A Little Payoff

Blame it on the change of seasons, the lack of sunshine, and the pressure to get things done before winter is here for real,

Or on Tim's crazy schedule that has finally come to an end, and the crazy busy weekends I've had at work lately.

Perhaps it is the change of focus from the garden to homeschooling, and the numerous field trips we've been going on.

Blame it on the rain...

But I've been feeling rather blah lately. No, blah doesn't quite cover it. Drained is a better description.

There is so much to do, and I am having trouble summoning the motivation and energy to get it all done. I don't feel like going to work, and have begun to wonder if it is really worth it. It is time for a reality check.

Back in January we were facing a financial crisis. We had cut and cut our expenses, and still we were behind on some bills, and not even paying another. Something had to change, and the only thing left to change was our income.

We went to Financial Peace. We considered a number of options, and in the end I took a server job to generate a little more cash flow. In June I reported that it was all worth it. I changed my schedule to work only three days; two very long days and one short evening. That helped us manage our time a little better. We got through the summer and all that comes with it in terms of the garden. We made it through Tim's fall rush at work, and now I'm tired.

To find a little motivation, I pulled out my last pay stub, and took a glance at the YTD gross pay sum. Oh yes, that is a tidy little sum that made me smile a little, but how has that traveled through our cash flow?

The bills have all been caught up, and paid on time for months now. I think I've taken that a bit for granted. Going back to read some of my older posts reminded me of the stress that being behind created. But we want to do more than just stay caught up. We went to get out of debt.

We've been working the plan, paying down our debts. We have our snowball amount, and when there is extra income that also goes toward the debt. I decided I needed to see our progress in black and white.

I pulled a couple snapshots from Quicken showing our account balances. One report from the end of February and one with a current date. Those numbers are motivating. Our credit card balances are down by over $7000. Our savings up by more than $2000. This was all accomplished while not only keeping up with the bills, but also paying a hefty amount on our student loans that we had been trying to ignore. Add a little fluff to all that in remembering that we also replaced our washer and computer, with cash, in this same time frame. I am feeling pretty good about putting the hours in and seeing a little payoff for the work we have done.

It is still rainy and gloomy out. There still are not nearly enough hours in the day to accomplish all that I would like to. But seeing those numbers in black and white was just the little ray of sunshine that I needed. I found some motivation.