Where are we now?
Postings on this blog have been slow lately due to a lack of motivation, writer’s block, and being caught up with other things. For the most part our finances have been on autopilot thanks to automatic bill payments. But due to an unfortunate turn of events (that we saw coming) my wife is now unemployed. In about a week she should receive her last paycheck, and we will be a one income family in the not-so-cheap San Francisco Bay Area.
Are we worried?
Not really. For the past year and a half or so we have been slowly changing the way we live and the way we view money. We no longer lust after fancy cars or go shopping at the mall when we’re bored. We have much better control over our spending. We still have money leaks to shore up, but overall we’re in much better shape than we were at the start of this project.
For our debt reduction goals, we will pay off my wife’s credit card and her student loan with her last paycheck. I balance transferred a majority of my credit card balance onto a 0% card, and the remaining amount will be paid off by the end of September as well. We will have paid off a little over twenty four thousand dollars by the end of the month. It’s a little crazy thinking about that and what we could have done with that money if we didn’t have to pay off past expenses. But, we put ourselves into this situation, and now we’re working our way out. On the bright side I feel like we will be much better off in the long run for going through this experience. The things we value have changed greatly, and the way we spend money in the future will be changed greatly thanks to what we’re going through now.
Even though we are going down to one income we shouldn’t have too much of a problem with our expenses. We should still be able to keep up with paying down our debt, although it will go much more slowly than it has in the past. If everything goes well, we will be able to pay my student loan off by the end of the year, which leaves us with one credit card balance at 0% interest, not too bad. The major area we need to work on is our budgeting, especially for food. I will have to get some ideas on budgeting for a future post.
So that’s where we are. I will try to get on here more often since writing is free, and free entertainment is good.
