This one's for Laura

I heard ya girl.

I'm only too happy to help you kill time while you're working ;)


For the rest of ya'll who are a little lost on that one, I'm terribly sorry I've been a little absent on thee 'ol blog lately.

I don't really have any good excuses except that I didn't really have much to report.

I mean I guess that isn't true, but sometimes daily life seems a little mundane and I don't really want to rehash it out in writing. Know what I mean?

I suppose I'll start by telling you that we are still chugging away on our debt payoff. In fact today I added up the numbers, just for fun, and I was shocked. Shocked I tell you. Want to know the current payoff number? okay. I'll tell you.

$10,316.07

TEN THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED SIXTEEN DOLLARS AND SEVEN CENTS.

WHAT THE FREAK!!!!!?????


I can't even believe it.

Seriously. I'll break it down for you. Keep in mind, these totals are from our initial amounts in February.

We owe Darrell's dad money for fronting us the money for our down payment so we've payed him back $2,672.21
We payed off two different credit cards totaling $3,607.33 and $1,011.84
We've payed down my student loan $195.90
We've payed $2,003.79 on our car loan (which we're planning on having payed off hopefully by December at the latest, 1.5 years early!!!)
and finally we've paid $825.00 in principle off our home loan since we refinanced and started repaying that in May

$10,316.07

Does that seem crazy to anyone else? seriously. I can't believe it.

And the craziest thing of all is that I've been stuck in this "pay the small debts off first" mode of thinking that suddenly we're almost out of small debts to pay. I didn't think we would ever even get to that point. Blows my mind I tell you.

So that was definitely motivation for us to keep on going. I mean, at this rate (assuming we don't accrue any other debt for anything ever, which in all honesty is not really possible considering we desperately need a new furnace, ours kept our house at a consistent 65 degrees last winter, and we're going to need a new car sooner than later and there will probably be unexpected things that come up) we would be completely debt free aside from our house in 3 years.

Have I talked this to death yet? Sorry, I'm just proud of us because we only earnestly started trying to get rid of the debt in February and I really didn't think we would have made that much progress so quickly.

In other news, I keep finding odd projects around the house to start (still suuuper bad at finishing them) and Liam keeps me on my toes, and I love him for it. He's just such a little bug that you can't help but love him!

Anyway, that's all for now! I'll try to update a little more on the regular ;)

Week ? Check in

I know. I've been doing terrible at checking in. But guess what? I haven't been terrible at sticking to my goals.

Oh no. We've been rocking them actually.

Still (slowly) losing weight.

AND

Today. Today we effectively eliminated our credit card debt. SAY WHAT?!?!??!

Yes.

Today I pushed "send" for the last time.

I made the final payment on our final credit card.

That makes our total debt payoff $4619.17 since February 18!!!!!

Guys.

That means our car is going to be paid off in 6 months.

I feel awesome.

Its fantastic.

Check in: Week 3

I am writing this post today from the midst of a level one disaster kitchen.

Fact.

I'll tell ya why in a minute.

So we have successfully completed three weeks of the "Battle of the Bulge 2013" over here and it is going quite well.

We have gotten rid of a total 19.6 lbs of chub and $287.40 of debt which brings the debt payoff total to $778.40!!

I'm pretty pleased about it all really. I think that after this week we will have paid off the last of one credit card and we will have started making headway on the next! That is pretty exciting news for me!

Upsides:

We got our dishwasher and its lovely (or it would be if it were hooked up)
I have lost almost 10 lbs
Husband has lost 10 straight up! (I like when we lose at the same rate, though I know that pretty soon here he will probably keep losing and mine will... taper off somewhat. Darn men. Lucky sons...)
I have finished sanding all my cabinet doors
Its pretty much warm enough that Liam and I can walk to the park
I've really started branching out on recipes and have discovered a few DELICIOUS ones that are diet approved :)

Downsides:

Not having a car really doesn't get easier
The dishwasher isn't hooked up and I cant use the sink otherwise water starts spilling all over the place



So the upsides obviously outweigh the bad this week and thats good. This week wasn't nearly as hard as last week was. Hopefully things continue to go smoothly next week!

So back to the disaster. We got our dishwasher and husband thought that we had everything we needed to hook it up. We do have all the parts we need but because of where we need to put our dishwasher, none of the hookups are long enough. So basically the hot water is disconnected and if I run the cold water in the sink, water starts pouring out from under the dishwasher (that isn't hooked up but is put in its proper location). Also, my cabinets currently have no doors or drawer fronts. They are all either in the garage or in the laundry room. So that just adds to the overall look of disorder and confusion. (Anyone else imagine Sir. Topham Hat saying "you've cause confusion and delay"? Just me?)

Anyway, now that I'm almost 10 down, I think I can start looking towards making a plan of how much I actually want to lose. And how ambitious I think I should be. Am I going for my first year of college skinny (probably the smallest I have ever been) or more like the day I got married skinny (which was also pretty small but about 15 pounds heavier than the first year of college). I dunno. I don't think I'm going to worry about it too much. Yet. But its on my mind.

How did your week go? Any accomplishments you're proud of?

Check in : Week 2

Here we are again! Battle of the Bulge 2013 is still going on over here...

Upsides:

We paid off $155 of debt
We got our fridge fixed for realsies
We found a dishwasher for pretty cheap (and we didn't have to use a credit card to buy it)
Its finally getting warm so Liam and I are going to start exploring the public transit options for getting around
We found a long lost gift card to Lowes! $125 dollars baby!

Downsides:

We lost a total of 0 pounds over here
BUT
We didn't gain any, so win(?)
I get cabin fever not being able to leave


This week was hard. We didn't completely stray from our diet plan but we had alot of hang-ups. We have recommitted to following the plan and hopefully we will see some results next week.  I've had some health concerns so I went to the doctor and had some blood tests done and luckily those all came back normal, so thats a good thing for sure!

While I was in college, I had some really super awesome roommates. One of them had (and still does) a serious love for Diet Coke... come to think of it, I think almost all my roommates did (and probably still do). Well, we didn't really drink alot of soda in my house growing up so I had no preferences either way, until my first year of school. I developed a love for the Diet Coke. I don't have any false assumptions that is in anyway good for me. I just like it. I like how it tastes, and I pretty easily form an addiction to the caffeine that is a bear to get over. Well, its just not good for me and I think that this week I will work on quitting the Diet Coke. It'll probably be good for me. We'll see.

Now the debt diet part of our week. Darrell got his yearly bonus this week, so we made some extra purchases that we have been putting off. We got a new computer (the day it arrived our old laptop had a crash of epic proportions, I'm surprised it turned back on) and we bought a new dishwasher (unexpected but I'm glad it happened when it did), tires for our car (which as we've learned is a VERY expensive one to maintain) as well as a new pair of pants for me. I'm a pant snob, and I usually spend a little bit of money on them BUT I only own one pair at a time pretty much so when they wear our, I have to get new ones and my old ones wore out this week. The good thing is, we didn't have to go into any debt to make any of these purchases! And when I say that we paid off $155 dollars, that is in addition to our regular monthly payments. We have two credit cards we are working on getting rid of as well as a car loan, a student loan, a loan from Darrells dad and our mortgage. Our number one priorities are the two credit cards (one of which will be gone after I get paid for piano lessons this month!) and the car loan. We think we can get rid of those in 7-8 months. I I really hope so, cause then we can hopefully look at buying another car.

On the horizons for this week:

I just finished filling the gouges in my cabinets with wood filler, so sanding the kitchen cabinet doors and frames (this'll get its own post later this week)
installing the new dishwasher
getting new tires on the car
keep working on potty training liam
take down the changing table in his room

Things are looking good!

What are your goals for the year, month, week, today?


Want to know what "Battle of the Bulge 2013" is? Read here: We're going on a diet

Check in: 1 week later

Here I am again. One week into "battle of the bulge 2013".

It went well! Really, quite well. We are a collective 14 pounds lighter and $336 less in debt. I'm going to chalk it up as a win.

Downsides:

The dishwasher started leaking all over... looks like we need a new one.

or a bigger sink... (cause i have a little baby sink... two bowls and BAM it looks like its overflowing. seriously.)

I really miss eating popcorn.
And cookies.


And having a car...

Upsides:

Liam is well on his way to being potty trained.
I checked off about a billion things from my list like:
Getting darrell enrolled in next quarter
Selling our car
selling the tires that we bought a month ago for said car
calling and having fridge repair guy (which now he needs to come back cause the fridge is doing the same thing again)
submitted all paperwork to loan underwriter (it took like 15 minutes, what is my problem?)
finished my kindle cover
almost finished the embroidery for my christmas quilt
took down and put away half the christmas lights outside
finished installing the outlets in our kitchen from re-doing the kitchen backsplash

And lots more, but I can't really think of them right now


I get really excited when I look like 9 months down the road and we'll have a big bulk of our debt out of the way. Like really? I can't wait to not have a stupid car payment. That will really be fantastic.

I wonder if the weather on the upward swing (excpet for the "snow" storm we're supposed to get tomorrow) for the next 10 days will help ease my cabin fever. Its just been so darn cold that I can't got anywhere with the babe. I live fairly close to plenty of things. The library is like a mile away. It takes maybe a half an hour to walk there, but there has been either snow everywhere of your nose hairs start freezing when you walk outside its so cold. There is also a dollar store a mile and a half away and if I'm feeling really ambitious I can walk to the shopping center about 3 miles away. That might be less fun than I think since I don't really want to spend money. Though, since walking will be my only form of transportation for awhile that will probably aid in my weight loss goals. Hmmm guess its not so bad.

Oh and since we've been confined together, it has been confirmed that Liam like husband much more than he likes me.

Yesterday he sat himself down in the hall (in the dark, in front of the garage door) and when I asked him what he was doing he just looked at me, patted the ground and said "daddy." And he stayed there for like 20 minutes.

sheesh.

Want to know what "Battle of the Bulge 2013" is? Read here: We're going on a diet

We're Going on a Diet.

I debt diet. And a food diet. We're a dieting sort of family these days.

It all started with our house.

We've been in the process of refinancing for like 7 months. Seriously. That long. Its driving me nuts-o. And we should be done with that this month. YAY! This has prompted a series of plans on my part (and husbands loving nodding along) to get out of debt. That monster. The debt monster. We need to break up, and this is the year to do it. So we aren't spending money. Obviously we'll be spending money, but no more unnecessary spending, you know Lowe's, Home Depot, Target... The list really could go on but I'll spare you. All of our excess cash is going into paying off credit cards and our car. The real motivating factor was when our car died last week. Literally. Died. While I was driving. At night. In the cold.

Awesome.

We got to get that crap taken care of so we can get a new shining vehicle (or old and slightly loved, I'm not too terribly picky about the newness state). But I've found that with my freedom restricted, I really don't spend money anymore. And I also can't really escape the house. This prompts me to quit procrastinating and take care of business.

Speaking of business, I'm teaching Liam how to take care of his and so far we seem to be having a pretty good round. He's only pee'd on the carpet once (so far) and seems pretty excited about his "choo-choo" underwear.

I've created a list about a mile long of things to get done and I'm slowly checking things off. Like, I FINALLY got some blinds in the mail (that I ordered the day after thanksgiving!) and I didn't even wait to install them. Put 'em up and got rid of the evidence. I painted my bathroom cabinet (again) and I finally called the refridgerator repair guy. Little things, things I would just leave the house instead of taking care of. Its going to be a productive couple months and I have a feeling me and Liam'll be getting good use out of our stroller as we walk everywhere we can.

And while our debt is shrinking, so will our waistlines. We're trimming the fat round these parts, (so we won't have anymore round parts, thanks very much) and even though its only day one, I think we're off to a good start.

If you don't hear anymore about these diets, just know that I'm being serious as a heart attack, we're taking care of the uglies around here. The battle of the bulge has begun!