One Day Down..

Mr J's first day of vacation went ok. He is sick, of course. For some reason he is always sick when he's on vacation. I think he's just allergic to being home with me. He did go to Walmart and buy some cold meds. Not sure what he spent.

I didn't spend anything.

We had calzones and salad for dinner. I forgot to say yesterday that we had western baked potatoes.

Boring Old Weekend...

It was just a boring old weekend at home. But it meant not going out and spending a bunch of money.

Mr. J is on vacation this week. I know that he is totally itching to do some wood working. Of course, that will mean a trip to Lowes. Luckily, I am home and can help keep him from going out of control.

First Snowball Payment

Yay, we sat down and made our first bonus payment. Mr J surprised me and added the amount that our dish bill would have been to it also. That's an extra $116 towards that bill this week!!! I will see if I can get Mr J to post about how he made a homemade antenna, so we could drop the dish and it's bill.

Went to Costco and spent $168, but got a bunch of meat. I got a huge pork tenderloin to cut down into chops. Two chuck roasts, two big packages of ground chuck, and 10lbs of chicken breasts. Also some other stuff, like two gallons of milk, eggs, 10lbs of sugar and a swimsuit for 007. I'm sure there was more, but I can't think of it right now.


~*Mrs J*~

A trip to the Orthodontist...

Yesterday I took 009 to the orthodontist for the first of many fittings for his appliances. (See the pic for how fun that appliance looks) Lucky for us, we were able to get there early and got in and out in about 15 minutes. We made our first real payment of $100, the first of 8, after the initial $650.

After that we went to a local grocery store and bought 10 bags of frozen corn. We love the kind that steam in a bag and it was on sale for $1 a piece. Also got talked into buying ice cream and grabbed fish sticks for dinner. Ended up spending $35. Not what I had planned on.

Also had to fill up the van, luckily gas was down 10cents from Monday. I also used my QT rewards debit card and saved a few cents per gallon.

Called JCPenney yesterday to see if I can work out a payment schedule with them to get back on track. Even though I am not over my balance anymore, they still wanted a $264 payment. OUCH! I just could not swallow that. I have gotten a couple of my other cards to cut the interest and make hardship payment plans, figured I needed to get this one done too. I called the number on my bill and asked to set up a payment plan to get me back on track. The guy acted like I had 9 heads. He was very rude and snippy, so I got snippy back. So, I got a whopping 4% reduction for 9mo. GRRRR! Apparently the people in whatever country their call center is in doesn't know that their customers in the US are in a bad economy.

Today is our first official payday of the new snowball. Mr J and I will sit down and pay some bills together. We will make our bonus payment towards the first card on the list, Kohls.

Some changes...

The blogger template I was using was just too hard to read. I headed off to google and started my search. After looking at about 100 templates or so, I found one that I like. Of course, all of the headings were in Spanish. I've learned a teeny tiny bit about editing from Mr J, so off to the html tab I went. I've got it down to 2 things I need him to help me with when he gets home. Not shabby for a part-time Kohls employee.

I went and did a little shopping after work last night because the kids weren't with me. I divided my purchases up into two categories. One was household items, sam-e (supposed to help with my PMS rage), q-tips, and girlie products. (Refer back to PMS rage). I also bought all of the kids Easter candy. All in all I spent $64.68. Not great, but that sam-e wasn't cheap, I hope it works.

I worked a couple hours extra last week, on top of it being a full week. So I am going to use that money and go to Costco and stock up on some meat and whatnot. We used to go once a month, their meat is so much cheaper and yummier. But the initial price is hard to swallow. I am going to start a mini-sinking fund so I can get back into the swing of going once a month. Plus, this ensures me a meal out w/my family once a month, even if it is pizza at the snack bar.

007's spring concert was very good last night. All of the first graders did a great job singing.
009 found his lost library book, it was outside, in the rain. He said as soon as he found it that he would have to use his savings to replace it. He cried, but I can't overlook this chance to teach him the lesson of responsibility. Why does parenting have to be so hard?

I know, all this talk about shopping on a blog about fighting debt. I would love to say we are gazelle intense. I made the mistake of doing too much, too fast last time. I totally burned out. I refuse to do that again. Slow and steady wins the race right??

Day One...

Tomorrow is day one. I know we can do it. With doing the Dave Ramsey Snowball Method we should be done in July 2011. In the realm of life, that isn't that far away. It took us longer than that to get buried by this monkey.

I really want to use this blog as a tool. I want to track my spending, set goals and show our improvement.

I have a lot more to say, but have to get dinner going, 007 has a spring concert tonight. Then off to work for me.

Dinner tonight is BBQ smoked sausages, macaroni and cheese, and pineapple.

~*Mrs J*~