Pretty Darn Cool

Last week in my blog I talked about being on a $300 cash food budget. What I have been realizing is that if I use cash, I am not really worrying about overdrafts or if I wrote in a check or a debit card transaction. It's a new freedom to enjoy and a lot of peace of mind.

You only have to 'show up' for about an hour each time you get paid. You sit down and figure out how much money you have and what needs to be paid. Write everything in your checkbook that's going out and coming in and then calculate the ending balance. Take out the cash you need for the week or month and put what you can in savings. So much less stress!

Sit down with your spouse or significant other and figure out a three to five year plan about what your dreams are or what your goals are for the future. I didn't really have any goals in mind because I thought that I would be in debt forever. It was just too bleek.

My mini plan before Summit's budget was to pay $125 to my credit card monthly, $125 to my car payment and $125 to my daughter's student loan. Nice round numbers. This would take about 3 years to pay them all off. That left me a lot of extra money to PLAY with. No struggle. HA! It also left me spending about $600 on groceries and eating out. What a happy life. Only the goals and dreams were missing.

Summit Credit Union showed me that I really only needed about $300 to spend on food if I cut out eating out. Hmm. Then if I held back on extra spending for about a year on STUFF that I really didn't need, that I could get completely out of debt. No way! They showed it to me on paper. I thought, I can do that.

During my last financial meeting, my coach, Mary Johnson said 'you have a lot of discipline'. No one has ever said that to me before. Especially being overweight, it wasn't part of my vocabulary. But guess what? It is now! You can be disciplined too!

First, all of my extra money went to my credit card. It's gone now. Then all the money to my car payment. And just yesterday (Sat) I got my WI certificate of title from my car loan place. They also included my original loan statement. It said that I would be done making payments on May 30, 2013. And with Summit's help my last payment was on Oct. 21, 2011. That is 17 months sooner! Wow! Who would have thought?

So now our focus is on my GO Save account with Summit and making strong payments on my student loan. I should have that one gone early next year and a big chunk of change in my GO Save account.

What will it feel like to have no bills and have all of your extra money except for the regular monthlies going into savings? Pretty darn cool. I will be a warrior at saving money.

I am saving money for a house. It will have to be a big down payment doing it on my own this time, but I know it's possible. I have been having a lot of fun dreaming this month. It sure is a lot better feeling then wondering if I wrote in all of my checks and debits. Join me!