After my last discouraging post, I thought it would be good to share some better news. We are once again back on track with paying off our debt. Hubs check hit our checking account today, and I took care of a few bills. I made the mortgage payment for February, and also went ahead and paid our escrow shortage of $798. By paying it online, it saved me a stamp and a personal check. Before doing so, I called our lender to make sure the funds would be appropriately applied. While their site has line items for things like additional principle, additional escrow, etc., we had a bad experience with our previous lender not getting things right, so I just wanted to be sure. [Read more…]
$11.94. Yep, that is how much we reduced our debt by last week. Not good. Putting our snowball on hold to cover our escrow shortage of $798 did not sit well with me, and that is where the $11.94 came into play. I just had to reduce our debt by something, no matter how small! I cashed out what little I had in my Amazon M-Turks account and then sent exactly that amount to our Visa. Crazy, huh? 
Happy New Year everyone! Sorry that the blog has been so quiet. With Hubs home for the holidays, working more hours with the kiddo, my business picking up (clearance sales!) and what feels like endless issues with my elderly father, well, life has been a bit chaotic. 
I’m back at it today, playing with the pesky numbers. Before I delve into all what’s on my mind, let me first give a mini update as to where we currently stand with our debt payoff. As the usual, not a lot of change in the first half of December. We paid another $600 towards Citi, bringing it down to $4,200. Our Visa remains at $8440.44 as the statement closing date is later in the month. For those who dislike math, our total owed is now $12,640.44. 
The past week has been busy, both on a work level and personal level. I covered a lot more hours with the baby while his grandmother was out of town. I’m happy with the extra money I earned but will say I didn’t enjoy the early mornings, long days or my RLS symptoms which were exacerbated by being more tired. Those earnings certainly do come with a price! Anyhow, the purpose of today’s post isn’t to complain about my physical ailments. Tough decisions are what has been weighing heavily on my mind. 
What does one do on a snow day? Well, for one thing, I avoid going anywhere! We’ve been under a Winter storm warning all day and still have several hours to go. Accumulation total of up to 12 inches is what the weather reports said we could see. Hard telling how much we’ve had as the wind has been blowing the snow sideways most of the day. Clearing the driveway isn’t going to happen until the weather settles down a bit. So glad I didn’t have to go anywhere. Same goes for tomorrow. 
We have returned from our trip to visit family. Our primary reason for going was to visit our aging parents. At their ages (my dad is 90, and my MIL is 91) putting it off until we pay off our debt isn’t a good option. I last saw my dad in July. Sadly, I noticed a considerable decline in his cognition. We stayed at his condo for two nights, and there were many times it was almost as if he was unaware we were even there. More and more, he is retreating into his own little world. As difficult as it was to see these changes, I am happy that for his sake he is so unaware. Of course, this will present its own set of challenges when we do move him to assisted living. When I brought up the subject, he was adamantly opposed. Unfortunately for us as a family, we will need to cross that bridge sooner than later. On a brighter note, given his age, physically he is doing exceptionally well. Although we strongly discourage it, he even navigates stairs with relative ease. 
As tends to be my norm lately, I am late with giving an update. With only two debt remaining in our snowball, there isn’t a lot going on. I must say that it feels strange being down to just these two debts. I have looked at my budget binder countless times making sure I haven’t missed a payment somewhere. No complaints. I’ll gladly take this new strange feeling! 
Oh my. What a busy week we just had. Hubs was home for an entire week, and we were on the go pretty much non-stop. This time he flew back and forth, which for me, also meant making two trips to the airport. No complaints as he is well worth it!