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Hello everyone! I thought I'd join this community to connect with like-minded people, build genuine connection, and hopefully get motivation to keep going on this debt free journey.
A bit about myself, I'm a thirty-something-year-old woman living in Alaska with her husband who's in the ARMY and 3 children (16yo girl, 13yo girl, and 4yo boy). I'm a Dave Ramsey enthusiast although I do disagree with some of his teachings (for example, saving $1,000 for emergency fund). My hobbies...
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I had $40 left in the grocery envelope so I transferred that to the beef fund and I am going to attempt to only use $300 in grocery money this paycheck, so am starting with putting the extra $100 in the Beef Fund, but whether or not it will stay there is anyone's question.  I did make my list closely to my meal plan and we aren't buying any meat except ham because we have it in the freezer.
$760.00 Previous Balance
+140.00 Amount Added
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$900.00 New Balance
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In the Fall of 2020 while I was working but mostly focused on Dad, the company launched its IPO. It’s the third attempt so I think that most colleagues didn’t think it’d really happen but this time it went through. The company was profiled on the NASDAQ billboard in Times Square that day with pictures of our colleagues.
 
How ironic that it was in 2020 – a year in which we took 10% pay cuts because the company expected to perform poorly. Instead,...
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No real updates, but I'm so into all of my tracking that I find lack of updates has me antsy lol.  
It's been a few low spend days, as expected.  The only spending so far this month is for groceries/household, and educational expenses (transcript & application fees).  Last night I went to CVS to purchase a money order for my high school transcript (they don't seem to realize it is 2021....), and unfortunately, they do not do money orders at that location. ...
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I was cleaning out my email inbox today and I came across an email which caught my interest.  It was from CitiBank and it was about a promotional sign-up bonus to open a checking/savings account package.  I have never done one of these offers as they are typically not enough to tempt me.  However, this one is.
If you bring 200k or more to CitiBank, the sign-up bonus is $1,500.   It doesn't have to be 200k in cash, just 200k in total.  Investment accounts,...
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Paid $45 today online for my visit to Immediate Care in January.  This takes my variables to 13%.
Snow is coming down like crazy (though it will stop soon) and temperatures are starting to drop.  I hope the cold will not make it hard to get my vaccine tomorrow.  There was a warning on my news feed that antifreeze could freeze.  Eek!
I have my faucets dripping and will keep it up throughout the cold spell.
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GME continues to tank. It's at 50-something today - still more than it's worth, probably. I don't think it's going to rally at this point. If RH had not restricted buying shares last week, I imagine it would have risen more. At one point they were only allowing retail investors to sell and not to buy. Later, they changed it to a limit of owning 100 shares, and then this morning to 500 shares. The free market is not so free when you can manipulate who can buy shares, is it? My disillusion...
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We have a lot of people pondering retirement and what you really need?  The answer?  It's really self dependent.   You can say you need 33x your expenses.  Sounds good.  But here are some questions that influence that.  
1. How old are you when you retire?  
2. Will you take SS and when will you take it?
3. Do you have a pension?
4. Are you retiring early and need to pay for medical insurance?
5. Will you be retiring with a...
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Hi everyone. I am caught between apprehension and JOY.. I rolled off my contract.. no job.. free time.. lots of thinking.
Contract ended Friday.I left on good terms so can go back in 3 months. Also have 2 job interviews lined up this week Friday. Not sure if I want to go back right away though. I want to see 'how it feels' to be off and rely on the rentals and get to know me and what is out there again. Interviews range from $2 to $10 more per hour per job ($4000 to $20000 increase...
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I know a lot of you all use budgets, I don't because how I've always done it was figure out what my fixed expenses were and the rest was in the flexible spending(groceries, clothes and etc). If money was tight, I spent less on this and if I had more, I was more flexible. As I start looking into my retirement planning, I want to get there faster. I started reading some of the FIRE blogs and learned that for those who used to use YNAB, will appreciate the budgeting through https://aspirebudget.com/...
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My regular payment and extra payment posted to the student loan for February, and the current balance is $34,849.90.
Daily interest is down to $3.06/day. According to my tax documents, I paid $2,532.49 in interest for 2020. Ouch, but this would have been WAY more if I hadn't refinanced last January from federal loans at 6.8% to a private loan at 3.2%. At this time last year I was paying $11.59/day in interest. It is starting to feel like an end is actually in sight.
I have...
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My cousin, who has been like a brother to me, was diagnosed with cancer about 3 years ago. From the start, we knew it was inoperable/incurable. He has done a few rounds of chemo and a course of radiation and he has actually done extremely well... until just recently. His last scan showed that the last chemo just didn't work and the cancer progressed. He still felt fine, though, which was great. However, over the past few weeks, he has started to decline and have obvious symptoms...
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I think the January Eat from the Pantry Challenge went really well overall.  The best result for me is I am down to 20.2 pounds lost and I think no eating out (except when MIL bought us a pizza), is what really increased the loss.  We were able to save $640 into the Beef Fund, bringing that to a total of $760.  I kept $60 of the budget for the days February 1st through 5th for whatever we needed to buy before payday hits on the 5th.
We spent $100 on groceries for...
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Today was payday for us...here I was thinking that we were behind in savings...which we were...but I have paid all bills for the month, except groceries/gas...and have been able to add $650 to savings this pay...so we now more in savings than I thought we would have for the month...and still 1 more payday later in the month..so feeling good about that. I do know we will use some of it to move but not all of it, we haven't touched our ice acct..that is gaining a little as our roundup...
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This is the day I thought I would take Iggy to the vet for his final visit.  But I had to move my car for plowing before 8 am, and the only place I could find to park was way too far away for me to carry a heavy carrier, especially over ice and snow.  So I decided to take it as a sign -- not today.  And as luck would have it, Iggy seems much better and has even had a normal poop!  And he seems alert and peppy.  Go figure.
Tomorrow there will be another...
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We received an expedited certification today and are now official foster parents.  The step was taken to push this through because FD1's sister will be here on Friday.  So the next leg of this journey begins.  Part of the process includes a safety home inspection - which happened this morning.  In order to prepare for it, we decided to downsize and re-organize a couple of our current storage rooms.  (30 years of stuff can add up!)  Of course, decluttering...
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Thank you so much for your condolences. I truly am touched by your kindness & thoughtfulness.
My evening job has slowed down & I'm perfectly okay with that. I also took off February at my weekend job. I'm ready to scale back. 
Today I sent a full balance payment plus 10% to my credit card. I really want to keep both credit card balances as close to zero as possible from here on out. I'm being very mindful of spending as well. I've noticed that I've been doing a little...
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$11,551.02 Previous Balance
+__,__2.49 Interest Added
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$11,553.51 New Balance
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Since covid I'm sure as many others I have been cooking more.  I have to say my cooking skills in 1 year have greatly improved.  A lot of it stems from just cooking pretty much daily and often time 2x/day.  But with a new year and my DK1 turning 11 (I have a tween! WTH)  I realized that 11 years ago after first having my new baby I was an okay cook.  Let me explain.
When I left for college my mom was a terrible cook and still is.  Cooking was not...
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or number 16 since the refinance.
The regular monthly payment posts today, 2/3/21, bringing the principal balance down to $6,847.02. Since the previous regularly scheduled payment, I managed to pay an extra $3,691.29.  About $1,900 of that came from sinking funds, $600 from my stimulus payment, and the rest from my paychecks. The last payment date has moved up to 8/3/22; that is 1 years and 6 months to go if from this point forward I pay only the regular monthly payments. 
I...
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