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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Updates, Vacations, and Staying on Budget

It has come to my attention that I skipped an entire month of updating. I thought about going back and doing an update for June too.... but ultimately decided that I'd just consider my hand slapped and move right along into July.

Our three week vacation has come and gone, and if you read my main blog, you'll know that it could not have possibly gone any better. Truly. We've been home for almost three weeks now, and I'm still a little awed by it (and still a little tired by it.) In hindsight, was it really the best idea to take such an expensive vacation when we're trying to pay off so much debt? Probably not. Was it 100% worth it anyway? Absolutely. And the great part - financially speaking - was that it held no unpleasant surprises when it came to money. Husband worked for weeks and weeks on a budget... figuring gas money, hotel money, food money, entertainment money. Over and over he'd make these little tweaks here and there until he finally pronounced it finished.

Anyway, when all was said and done, and we'd visited all our people and gone all our places and bought all the souvenirs... we added up all the receipts. And we were over his proposed budget by barely $200 ($80 of which was an unplanned nose piercing) Pretty amazing really. I couldn't even begin to make a budget like that, but he did it well, and even seemed to enjoy it (which might have something to do with the fact that he is involved in making budgets for a living, and I am not)

Of course, facing expenses now that we're home is another story. There are suddenly a lot of them, from Cub Scout and basketball and gymnastics registrations, to Diamondbacks games and birthdays and an unschooling conference. It'll work out, and we'll get there. Of this I'm sure. And I am very, very thankful that we're able to do all the things we do with not only not going further into debt, but also continuing to pull ourselves out - however slow it may seem at the time. Still, it is frustrating to have that constant feeling of, "Next month we'll get back on track."

I need to say it though: Next month we'll get back on track.

Total debt for July (only because our most recent payments for the trip are not yet reflected):
Up by $1334.69

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