A New Start In The New Year

Happy New Year everyone!

I can't believe that it has been over 2 weeks since I have posted. I guess there are two reasons for this.

1. The Holidays are a busy time of the year and I have been busy.
2. I fell off the "financial wagon" a bit.

Everyone gets busy. I do wish I had made it through the Holidays according to plan. Not to make excuses, but the first problem we encountered was my husband's commission check in December. He had anticipated a $2,500 commission, and instead he got a $150 commission. This was partially an error with his payroll department which we knew would get rectified in his January commission. We also knew that in January he would get possibly his largest commission of the year. But this still left us in a bind for December.

So, we resorted to using a credit card to get us through the holidays. I hated to do it but didn't really see a better option.

In all, we charged a total of $1,300.00. $1,000.00 of this was for Christmas presents and the rest was for other household expenses (like groceries).

The good news is that today my husband got his January commission of $8,429.00 (in addition to his regular salary). So, I have already gone on line and paid off the entire $1,300 we had charged and I also put aside (in savings) $3,000.00 for future monthly expenses (for possible low commission months) and $500.00 for vacation (to attend my sisters destination wedding this summer).

So, December was a rough month but I am feeling optimistic about 2008. If all goes according to plan, we should be able to continue to pay $1,100.00 a month toward our debts as well as another $10,000.00 possibly (depending on how much we get for our tax refund and if the commissions are as we expect and Murphy doesn't visit us!). And if I can earn some extra money, we should be able to pay even more!

If this all happens the way we hope, we will have all our debts paid off by March 2009! Just a bit more than a year from now!

I think 2008 is going to be a great year!!