progress updates

Calm and quiet. The hormones raged yesterday and I was shaky all day. Today I feel a sense of calm. Its a nice feeling and I have not yet felt that way in a long time. The house is quiet. I need to focus on work. I have had a very hard time caring about work lately. It comes and goes but mostly I care less about doing a good job right now. Sigh. That needs to change.

Being the end of the month and Monday. I have gathered all my credit card statements and written down my finances for the month of September as I know it. I hand write it out every month. Yep a tech junkie like me writes out every dollar on paper. Every month I use a steno pad (I like the size and the green paper reminds me of ledger paper) and I write out ALL the balances of the cards. I look at the current interest rate. Compare it to last month and the Due date. I write out each of these things for each card. This helps to keep me accountable and not like "oh no worries I am almost paid off". NO I have a long road to travel and it is only keeping my nose focused on the work that will keep the pay off schedule real. I need to do everything I can to decrease the debt before the daycare payments start. I have 6 months from today. The minimum payments now add up to under $500.00 per month. Yahoo. That leaves me with about $400 per month to pay to principle for the next six months. I will do my best. After I go back to work in March I will need to get a second job or a new income to keep paying off debt combined with child care. Depressing. But I will do what I need to do in order to get rid of the Credit card debt. I must.

I just calculated my Total numbers. This is how I justify paying the largest amount of interest off first. Not the smallest payment Dave Ramsey Way. I want to save as much money in interest as I can. Dave Ramsey wants you to feel like you are making progress. And So I calculate the total progress I have made every month to make sure I am on the right track. Even with some semi surprise charges on the statements I have still paid down the balance. I did very well last month despite my anxiety. I now owe $ 28,505.83 which means I have paid down $ 11,298.29. HOO RAH! Good Girl road traveled. Despite my anxiety and doubts I have made progress.