Our Journey to Financial Freedom and more...

Well, it's just like Dave says in the book - things are going great and then something happens. In our case, it's fortunately nothing bad, just a minor setback on our journey. Let's just say we're taking an unexpected Thanksgiving trip to Phoenix this year! It's actually really cool (other than the initial outlay of cash) that we're going to be doing something so completely different for the holidays. The only bummer is that Christian won't be with us - he'll be with his dad in Illinois (his dad is getting married that weekend).

The coolest thing about this trip is that we're only paying for the airfare and the rental car! Howard has been working out of town since August (5-6 days per week), and he's a Priority Club member at Holiday Inn. He has so many points saved up that we're able to get our hotel free for our trip (5 free days in a hotel - how nice is that on a travel budget?) and still have enough points left over and left to earn to possibly get free rooms in SF for Bay to Breakers in May!! Oh the paradox of Howard's out of town schedule - I hate that he's gone, but it has its perks. And for food, we've really hit the jackpot. We were given $50 in Chili's gift cards last year, Christian "cashed in" a $25 gift card at the Bank of Mom, we had a couple of Starbuck's gift cards from somewhere, and Howard got a $100 gift card as a safety bonus on this job he's on right now. I also cashed in points on MyPoints for another $70 in restaurant gift cards, so just about all of our food will be covered while we're travelling, too. You never realize how much the food costs when you travel and have to eat at a restaurant for every meal! This will definitely keep us on a tight budget.

So, our journey to financial freedom continues. Because we had to pay for the plane tickets in October, we wiped our emergency fund. Yes, I know travel is NOT an emergency on the plan, BUT we knew that we'd have it back at the beginning of this month. The other perk to Howard working so much over the past several months is that he gets a bonus for his billable time - I won't tell how much the bonus is, but I will say that it's been extremely helpful! And I get my check from teaching each month (OK so I make about $4 per hour when you consider all the time I spend prepping and grading, but still), which really helps for all the little expenses that seem to pop up every month (school pictures $54 - wtf?!?!).

We started our journey on September 1 and have paid off 4 of the smaller things we had hanging over our heads, including one car! Granted, the car only had 4 payments left when we started, but still - we made 4 payments in 2 months! Even with this unplanned vacation, we could still be on track to pay off the next credit card bill by the end of the year. And not only that, but we've gone completely credit card free since we started. I thought it would be a lot harder than it's been (again, that bonus has been a life saver), but we have really made an effort to change our charging ways! I don't even let Christian borrow his allowance anymore - no more credit from the Bank of Mom!

Even though we still have a long way to go, and it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, we can already see that first pinprick of light, and it's good!

Finally - the weekend!

I love the holidays, but I feel like I am going non-stop most of the time! I am so very glad it's the weekend, and there is no wrestling! Christian is happy to not have to be up at 5:00 and at school at 6:00 for the bus.... Heck, I am happy not to have to be up at 5:00 dragging a tired kid out of bed to get to school and catch the bus!

Alas, we have lots to do tomorrow. The Christmas lights are still in boxes next to the front door to be hung around the front of the house. We got rope lights to go around the adobe planters in the front yard and the old school big lights to go on the house. I hope we have enough! I have a couple of strings of blue icicle lights that we might put somewhere - don't know where yet... I'd like to go back to the store and get green rope lights and do the trunks of the palm trees. It would be really cool to do the branches, but I don't think I can talk anyone into getting on the ladder to do that... I'm not a big fan of being up on a ladder, so if it's up to me, it's not getting done.

And two more weeks of work then vacation! I am so ready for a break and I'm looking forward to seeing the family. I never look forward to the drive with the baby, but I'm hoping for the best. We haven't done a long car trip for a while, so I hope she'll handle it pretty well. She's doesn't love the car seat after she's had to be in it for a while. It might take a lot longer than 6 hours to get to San Diego - yikes!

Ah yes - the weekend. It's here, but I have a feeling it's going to go by way too fast!