We have it straightened out

Can you tell that I’m not holding my breath that our credit union did indeed fix this payment problem?  After 4 calls, they finally took their money which had been in our account since the last week in January.  After logging on this morning, I see yet another issue.  Our payment is supposed to drop by $210 with our March payment.  No change seen.  I’ll give them a couple of weeks.  Hopefully their system just needs to catch up to reflect this.  Again, I won’t hold my breath.  On to a far better topic…

We now have an extra $50 added to our baby emergency fund (EF) thanks to “dripping pennies” from Swagbucks.  I always cash out for PayPal deposits and then have that money transferred to our bank account.  I am eager to get our baby emergency fund up to $2,000 so we can resume our debt snowball.  Another $700 and we will be there.    

I think about the amount we still need and it really doesn’t seem like a lot of money to me.  But, it is a lot of money with an already tight budget.  It would be (and often is) easy to get down in the dumps when thinking about it.  DH was feeling much like this yesterday.  There are a lot of emotions attached to not only having debt but also with deciding to get rid of it!  The way you look at money changes.  With DH already doing everything he can, it is now my turn to be strong.  $700…I’m coming after you!  I’m going to view this as something that must be achieved by the end of the month.  Good thing I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.  My plan of attack:

• Make a savings thermometer.  Told you I was a visual person!
• $200 already budgeted for savings.  BOOM, now down to only needing $500!
• Earn another $50 from Swagbucks
• Tighten up the grocery budget.  With DH being away, this is reasonable.
• Continue working any available extra hours at my job.
• eBay more items.  Not my favorite platform to sell on, but still a way of bringing in more money.  
• Possible $210 savings from decreased mortgage payment in March, but won’t count on our credit union straightening this out before the end of the month.  Sad, I know.  

“You make way too much money to be this broke.”  I hear Dave Ramsey telling people that on a regular basis.  He would be absolutely correct in telling us the very same thing.  With these words in minds, I am going to do something about it.  $700 really isn’t a lot of money and today I am feeling empowered to do something about it!

What are some of your financial challenges? Better yet, what are you doing about them?  

Lucy