Ok, well, for once not everything is dreadful! That alone is progress!
*We did our taxes. We can't file them yet (until the 31st) but when it comes in, it is going to hopefully allow us to do 3 major things to improve our situation:
1) Buy a second vehicle. This will allow me to hopefully be a wage earner as well. If nothing else, it will allow me to get laundry/grocery shopping done and expand our horizons a little bit by going to the library/state park/church. We have been hermits, seriously. The hard part will be convincing my husband to buy what *I* think we should buy vs. what he thinks we should buy. I'm not sure who's right, I just want the money to go as far as possible.
2) Pay off debts. This includes the recent bank debt we acquired, an older bank debt, and some collections on our credit. These all however total about $1800, so it being a lower priority than a second vehicle, they may not all be able to be taken care of.
3) Increase our savings /Catch up on bills. It's not likely that we will have enough left over to do both these things, however my GOAL is to double our savings (whatever they are at the time it comes in) and then use the rest to catch up on bills. Some of our bills are still running 1 month behind. If we can catch up on those, I've given my husband permission to get cable for hockey playoff season. as long as w can keep up on the bill. Heh.
*We added another $50 to savings this week. Seriously, 2 bank accounts, where a portion goes into savings automatically, is the way to go. Handling/seeing that money in any fashion almost guarantees it will be spent. Not seeing it at all, makes us forget about it, and either suffer without necessities (within reason) or say no to splurges we would normally make.
*We paid another $25 off on our bank debt. It really makes so little progress as to be almost insignificant, but we will have to pay less out of our tax return if we keep trying.
*I tried to get my credit report/score but was unsuccessful, so I'm not sure this counts as progress. Pre-progress maybe, as I'm trying to figure out what the problem is. they cannot seem to verify my identity online, and want me to mail them a bunch of verification paperwork, but I don't have a copier or printer, so that's an issue. Pushing the stroller through 4+ inches of permanent snow with high temperatures that haven't even hit 20 yet for 2 weeks takes the library completely out of the equation. So that's on a burner for now. not necessarily the back burner, just a burner, as I try to figure out what I can do.
*Went to the food pantry again this week. It's been over a month, but I wanted to save it for when we really needed it. We don't need it this week really, but we will certainly need it next week. Rent is going to drain our entire check. I'm not sure we will be able to buy any groceries at all. We'll see.
So, hey! Some progress! Still tiny steps, but getting a second car will be huge. Paying off debts will be huge too actually. I just hope we can make it without digging our hole deeper until then. That's always the challenge right? Keeping equilibrium until the Hail Mary money comes.
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