Tuesday keeping track of my mess.

    Have you ever noticed how much time debt takes?  When you start to go over the edge it eats into all aspects of your life.  You lose a great deal of enjoyment on just the little things.  There are too many bills and it is hard to keep track.  Because I have a business I keep pretty accurate tax records.  I can look back at my list of bills and see long lists on spread sheets.  I have been really trying to conquer this debt monster for 30 years.

     The real effort has been the last ten years.  I would start and fall off the wagon.  But every time I started I was a little better.  I learned more, it became easier.  My ablility to control my wants became better. My strength to say no to my children grew.  I found I could put off purchases, something I had not done before.

     Now for the last 18 months I have had an emergency fund of $1000.00 or more.  Yes I have used it, but it always goes back.   I am down to 6 debts.  I started with as many as 20.  Now some of these were doctor bills, but they were still bills.  I had to learn that car insurance comes every 3 months.  It was a big day for me when I could pay my car insurance monthly!  I now have it taken directly out of checking.  That was also a biggy as I would have overdrawn before.

     Change has come so slowly.  But I am changing.  My, oh my, I am down to 6 debts on the spread sheet!  I often go looking for more, because the list is so small.  I must have missed something.  That list is getting shorter.  Soon it will be down to 5.  Just see if you can keep me on this wagon.

What are some things you have learned along the way?


Out My Window:

I bet you can't guess?  Yes it is over cast and cold.  But the Dogwod trees are so stunning.  The whole valley (that you can see from our front room) is a riot of bloom.  Huge balls of dark pink, light pink, salmon and white.  It is just incredible.  The lilacs are almost ready. I love lilacs.

Daughter #2 takes her big written board today.  She has a small restorative board tomorrow.  I called her early today to tell her to get to the testing site early as she is in a big city she does not know well and I was worried that she would get lost and then miss the test.  I called her a 7 a.m. and she says, "Mom I am already here, I am in the parking lot, they won't even let us in the building for 15 more minutes.  See they do grow up.:)  I am off to see the Wizard!

Have a great and productive day!

Kim