Goal Number Two

Two weeks have past since I made that payment that brought our Amex bill down to $1k.  (I’ll be adding a few hundred dollars to each monthly payment to continue bringing the balance down.). Just this week I made my first $1k payment towards our second credit card.  (We only have the two.). My goal with this one is the same but with a smaller balance ($5k), I’ll be able to get this one done quickly.  

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that our water heater keeps plugging away until we’re done with this second goal but if not, we’ll just reallocate and adjust.  

In the evenings, I’m trying to get a baby quilt hand quilted in quick fashion.  After that is done, I need to work on our taxes before we decide how we will approach our car loan and motorcycle loan.  The motorcycle loan has a very small interest rate.  Paying it down would make it very easy to sell if we found ourselves in a tight spot.  On the other hand, I need that car to get to work so paying that down would give us $400 to go towards something else.  I keep forgetting that I can also roll the minimum payments I’m currently making and that will help getting some of these things paid off quicker.  For example, we automatically pay $150 to our chase account.  Once it’s paid down to $1k, the minimum payment will go down and I can reduce this amount by probably half and still make significant progress.  That’s $75 that can go to something else.....$400 regular car payment, $75 chase payment reduction, plus $2000 a month will pay off that car very quickly.  It gets a little exciting when you think of it that way.

I have been trying to use items from the freezer over the past few weeks.  

We Did It!

I just submitted a payment to our American Express account.  Our statement balance is now at exactly $1000!  That’s remarkable considering that we were carrying a $10k balance at one point last year.  My plan from here on out is to pay the amount charged each month plus at least $100 towards that balance.  Credit cards sometimes have the nasty habit of closing your account once you pay them off - we had that happen with a BOA visa years ago.  They really like getting all that interest each month.  Speaking of which, I recently looked at our paper bill and realized that they were charging 17% on the sign and travel balances.  Ouch!  Better get the rest of that paid off in 2019.

From here, I will start paying off our other credit card beginning in two weeks.  I will continue to make our regular $150 monthly payment (over the minimum) plus a large payment every two weeks.  

We need to replace our hot water heater and have a faucet that needs to be replaced. I hope we can postpone this until the second card is paid down.  

Our water heater is 18 years old and we can tell that it is not producing as much hot water.  We estimate it will be $1500-2000 for the water heater.  It’s a good move since may put our house up for sale in a few years.

A mostly frugal Weekend

My goal was to celebrate getting our first debt down to goal range by eating out at Longhorn.  Well, I didn’t get that payment made yet simply because we’ve been busy but we did eat at Longhorn on Friday night - for $15!  We earn points at work for rewards and acknowledgement of going beyond expectations.  I redeemed some points for a $50 Longhorn gift card and we paid the balance of $15 which included the tip.  I will be making that payment early this week.  Next payday, we move those big payments on to the second debt.  I estimate two months, maybe two and a half, to have that one paid off.  I very excited to see the balance after this next payment is made.  At one point over the year we’ve been working on this, the balance was at $10k!  Imagine, now...it’s just about gone.

I officially started working on my DWR quilt.  I started a new blog to document the process. Eppdwr.blogspot.com.  I have also finished the chevron portion of the top for the baby quilt.  Progress!

We bought an Amazon Fire Stick today (on clearance for $27) so we can watch tv and movies on Prime.  We’re already paying for it so why not?  I may track what we watch in March to see how we can cut our tv expenses, especially DirecTV.  We pay abou $135-140 a month just for tv.  Plus Amazon Prime and Netflix.

We spent this cold, cloudy February day cleaning up the garage.  We carted some kiddie stuff off to Goodwill, trash to the can and just some good old fashioned cleanup and organization.  I was able to put away all the groceries that were sitting in bags downstairs.  I spent $57 on groceries yesterday but I may go back for some deli meat and bread.

Pantry/Freezer Challenge Month

We started our pantry/freezer challenge this week although, I did buy regular groceries last weekend.  I will carefully craft a grocery list for Sunday to take advantage of what we have on hand.  No doubt, some meals will be rather simple.  When I took a peek in the freezer today, I discovered a restaurant box of bacon I had completely forgotten about.  We also have many packages of ground beef and chicken and a few packages of sausage.  I also have some fish there as well.

My grocery trip was very limited and I tried to focus on things to round out a meal.  I bought two packages (6 breasts) of chicken which was BOGOF at Publix along with two boxes (also BOGOF) frozen egg rolls.  I picked up some potatoes, a large bell pepper and a cucumber.  Total was under $50.

Sunday: Italy an Chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans

Monday: stuffed peppers with smoked sausage

Tuesday: stir fry chicken and vegetable fried rice

Wednesday: potato soup and blts

Thursday: fried rice and egg rolls

Friday - out or tbd

Sunday we also picked up some supplies for home repairs.  I was able to fix the flush on our guest toilet.  The part I bought before took too long to fill the tank and did not let enough water in the bowl.  For $9 this new part works much better.  We also bought hose bibs but we’re gonna need a plumber to work on this.  I also bought a new chime for our door bell.  Haven’t decided if we “need” this or not.  We decided to buy today and return later in the week if we did not need.