Using Coupons to Get Out of Debt

I decided I should start up my $20 challenge. Here are my "rules."

No spend days = $1 to the challenge
Loose change at the end of the week
Any extra money from sources other than couponing (extra money from couponing - rebates, etc. - will still go toward debt reduction)
I'll round up all debit card transactions to the next $1. I only use my debit card for gas and groceries so I anticipate a few dollars a month

I didn't spend anything yesterday so I'm adding my first $1 to the challenge. I have $5.96 to add to the challenge from my $1 rounding. (5-14)

The past couple months have been challenging for me financially. I let go of some of my frugal tendencies and reverted back to my old ways (not entirely but some). I didn't take out my spending money so I used my debit card instead of cash. I don't know exactly how much I slipped up but I do know a few things:

I still met my debt payment goals.
I maxed out my 2011 Roth.
Paid off my Discover bill with my tax return (about $3500).

Even though I fell off the wagon a little bit, I got back on for the month of May. I took out my piddly money at the beginning of the month and have been eating out way less. I've been bringing my lunches to work and making sure our groceries are being eaten, not throwing things away.

I took out $150 at the beginning of the month and I still have $107 left. The month is almost half over. My variable expenses for the month are a few gifts for friends with birthdays this month. I'll also probably go get a pedicure with a gift card that I got for Christmas. I'll just need to pay the tip.

I'm couponing for gas rewards. The other day, mom and I filled our tanks for $2.75 per gallon. I'm using coupons to get our gas cheaper. I paid $28.29 to fill my tank!

I have a bunch of money to deposit into my accounts:
$500 from my brother for bills
$40 in rebates
$89 in birthday money
$150 from a friend (debt repayment)
$10 in change
$468.85 work reimbursement

I need to pay a few bills (student loan and cell phones) but I will still have about $500 to put toward my Chase card.

I'm going to redo my budget and be more vigilant about my spending for next month. I should be able to make bigger payments to my credit cards considering how much lower my minimum payments are. I'm really trying to pay off these credit cards by July 28th!

My credit score last June or July was about a 680. It increased to 733 in August and dipped back down to 709 for about 8 months.

I just got an email that my score was ready for May and it is a 721! This is my first jump in quite a while so I'm excited. I need to pull my credit report and go through it with a fine tooth comb. I want to close out old stuff; I know I have a few store cards like JC Penney and Kohl's that I don't use, want or need. The credit limits are low so I'm not afraid of it affecting my credit score by a lot.

I also want to simplify my life and I feel like this is a good way to get my financial life a little more streamlined.

Yay!

Made a payment of $3460.00 to Discover today. It should post on Monday. I'm so excited to be well under $10k! I now owe $8425 to credit cards. Could I pay the rest off by my one year SA blogging anniversary? I'd need to pay it all off by July 28th. It's a bit of a stretch but if I come into any cash that I wasn't expecting, it might happen! I'd be happy getting it paid off by the end of the year!

For the record: $16,649.08 in credit card debt is GONE!

I used to make $785 a month in minimum payments. Now it's $110. $675 a month is going directly to principal! I couldn't be happier right now.

I filed my taxes today at H&R Block. I'll be getting back $4118 from Federal and $358 from state. I'm so excited about that. I kept really good records of my donations to charity this year and donated in excess of $20,000. It cost $247.50 to have my taxes prepared including a $35 fee for audit protection. Well worth it in my book. The tax preparer was awesome!

Now I have $4476 to figure out what to do with. I'll stew on it for a while! I'm thinking I'll go ahead and pay the Discover off and put the rest toward my savings goals. Not entirely sure though. I'm just glad to have it off of my plate and submitted!

Going to get my taxes done today. I'm nervous. In 2011, I donated $22k worth of items. I have no idea how that is going to factor into my return. I'm having it done with audit protection at H&R Block. No matter what it costs, it will be worth it to me to feel okay that a tax professional knows the rules and I will have protection if I get audited. I'm hoping for more than my typical return. I usually get about $2k so anything more than that would be awesome!

I just sent over the last transfer for my Roth. I started at the end of January and got $5k funded easily! Yay! I'm hoping I can average an extra $5k every 4 months. If so, I'll have my CCs paid off this year with no problem.

Trying to decide how I want to use my tax return. I could fund my car fund and some of my EF or Christmas with it (depending on how big it is). Or I could pay off part of the Discover CC. I might do that to ensure I can pay it off before October when the interest increases.

I really need to take a look at my budget/bank account to figure out if my budget is working. I think I might need to increase my gas/groceries. I'm not sure where the extra cash will come from. We also need to get back into cooking in advance and eating in. BF and I have been bad about that.

I just made another deposit into my bank account and transfered the cash into my 2011 Roth. I now have just about $4000! I know it will pay off to have retirement funds saved early on so I continue to be happy with my decision to get the account starte and funded. I've deposited $3k between mid Jan and mid March; quite an accomplishment if you ask me.

I'm still on target to meet my credit card goals for the end of the year/beginning of next. After I fund the Roth, I'll average about $500-$750 a month to credit card payments on top of the minimums that I already pay. Factor in my tax return and I'll probably be able to pay the Discover off by June or July.

I've been having some horrible wrist pain and have an appointment with a specialist tomorrow morning. Hopefully whatever she recommends will be covered by my insurance!

Hi all!

I definitely still have some work to do but I feel pretty good financially right now. I just deposited $1200 into my savings and have another $900 to deposit soon. Once I have it all in my bank account, I'll transfer to my Roth, bringing me up to $3000 for 2011. My goal is to max out the 2011 Roth. Hopefully, I can meet this goal and not need to rely on BF to help me out. I think it's doable but it means, I need to stay frugal.

One area I haven't been so good in is sticking to my monthly piddly allowance. I've already spent the $150 for March - the problem was that I took it out before March actually started so I spent more than I'd hoped. I'm only allowing myself dinner/coffee out when I have gift cards (BF gave me a half used Starbucks card that I will treasure this month)!

The March bills are all paid so I'm hoping to just coast for the rest of the month without spending anything extra. I have $330 left for groceries and gas which should do me just fine (I anticipate spending about $180).

My last post was about how January was coming to an end. It's already midway through February and I haven't really thought about finances at all. In fact, I've been scatterbrained about paying my bills on time. I have fallen off of the proverbial band wagon. Slightly.

To wrap up January, I transferred another $500 to my 2011 Roth. Right now I have $1637 in the account (another $100 came out of my checking automatically).

I haven't made any additional payments to my credit cards; just the minimums until I max out my Roth. I've been paying my bills as the deadlines come up. I pretty much know them by heart so I log in to make payments when they're coming up.

I haven't stuck with my piddly budget this month. I know exactly why: I revert back to bad habits when I'm stressed. Boy am I stressed! Work is insanely busy for me right now. I work late, weekends, etc. I'm so busy I sometimes forget to take breaks, drink enough water, and eat regularly. It's really bad.

So, I buy more coffee and lunch out. I'm so tired, I don't want to pack lunches/prepare for things in advance. I also feel the need to treat myself to things I don't really need. Bad, bad, bad. It could be way worse: it's only been about 2 weeks. I'm trying to right these wrongs so February isn't a total loss! I think I probably spent $50-$100 more than I would have liked. I need to actually do my budget to know for sure which I plan to do this weekend.

So, all that to say, I miss this place and I need to start following these blogs again. It makes me see that people are also frugal and it makes me accountable!

The bills are all paid. I paid off BoA and two small credit card balances from Christmas. I also put $1000 to my Roth. I have about $20 waiting to clear on my checking for a prescription.

I have $140 in my purse to deposit into my checking, $90 coming back into checking from Paypal (two returns from Christmas), $62 coming from my mom for car insurance and $140 from Rite Aid rebates. Nick is going to "buy" a couple gift cards from me for $100. That's about $550 I'll send to Roth at the end of the month.

Gas and groceries for the rest of the month will come from gift cards.

Plan to max Roth for 2011:
I already have $1000 in the account
I have $550 set aside
I set up monthly contributions of $100 so that'll be $300 by April 17th.
37% of the way there.

I'll need to average $1050 between now and April 17th. I'll probably file my taxes somewhere in there so it should be no problem at all. I just talked to my boyfriend about borrowing money for my bills if I see that I don't have enough by April 17th. I'm thrilled to have a plan to pull this off!

So I easily opened my Roth with Fidelity the other day. I transferred $1,000 into it with the leftover bonus money instead of paying Discover extra. I realized I'm better off maxing my Roth for 2011 and worrying about the CC debt later. I think I'll be fine paying them off before the interest increases so it makes more sense to me.

But now I have this Roth and no idea what to do with it. My Traditional IRA is also with Fidelity and they do all the work with it. I've seen it steadily increase over time but there are people trading, etc. I put the money into a Freedom 2050 account and am being aggressive with the money since I'm young.

I need to do a lot more research on my IRA. Looking at basic investment account information, I know I want a Roth but I don't know how or what to invest in or if I need to do any work at all.

That'll be my project for this weekend. I'm also talking to my BF, trying to get him to also get a Roth and fund it by April. He has the cash sitting in his account so it wouldn't be too hard for him. Open account, transfer money. In fact, he could fully fund 2011 and 2012 right now and pay off his truck and student loan if he had the motivation to make the transfers. It might take more prodding then I think.

After reading a post about retirement contributions, I decided that I wanted to change my debt repayment schedule. In order to maximize my newly opened Roth IRA account, I will still pay my credit card minimums but max my 2011 contributions of 5k.

I will make this another 2012 savings goal as well. I've always known that I wanted to contribute more to my retirement but wasn't sure how or when to do so. I'm confident I will still meet my goal of paying off my debt by next June and contributing to my retirement and other savings goals.

I made my final payment to BoA today. It should post tomorrow. That's another credit card: GONE! I'm so excited. As I mentioned before, I have a feeling my goals to pay these cards off will go much faster than anticipated.
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I've been doing well using the gift cards mentioned here: http://gettingoutofdebt2011.savingadvice.com/2011/12/20/gift-cards_88461/

So far, I used $125 to pay for gas and groceries. I transferred all of that to savings from my checking account to put to CC debt. It feels good to be using these cards for good things instead of just using them for fun. I have about $1000 left in my savings that I can use to make a big payment to my next card: Discover. That'll put me at about $2800. It would be awesome if I can get under $2500 this month. We'll see; it might happen.

And on that note, I'm under $12k in credit card debt.

When I started in August I owed $25301.28. I've paid $13698.64 in 6 months!!!!!!! What an incredible feeling.

I just bought a GPS for $109. My bf found me a great deal on a Garmin Nuvi. It was on sale and we had a coupon code for $40 off. It retails for $249 so I'm happy with that price!
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I'm making a payment on Monday (once I deposit the check) for the BoA balance of $1208.01. So that leaves me with about $900. I also have an extra $300 from rebates. I think I'm going to use the $1200 and pay a big payment to Discover. I'd love to get Discover under $2500 this month, if possible.
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That said, I feel like SUCH a fool for not paying off this debt sooner. I really did feel like I never had enough money and was never going to pay the cards off. Now that I'm serious, it feels SO easy. Sometimes, I'm annoyed that it took me so long and other times, I'm glad I figured it out at all.

My boss gave me my 2011 holiday bonus check last night. It was for $2900 pre-tax, $2200 after taxes!!!! I'm super excited! I was hoping for something in this range and I'm glad our company is doing so much better than we've done in the previous two years. I've already earmarked at least $1200 for debt repayment (goodbye BoA). I'm debating on whether or not I want to put the rest towards EF, car fund, or more debt repayment. I'm going to crunch some numbers tonight and figure out where I stand for the rest of January. That'll help me decide how I should use the rest of the money.

I am planning on one small splurge: a GPS. I've needed one for a long time!

Now, I'm excited to see what my tax refund is!

Aside from my financial goals, I'm adding some other goals to my list for 2012.

Lose 5 pounds
Drink 50 oz of water a day (empty my water bottle twice)
Take yoga class once a week
Save more money at the grocery store with coupons
Make more meals at home
Save $25 in piddly money every month and put towards Christmas 2012
Keep better track of my passive income
Make blog posts twice a week
Start $20 challenge

I'm not sure if I mentioned on here before that I moved in with my boyfriend in July/August. The living together part has been awesome! We love spending a lot of time together especially cooking. I was kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop but the adjustment hasn't been hard at all. We are both laid back and supportive of each others wants and needs. It's been pretty seamless.

We will be moving again next summer since his job is relocating so I'm sure we will start having more conversations about finances. It's got me thinking about our financial situation. I want to talk about our financial goals early and often but I don't know what to even talk about!

We're not entirely on the same page financially. For instance, he makes considerably more money than I do and has a large amount of money saved (~$50k). He leaves it all in his checking account. I would be doing so much with that money if I had it!!! I don't know exactly what because I have no real knowledge about stock/investments, etc. But I would at least have it in a CD or high yield savings!

Our apartment is much nicer than I can really afford. We have an agreement that I would only pay a portion instead of splitting it. I have mentioned downgrading (within reason) to something less nice (our apartment is beautifully furnished with stainless steel, granite countertops, etc.). We don't really need all of that extra stuff but he doesn't really want to. He makes well over $100k per year and doesn't mind spending $1450 (or more) per month on rent. I would rather live in an apartment that's less nice and save for a house. It would be awesome to have a HUGE down payment.

He really wants me to pay off my debt so that's been my/our financial focus. He told me that he's really proud of me for doing so well and I am really proud of myself. Once this debt is paid off, I'd love to put all of my income into savings ($45k per year) and rely solely on his income to support us. That savings could help buy a house or support our family so that I can stay home when we have kids.

I really want to get on the same page as him. Any advice? Did any of you have differing financial goals/expectations before settling into a commitment with your partners? I'd be curious to know how it worked out, etc. Thanks in advance for any insight!

I have a bunch of gift card rewards at home that I want to turn into cash. Most of them are Visa/Mastercard/American Express cash cards but I also have a Walmart gift card.

(5) $10 Kimberly Clark Cars2 (Huggies)
(4) $10 P&G Pink Mail in Rebates
$100 Walmart gift card (Gift)
$50 Visa Gift card (Gift)
(2) $10 Amex Gift Cards (CVS promotion)
(3) $25 Amex Gift cards (store promotion)
(2) $25 Mastercard Gift Cards (Prilosec Rebates)
=$375 which is almost my entire grocery/gas monthly budget

My plan is to use the gift cards to buy groceries and gas and then make a $375 payment to my credit card du jour. The only annoying thing is that they are split into smaller amounts so that could be frustrating. I'll try to use the smaller amounts at the gas station so I'm the only one inconvenienced (could be more hassle at the grocery store).

I am big into rebates recently. I'm trying to get as much cash as I can to pay off my credit cards by taking advantage of rebates when items are free after coupons and store rewards. I send checks to my mom's house and she cashes them for me. In exchange, she gets anything from my stockpile that she wants so win-win.

Anyway, mom found three rebate checks that she never cashed totaling $62. The technically were expired (no longer valid after 90 days) but the bank took them and they cleared so I have an extra $62 bucks! YAY!

I also have another $100 from Rite Aid rebates in my wallet waiting to be cashed.

My dad came through with $400 for this month and my mom paid me $50 she owed me. I'm hoping to get at least a $500 payment off to BoA this month (hoping my total will be under $1500 by year end).

In addition, I have $270 in gift cards (all Visa or Mastercard) that I want to get into cash for bills. My plan is to buy gas and groceries with the money and put the cash toward my bills.

Plus my brother owes me $300.

That puts me at $1182. Goal for BoA = doable.

My Christmas budget has been $500 or less for the last few years. Last year, I went for $100 or less and it was a huge success since my big gift to the women of my family was professional photos of us kids/grandkids taken by my boyfriend. The photos were free (...I bought my boyfriend lunch!) and the frames were free at Rite Aid. So it was pretty easy to spend less than $100 last year. I also did stockings with all of my couponing stuff that I got for free.

This year, I'm going with the $500 budget (almost half of that goes to my boyfriend's gift). My family has been increasingly hard to buy for and we don't do a huge Christmas. I've put off some shopping since I have no idea what to get. My biggest hurdle is my mom. I want to get her something she'll use and love but I can never think of anything. I have a small list of people (only 7):

Grandmother: Hershey Bars (she literally told us she will take nothing else)
Brother: Star Wars DVD
Boyfriend: keg kit
Uncle: customized sweatshirt
Goddaughter: Justice gift card
Aunt: Kohl's gift card
Mom: ?

Stocking gifts:

Grandmother: Centrum, Polident
Brother: M&Ms, Oreos
Boyfriend: rolling pin, fleece sweatshirt
Uncle: flossers
Goddaughter: shampoos, conditioners, nail polish
Aunt: flossers
Mom: extension cord

Non- family:
Godson: PJs, T shirt, toy
Boyfriends family: 3 gift baskets from couponing stuff

I have most of the gifts picked out, I just need to go buy the stuff. All of the money comes out of this month's pay so no credit cards or dipping into savings.

As I've been reading other peoples blogs, I realized that I've never had financial goals. I think that since I grew up in a household where everything was always paycheck to paycheck, it never occurred to me that I could or should make goals. I don't really even know what kinds of goals I should make. Up until this point, my goals have always been to payoff debt. I have a feeling that it is going to happen much faster than anticipated so I'm excited about making some goals for 2012. I'm starting out conservatively:

Savings:
$2500 Emergency Fund
$1500 Car fund
$500 Christmas
Start $20 challenge

Debt repayment:
$5000 - pay off BoA and Discover

I started out on Thursday with $140 in piddly money and I have $34 in my pocket

I know I can replace $50 of it since I spent $38 on cat litter and $12 on cat food. I since remembered that I added a category to my budget for pet supplies.

Other than that, I spent:
$15 on a rolling pin for BF's stocking
$16 for dinner out
$5 I owed my mom
$4 for Starbucks

I can't remember where the other money (about $30) went which is disappointing since I obviously didn't care enough about the items to even remember them.

I did pretty good this month. So far, I'm liking my plan to pay big chunks off of my debt at the end of the month so that I'm sure everything goes through correctly. I paid off about $1800 to debt this month. $935 to Citi (plus my work reimbursements), $308 to US Bank and $623.41 to BoA. That makes me at the $2k mark on that card! Yippee! I'm also under the $15k mark which is AMAZING!


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I just looked at some old financial records and I owed just over $35k in credit cards in 2007. Even though I haven't been 100% serious about it, I did pay off $10k in 4 years. It was a slow process (only $2,500 per year) but at least I wasn't gaining more debt or remaining in the same place which makes me happy. To think I paid off a similar amount of money in a few months makes me a little queasy but it is what it is! I'm happy to be below the $15k mark!


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I'm starting to think about my work bonus and raise. I'm hoping I get something decent this year. My company has struggled for the past two years since a good amount of our work comes from federal funding. Last year and the year before, we had to take furlough days (unpaid days off) which decreased our salaries for a total of about 9 months. Last year, we came out with a profit (my company does profit sharing) so I ended up with a bonus check that pretty much covered my unpaid days off. We haven't had to take furlough days and we are having a holiday party this year so it looks good. I think we are in a good spot financially so I'm hopeful!

My responsibilities have also increased dramatically so I hope to get a good raise. I'm planning on asking for a raise no matter what so I'm hoping to get something good!

My mom gave me $110 for my student loans this month. She recently got laid off and hasn't been able to contribute anything for a while. Apparently, I gave her this $110 a while ago and she can't remember for what (and neither can I) so she just gave it back.

She knows how I'm trying to pay down my CC debt so this is her way of trying to help. I'll take it!

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I made the final payment on my US Bank card so that's completely gone! Yay! I paid all of the Citicard off except for the rest of my work reimbursements. My plan is to go into the office tomorrow morning to pick up my work check, deposit it at the bank and stop by the post office (maybe go couponing as well).
Once the check clears, I'll pay the rest of Citi before the next statement to avoid interest(Dec 7).

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So, I worry a lot about my mom. She has absolutely no savings and no retirement account to speak of (aside from Social Security which she thinks is enough). She got laid off at 53 but has little prospects for a job. She has very little skill - she was a cook/cleaner for a church. She does odd little things like errands for people, babysitting, and is a care taker for my neighbor next door. I think she probably nets $800 a month which is better than nothing but it's so stressful on her. Luckily, she owns the house and her car free and clear (she'll need a new car soon) so her expenses aren't huge on a month-to-month basis but she has no EF which terrifies me.

She is not handling being laid off well. Her attitude stinks and when I call her, she doesn't want to talk or just complains. Then she complains that I don't call her or see her enough. It's really frustrating. I'm trying to be sympathetic and the best listener I can be. I think it's hard on her because she's alone, too. My brother lives at home but he's not good for chatting like I am.

On top of that, her spending habits drive me nuts. Her idea of quality time is going out to eat. That's all she ever wants to do and it's never to cheap places like a sandwich shop or burrito place, it's always a casual dining restaurant at least. She spends $40, $50 bucks a pop probably 2-3 times a week. I just don't see how she can afford that lifestyle since she's out of work. She gets mad at me that I won't pay since I "have the money and a job." But I hate saying no because that's her idea of "quality time." So often, I don't say no but don't offer to pay for her meal and then she just pays for the whole thing. It's frustrating because I do have more money than she does but I don't choose to spend my money that way anymore.

So all of that to say: I invited her over on Sunday for a homemade turkey dinner (since I'll be at my boyfriend's family for Thanksgiving). I hope we can start a trend of eating in. I hope that will be the quality time she craves. I told her all about my freezer cooking escapades so I hope she starts cooking more stuff, too (she never cooks!).

Ok, so I didn't hit the lottery per say. I have never been a gambler since I'd rather just keep my money. I've been gifted a few scratch tickets in my Christmas stocking and I sometimes win a couple of bucks. One time I won $100 so that was nice.

I went to a casino twice: I played the penny slots both times and once I won fifty bucks. You should have seen how fast I took that money and booked it! I was so excited to get lunch and gas for free! Haha.

Well, my dad is a big gambler. He's really struggled with addiction for a lot of his life (drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, etc.) Since maybe the mid 1990's, he's been doing really well with those addictions: doesn't drink, smoke, do drugs, etc. But he does gamble quite a bit.

So he hit a scratch ticket for $2500. He wins pretty regularly: usually under $500. He hit the number for $380 the night before he hit the scratch ticket. And a few weeks ago he hit for $100 then $200, etc. He certainly loses out most of the time (he never knows what he spends) but I'd rather him gamble than drink so it is what it is. He's able to live on what he makes and he's not in debt of any kind.

He's such a good dad! His first thought was my tution so he went ahead and gave me $500 and he'll give me another $500 at the end of the month for December. I'm so excited to pay that directly to BoA. I wonder if I'll be able to pay off the BoA by the end of the year (6 months early!). It feels far fetched but one never knows!

And, I've started thinking a lot about my holiday bonus and tax return. I know I'll be getting something from both which makes me smile!

I have almost $1000 to pay toward debt repayment this month.

$72 random cash (I sometimes will give random couponing stuff away to friends and they feel weird taking it for free so I let them throw me some cash, including rebates)
$150 health care rebate for belonging to a gym
$50 rewards check from Chase
$250 debt repayment from friends
$472 from car accident

I also need to submit for 2 reimbursements from my company. One for my travel to Philadelphia and one for mileage reimbursement for driving around to schools in the past month. That's about $1200. I don't mind fronting the money on my credit card to get the rewards. About $200 of it is just profit from the mileage reimbursement (yes, that accounts for the wear and tear on my car but it's nice to have some extra cash).

I also need to collect $225 from my brother and $62 from my mom. By my calculations, that's about $2500. Of course about $1000 is from the travel but $1500 can go directly to pay off the Citi and US Bank cards and the rest will go to the BoA card.

I have upcoming travel for work to Philadelphia. I'll be away from next Monday to Thursday. I'm excited because I get to indulge on the little things that I occasionally miss like Starbucks and FroYo. Plus all of my meals and other expenses are covered, too. And, I don't have to pay to park for 4 days out of this month which is a savings of $32! I will also charge all of the expenses and get reimbursed so I can rack up some CC rewards points! Yay!

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I'm thrilled about my balance transfers. They are finally completed. I have a slight grace period since the billing cycle won't start for another month so I think I'll take the money I would use to pay those bills and try to eliminate the Citi and US Bank card this month. Once those are gone, my highest interest rate will be 1.99% and considering a month ago I was paying between 16.99% and 18.99%, I think that's pretty darn good! My goal is to pay them off well before the promotional periods are over!

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I need to do some adjustments to my budget and figure out my new snowball with the new monthly credit card payments. Once I figure it out, I will know for sure what I should plan on paying extra. It was $410 before so I'm hoping it's a little higher now.

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I've already paid all of my November monthly bills except for the large credit card payments so I know I won't mess up again and almost fall short. It's a relief to know that things are settled on that end. Since I'll be away next week for work (and the bf will, too). We won't need groceries or gas for the week. I think I'll be able to pay even more considering we'll be away for Thanksgiving, too.

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Not much else to report on. I'm swamped with paperwork from my 2 accidents and I need to take my car to get it looked at again. Hopefully, this will resolve itself soon enough.

I got rear-ended AGAIN today by a woman as I was pulling onto the highway. At least she stopped and exchanged information, etc. I need to go get an estimate on the damage and call her back with the amount. If she doesn't want to pay to have it fixed, we'll go through insurance. UGH. More paper work and people to pay for.

I don't really have many financial updates to post. Well sort of...I got into a car accident last Sunday (rear-ended and the other guy drove off- can you believe that?). Since it was a hit and run and the police were called, his insurance accepted 100% liability right off the bat. They came last Friday for an estimate and wrote me a check on the spot for $472 for the damage to my bumper. The appraiser handed me my check and said it was my choice if I wanted to get it fixed. My car is a 1999 and I don't really care about cosmetic damage (you can barely tell anyway) so I decided not to get the bumper fixed. I needed to get two tie rods fixed, an alignment and an oil change so I took that check and it paid for everything and I still have $120 left over!

I went to the doctor on Monday because my back felt really tight and I had some lower back pain. They gave me some muscle relaxants and told me if I don't feel better in about a week, I should start PT. I called today since I felt pretty much fine over the weekend but when I'm sitting down at work, the pain comes back. I hope they do some massage therapy or something because it's really, really tight!

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Not many other updates. I started freezer cooking two weekends ago. I made a meatloaf, lasagna casserole and beef burritos. They came out awesome! This weekend I made chicken and bow tie pasta, chicken alfredo w pesto, and chicken tikka masala. Again, everything is delicious. My problem is that I didn't really read the servings so now I have a TON of these meals. I froze about 1/2 and we'll eat the other half this week. I love that I can reheat leftovers, make a small salad and be done with dinner! I spent $60 each week for all of the weekly groceries plus the ingredients for all the freezer meals. I'm happy with that but I would love for our budget to go down to $40 a week (or less)! We buy a ton of fresh veggies and my BF loves deli meat (a very specific kind and no other will do). $7 for 3/4 pound is a lot of money in my opinion.

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I think November will be easier financially. My balance transfers are DONE! I have a good plan set up for my payments and I have a bunch of found money to add to debt repayment this month. I'm hoping I can pay off Citicard and US Bank this month. That will bring me under $16k in CC debt.

Oh boy did I screw up this month. I think it will work out in the end but it was difficult to make it through.

I had set up monthly payments a while back for the amount at the bottom of my bill that would get me out of debt faster - the 3 year plan. It was less than $100 more a month for each card but it would go directly to principal. I decided against that about 2 months into paying off my debt and I figured out pretty quickly that monthly automatic payments don't work for me. I like going into my accounts and knowing exactly what is going on with all of my accounts.

So because I forgot about the automatic payments, I ended accidentally paying my Citicard twice this month. I paid the minimum of $250 and another $355 (3 year plan). I decided to use my credit card to pay for my glasses (they cost $271 which is just less than the overpayment). Well when I went to pay, the credit card was declined. The problem was that I hadn't used the card in over 2 years then I went into Walmart and I made two small purchases then tried the big purchase. My account was flagged for fraud so it was declined. I was embarrassed so I just put it on my debit card. Then I realized I was short $626. Ugh.

I had also made the choice to pay off my Discover card this month. I deposited a bunch of money from extra sources and I knew that I could pay it off. I regretted it for a little bit but I knew I could get by if I tried. My goal is to never touch my savings.

So, I decided to be extra thrifty. I was able to get Walmart to switch the charge back over to my credit card instead of my debit card. I deposited my piddly money ($117) back into my checking account and made myself do without it for the month. I convinced my brother to pay me a bit early for the cable and internet bill.

I'm pretty sure made it through the month unscathed!

I paid $1830 to debt and charged $328.24 to my Citicard. That's $1501.76 in credit card payments this month!

To combat my over ambition, I decided that I'm going to pay all of my non credit card bills first. Student loans, utilities, etc. Then I'll figure out how much I can put to credit card bills. I was reluctant to do that since I have tried that method since college and always found something to spend the money on. I feel like I have my goals in place and I'm on my way to meeting them. It feels good to trust myself with the extra money.

November looks like a much easier month.