The Odd, Tangled and Organized Life

Feeling fine today! And it has nothing to do with the one alcoholic beverage I had this evening. I paid off my Torrid account. Woohoo!!!!! Also made a lot of other payments, thanks to my $500 bonus for this paycheck (after taxes). Everything is paid up, except for a handful of things to pay on the 1st - namely the HOA and the mortgage. It just feels so good. The next bill to pay off is the Credit One Bank credit card, currently sitting at $290.42. Which shouldn't be a problem, right? I feel energized and jazzed and motivated to make some more money selling stuff. I have sold a few things, which makes me very happy. Tomorrow I'm going to start listing more items to sell. That's all I have tonight. Tomorrow I'm sure I'll have more to talk about. Still going to work. My anxiety is high, but I'm talking to my doctors about it and I will get it under control again.

What's in a name? This reminds me of Romeo and Juliet (I was an English major, after all). And I'm having a bit of a tough time with what to call my emergency fund. I need to call it something other than emergency fund, because that's not what it is. I haven't had anything remotely that I would call an emergency, but I keep spending out of it. I mean, after all, on Friday, I drained it to pay for the brakes on my car. So, I've said this before, I'm adopting the Dave Ramsey model of personal finance and his baby steps. Step 1: put $1000 in an emergency fund. Step 2: snowball your debt. Pay the minimum amount on each account, then anything extra, pay down your smallest debt. Once that is paid off, add the minimum payment for that debt into the minimum payment of the next smallest debt. And so on and so forth. I've already paid off one account. I'm on my way to paying off a 2nd account. I'm accounting for every dollar, not keeping anything in my...

Some days you feel really good about your finances. Other days, an unexpected expense will bring you down. Yesterday was one of those days. I had sent my car in for an oil change at the dealership. They have an option where a driver will come pick up the car wherever you are - in my case, work - drive it to the dealership and perform the maintenance, then when you have paid online, they will drive it back to you. All you have to do is hand over the keys. No contact, no waiting around at the dealership. Actually, quite ideal for this day in age. I hope it sticks around once COVID-19 runs its course. Anyway, I had scheduled an appointment for an oil change. I knew my brakes were due to be done soon, but was hoping I could make it through another oil change. Not so much. So, instead of $80 for an oil change and tire rotation, I spent $440. It wiped out what I had in my cushion fund, as you can see at the right. And, they recommended a transmission fluid change and a water pump and tim...

Good morning and Happy Saturday! These weekends are very important to me. I have learned that I will not be working from home at all. My boss's boss's boss has decided that since we execute and sign documents in front of notaries on our team, and those notaries have to enter activities into our database, we cannot work from home and sign in front of a notary at a bank. Not that we would be able to anyway, with most branches closing the lobbies in this coronavirus pandemic. And I have been very busy executing assignments, so I get to go into the office every day. Not the greatest for my anxiety, but what can I do? At least I have a job and I'm getting a paycheck. Which is more than I can say for a lot of people in this country and worldwide. Okay, so you may have noticed that I'm no longer under $21k for my debt countdown. Well, that's because when I was adding up totals, I discovered I didn't account for the interest I'm paying on my Kirby. Had to add ...