We started the month of March with a total debt of $234,385.88. I just closed the books (actually a binder) for the month of March and our total debt sits now at $230,272.91. We paid $3,764.00 extra on the principal of the house and almost double the car loan payment. Our plan is to pay the mortgage payments for the months of July, August and September with our June paychecks since we are both 10 months employees. My husband usually works in the summer, but I never count on it until he actually lands a summer job.
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I made an extra $37.50 this pay period covering extra classes. I plan to utilize that money to continue building a stock pile for when DS#2 goes away to technical school next September.

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I'm officially off from work until next Monday. I plan to read the firt book of the Hunger Games series, watch the movie The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (I read all of the books of the series) and watch a video on the life of Evita Peron, since I'm going to see Evita on Broadway in May.

Well this is it for today. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. ((HUGS))

We finally hit the "under the $200K" mark on the mortgage principal. We are at exactly $199,999.76 We have paid a little over $43,500 in 15 months. Not too shabby and I'm really excited about our progress.

Free 8X10 if done by 12:00 midnight. Enter code FREEONE and choose store pick up. Buy 25 4X6 prints and get 25 prints free. Code is PRINTS4U. Choose store pick up if you don't want to pay shipping charges. I ordered mine just a little while back. Luckily my son received a CD as a gift at his Wrestling Banquet. I want to create an album for him.

Have a great evening and a lovely Sunday!

We have been spending a lot of money going out to eat and buying groceries. The groceries are a necessity of course, but the eating out frequently is totally unacceptable. I decided to make a dinner menu plan to last until the end of this month. Starting April, I'm going to try to go grocery shopping once a month. Last night, I made one batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, which yields 24 cupcake size muffins and 5 bigger ones. I also made 16 butterhorn dinner rolls. Usually, the recipe yields 32 rolls, but I only made half of it because without a bread machine the dough is hard to handle. Today, I made a meatless meal and it was super yummy. Here is a picture: The cost of this whole meal for a family of four it's about $5 (the avocado being the most expensive).



Frozen butterhorn dinner rolls (8 per bag)



pumpkin chocolate chip muffins (a family favorite)

I schedule another mortgage principal payment for tomorrow. As of tomorrow, the mortgage balance stands at $203,598.00. I cannot wait to be under the $200K. Total 2012 extra principal amount paid is $8,290.60. Woo Hoo!!!

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Car loan balance is $19,355.79. I'm almost doubling the payment. So excited! The goal is to pay off both vehicles in the same exact month.

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We were thinking of purchasing a home in Florida but opted to stick to our goal of becoming debt-free, including the house by 2018. If everything goes according to plan and Murphy does not strike, I'll be 48 and hubby 58 years old. Technically, my husband can retire at that age and receive a small pension.

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I earned $10 amazon gift cards from Swagbucks and another $10 from Synovate Surveys (Crystal from moneysavingmom.com recommended this site) and so far so good. I can redeem the voucher at Amazon also. I want to use this money to buy graduation party decorations and 2012 paper products.
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I'm purchasing the tickets tonight to see Evita on Broadway the Saturday before Mother's Day. My son is gifting me the train ticket ($26) and I'm using the $40 I got for Valentine's Day for my dinner. It's not cheap, the ticket alone is $150, but it's so worth it. I wish I could do this every month. I love, love Broadway.