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Archive for February, 2008

Entertaining Kids on the Cheap

February 28th, 2008 at 09:21 pm

My SIL called this week and asked us to keep her four kids on Saturday. She is going to drop them off Friday evening and pick them up after bedtime on Saturday night. TB and I are excited about it because we always have a lot of fun with them. The three boys are 11, 10 and 9 and the little sister is 6. They're well behaved and we always have a good time. Unfortunately, we also usually spend a lot of money entertaining them. I'm sure this is not a newsflash but activities with four children are not cheap! Sometimes we take them bowling or to laser tag and that can really add up.

Anyway, I am trying to think of some fun alternatives to do with them this time. I'd like to take them to the movies and out to eat pizza, and then maybe to the park to play on the playground and play basketball. If we go to the movies it will definitely be during the day so I can save a little money...and I'll be sneaking in some snacks for them too.

I am not that good of a cook but I am going to make hamburgers and hotdogs on Saturday night for them. Easy and cheap...and GOOD!

More catching up...

February 25th, 2008 at 02:02 pm

We had a relaxing weekend and didn't spend too much money. Yesterday after church we went out to lunch with two couples from our Adult Bible Fellowship class. They're both around our age and we have a lot of fun with them. One of the couples is expecting their first baby in two weeks. We are so excited for them. TB and I are getting close to wanting to try again but I am really scared. I went to a new OBGYN last year for my yearly check-up, thinking that I was going to change to her before we tried pregnancy again but I really don't like her that much. I mean, she is a nice person and seems attentive but I just don't feel like she is on the same page with me when it comes to certain things. Our pregnant friend is a NICU nurse and really likes her doctor so she gave me his information yesterday. I looked him up and he does take our insurance (yay!) so I am going to go to him next time for my yearly exam and check him out. My main criteria is that I find somebody who is going to put a lot of time into reading my charts and learning about my past pregnancies. I might need to even go see some kind of high risk doctor too but our friend said this doctor referred her to one who was awesome for some visits.

Anyway, the thought of pregnancy is kind of freaking me out but TB is so ready for it. I think he'd have me knocked up right now, given the chance. LOL. I absolutely know that there is never a perfect time to have kids but I am still trying to put it off longer. Both because I am scared and I would like to get this misc. debt paid off.

TB did get out of paramedic school last year. Woot!! He took the National Registry (big, hard test that you have to pass) and passed that in December. Last month he got his state certification in so he is all official. I am so proud of him for all the hard work he put into this. Also, I am amazed at all the stuff he knows. I guess that is a really good thing seeing as how he is supposed to be saving lives and all, but you know what I mean. He is just full of all this medical terminology and random drug information. Pretty cool!

Anyway, by getting his paramedic certification he really narrowed down the number of people he is going against for some of these firefighter jobs so that is good news. Basically, you just have to wait until the cities are testing and sign up for the tests so that is what we've been waiting for. There are several tests coming up (one tonight) that he's registered for so hopefully something good will come from one of those. We are so ready for him to get a firefighter/paramedic job.

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Oh,and I wanted to tell y'all thanks for the nice comments. It feels awesome to have that credit card gone and our emergency fund built back up. I'm excited to get the ball rolling again.

Starting here again...

February 22nd, 2008 at 08:22 pm

Well, I haven't written here since April of 2007 and I am kind of depressed because I don't have that much accomplished (debt snowball wise) since then.

I have been reading a lot of the other blogs and enjoy them though so I decided to start back up.

So, we got our tax refund today. $2,712.00.

I used $1,372.94 of it to pay off our smallest credit card (WOOT!!) and $1000 more will go to get our emergency fund back up and running.

Total debt left (besides our home) after that bill:

Discover D - $4,283.88
Discover E - $6,100.15
Discover 3- $3,454.00
B of A (truck) - $3,600.00

I get another paycheck on the 29th (with a small bonus, I think) and all the bills are paid for the month so I hope to use a chunk of that on the truck. Technically, Discover 3 is our smallest debt but the truck is so close I am going to concentrate on that one next. The truck payment is $311.55 per month so getting that out of the way first makes more sense to me. If I don't start paying extra on it the loan will not mature until February of next year. Wayyyy too long. I need to call and ask Bank of America how I can make extra payments on the truck. Right now I go through the drive thru at the bank and pay it..but I don't want to wait till the monthly payment is due again to pay the extra money, I don't think.