Tomorrow - Big garage sale day!

Well, we have everything in order and slightly sorted to do our big garage sale! I'm REALLY hoping to make a few $$ off of it, I actually spent another $75 today on the house and another $150 to keep Cameron in his enrichment program. That is so depressing!!! I wonder when I actually get paid from work, maybe that can cover a bit of my last spending spree!!! :o( I'll update tomorrow on how the garage sale goes. We are going Friday AND Saturday!! Wish me luck!!!

Cameron started Kindergarten

I guess if I'm going to write about my get out of debt challenge I can also write about Cameron and school!!! Today we started Kindergarten! It was very exciting and fun. Cameron is enrolled at Texas Tech, which he likes to tell everybody he knows (and in turn that makes people look at him funny since he is only 5 years old! LOL). Anyhow, Tech has a distance program so Cameron does all of his work here at the house and we send it in for grading. He worked on Phonics, social studies, and science today. We will be doing Math-U-See as soon as his curriculum comes in...which should be today. Maybe I can talk daddy into schooling him while I'm at work today!!! We examined a peanut today and used our 5 senses to talk about the peanut (in the shell). It was great because I started talking to him about the 5 senses and he said, "Yes, I'm going to use my sense of smell, since of looking (sight), since of smell, since of hearing and since of, ummm, feel (touch). So, I really didn't have to teach him a darn thing today...he is so smart!!!

Off the wagon

Well, crap!!! I started a new job this past Friday, so I get a 50% discount...so far I've spent about $120 on the card. :o( Luckily, I've stocked up on most things I need (and I actually did need them, so it wasn't that I just bought and bought...although I did buy two lipsticks and two glosses, which wasn't necessary). But, it was a bummer in the spending area. I also re-enrolled the boys in swim class, so that was $1k+ down the drain. Luckily, when we move they can continue to swim and I think that will be good for them to have something in Austin that is the same as what they are doing here. I still can't decide whether to continue with Cameron's FasTracKids...I would love to, but that is another $150 that we really don't have. I also had to charge about $150 to the Home Depot card, so that definitely backtracks us a bit...but we still paid more than we spent, which is a good thing...and we got things we needed in order to get more $$ out of selling our house. The bad thing is that we need new carpet, so that is going to be another $1k. Once I start getting paid I get to apply all of that to debt, so that will be a good thing as long as I don't continue to spend everything I make!!! Gotta get back on track.

A payment made!

Okay, today I sold a few things around the house...these are things that we totally don't use, hadn't used in ages (talking at least a year, most more), and don't need. So, I sent $135 to our smallest credit card! That balance is at $1,151.29 after I sent payment today and yesterday (for some other stuff I sold!). Right now our snowball is at $225, so after the first of the month I will have a balance on this card of under $1,000!!! This makes me so happy. I get a little defeated when I look at how long it will take to pay it off monthly with our snowball (because that is still around six months, which seems like forever and this is our smallest card), but having it at less than $1,000 makes it seem like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I have actually paid of two cards this year already, they totaled about $1,600, so maybe with some real work I can get this one paid off quicker as well!!! Once I get this card paid off there will be four cards remaining (not to mention Eric's business card that we have used for not so business purposes). Those are really big cards, but if I keep the right attitude of purge not buy maybe, just maybe, I can have this stuff knocked out sooner rather than later! Oh, I am having a garage sale in a week or two, we'll see how much we can get out of that as well!!! :o)

Thinking of changing the feel of the blog

Okay, I haven't posted since returning home from Disney...a lot has changed!!! Anyhow, we really splurged on our trip, we splurge a lot and it has really hurt us financially. I feel like if I get it all out there I may be able to use this blog to give me strength to change our ways. Eric has been offered a job in Austin, it will be very difficult for us to get there because of all the debt we carry. I feel like I'm really starting out well in getting things paid but then I realize that although I paid a lot on one card I charged twice as much on another. I've got to finally take a stand and really just get rid of the cards once and for all, not charge a single penny to a card, period. I have started living on a cash system but then things come up and I feel like I need to spend. Part of it is boredom and part is frustration, but most of it is just total irresponsibility. So, I am going to change the tune of this little blog from being a travel log for our family to a get out of debt log. Maybe if I keep up the blog and post daily or even weekly I can keep myself motivated not to spend. I've gotta get it together, though. I realized today we spend $600+ per month just on credit card payments...with that kind of money we could afford to send all three boys to the swim lessons they want to be in, or karate or whatever they want to do. Eric could be home more often instead of busting his butt at work day in and day out, holding down two jobs. So, from this day forward, we are going to work on debt and paying it off! Recently I sold two things netting $200, I sent that to our smallest card. It should be just under $1k after this coming months payment. We are having a garage sale soon so I will keep you all posted with the earnings! Oh, and I got a job, so whatever I will be making every two weeks will go directly to debt payment...not "Brittney spending" like my old job was. ;o)

Day 7 - Animal Kingdom & travels home

I don't have pictures for this day because it was a travel day, but what a wonderful day it was!!! I TOOK lots of pictures and plan on uploading them to snapfish, so I will email them out if you are interested, just let me know!!! :o) Anyhow, the weather couldn't have been better, no rain, a good breeze. Animal Kingdom is a pretty cool place, we went to see The Festival of the Lion King and Pochahontas and her Animal Friends. We also toured all the walk through stuff and then headed to Dino-Land...which was Cameron's favorite place. He wanted to go back to the Bone Yard, and once we were there we found a dino dig!!! I guess it was closed the day before, but he was SOOOOO excited about finding it - even though he had to leave his shoes on...which he wasn't thrilled about.

We stayed at the park for the parade and made it back to our hotel with 45 minutes to spare, so we took some photos around our hotel and then spent anything we had left in the gift shop - the boys are now official gift shop junkies!! Even Carson knows the word "gift shop" and is proficient in throwing a fit to get to go in!!! :o)

We rode the Magical Express home without a hitch. There was a LUSH store at the airport, so I stocked up on stuff to make my body feel better after the torture I put it through this week!!! :o) I can't decide if I want to try to save it and go all the way to Ada and use mom's big ol' tub or just use it here...guess I could use a little here and plan a trip to Ada just to use a little there!! ;o) I did get a bit teary on our way home when the video came on and said "M-I-C - See ya real soon, K-E-Y - Why, because we like you, M-O-U-S-E!!!!" Boo-hoooooooooo, wahhhhhhh, but it is good to be home...I guess. We did get a good surprise at the airport, as we were getting our luggage off the carosel we saw some very familiar faces - Russ & Jill were there to greet us. It was so nice to see them and I wanted to stay and chat, but I guess we will catch back up either this weekend or when we come to get Champp.

Anyhow, we had a great time and I will get pictures uploaded as soon as possible - after I tackle this mountain of laundry!!! :o) It actually isn't so bad. ;o) Oh, we also have photos that were taken by the Photopass people at Disney. I will get links to that up soon, too...or send them via email if you want them! You can look and purchase if you want...they are pretty much all just the boys interacting with the characters. Anyhow, thanks all who read our blog!! Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed sharing!!! :o)

The Dads Point of view

Well, we made it trhough monsoon Disney, I mean Animak Kingdom and Epcot Dinner day. It rained and rained and rained and rained and rained all damn day! I have to say we all did pretty well considering the conditions of the day. THe bug thing was simple compared to dealing with cameron on the dinosaur ride, but after doing the ride I think he had a heads up on that ride because it was TOUGH. The ride should probably be NC-17 cause there were scared folks all over the place. So I got one nit whitt terrified and the other screaming at me to buy him a dinsaur. The nemo thing was alright Carson kept asking after each and every scene "is it over" Not impressed at all. I got to have a beer half way through our our Rainy day so I was able to have some fun walking through Disney in the rain. All in all it was a good day, no one got busted up and we got to be in Disney Parks w/o to many other people around.