FPU- Week 1

Financial Peace University Class one!!

It went well, It was hilarious and we really enjoyed it. John and I look forward to getting out of debt, giving, and saving. We also can't wait to get more involved in this church. : )

Been busy.

Keeping the ball rolling....

Okay, so we have paid off a few more credit cards... just left with two that have balances... one with a lower balance and one with a higher...We will have those paid of by September, possibly sooner. We will see how we do at the yard sale. The yard sale money will be going to paying off our credit card debt.

Today we went through and reorganized the storage room at the back of the building. Next weekend and possibly slowly over the next week, we will be going through our storage that we pay for and throwing stuff out, putting stuff in the yard sale pile and moving stuff into the house or storage here. We found even more stuff to sell while going through the back room, I know we will find more to sell in our storage.. We are on a roll.

We would work on it tomorrow, BUT john picked up some overtime, soo after we go to check out a new church he will be heading off to work : ( But any overtime he works is more to put towards being debt free!

Once we have the cards paid off we will be doubling up the car payment. Then when income tax comes around, we will put what we get back to paying off the car, if there is any leftover then it will go to paying off the student loans. Once the car is paid off then we will attack the student loans. They are quite extensive, so I fear it may take us at least two years or longer for them alone. We will see ; )

The kids are doing good. Auroras eye infection seems to be completely gone, we did all the drops. Today she was able to go back to ballet class, which she was very excited about. Johnny is good, just here there and everywhere, picking up new words all the time. I am trying to work ahead on my school work.

Oh and we got new tires for the car, it was badly needed. I guess the front tires were almost bald, we were happily able to pay cash. We will also be paying cash for our vacation in a little over a week. I almost feel guilty for going on this little vacation because we could be putting the money towards the bills. Yet we did scale down our vacation considerably (We are talking thousands of dollars here...)

Feeling a bit down

Okay, so today has had its ups and its downs. Tomorrow we will finish baby step number 1. Then it looks like another card will get paid off tomorrow, which is awesome. And part of another card will get a big payment to it.

We wrote out our monthly budget, which was cool. Now we have to stick to it. Yet a few people have been negative about this.. Which I know Im to expect, but man it brings you down... But oh well. I WILL DO THIS!

Oh and I am pilling even more stuff for our yard sale, we picked a day. Just in case anyone close by is interested...we will have things like an old xbox plus games, kids toys, kids clothes, a crib, a bath safe seat, a tv, tv stand, possibly a zune (just depends on whether we want to sell it there online...), a single stroller, so on and so forth..

Im so excited

And I know that some people think thats weird.. but i am. Im excited to be on our path to getting out of debt. Honestly I knew we were heading down that road, but now I feel as thought we have a stronger foundation and I have a fellow blogger on her to thank for that! I am a follower of her blog and I have often heard her mention Dave Ramsey... here is her blog:

http://zarikailah.blogspot.com/

Her blog inspired me to find out just who this man is! I had never heard of him, so I googled him, found his website and found out what he was all about. That made me even more interested and now Im halfway through his book that I bought yesterday and PUMPED UP. We will be doing a garage sale, we have so much useless junk around here..useless to us at least, but its mostly in good condition. We are just such pack rats... its time to start getting rid of some of this. So we will see how we do at the garage sale, but whatever we make is going towards paying down the bills... If we keep it up maybe we can be debt free sooner than I thought!

Oh and I already have naysayers! People dont think we can do it, and while I do question at times whether I can, I know that if we sacrifice and work hard we can do it

Its time to be DEBT free!

Maybe If I post this in some public forum it will give me even more drive to see it through. John and I have decided that this year is the year we will get ourselves completely out of credit card debt. Actually we have a five year plan to help us succeed in our financial goals. This year we are just focusing on credit card debt, next year we will be focusing on paying off our car.

I don,t feel like we have a ton of credit card debt, but the amount has grown over the years and we have more than i would like to, like to being zero lol. So right now I paid off one of my cards, one of the lower balances, but a card nonetheless and called and had the card shut down. I know this may negatively affect my credit for sometime, but I felt it was the best route. I do not need it anymore, actually I am appalled at how many credit cards I own, I have already decided to close a few..keeping one major and one minor for emergencies.

John and I need to learn to cut spending in areas that we spend to excess. John is an avid video gamer... and we just dont need all these gadgets.. and my kryptonite is kids clothes, I LOVE to shop for clothes for our kids.. So alas, I will cut back out of necessity! (They are running out of room in the closet!..which i already have plastic pull out bins at the bottom and double hanger rods)

We also need to eat out less...which we actually have been doing for awhile now..we jut have to keep it up. When I worked for that short time, we fell into a bad habit of eating out..but when I quit we have worked to getting back to eating at home.

And of course we have other goals for the next five years.. ; )

And if i were an OSCAR MEYER weiner...

Today I heard the Oscar Meyer weinie mobile was going to be at our local grocery store. But that will come later.

This morning I got to sleep in for two hours, which was very nice. Then I got up and dressed Aurora for ballet/tap. Dad took johnny for us, while John and I took Aurora to her class. She did alright, still not listening to the teachers 100%, they said that will come in time. She will randomly say she needs to see mommy and daddy and try to leave. Its kinda painful to watch lol. But she is so excited to go and she enjoys the class, but she just needs to learn to listen to someone other than her mommy and daddy.

After that we came home. John left for work. I changed her clothes, listened to some loud country music and completely cleaned the living room. As soon as dad came home with johnny we set off. Dad, Me, the two kiddos, Ross, and my friend nikki and her boyfriend jason. We went to the grocery store and sang a song, got wenie whistles, and stickers, then got to see the inside and outside of the weenie mobile. Then we did some grocery shopping and went home.

Once at home we got home I just did some odds and ends stuff around the house, put dinner in the oven, then went to the movies, came home, finished dinner with the kids. Bathed the kiddos and all that, put them to bed, now here I am... waiting for john to be home soon : )

Bzzzz

Ive been a busy bee lol.

Ive had school, Mondays and Wensdays I have math, which im doing pretty good in so far... heres hoping that with studying, doing my homework, and going to every class Ill continue to do well. I also have English online, which ive got assignments done ahead of time, and i am doing well. It comes easier to me than math.

The kids and I have been walking every day, that it hasnt rained. We have really enjoyed our little walks, we cant go too far, my father likes to go with us and complains if we walk too far. The house is relatively cleaned, not to perfection, thats what im going to work on this next week. Ive decided to give myself a week of projects then a week of cleaning. Ive been sewing a lot the past few days..making aurora a ton of stuff.

Ive got decorations up for valentines day. Aurora has a few clings that she put up for valentines day. She has also started tap and ballet on Saturdays. So that keeps us busy.

I think Im going to take them to the childrens museum tomorrow. They really enjoy it. Saturday we have a whole day of plans. Just keeping busy.

We spent the entire day at disneyland today. The kids had a blast.