Hi! I'm Raquel. I'm feeling a little vulnerable. I stumbled across this site, gathered all my information, tried to settle my nausea, and hit update. I finally got my head out of the sand a few weeks ago. Unfortunately we got a rude awakening when we received court documents regarding a debt. What a sinking feeling. I thought to myself, I better do something about this before I get 10 more. So, I put all of our debt on here. As of last week, we have payments set up on...
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We closed on our appraisal and got a total of $7,005 cash out. $5,000 will be saved back to finish our dirt work project. $1,770 will be used to pay for the water heater, and the rest will be put towards the new fridge we had to buy since ours went out this week... Ugh.

At least every appliance is new now.

We also effectively gained the $2,000 I had set back for our taxes and insurance since the new loan has escrow included now. It will just remain in our savings account...
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I wish I could report a windfall, or a payoff, or some kind of success with money, but I am just in a holding pattern right now. It is less than a week till payday, when I can start feeling like I am making progress again. My variables are at 14%. I haven't bought much of anything so far this month.

The lamp I ordered (last month) arrived yesterday, and surprise! It was much smaller than I thought it would be. I obviously didn't look at the dimensions very carefully. I...
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Have some extra money this month which has really boosted our home deposit account (see side bar) so happy we are reaching our goal...a little each month..but this is a big jump for us..

Other than groceries/gas..I also bought a gift for a baby shower and a house warming gift...although I need to send that to the US so will cost a bit but that will come out of my mad money.

Was our youngest b-day today..she didn't want to do much so we just had cake and then she left to go home..
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No surprises here. My take home pay was $0.07 more than expected. I planned to transfer $805.43 from sinking funds to pay my car and 5th wheel insurance and that was the only transfer which happened. Buffer is the beginning balance in checking, and my only other income was the expected $0.01 of interest on checking.



I did manage to trim my needed cash by $40.00. That is always nice when I can manage it as I send every spare penny to extra principal.



No surprises...
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Pay day is Friday, I sort of played around with the numbers and realized I will be saving about 34% of my income. Though most of this is sinking funds (e.g. HOA, mortgage, car insurance) it’s still a great feeling knowing I can save for these things.

After tallying what I’ll be adding to my challenge fund, my YTD will be $1532. I’m so excited about this. I had so many plans for this money when I first started, saving for my 50th, then it changed to paying off CC, now...
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It is extremely hot and humid in Maryland today. Summer is not my favorite season. The humidity just seems to drain all my energy really quickly. I did venture out to run a few errands though. I had a coupon from my grocery store for a free 10-pound bag of russet potatoes. I dropped half of these off to my brother as I will never eat that many! I’ll need to find some recipes for what to do with the rest.
Then I went over to CVS and bought 5 bottles of shampoo, and a 6-roll...
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Yesterday was a day of some drama. First of all, it was a peak savings day, which means I was invited to reduce my electrical usage as much as possible between the hours of 3 and 7, in exchange for a credit on my bill. I turned everything off, including the air. Since I was planning to leave at 5 for the baseball game, I thought it wouldn't be too bad.

No sooner did I turn it all off, I got a message from the property manager that there was a gas leak, and the gas had been...
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Bought a rug today...have wanted one for quite awhile it is so nice and much better than the carpet to lay on..it set me back $350 was on sale and talked them down another $50....but its what we wanted..so all good.

May have found my mom a house but we will see what happens last time it didn't eventuate so hopefully this will be the one...she really needs her own space...apparently the landlord will call me tomorrow so will see what happens.

payday tomorrow so will go do...
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Received the refund, for the house after the refinance, the amount was $779. I also received a refund, thank goodness, for my professional membership from the job, in the amount of $219.

Now that I have a nice chunk set aside for professional membership and certifications, $763, I’m going to stop contributing to that account and add the amount I was contributing to the student loans. My membership is ridiculously high $219 and the certification (two) are about $150 every...
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So I posted that last night, an electric circuit tripped and wouldn't reset. I scheduled the electrician to come out this afternoon.

I checked the circuit this morning before I went to work and it still wouldn't reset. When I got home around 2pm, and the electrician was on his way, I tried one more time and sure enough it reset and everything worked.

When the tech came, I told him the story and my theory that during the storm, some moisture had somehow gotten into something,...
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It's hot and I don't handle heat well. DH went to the mall to walk so I actually had control of the TV remote. I was messing around and saw a show about paying off debt on Crackle. Crackle is a free streaming service so I figured I would check it out.

It was pretty interesting. Kind of reminded me a little of Gail Vaz Oxlade's "Till Debt Do Us Part." I wanted to check out the host who is CEO of Chegg which I had never heard of before. Apparently Chegg is some sort of educational...
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Yesterday was a very quiet day for me. I had one load of laundry to do, and I did a bit of vacuuming. No cooking, it was too hot. I filled my time with reading, watching TV, and playing computer games.

I had a serving of the French onion soup I made the day before, and it was delicious! Instead of heating it up under the broiler, I warmed up the soup in a pan, and toasted the bread and cheese in the toaster oven. Then I just put the warm soup in a bowl and popped the toast...
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This week is pay week other than groceries and gas the rest will go into the house account so around another $300..I love to see it climb each month and getting closer to our goal.

Gas prices here have sky rocketed back to $1.47 per litre don't know why but probably cause the kids have 2 weeks off school

Other than that satying home..saving money and trying to stay warm
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So Miami-Dade County is going back on lock down, I’m literally a skip and a hop away from this county. I can’t figure out, why the governor refuses to lock us back down. The bars, that are supposed to closed, are packed, people aren’t wearing masks and our numbers are skyrocketing. I’m in Florida.

I spoke with my friend, his mom is still not doing well. My other friend had to give up her office, the hospital has to turn her floor into a COVID unit, and my neice who...
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We had a violent tropical storm move through the area this afternoon. High winds, heavy rain, even some hail in the area. Our lights flickered a few times but never went out. We did get a bit of water in the basement, which isn't unusual, and it was pretty minor. We thought we had escaped the worst of it.

Then a short time ago, DD went into the family room, turned on the TV, and the power went out. It only affected the family room, half the living room, and part of the basement....
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Spending some time this week getting DD ready for university and looking for some ideas. She has a debit card, but I wonder if she should have a secured credit card? Or if we should get her a card on our account? It seems the secured card would help her build credit, and there are several with no fees. We'd link it to her checking account and pay it off every month.

Any advice? Ideas?
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We had a nice picnic yesterday. At first it seemed too hot, but after sitting a while under a large shady tree, we started to feel the breezes from the lake, and it was really quite pleasant.

My ex offered to help with the cost of the ceiling repair. I don't know if he was serious. We'll see. I asked DIL what she thought was behind his recent behavior, and she said he had helped them with some things, too, and he just seemed to be feeling generous.

I ran the air all night...
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Listen for those of you who think that your rights are being violated when asked to wear a mask, please put your selfishness aside.

This mask wearing topic has become political, and it is a health care issue.

My friend’s mom is fighting for her life right now. She decided against his wishes to have a party. That’s right a house party. People showed up, there was no social distancing and no mask wearing. Guess what, she is now in ICU fighting for her life. I received...
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I took a vacation day on Thursday, and Mom and I went on a short road trip to Manhattan, NV. My family lived there briefly in the winter of 1969-1970 and Mom has been wanting to reminisce.

I left home early Thursday morning (with Bella), headed to Mom's, then we were on to Tonopah, NV. We stayed at a wonderful old hotel called the Mizpah Hotel. I highly recommend it, should you ever find yourself in the area. Our junior suite was spacious, luxurious, full of beautiful antiques,...
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