Mr. Money Bags

I do not feel like being at work today. I haven't felt much like being at work this week. But someone has to keep paying the bills.

Speaking of bills, I actually had some money left over at the end of last month. With gas prices being down, we saved about $200 last month over what we had been paying this summer.

Since the temperature has cooled down in our neck of the woods, our energy bill was about $100 less.

I paid off our bed at the end of September, just before the 0% interest expired, which gives me an extra $300.

I paid off my Best Buy card the month before that, so there's another $100 every month.

All of that adds up to quite a bit of money every month. Of course at the same time I'm saving all of this money, I also started contributing to my retirement account again (while stocks are down, I might add, which should be good for me in the long run) so that's eating a little of the savings, but there's still a nice chunk of change to pay down my enormous credit card debt. In may, I'll pay off a loan, which will net another $300+ every month, so maybe by this time next year, the only debt I'll have left is a car payment (which I only have 15 months left on right now) and a house payment.

It feels good to finally have something left over. Of course, I have to resist temptation all the time too. Every Sunday I look at those Best Buy ads and think how nice it would be to have a 50" flat screen in our living room, but our current HDTV does the job very nicely.

It would be great to redo our kitchen and bathroom, but we're trying to save up to buy land. We'd like to do something with our back yard, but I'm not about to blow 20K to have someone landscape it. We can wait until my parents are here for the winter, and my dad and I will figure something out that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

Saving money instead of spending it all. Looks like I really am turning into my parents.