Blogging Away Debt Our Journeys to a Debt-Free Life

by Tricia

Hi Everyone! Tricia here. It’s time for a monthly update to see how we are doing. I will do these at least once a month on the last Friday of the month.

First things first – are we still credit card debt free? Yes! In the back of my mind, I kept wondering if something would happen out of the blue and set us back again. I was anxiously waiting for the end of the month to see if anything happened. A few days ago we did have a little scare when the check engine light came on in our car. We reset the light and so far it hasn’t come back on again so we hope it was a general misfire on our car’s part (it has done that in the past). I hope I didn’t jinx ourselves right there. We’ll see.

With things going so well, you’d think that we were able to replenish our savings account since we used some of it to pay off the last of our credit card debt. Well, we haven’t yet. We spent money on some other things.

The most important one was our health. Sure, we went to the doctor’s when we were sick while we were paying off debt, but it was a very reactionary approach to overall health. We decided that we needed to be proactive with our health and work to make ourselves as healthy as possible. A big part of that was finding a doctor that will help us with that. I wasn’t quite prepared for the sticker shock when it came to making sure our bodies have the correct fuel it needs to function properly.

For example, we found out that our son was deficient in a few vitamins and minerals. The total monthly cost for his supplements is $55/month. That will ease up once we revise our diets yet again (we did it once already to reduce sodium). I’ve been busy reading up on vitamins and minerals and trying to come up with a better menu for all of us since I suffer from vitamin deficiency as well. It’s funny, we thought we were eating healthier but in the process we were stripping ourselves of some very important nutrients.

It’s tough to spend money like we have this month, but we are taking care of the biggest assets we have…ourselves.

Another thing we did was spend money on our son’s extracurricular activities. We bought the bare minimum before, but we spent some more money there to get him better equipped. We also bought some equipment so mom and dad could participate as well to help him practice. It has been some very nice family time together.

Lastly, here is a big shocker. In a very weird turn of events, I was approached with a job offer. When one door closes, another one opens (life is funny that way). After some lengthy discussions, we decided that I would accept the job offer. Since I have been working at home for the past few years, I needed a new wardrobe since I would be working outside of the home in a professional position. I also decided to get a professional haircut to spruce myself up a bit.

Working at home has been a big money saver for us and I enjoyed the job that I had. It was a tough decision. In the end, we decided that the contacts I would make in regards to our business tipped the scales to the new position. There is a lot of value in that and I plan to fully capitalize on it. I’ve become pretty detached to the outside world since I started working at home and it was time to get back out there and network and make some friends.

That brings me to a business update. Things are still going well although sales have not increased this month. It’s been hectic around here with my new position and my husband is at the same job. We’re still getting used to yet another new schedule. Add our son’s events into the mix and it’s often go-go-go for us. It takes a while for the waves to calm down after rocking the boat. May has been a crazy month and we didn’t add any new products to our business or do any promotion.

We may decide to put some money into our savings this weekend. We have a healthy buffer in our checking account right now since we often ran things so close while in debt reduction mode. We could use that to put a little bit more into our savings. I have been updating my NetWorth IQ profile so if we end up using some of our buffer for our savings it will show up there in May’s update.

I’m not sure what next month will bring. We will likely be bringing in more money and we won’t be spending as much money so it should be a great month for us. Hopefully we will be able to contribute a large amount to our savings account. Then again, I never thought I would be working another job right now so it just goes to show how life is unpredictable. I guess we’ll see what June brings.

Hope all of you are doing well! 🙂