Thursday, September 10, 2015

Vacation on a Budget

Budgeting is hard.  Vacationing on a budget can be even harder.  

We took our first long weekend since we have been on the strict budget this past weekend.  We went to Gatlingburg TN with my Mom's side of the family for a Memorial Service for both my Aunt and Uncle.   Since there was 24 of us we rented out a large cabin for everyone.  So having a place to sleep came pretty cheap, which always help!

Because I have the dance team, we are using that pay as our travel pay.  Its not much but we were able to save two months of it so we had $300 to play with.

Its amazing how much money we would go through on a vacation before we budgeted.  The only money we took from our account was for a rental car that we got so we didn't put unnecessary miles on our car and that was only $45!  We asked for small and boy did we get what we asked for :)


On the way home Hubby looked at me and said "I'm proud of us and I don't feel like we missed out on anything we wanted to do!"  What a great feeling!



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Tuesday, August 18, 2015

First Month Totals

I think I understand why people just stay in debt.  This is not easy!  If anyone tells you that it is, they are lying and you should slap them :)

I knew that this would take time and patience.  Time I have no problem with, patience is what is going to kill me!  I think I look at my excel sheet about 1,000 times a day like it is going to change.  Sad news: it doesn't!

The exciting parts are as follows:

1.  You pay a debt off
2.  You get to celebrate that paid off debt

Well August we paid off three debts so is that three celebrations :)

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Monday, August 17, 2015

Life Update

Life has changed SO much since the last time I wrote!  I am married now to the love of my life and the most amazing man I have ever met.

We have decided we are going to become debt free so we sat down and entered all of our information into a free excel sheet that I found online.

We choose to do the avalanche method.  That is where you pay off your highest interest rate cards first.  Here is a snap shot of our plan.


No. Month Snowball Additional Citi #2 Citi #1 Discover  Chase Captial  Marriot  Loan  Car      END BALANCE
  Aug-15                         51937.81
1 Sep-15            -    500.00 275.00 88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  50761.41
2 Oct-15            -    500.00 275.00 88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  49567.35
3 Nov-15            -    500.00 275.00 88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  48355.26
4 Dec-15            -    500.00 275.00 88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  47124.80
5 Jan-16            -    500.00 275.00 88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  45875.59
6 Feb-16            -    500.00 275.00 88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  44607.24
7 Mar-16            -    500.00 275.00 88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  43319.36
8 Apr-16            -    500.00 275.00 88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  42011.58
9 May-16            -    500.00 275.00 88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  40683.47
10 Jun-16 97.63   597.63 156.37 88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  39355.61
11 Jul-16 254.00   754.00                   -  88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  38007.04
12 Aug-16 254.00   754.00                   -  88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  36637.25
13 Sep-16 254.00   754.00                   -  88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  35245.81
14 Oct-16 254.00   754.00                   -  88.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  33832.29
15 Nov-16 332.42   421.58                   -  420.42 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  32396.21
16 Dec-16 754.00                     -                    -  842.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  30938.37
17 Jan-17 754.00                     -                    -  842.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  29459.91
18 Feb-17 754.00                     -                    -  842.00 25.00 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  27960.48
19 Mar-17 754.00                     -                    -  765.83 101.17 100.00 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  26439.69
20 Apr-17 842.00                     -                    -                    -  758.25 208.75 230.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  24897.50
21 May-17 867.00                     -                    -                    -                    -  953.37 243.63 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  23336.81
22 Jun-17 967.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -  1197.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  21758.02
23 Jul-17 967.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -  1197.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  20162.47
24 Aug-17 967.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -  1197.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  18549.95
25 Sep-17 967.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -  1197.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  16920.25
26 Oct-17 967.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -  1197.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  15273.17
27 Nov-17 967.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -  1197.00 191.00 350.00                   -                    -  13608.48
28 Dec-17 967.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -  419.89 968.11 350.00                   -                    -  11925.98
29 Jan-18 1197.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -                    -  286.28 1451.72                   -                    -  10231.33
30 Feb-18 1388.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -                    -                    -  1738.00                   -                    -  8529.99
31 Mar-18 1388.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -                    -                    -  1738.00                   -                    -  6822.56
32 Apr-18 1388.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -                    -                    -  1738.00                   -                    -  5109.01
33 May-18 1388.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -                    -                    -  1738.00                   -                    -  3389.32
34 Jun-18 1388.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -                    -                    -  1738.00                   -                    -  1663.47
35 Jul-18 1388.00                     -                    -                    -                    -                    -                    -                    -  1669.43                   -                    -                  - 

















So yes it will take us some time but I will keep everyone updated :)
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