Friday, December 18, 2009

Money and Health

Thought on this glorious payday I would give you an update on the budget.

We are still dropping between 40% and 60% of our income on debt. We've also sold a lot of extraneous household goods and popped every blissful surprise windfall onto our bills. What have those rolls of dimes, seven dollar eBay sales and a diet of rice and beans, bean and rice, lentils and rice, lentils and potatoes... (you get the picture) accomplished?

We've reduced out debt by 25,000 dollars since July!


********************** SQUEAL!!!!!! ****************************

Our Credit card hasn't been used since July 27th and amazingly a person can live without one.

For Christmas we put our Christmas money in an envelope and stopped spending when the envelope was empty. Easy as 1,2,3. Or was it? To be honest, it wasn't. Chris doesn't like gifts under a hundred bucks (we'll, maybe a Mighty Mouse) and there wasn't room for such things. But I shopped creatively and I think everyone will be pleased.

We manage online shopping by keeping a deposit envelope in the car. Whenever we buy online we drop the cash in the envelope and deposit it in the bank when we're doing errands. So far it's been virtually fool-proof.

Change is another positive area. We throw it in my piggy bank calaca and roll it at the end of each month. That money further reduces our debt.

I can't fully articulate how excited we are to be making such a huge dent in our debt. To have gone from spending approximately 110% of each check to about 50% has been a big lifestyle change, but it's one we feel really good about.

Sorry for the internet silence this past week. Something went wrong in my tailbone. As far as I can tell, it may have crumbled or broken an additional time from the trauma of the injection. I'm receiving a lot of medical care but all they can do is make things bearable until surgery. I see my doc on Monday and the surgeon on Wednesday. Hopefully I'll be recovering early in the new year. Since life is rather bleak right now, I've decided to have less of an online presence until I can report happy things. Like say....

$25,000 DOLLARS!!!

7 comments:

Janine Rachau said...

I had a tough pain week as well. I do not think the weather conditions are helping much here,...in fact, I think it is a major contributing pain factor.

Anyway, I hope & pray things start getting better for you soon with this.

Kudos on the debt reduction. That is awesome.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.

Unknown said...

That is an amazing accomplishment!

And here's to a better 2010!

joyce rodli said...

YAY & YAY and a five lap happy dance. Just wanted to stop by and say thank you- cooked up a cup of orange lentils and some white rice to go with our dinner noodles{the thank you part is the reminder,LOL}. Just filled a 24oz pickle jar full of light red kidney beans- sorted/threw away and now have some soaking. I shifted a couple of 'pantry' shelves into Steves office for his books and some of our DVDs{our up right freezer is now pantry shelves-it stopped working on September 28th and instead of going through the removal process the diy in me said make it shelves!}. Off to sort my brown lentils! Merry, Merry Christmas Nicole.

Carmen said...

That is a truly astounding amount of money Nicole - well done :)

HAppy Christmas to you and yours, I hope the New Year brings better news for you health wise.

Alyssa S said...

WOW! You rock! That is completely awesome!! I hope 2010 brings just as much good fortune for you and a resolution to your back/pain problems!

Etha said...

Wow that is super cool!!!!! Congrats and keep on going :)

Kristen H said...

Wow, good for you. You guys should write a book, and pay off ALL your debt with the proceeds! Way to go! I am truly impresses! Especially with kids.