New Year.

Debts to Pay	January 9, 2019
Credit Cards	2,337.81
F	2,592.71
A	3,572.49
C	4,567.19
C. Car Loan	5,611.61
P	5,265.60
P. Car Loan	7,225.59
E	8,419.87
G	8,892.98
Total	50,685.85

Amount Paid Off This Week: $-1773.01
*Current chart shows adjustments for interest, pay downs, and pay offs.*

One of these days, I will be more consistent with how often I share posts. It has been a hectic few months. We have been adjusting to my husband’s new job, I have had a ton of work projects, we have spent a lot of time with our family, and we just got past all the year-end holidays. It’s been a busy season of life for our little crew. We still don’t have a home of our own, although we did buy a small piece of land (with cash!) and broke ground on it a few months ago. It’s been too cold to actually start foundation work, but hopefully we can do that soon.

Our motivation to pay off debts has waned. Between not having major bills associated with owning a home and not being sure how much money we are making each month, we haven’t kept a good eye on our budget. At the risk of being cliché, we decided to start fresh on budgeting during the New Year.

Our new budget is somewhat stressful. My husband and felt it was time to start acting as though we were homeowners and start saving back money as though we were paying bills. What this looks like in our budget is we have lines for mortgage, electric, water, etc and rather than paying them to a company, we pay them to our savings account. The goal is to not only save back money for when we do actually have a home, but to also build our savings account to allow us to put up a larger down payment and improve our debt to income ration. Another perk of doing this is that we will hopefully get into the habit of using our money for our needs first versus our wants.

We may not be able to save back exactly what we budget for these “bills” each month. Our income is a little dicey right now and it may not be feasible for us. But something is better than nothing, and we all have to start somewhere. I’m looking forward to 2019. We are only 9 days in and it is already shaping up to be lovelier than last year. We may have a huge debt load still, but we have a plan. Here’s to accomplishing goals!

--chloe.