week, so I'm just going to do the same as February and know that our rewards, sales and military travel payments will likely have this paid back this month!!

Looking forward to the debt payoff happy dance! Yes, I considered this a debt, even if it was to ourselves. 😀

I've been watching a couple that's on YouTube work on getting out of a lot of debt. They were behind on their mortgage and didn't know until people started commenting that they needed to get current first!! When you are behind on payments that IS a debt and one that can get bad very fast, potentially losing a home or a car.

They have been gazelle intense on selling lots of things and their house is on the market to sell. They are finding cash in their home, including redeeming Ibotta rewards and credit card rewards for cash and gift cards, things that just weren't on their radar.

They are creating budgets, using cash envelopes, stopping monthly subscriptions and eating out. They shopped at Aldi for the first time. The skipped buying each other Valentine's gifts this year. They are rocking it!! And it's very inspiring. If you are in major debt, or looking to figure out what to do, find those that are making it work and follow their example for inspiration. There are lots of people who live debt free, and are climbing out of debt.

Yes, it's overwhelming to be in debt, but it's freedom to make the changes and strive to live a debt free life! Now go find yourself someone to inspire you if you have lost your way.

We are paying ourselves back for money we put down on our daughter's car in May 2019. I am putting all sources of extra funds towards that goal. Here's what I found in January:

US Bank $13.00
Chase Rewards $3.82
Amex Rewards $67.30
Utility Rebates (2) $59.91
USAA Rewards $3.12
Pinecone Surveys $3
Ibotta Rewards $22.09
Swagbucks (Paypal) $25
Ebay Sale $5.37
Extra Funds $175

Total $377.61

Prior Payback Balance: $875.75
New Payback Balance: $498.14

I have extra funds that I could just call this done, so it's likely I will just call it done pretty soon. The extra funds listed seem to be an extra payment I added in YNAB to no detriment to the budget...so I'm leaving it. We did a very good job of keeping to a pretty frugal budget this month!

I'll attempt to include a screenshot of my

December 2009 post, but the run down I posted then was that we contributed $14,147 to retirement, our retirement accounts had increased by $33,219, and the value had exceed $100K for the first time.



We had paid over $10K on a home equity loan, with total debt decreasing by $17K. Not sure our total debt amount, but we may have had a loan on my van and home debt. If I had to guess $160K to $175K in debt.

I also reported paying our daughter's braces in cash along with a trip to Disney World. We were also getting ready for my husband to deploy to the Middle East for the second time.

Ten years later:

Husband is cosigner on a car loan for our daughter which had a balance of $4,959 at the end of December 2019. Otherwise we have zero debt.

We do not own a home and live on a military installation. We pay rent equal to our housing allowance. At this point we have rented since June of 2015.

We have $95,327 in cash (most of it invested in high interest rate CDs.) Part of that, $72,083.93, is cash towards our Big Savings Goal of $200,000.

We saved $21,627.56 in 2019 towards retirement. Our retirement accounts increased $172,287.30 in one year, with an ending balance of $660,822.27.

In 2019 both of our daughters were in college full time for the first time. Tuition bills were paid in full, with our oldest daughter taking out her first loan in the fall for $2,750. No parent loans thus far!

Our 2007 Honda vehicles are still paid off. While they have lots of miles they still run and look fantastic.

In ten years there has been significant progress in retirement and we have mostly stayed out of debt (just a little help for our daughter).

It's fun to look back and I look forward to another ten years of financial progress. It should make for an interesting story!

We are paying ourselves back for money we put down on our daughter's car in May. I am putting all sources of extra funds towards that goal. Here's what I found in December:

US Bank $13.00
Chase Rewards $13.77
Amex Rewards $57.06
Extra travel funds $58.40
USAA Rewards $9.14
USAA Subscriber Disbursement $193.20
Under Christmas Budget $17.75
Pinecone Surveys $6
Swagbucks (Paypal) $25
Ebay Sale $5.34
Discover reward $0.34
FB Sale $25

Total $424.00

Prior Payback Balance: $$1,299.75
New Payback Balance: $875.75

At one time I thought we could get this paid back by the end of the year, but it seems we had expenses I hadn't accounted for. But it feels great to get this under $1000! I feel really motivated to get this paid back as soon as possible.

On this last day of the year I thought I'd reflect on a few things, but expect more detailed financial posts in the coming days.

It was an unpredictable year.

I didn't plan for buying our daughter a car, yet the writing was on the wall. That lack of planning resulted in a loan in her name with my husband as cosigner. We are currently making the payment of $133.50 per month because our daughter has a very part time internship. She uses her earnings to cover groceries and gas on the vehicle. The balance is currently $4,949.50. We are not currently making extra payments. I'm mixed about this loan considering we have the cash on hand. But on some level this should be hers to complete once she has a full time job.

We did put $3000 cash down on the vehicle and are currently paying ourselves back for this. I will have an update in a couple days on our progress on this.

Our oldest daughter also has taken on two student loans, each $2750. One is just about to be disbursed for spring. This are the first and only loans she has had to take out. I'm also mixed on these because yes we have the cash, yet I think it is okay for her to have some skin in the game. On the other hand she double majored and we will have supported her for five years by the time!! It's still amazing to me that we were able to get her through school with this small amount of debt.

Our youngest daughter did not need to take out any loans. She still has ESA funds, a least a year of Post 911 GI bill eligibility. We currently save $500/mo (or $6000/yr) towards her tuition.

Our retirement balances have skyrocketed this year with returns exceeding 25%. It was a great year to be in the stock market. We increased my husband's Roth IRA contributions to account for his catch up eligibility since he turned 50 this year.

I'm still impressed with our ability to handle the travel costs associated with having our girls living over 1000 miles away. I think I'm making plane reservations every three months on average!

We did make progress on our Big Goal this year too, which I will report in detail in the next few days. It was an average year towards that goal. Sometimes the effort seems so slow, yet at the same time I'm grateful that we have this goal. I think this money would just slip away without it!

In non financial news, I lost about 15 pounds this year and have been able to keep most of it off all year. I did really well exercising at least 5 days week. I drink a good amount of water regularly. Healthy habits and progress towards a little more weight loss is the goal in the coming year too.

I'm going to count 2019 as a success! Happy New Year!!

We are paying ourselves back for money we put down on our daughter's car in May. I am putting all sources of extra funds towards that goal. Here's what I found in November:

US Bank $13.00
Chase Rewards $1.80
Amex Rewards $55.26
Electric Rebates $82.99
Extra travel funds $105.34
USAA Reward $1.62
Total $260.01

Prior Payback Balance: $1,559.76
New Payback Balance: $1,299.75

At one time I thought we could get this paid back by the end of the year, but it seems we had expenses I hadn't accounted for. But I feel confident we can get this paid back by the end of next year...hopefully much sooner!

We are paying ourselves back for money we put down on our daughter's car in May. I am putting all sources of extra funds towards that goal. Here's what I found in October:

US Bank $12.52
Chase Rewards $11.45
Amex Rewards $70.38
Boxed Amex Offer $15
ATM Rebate $3.00
Coop Rebate $8.99
eBay Sales $10.36
Pinecone Surveys $3.00
Extra travel funds $28.72
USAA Reward $1.00
Total $164.42

I think I earned a $25 Amazon gift card through Swagbucks, but it looks like I didn't add that to YNAB as a deposit. I will let that slide. I need to be a little more careful, making sure to put the equivalent into savings when I earn one of those!

Prior Payback Balance: $1,724.18
New Payback Balance: $1,559.76

Progress has been a little slower recently. Our auto and renters insurance is so high here and we had to adjust our sinking fund so that could get paid on time. Otherwise I might have had some extra funds to through at it.

Well, it seems the site may be up, but posts only updated through mid April 2019. I haven't looked around much to see what is missing.

I had about given up! Some of us have been connecting by email and Facebook to figure out a new plan. More work to do to figure out where our rendezvous point is if the site goes down permanently.

I had made a financial blog on Blogger quite a while back, called Our Money Blog. I put some posts up that may have even been duplicates from here. But over time I stopped. Today, I posted a revival post.

I'm just going to send you

there for an update on our interest, big goal and down payment repayment goals...check out how I was able to recreate the starting points without this blog available to help!

We finally received a bill from the government. Not many people say that! We were aware of and notified of VA overpayment of tuition benefits in early December because our daughter added then dropped a one hour class last semester. The school was overpaid, and they refunded us some money in October or November. So now the government is asking us for the cash to the tune of $487.

We are going to pay it at the beginning of March. I do have a little problem with the amount. My guess is it is right, but I am just not clear on how they figured the amount of the overpayment. It is not equal to what the school refunded us, which was around $400. I'll probably send an email to the school to see if they can explain. I think getting an answer from them would be faster!

I earned $3 for doing a Pinecone Survey. I found a penny on the ground when I went to the store. I've actually found quite a few coins on my walks here!

I've arranged for our cat to be boarded while we are on a three night trip in March. She will spend five nights at the kennel for a total of $75. They provide food and litter. I wish I didn't have to do board here, but our housing won't let us leave a pet overnight even if someone is watching her. She sleeps a lot anyway, so she will be fine!

It's about time to make flight reservations for our daughter's to come here for their spring breaks. More money out, but we will look forward to seeing them and doing some more exploring of our new town.

I've been watching Living on A Dime on YouTube. I've watched some of their videos before, but it had been awhile. Jill, the mother, has a series on the channel called Penny Pinching Mama, that explains her life when she was first diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and how she lived on $500 a month with two kids in late 1980s. She still only lives on $750 for social security. They are fantastic example of how people really can make it on low income. They don't deny that it's hard, but that it can be done! The are very conservative with what they use. Anyone else seen these ladies on YouTube?

As you all know we do not have any debt. No mortgage debt either as we move frequently with the military and have found it make sense to rent for the time being.

I came across a site that is free and allows you to track your way out of debt. I'd try it myself and review it for you, but again zero debt to track. I do see it links to YNAB! And it has a 52 Week Savings Option.

If you have goals to pay off debt in 2019, you might want to check out this free tracking option. I'm sure many of us here would love to watch your journey and hear how you like Undebt It.

You can find the online tracking tool

here.

Life with zero debt is worth the effort!

Moving is expensive!

We didn't have to put a deposit down on this townhome on base and rent is paid in arrears, but despite those positives, we have $3,498.26 in expenses charged on our credit cards! Hotels, fuel, restaurants, and extra needs to purchase after move (such as toilet brushes, cleaners, ect) add up fast!

Some of those charges are for our regular bills, such as Verizon, Hulu, Netflix and things we just needed because you know life has expenses, too.

I'm looking forward to payday on Thursday and eventually receiving our deposit from the rental home, and all of our moving entitlements. I'm not sure exactly when we will receive the latter payments, but likely in the next three weeks.

Technically, I do have the funds in our accounts that I could pay those credit cards in full and likely will pay many of them on pay day. I will float some of the money until we receive our reimbursements.

I cancelled another credit card last night. It was my Citi Thank You Preferred card. I've had it for awhile, and noticed we had added new cards and were using those more. Why keep extra cards if they are never used, right?

I simply sent a message through our account requesting the cancellation. I had a super quick response and when I logged back on the account had been closed. Easy!

The next step is to record in my notes that I cancelled the card and cut the cards up. I kind of like the finality of cutting up a card. I also moved the card account on YNAB to the closed account list.

We still have TEN credit cards open. Want to know what they are? Sure you do!

Target Red Card (5% off Target purchases)
US Bank Visa (5% off cell phone bill)
Chase Freedom (rotating 5% cash back categories)
Kohl's (various discounts)
Discover (rotating 5% cash back categories)
Southwest Visa (miles to fly on Southwest)
USAA (1% cash back)
American Express Blue Cash Everyday (various cash back, plus 3% grocery stores, 2% gas stations) (we have two of these)
Marriott Rewards Visa (hotel rewards)

I'm considering getting rid of Chase Freedom, although I've had it for a long time. I also probably don't need the USAA either, but currently we are using it for most of our expenses. I'm liking how quickly USAA is adding the cash back to our rewards account. And there is no minimum!

The cards that I'm finding most difficult to actually use are the Southwest and Marriott cards as their rewards are miles and hotel points. We pay annual fees for these cards! I'm NOT getting rid of Southwest though, because I do charge airline tickets at least four times a year. I am getting benefit from it. I haven't decided on the Marriott card yet. I think I need more time to decide and figure out how fast I could accumulate points if I used it more regularly.

How many cards do you have?

We have credit cards, but never pay any interest on our charges. All balances are paid in full by the due date, or before!

I think the last credit card we opened was the American Express Gold Rewards card. It was less than a year ago. We met the spending requirement and received our bonus reward in gift cards earlier this year.

Yesterday, I had my husband call to cancel. It was in his name, and sending an email wasn't an option. He told me the woman did try to keep him as a customer by offering a $75 credit on travel expenses. We are traveling soon, but tickets and hotel are already covered. I'm glad to have it cancelled. It would have had a big annual fee had we kept it.

I'm getting close to wanting to cancel a Citi Thank You Rewards card I have. I did have some points, that I just redeemed on Amazon towards a Christmas gift. Those points amounted to $6.18. Happy to use, but we aren't using the card as we have other rewards cards we are using more regularly. I hope to get this one cancelled once I see the payment was recorded. I think I can probably sent a online message to get that done.

Have you opened or cancelled a credit card recently?

I had charged my daughter's summer trip to Europe on our Southwest Visa early in October. I needed to pay it off by November 23 to avoid interest charges. And I did just that yesterday. The balance is now zero.

We were able to cash flow all but $1400. That amount I took from savings. I expect I will be able to cover most of that next month, and have paid ourselves back.

I feel really good about how it turned out. I could have been making monthly payments of nearly $600 for eight months, but I feel much better having it just done and paid for. My focus now is to accumulate another $4000 for February tuition.

We also need to set aside money for passports in December. We decided my husband and I should have them also, especially if something were to happen and we would need to fly overseas.

First, I don't shop much at all any more. I don't want to acquire more stuff! However, we were out of town yesterday. And I wanted to stop into World Market. I haven't lived in a town with that store for 4 years! Boy, I was amazed at how different it seemed. The styles of the merchandise, while similar, was different. I think we spent at least 45 minutes in there. Luckily, I only left spending $16. Half the cost was for Christmas ornaments for my daughter's (a traditions) and the other half a fun gift for my youngest daughter (she had a stressful week at school). I think it may be a good thing I don't live by that store any more though. I was very tempted to buy other things!

I just made the $1800 payment on the credit card for the Europe trip. I mentioned this plan in my last post. Not sure why the ticker isn't updating...maybe a delay. New balance is $2895. Goal is to have it paid off the card one month from today, November 23. I'd love it to be from current cash, but I'm pretty sure some will come from savings and we will pay it back.

My husband received his birthday check from my parents for $100. I've added it to the birthday fund. This year we are skipping giving gifts for our birthday's, but hope to buy some bigger needs (and sort of wants) for Christmas. My birthday is next month, and I expect I will get a check from my parents also.

Our water bill arrived in my inbox. Next month the bill is $57. Last month it was $71, and the month before that $110. Definitely using less water now that the lawn growing season has slowed down. Electric bill was also down by $55!

I'm grocery shopping later today. I think the bill will be a little larger as my parents are going to be in town, so a little different style of food and more of it. But they are easy to please, so it shouldn't be too much extra.

And finally, we are about to book our flights home for Thanksgiving. Three of us flying on Southwest round trip is going to be between $1200 and $1300. We are flying on some less busy days so that helps the cost. I had this money in the vacation fund. I expect we will easily have enough points to cover my oldest daughter's flight home for Christmas. If not Christmas, definitely for Spring Break.

Even after our recent van air conditioning repair (just under $200), we put away $1800 in our emergency fund this month. That is assuming we can stay within the budget we planned in YNAB, of course.

And realistically, that money is spent. I need to put it towards the Europe trip. I expect to do just that very soon. That will put the balance of that payoff at $2895. And that is a number so much easier on the eyes!

There are two more paydays before the full payment is due on the credit card I charged it on. It would be great if I could come up with another $1800 by then. Fingers crossed!!

I have some snowflakes to report. And they all go to pay down the Europe trip.

$17, USAA Visa Rewards
$3, Pinecone survey
$2.32, Ebay sale
$1.08, Discover Rewards
$0.07, Checking account interest
$23.47, TOTAL

Now under $4,700, with a payoff total of $4,695.53.

Today is payday, but we won't do our budget until Sunday most likely. I expect we will have some funds to throw at this.

I want to make a conscious effort to pay ourselves back for this trip to Europe we have purchased for our daughter. The total cost upfront is $4719. We put it on a credit card. We will pay off in full by the due date, November 23.

The plan is to keep track of paying ourselves back, since most of the cost is coming from savings. If I set up a tracker here we can all follow my progress in making this happen. It would be great if we could make it happen by the time of the trip in late June. However, I have another tuition payment in February, that I need to pay out of pocket as well.

So the ticker is set up on the side bar and I will update it as we go along! I expect to cash Pinecone survey points and some other rewards soon. I also need to add some things to eBay for sale soon also!

We have a $7,500 CD maturing next month. It's been earning 3.5% for the last 14 months. I'm thinking of rolling it into a 1.05% 12 month CD, but if I could find something better I would jump on it.

I noticed I have an offer on my American Express account to open a Gold card. Spend $2000, get 50K reward points. We did this for my husband earlier this year. We haven't even redeemed the points yet! I will probably open it, but I've been wanting to reduce cards, so this flies in the face of that idea!

This would be the second time that someone has used my Kohls.com account to buy things and charge them to my Kohl's card. Ugh! After talking to the fraud department, that account (in which they changed the email address) has been cancelled. I put a password on my card (that I have to take off each time I want to use the card). I had one on there before, but forgot to put it back on one time apparently! I do have noted that I took it off.

This is prompting me to clean up our credit cards that we have open. I think we have several that are unnecessary to keep any longer. I haven't quite firmed up which ones, but this is a must do project. I also need to clean out a lot credit card mailing junk from my desk as well while I'm in the process.

Our youngest daughter just turned 16. (Not interested in learning to drive yet, so no insurance changes yet). She received checks in the mail and it made me think we need to get her set up with a checking account now, so she can get used to handling that before she leaves for college. We did this a little late with our oldest daughter (although she's done just fine).

I did make a small change to our Verizon cell phone bill. I changed us from the Large data plan to the Medium. We have used over 3GB in the past, but not very often. This will save us about $12 a month. I have notifications set up if we get close to the 3GB. I'm still not sure if Ting is right for us. I would love to make it work, but I'm still not convinced.

It's super hot and humid where we live. I can only imagine the electric bill. Although the water bill is getting a small break because of the rain we have had.

We use our credit cards for all purchases that we can. Yes, at one time we stopped using credit cards (thus the name Creditcardfree). But we are super good about paying them off on time. In fact, I effectively make at least two payments a month when payday comes around.

Tomorrow is payday. All transactions since the last paycheck were posted on YNAB, thus the money is set aside to make the payments. Today, I logged on to each account we had a balance with and paid them in full. Easy!

I should mention that we don't really use YNAB the right way. We don't 'Live on Last Month's Income'. Part of the reason for this is we have more in our checking account than we spend each month. The other is we have an emergency fund in other places to count as a buffer. And finally, because we use credit cards and generally pay them off within two weeks of the transaction, we have a buffer with the due date of those transactions if needed.

What we do is count each paycheck as income for current month. In our case two paychecks each month. We then budget that money into categories to cover us until the next payday. We do fund variable accounts like car maintenance, vacation and other various savings at the same time. These accounts slow build up, and yes at times get depleted.

In YNAB we can still see how much we budgeted for monthly expenses and how much we have left. Usually we have plenty. I can also adjust the amount in each category if I didn't guess/estimate right at the beginning of the pay period. After several months, it gets easier to see how much you are spending in each area and the amount to budget.

I won my Diet Bet. I bet $30, so I get that money back! The final winnings are still in the process of being verified, so I will know in a couple days what the return on my financial investment was.

I lost 9.4 pounds! I can see the difference and my husband can too. This was exactly what I needed to get moving in the right direction. I wasn't even sure yesterday if I would make it, as the scale was still .2 pounds away from the Diet Bet goal. I ate right, exercised and drank a lot of water. I also got eight hours of sleep. And today when I stepped on the scale I was down even more than I expected and with plenty of room to spare!

I'm now in decision mode about doing another bet. I feel like I really need to do another one to keep me moving in the right direction. Even during this last month I had some bad days where I didn't exercise AT ALL and several days where I was eating more than necessary. So without the bet, and the risk of losing money, I feel I may get complacent, which is definitely not what I want!

I think the only thing that is really getting in my way of deciding is knowing that I have family visiting two different times in May for a total of 12 days. That will mess with my routines and meal plans. And I don't want to fail!!

I think I need to do another Kickstarter and maybe start a Transformer(which is a six month bet) at the same time. If I don't try the odds are more stacked against me mentally, right? If we don't try, we don't get where we are going!

I did post about my hesitancy on the Diet Bet forum, and someone has suggested that I start a Transformer now, and then in month three do a Kickstarter. I think there is some validity to that idea. The Transformer would only require me to lose 3% of my body weight in May, rather than the 4% required if I did a Kickstarter in May. That gives me a little more wiggle room with guests, but would still get me to my ultimate goal by November.

I'm sharing all of this and realizing there is some similarities to paying off debt. If we don't have a goal we can't get where we want to go. If there isn't a consequence for failing it is much easier to give up. The consequence for holding on to debt, is less freedom, more interest paid, and if you haven't stopped the excess spending you'll have more debt! Gosh, you could say the say thing about holding on to excess weight...more health issues and likely more weight gain if we don't stop our bad habits.

I'll let you know what I decide to do. If any other Diet Betters have thoughts on how to plan my next bets let me know. I like to hear the ideas of others.

I did reconcile our accounts on YNAB yesterday. I did find an error in a payment I recorded for our credit card. I showed us making a payment for $36 more than we actually did. That was because I transposed the numbers. Luckily, I did make the right payment and it's not a big deal in the end. No bounced checks or anything. I was also missing the recording of two transactions. Both were from the last week or so. All up to date now.

On Friday I will make payments on the all the outstanding credit card bills we have. Believe it or not, I have six with balances. The biggest one is Marriott Rewards, since that is the primary card we have been using. Three other cards have regular payments made on them, thus the balances until payday. I used the Southwest Visa to charge the airline tickets purchased for my niece and mother in law. And finally, I used my American Express card for a Amazon purchase that was around $30. I have enough points to redeem for $25 statement credit reducing that purchase to about $5. YNAB make it really easy to see what needs to be paid. And we always have the cash to cover our expenses! Yea.

I checked our retirement balances as of yesterday and we are looking much better than we were at the end of last year. I suppose most of that the contributions we've put in since the market isn't up much since the end of the year. I have a mental goal of where I'd like to see us end up, but it depends on how the markets go really!

I redeemed $6 from Pinecone recently. It was in my PayPal account. I made sure to transfer it to our savings account yesterday so it won't melt.

money problems. You do!

I just saw a interview on the local news with a man who just said that. I think he's right, especially when it comes to debt.

What do you think?

I've been blogging here at SA for 8 years! I was reading for a couple years prior. I'm definitely glad I started. I know that blogging helps me focus on our financial goals with much more clarity than if I didn't. And the encouragement from others helps tremendously too!

Since we are now renters, we have zero debt. I'm sure we will own a home again once my husband retires. Our retirement accounts are just a little more than four times the balance they were in 2008 (of course, the market was way down then).

The next several years will be about handling college tuition and housing. After one full year, we can say we have met that obligation without debt. And we are thankful for the scholarships and our savings for making that happen.

A lot can happen in eight years! Let's see if we can do just as good in the next eight.