I have two of my daughters graduating next week. The oldest from high school and my 2nd oldest from 6th grade. I’m thinking we’re going to be having people drop by the house even though I haven’t officially invited anyone. My house is clean right now but my porch is a mess. My free ranging chickens love to hang out on the porch and do what chickens do - poop and they poop a lot!

My goals for this weekend:
1. Clean off porch. Completed
2. Declutter livingroom and kitchen areas.
3. Finish planting vegetable garden. I still need to plant my cucumbers, swiss chard and zucchini.
4. Finish cleaning up and planting flower pots. Completed
5. Get 3 more websites up and going. Got 1 up and running, working on others.

On Tuesday I got the pink slip to my husband’s truck! What a wonderful feeling it is to know that we actually own the truck. It was funny I was talking to my husband and asked him how it felt to drive a paid for vehicle. He said, “Why don’t you take the kids to school in it and find out for yourself?” This truck is a big jacked up Ford F350 crew cab dually with a flat bed dump, the truck is 8′ wide at the rear tires. I’d need an empty parking lot just to do a U-turn. About 12 years ago he had a similar truck and I had to drive it to school because my other vehicle had a dead battery. I was so embarrassed, I was running over curbs left and right.

December 1994, I was involved in a head-on crash. I was driving on a curvy mountain road and a man who was speeding, in the USA illegally, didn’t have a drivers license, and was uninsured crossed the double yellow lines and came into my lane and hit me head on, totaling my car. I had my oldest with me, who was at the time 4 years old. We weren’t hurt too much, I had broken several bones in my foot, some broken toes and had bruises everywhere. My daughter, thankfully was fine.

My insurance company was more than generous with my car payoff. They gave me $200 more than what I had paid for my then two year old car. I really couldn’t complain.

I was wiped out for 7 months. I had developed an extremely painful bone infection in my foot and almost lost my foot. I had three surgeries (even had a morphine drip) and ended up having a “main-line” IV put in my neck that went straight to my heart. Finally seven months later, after six weeks of IV treatment my bone infection cleared up and the open wound on my foot finally healed.

Imagine my surprise when I got the call from my insurance agent saying they were going to settle with me for the maximum payout of $100,000! I was a newly married 24 year old. The most money I’d ever had prior to this was maybe $500.

So where’d all the money go? $10,000 went to my health insurance (they threatened to sue me for reimbursement of medical costs), $20,000+ went towards paying off my husband’s credit card debt, $5,000 for a backyard play system, and $5,000 for a tractor. I gave $5,000 to my mom for putting up with me and all the pain I’d been in and $1,000 to my Grandma to help her out. I also spent $200 on a D&B bag for myself. Over the years we spent another $20,000+ fighting to keep custody of my husbands daughter from his first marriage. I know another chunk of the money went towards a good down payment on a NEW (I was a sucker) Suburban. We still have a lot of that value and it’s now in my husbands truck. I’m not really sure exactly what happened to the rest of the money. I guess we piddled it away.

Look where I am now, this isn’t how my story is supposed to go. We had the best start, a better start than most people will ever get and still here we are up to our necks in debt. I wonder if I’ll ever FINALLY learn to be financially responsible?

The good news is in the next two years I’ll be paying off a vehicle and a travel trailer as well as being done paying child support for my husband’s daughter (her mother doesn’t even own a house and can’t afford to live on her own yet sends this child to boarding school and we get stuck paying for more than half).

In three years I’ll be done paying for our family vehicle.  So over the next three years I should be able to clear up $2,280 a month that I can throw at my credit card debt.

I’ve been blogging about my debt and life in general since February 19, 2008. Now I’m going to give an update, the good, the bad and the ugly, you are going to see it all.

If you are a regular reader of my blog you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t updated my Credit Card debt for over a month. There’s an a reason for it, as I’m sure some of you have guessed.

Last month I came up short. Yep, I even bounced a few checks (the bank honored them). I ended up using two credit card checks. $1,500 for my property taxes and $1,500 to bring my checking account back into balance. I’m totally embarrassed to admit this, as I’m sure you can imagine. The total of $3,000 is locked in at 3.9% until the balance is paid off.

Today my total credit card debt stands at $41,501. That’s a $901 increase from when I started tracking it back in February. I’m not happy at all with myself, I know I can do better. Other than using the two convenience checks I haven’t charged a single thing.

Now for the good news. I paid off my state taxes as of February the balance was $9,276. I also paid off my husband’s truck. Back in Feb the balance was $4,459.

All together I’ve paid down $12,834 since February.

Photo by Drewski2112

He’s traveled for business our whole marriage so this isn’t anything new to me but for the past two years his trips have only been 2-3 days long. He’s taking off tomorrow and is going to be gone a whole week! I remember in the early years of our marriage a trip like this would have me in tears. Now 14 years later I’m thinking of all the stuff I can do or not do with him out of town. I’ll miss him though.

- I won’t have to cook dinner, the kids and I will eat out of the pantry that’ll save some money.
- I’ll be able to finish cleaning out my storage unit this weekend. That’ll save me $120+ a month.
- I’ll be able to get online when I want.
- I’ll be able to take my oldest shopping for prom and not have to worry about getting home early to cook my husband dinner.
- Since I won’t be cooking there will be a lot less dishes to wash.
- I’ll have time to list my ebay stuff.
- I can start and finish a sewing project.

Can you tell I’m excited about getting a week off from cooking dinner every night?

Goals for the next week:

1. Clean out feed room. There’s loose hay 6″ deep in there.
2. Get Ebay listings ready and list on Sunday.  Completed 4/19/08
3. Clean up my son’s bedroom. Completed 4/16/08
4. Clean up my daughter #2’s bedroom.
5. Finish cleaning out kitchen cabinets.
6. Clean up my sewing room.
7. Finish clearing out my storage unit. Completed 4/12/08

I’m pretty confident I can achieve all my goals. Won’t my husband be surprised when he comes home?

I’m about 80% done cleaning out my closet. I have 3-4 bags of clothes and I also have a box of stuff like old purses and a brief case to donate to Hospice . For Ebay I have a whole basket full of NWT (new with tag) men’s button down casual shirts. I’m going to get them ready and list them on Sunday afternoon.

I still need to clean off the dressers and my messy desk. Already my bedroom looks twice as big as it did before I started cleaning and I have to tell you, it feels wonderful!

I got an email from American Express Blue and my balance transfer with through! Woo hoo I went from 14.9% to 4.99% until the balance is paid in full!

I sold two books on half.com yesterday. That’s another $17 that I can apply to my credit card debt. I’ll probably wait until the end of the week to make that payment, just in case I sell a few more books.

I bought the paint for my daughter’s bathroom and I’ll be painting that probably this afternoon. I went with Walmart paint - it’s such a great deal and it really is nice quality paint. I’ve purchases expensive paint in the past but I really don’t see any benefit to using expensive paint, I don’t even think it covers as well as Walmart’s paint. For $28 my daughter is going to be getting a nice fresh bathroom. I choose white for the ceiling and trim. I choose “Suede” for the walls. It’s a light grayish tan color. I’m hoping to make the tiny bathroom have an expensive spa type look and feeling.

I feel as though everything in my life is really coming together. I feel like I can breathe again, I’m not a prisoner to my bills or my clutter. I’m back in control!