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Archive for January, 2007

Spending for 1/2/07

January 3rd, 2007 at 12:28 pm

$5.00 I chipped in for dinner with DS#3.

Some Good News

January 3rd, 2007 at 03:01 am


I went to the doctor tonight for a blood pressure check and found out that my stress test came back fine. No heart problems! Hurray!!! And I can begin to exercise again tomorrow with some very basic, low-key walking! Yippee!!!

So on to the EEG tomorrow to make sure that the arachnoid cyst in my brain is not causing any malfunctions (LOL).

They are also scheduling me for a 2nd MRI, this time of my neck. They think there may be a pinched nerve somewhere that is causing the numbness and tingling in my arms, hands, and sometimes legs.

They've also decided that the elbow pain is most likely tendonitis caused by too much typing and the pinching movement of pulling books off the shelf during deliveries. I'm allowed to begin deliveries again as long as I feel better and the pain does not get any worse. So now maybe my $20 Challenge pot can really do some growing!

My blood pressure was up again at the doctor's but I took along my spreadsheet I'm keeping that showed that my BP had been perfectly fine at home an hour before we left. Do I detect some white-coat syndrome here?

Spending for 1/1/07

January 2nd, 2007 at 11:02 am

Furniture payment= $77.00

And We're Off....

January 1st, 2007 at 03:41 pm


...on the race of the $20 Challenge!

I'll reiterate my goals for the $20 Challenge here so I have a source of reference for myself:

- $5.00 added every time I pack a lunch and don't buy one when on the road delivering books
- 39 cents added every time I save postage
- $1 for every pound I manage to lose
- any gift of money that I get throughout the year
- use more coupons and transfer the money I save
- money from recycling pop bottles
- $1 for every no-spend day

My goal for the year is to save at least $1000 by participating in the challenge as I look for unique ways to save money.

2007 Goals

January 1st, 2007 at 02:42 pm

I was looking back over the goals I had previously set for 2007 and realized that I need to adjust them. Here is what I had originally planned on:

#1: $1,000 in EF for bare minimum
#2: pay off at least half of CC#2
#3: pay off furniture
#4: pay off DH's truck
#5: look over DH's 401K investments and determine if we should change the mix
#6: max out my IRA contributions
#7: get disability insurance on me
#8: hopefully have the term insurance process finished soon!

Because of my health issues I seriously doubt that #7 is going to happen any time soon, if at all, at least until we find out what the underlying issue is. And I realized that the more focused I am on less goals, the more I'll be driven to see them accomplished.

So, here are my "adjusted" 2007 goals:

#1: $2,000 in Emergency Fund
#2: CC #2 paid off
#3: pay off furniture
#4: get overall debt below $65,000

I'm going to keep it short and simple so I can really focus on those goals.

A Look Back Over 2006

January 1st, 2007 at 02:24 pm


2006 was the best year for us so far financially, I think. Not because we paid off a lot of debt, but because we (okay, I) got focused on getting out of debt. I found Saving Advice and felt like I really fit in here because of my desire to control our money instead of our money controlling us.

We managed to get our outstanding debts below $80,000 by the end of the year and paid off one of the credit cards. I started to really keep track of where our money goes so that I could better set up a workable budget.

We started setting $20 aside in an interest-bearing savings account so that we had an emergency fund when needed so that we didn't add more debt to the credit card.

So all in all, 2006 was a good year because it made us get serious with money and saving for the future.

On to 2007!

Spending for 12/31/2006

January 1st, 2007 at 02:13 pm

Gave DS#3 $5.00 to buy snacks for the New Year's Eve youth lock-in at church.


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