We Paid off our First Debt

We have just paid off our 2003 Ford Expedition. We started our Total Money Makeover on January 1st, and had 23 Payments left to pay on the SUV. We have now just paid it off in 4 months. It was our smallest debt, but our largest payment. We now have 4 debts left to pay off. Three 401k loans that we took out to add-on to the house. and a camper loan.

It feels great to have the SUV paid off. All of our hard work and determination is paying off. I am so glad to be on the road to financial peace. Hopefully the we can keep this pace up, and pay off one of the 401k loans in a few months.

I sold my Harley

I just sold my Harley the other day. I've had it for the last 6 years. It took me a while to decide to sell it. I just wasn't getting enough use out of it to justify keeping it. Plus it was always in the way and taking up space in the garage. Also, being on the Dave Ramsey plan, it was starting to look more like a pile of cash than a motorcycle. So I bit the bullet an sold it. Now that cash will help drive us down the road to financial peace.

It's Bonus Time, But Murphy wants his share.

The company I work for just paid us our bonus, based on how the company did on goals it had for profit, safety, reliability, quality, etc. We got about 2/3 of the maximum possible payout. It was a good bonus. But, it seems like every time we get extra money, Something happens. Murphy's law trying to discourage us. But its not going to work. We are sticking with it. I really thought we might get the car paid off this month, but Murphy dropped by for a visit.

We have two large expenses we will have to pay this month. The first expense is the SUV. The exhaust is leaking around the exhaust manifold, and it is sounding more like a diesel truck. Not sure how much it will cost to fix it, but we budgeted back $400. The Second expense is going to be dental work for my son. He has an under bite, and has to have braces to fix it. The good thing is, that the dental insurance actually covers %50 of the cost. We are going to pay our portion up front now, since we have the money, instead of doing a payment plan.

We've had to redo the budget a few times now. The money we were going to pay on debt is being slowly redistributed to other expenses. So I guess we'll wait and see how it all turns out. As for Paying off the car, it might have to wait for next month.

Our First Vacation on a Budget

We started saving money for Vacations back in January. We talked with the kids and decided on two small family trips. We made out a budget for each trip early in the year. We should have enough saved by July, for these two small family trips, and still have some left over. We may take a small trip in our camper with whatever money is left over. We were able to make the reservation for the first trip a month ago.

We finally took our first small vacation a week ago. We took with us the amount of cash we budgeted to spend on eating out, games, and entertainment. Our destination was a indoor water park for two nights. There was enough to do, that we kept busy the entire time.

The hotel room had a microwave and a fridge. We put cans of soda and bottles of water in the fridge to save on drinks. We also ordered a pizza one day and were able to heat up the left over pizza later. We could have saved more money by eating cheaper and using the microwave more. But we had budgeted a certain amount for eating, and it was a vacation. So we spent what we had budgeted and ate at the buffet in the hotel a few times.

It was only a three day/ two night vacation, but we enjoyed the weekend. Since we paid for this we money we saved, it didn't impact this months budget and we won't get a large credit card bill after wards. This mini vacation won't come back to haunt us later.

March's budget summary

March was our highest income month so far. We got some extra income last month that really helped. We also picked up some extra hours at work, which added more. With extra income came extra spending. We redid our budget a few times during the month. We were able to get a few auto expenses out of the way. Camper axles were straightened, vehicles got there oil changed, and new windshield wiper blades were put on. We also budgeted $300 for home improvement to finish the entryway. We also saved back more money than previous months toward our vacation fund.

We also put more money back for recreation and dining, so we could do a little more with our kids. But a side effect was, our auto fuel expenses went over budget. By spending more, we ended up spending even more. This is an effect we will have to remember in the future.

After all the extra expenses, we still had $1200 extra. We applied that to our smallest debt, our car loan.

So far, we started in January with a car loan, a camper loan, and 3 - 401k loans. Our total debt (not including mortgage) was 49,705.46.

Today, April 1st 2010, we have 43,446.32. That is 6893.20 paid off in 3 months.