Today our stimulus payment was deposited into our checking account. I have it ready to be transferred to our home repair account on ING Monday. I'm transferring it there with the hope that we won't need it for repairs and that I'll be able to apply it to the mortgage instead. That's probably a pipe dream, but I'm going to hold onto it.

Still haven't heard a word about my term life insurance application. I've forgotten now when I even started this long, drawn-out process.

Still waiting to get the bill for DS#2's helicopter ride. I've heard to expect to owe about $3,000 after the insurance has paid.

DH filled up his truck today and that came to $75. Yikes! I heard Dave Ramsey say this week that these rising gas prices should not hurt your budget. Well, when you're still digging out of debt it puts a pretty good squeeze on it.

On a brighter note, my speech class is finished. I gave my last 2 speeches this week and now am just waiting for my final grade. I'm enrolled in Business Law for the fall semester and will take one more class if I am able to get financial aid. Still haven't heard if I will or not.

I got my Discover Card statement today and we have earned our first $20 cash back! I am having it sent to our bank account and it's going on the mortgage. Of course, I said that about the $250 we earned on the Chase Rewards card and that ended up going for DH's paint job on the truck. I'm going to 'forget' that this money is extra so that I won't be tempted to divert it if something comes up.

I had mentioned in a previous post that DH's truck was getting some body work done that was long past due. He had taken it up and asked for a written estimate, which we never got. But the guy doing the repairs had looked at it and told him it would be between $900 and $1000.

Well, today we got a phone call that it's not all done but the body shop has got a lot of work coming in so we could come pick it up, pay for what is done and they'd finish the rest in 2-3 months.

The total for what has been done? $1378. The balance of what still needs to be done? Another $800!!! A far cry from a total of $900-1000. I could see if the entire truck was being done.

So needless to say, the car repair fund is bottomed out and the $250 that I just got and was going to apply to the mortgage has been gobbled up along with our federal tax return.

Still, I am counting my blessings. It's only money and after the week we've had, it's not a big deal. I keep telling myself that we could have been attending a funeral this week. I'll gladly pay the $1400 for the truck instead.

We earned enough points on our Chase Freedom card to redeem them for a check for $250 this month! This money is going straight to the mortgage.

I knew last month that we were getting very close to being able to claim that money. We could have had 4 $50 checks last month, but why not wait a month and get the extra $50?!

I was hoping to pay an extra $280 on the mortgage this month. Didn't quite get there, but almost. I just wrote a check for $264.66 extra. That brings our total on that debt down to less than $7500.

If I can keep around this amount of payment up, it will be paid off in August 2009. That will be 21 years ahead of schedule!!! That's quite a difference!

Thanks to DH's 14.5 hours of overtime last week and one of my part-time bookkeeping jobs, I'm going to be able to pay an extra $280 on the mortgage this month.

I decided to also start applying the money I earn from Pinecone to the mortgage payment. I've been cashing the checks and using the little bit of money towards my meals while I'm on my work deliveries. I think that I can cut costs here and there to avoid doing that. That little extra will add up, even though it's small.

Getting desperate to have this mortgage behind us!

I just checked the status of our Federal tax refund. It says we should get it around April 8th.

I plan to put part of it away in an ING savings account for Christmas gifts and the rest will go toward house repairs.

I would rather put it on the mortgage, but DH says we need to redo the main part of the roof and we also need to buy more siding, which isn't cheap.

Yesterday I got an email from Jeffrey congratulating me on winning the $10 ING Invite Conversion auction. Today the $10 was deposited into my Electric Orange account. I debated on what to do with the unexpected $10 and decided that it will be most appropriate to apply it to our next mortgage payment. So the money has been transferred to my local checking account and will be added onto my payment at the end of the month.

Thanks to Jeffrey!

I've been spending the morning going over my budget. I had to adjust our gasoline budget upwards, of course, because of the increase in prices. That meant taking away from some other area. The only place to cut it was from house repairs. This house needs a lot of work so I've been budgeting $10 a week towards it, but that had to go. I'll still be applying some there from DH's overtime, as long as that lasts. The rest of the OT will continue to go to paying off the debts.

If things continue to get tighter, the next step is going to have to be cutting out the retirement contributions. I would do mine first and put DH's off as long as possible. I really hate to do that, even though I know Dave Ramsey says to not contribute to retirement until debts are paid. I just hate to lose that match that the company kicks in. It seems like such a waste. But, on the other hand, if I did that we'd be out of debt a whole lot faster.

It's just a really hard step for me to take.

Today DH received his spring profit share check. I am sending half of it to our gift savings account to cover gifts for the year and the rest is going in the house repair fund toward the new roof.

I would much rather apply the entire thing to the mortgage, but I know that we would then be in trouble later on and be tempted to borrow. So for now, it will sit in our ING account and earn some interest.

I'm getting a little nervous about only having $1000 in my emergency fund. I know the reason that Dave Ramsey recommends that amount is because most emergencies will be under $1000. But with the car repairs (if the insurance hadn't covered them) being over $500 just for struts, that's a little too close for comfort for me.

I also think he recommends the $1000 so that it will spur you on to getting baby step #2 (pay off debts) done faster. I just feel like we're not really making much headway there because there always seems to be something else coming up.

I would really like to save another $1000 just to have a higher comfort level, but then it would be putting off getting the mortgage paid off even longer.

I still have my change box in which I collect any change I receive. That includes change back from purchases, any coins found around the house, and most important of all, my "pay" for doing laundry from those who aren't wise enough to empty their pockets.

I rolled change yesterday and came up with $8.00. That is being deposited today and will go as extra on the mortgage payment at the end of the month.

The past few weeks I have felt a sense of urgency to get out of debt that I have not felt before.

I have been working on it steadily for about a year and a half now, but the crisis in the housing market and other economic indicators have really gotten me focused on getting out of debt as soon as possible.

The more I observe what is going on around me and hear the horror stories of couples hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, the more thankful I am that our debt is only $65,000.

I really want to get the debt out of the way and get a fully funded emergency fund built up, just in case.

I sat down this morning to figure out how much I could pay on the mortgage payment that is due tomorrow. I want to pay $604.16, but looks like I'll only be able to pay $307.48, maybe a bit more depending on how much overtime is in DH's paycheck. But that's more than the minimum I have to pay of $235.34 so I guess that's better than nothing. The oven repair set me back this month and then the unexpected ER visit and DD#2's new medicine that she's taking for migraines.

I should be getting my first paycheck for the new bookkeeping job in a couple of weeks, so I'm planning on putting that on the mortgage.

And I've been told that I may be getting another bookkeeping job. I guess the librarian at the library just across the border in NY state is pushing for me to do their books for them. I went over a couple of weeks ago and helped her treasurer get their QuickBooks set up. When she heard that I do a monthly report for the libraries so that they know what they're spending, she was interested. Right now they pay an accountant to do their books. All he does is figure payroll and then inputs the yearly information into the annual report. He doesn't give them a monthly report so she never knows exactly how much she's spent on collection items or anything else for that matter. So keep your fingers crossed that she can convince her board to hire me!

Okay, so this morning I hear for sure that the max that a household is going to get from the stimulus pacakge is $1200. So I had to revise my Quicken Debt Reduction Planner.

With only $1200 put down on the mortgage it extends the payoff date to January 2009. At the end of the year there will only be a balance of $550 left on it though. I'm betting that I can find an extra $550 somewhere this year so that it can be paid off. That will be my challenge to myself.

DH also wants to buy a coal stove for the main part of the house to replace the wood pellet stove. We have found that the coal stove in the kitchen puts off much more heat and is more reliable than the pellet stove. So the money I save each week out of his paycheck will probably end up going for that.

We will probably also need to put a new roof on the main section of the house this year. The garage roof also needs replaced. Ack! So many expensive projects. It's going to make it a real challenge to pay off that mortgage, but I keep telling myself that it will be well worth it.

According to Voice of America DH and I could be getting $2700 we weren't counting on this year. That's banking on reports that it would be $300 per child, with no limit to the number of children.

I reran my Quicken debt reduction planner, and if that is correct, mortgage #1 can be paid off this November and the car payment could be retired November of 2009.

We received an unexpected check in the mail today for $129.60. It is a rebate from our escrow account.

Guess where that check is going? Right into the checking account to be applied to that very same mortgage balance! I'll be making that payment on the 29th. Can't let much time lapse or something else will come along that will claim that money!

According to Quicken's Debt Reduction planner I will have 3 debts paid off in 3 years if I can continue to funnel as much money to them as I am now.

The furniture can be paid off in December 2007.

The smaller mortgage can be paid off in December 2008.

And the car loan can be paid off in December 2009.

That would be awesome! The only debt that would remain is the larger mortgage and that could be paid off in February 2013. Not bad at all!

I just wrote the check for the mortgage payment and our total debt is now below the $70,000 mark! My goal was to accomplish this by the end of the year and I've done it 6 months early! Yeah!!!

I should be knocking out Goal #3 next week. I'll be paying an extra $260 on mortgage #1 which will bring overall debt below the $70,000 mark.

I have to seriously sit down now and come up with a set of goals for the rest of 2007.

On Thursday I will be paying an extra $233.90 on mortgage #1 and doubling my payment for this month on the furniture loan. This will bring our overall debt total down to $70,505.08. We're closing in on goal #3!

I assume it's just the price of gas and the fact that we now have 7 to feed again for the summer since college is out, but I'm feeling the financial pinch. We just got rid of the credit card debt so you'd think that I'd have some extra money laying around. Not!

I am adding extra to the mortgage payment but that is all coming out of overtime pay.

I think what I need to do is get that EF back up to $1,000 and I'll probably relax a bit. It makes me nervous to not have some money tucked away, just in case.

I've changed my mind on what debt I'm attacking next with my debt snowball. I've decided to roll my credit card payment onto mortgage #1 instead of the car loan. The mortgage has an interest rate of 9.38% and the car loan is 7.09%.

I can have the mortgage paid off in March of '09 at the rate I intend on paying. My challenge to myself will be to pay it off even sooner with extra money I can save and find.

This mortgage is the one that has our taxes and insurance escrowed into the payment. They are the bank that decided they weren't paying our fall taxes and never notified us so we were turned into a collection agency. I'd really like to be done with them as soon as possible.

Now that the credit card payoff is within sight I need to decide which loan I'm snowballing next. Should it be mortgage #1 or the car loan?

I have gone back and forth on this decision, but I'm leaning toward the car loan right now.

The mortgage has a higher interest rate than the car loan and has a lower balance. If I were to snowball into that loan it could be paid off in 2008.

But my thinking is that the car loan is for something that depreciates quickly and if we were to have to get another car and this loan were not paid off we'd be rolling a lot of money onto another loan.

What would you guys do?

DH came home last night with his profit sharing check for $1124.42. Of course, $337 came right off the top to pay for those taxes that our escrow didn't pay. The rest went right into savings for house repairs.

I contacted the collection agency and they assured me that this will not show up on our credit. Anyone know if that is true??? I find it hard to believe. I paid the bill so it's taken care of and now I need to contact the escrow department at the main bank to find out why, if they weren't going to pay the bill, they didn't send it to us so that we knew it was due. I just don't understand that. How can we pay it if we don't know:

#1 how much it is
#2 when it is due
#3 that they didn't pay it
and #4 that the obligation even exists???

Ack!!!!!

For 2 cents I would take the profit sharing check and our tax returns and pay off this little mortgage just to be done with them. Then I would receive my own tax bills and know that they are paid. Too bad we actually need to have heat though and the money has to go for that!

This morning has not been a good one by any stretch of the imagination.

As soon as DH left for work this morning I walked back into the living room to find that the pellet stove was shutting down yet again. It's been doing that every couple of days lately. When it does this DH has to pull it out away from the wall, take all the pellets out of it and take it apart to clean the top auger. For some reason it is getting a build-up of something on it that prevents it from turning and feeding the pellets down so that they burn. So we started the day with no heat and the record lows for March of 1 degree with wind chills of -20.

Then I picked up the mail on the way to work and there are 2 notices from a debt collection agency that our school taxes from last fall were never paid by our escrow account! So I called our tax collector and she said that for some reason the bank did not pay anyone's taxes last fall (which they've always done before) and that she sent out notices so that we would know they hadn't been paid. I never got the notice. So now we've been turned over to the collection agency which is going to mess up our credit.

My question is...why didn't the bank let us know they were not paying them and why aren't they paying them??? This is how it's worked for 7 years now. It would have been nice to know that they changed things. The money to pay these taxes is included in our monthly payment. Would be nice if it was used for what it's intended for.

I'm very close to changing banks right now.