Extra Pmt To My SF Card: $150
Transferred to Orange Savings: $50

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I noticed that we seem to have a bit of an excess in our checking account. I'm not sure how it happened, because we certainly haven't been under budget much. I think it may have been certain amounts that I've allocated for things like BF's health insurance, etc. that we had to prepay a while back.

At any rate, I wanted to see if we would be needing this money in the near future... but BBT's online banking is down, so I can't check the amount we have right now. Another reason we need to look for another bank.

I know we have about $1300 in there right now, minus $60 I spent on gas yesterday, and a check from my work that hasn't cleared yet. So, just to be on the safe side, I'm estimating a conservative $1,000 to start with.

Now (10th): $1,000
Estimated Extra: $300
Amount Left For Expenses: $700

-$50 Food
-$100 Gas
-$60 Pets
-$125 Gifts
=$365 LEFT

(13th): +$500 (BF's Paycheck)
-$75 Electric
-$200 Gas
-$180 Car Payment
-$20 Food
-$40 Pets
=$350 LEFT

(22nd): +$980 (My Paycheck)
-$50 FFB Card Pmt
-$57 Cable
-$200 My SF Card Pmt
-$50 Discover Card Pmt
-$114 Personal Loan
-$51 Student Loans
-$100 Gas
=$708 LEFT

(27th): +$500 (BF's Paycheck)
-$875 Rent
-$50 BF's SF Card Pmt
-$150 AT&T
-$120 Gas
=$13 LEFT

So that works out about right, with some fairly liberal estimates for spending on food & gas (I think!).

This includes paying most things pretty early, and all of them by the due date. Because I estimated the amount we had available now pretty conservatively, I feel confident that we can take out the $300 to put towards other things.

So, where is it gonna go? I like the idea of putting a little in savings, while the majority goes to debt repayment. It is so rewarding to see our savings go up every month, even if it's only by a little bit.

I think I will split the $300 in three ways: $150 to my SF Card, $100 To BF's SF Card, and $50 extra to our Orange Savings. The payment to BF's card will have to wait a few days, until his updated balance is showing. He put one of our expenses on his card the other day because I had his debit card, so I want to add that amount to the $100... so it's actually $100 EXTRA, not just $100.

This doesn't count the $50 I've already added to our Orange savings this month.

I'm pretty excited!

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You may also notice that I've updated one of our goals on my sidebar. Originally, I had a goal of getting our total debt to $14,000 by the end of this year. But, since I've started putting a little bit of our "extras" into our savings account for emergencies and Christmas gifts, I don't feel like $14,000 is realistic. I want our goals to be a challenge, but not impossible. So, I've changed it to $15,000 by the end of the year. That will still be a challenge, but doable I think. We'll see!

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I've been up with the pup since 5:50 this morning, which kind of stinks because it's my day off and the rare day that I get to sleep in. But even after BF got up at 7:30 and offered to let me go back to sleep, I didn't really feel like it then. I'm afraid if I go back to sleep, I'll waste away our day off together and we won't get to do anything.

It came as a shock to me that BF went along with most of my plans for today. The only thing he wanted to nix was the eating at Red Lobster, which he suggested we do on Thursday night instead. That won't be bad because he gets off at 5 and I'm off all day on Thursday.

He even added that maybe we could check out a hiking trail instead. We have never been there before, and we're not even sure how to get there, but we're going to load up with bottled water and some snacks and try it.

So, in theory, our day will involve:

~Starbucks (gift card)
~Hiking (if we can find it)
~Library (they're open 1-5pm)
~Birthday Shopping (gifts & cards)
~Take Pup To The Park

I have no idea if we'll get all (or any) of it done, but it would be nice! Well, I'm off to take a shower! Everyone have a great day.