How much is too much?.....

So this week I was able to work 2 red shifts plus my 3 regular shifts. That equals to about 20 hours of overtime! Plus extra shift differentials! I'm also signed up for another red shift next wed night. So I had someone ask me if I wanted their on call for Sunday night, but I declined. Already committed to volunteering at church, and I'm beginning to think my kids might be forgetting what I look like this week. But I had a day shifter ask me if I wanted her on call on  Tuesday. She even said she would love it if I would even just be willing to take the second half of the shift for her. She has some babysitter issues and needs to be able to pick up her kids after school that day. So I'm thinking I might do it. I still get to take my girls to school that day, get to  hang out with Tiger and hubby for a while, and then maybe go into work for 5 hours(of which on call pay for when you actually get called in is time and a half) and still make it to Flavour(our women's bible study/ministry at our church) a little late. I will also get to tuck in the kiddos into bed. So all I'm missing out on is a few hours in the afternoon. This could mean a whole months worth of Wells Fargo bathroom payment. Tim thinks I should rest after working so much, and I do believe I have my limits, but I'm off Sunday and Monday. Plus it's feast or famine here. Who know when I'll get the opportunity to work this much OT again. Gotta take it when you can get it, right? What is every one's thoughts on this?

Emergency budget meeting....

So I get our Wells Fargo statement in the mail(the one for the windows and bathroom repairs), and apparently I sent in the payment for December one day too early, so they counted it as part of November's payment. So instead of pay $502 for november and $502 for december, they have it as I paid them $1004 for November and I still owe $502 by Dec 7th. Yikes! Besides the paycheck on the 26th(which I usually pay the house payment out of and that takes a big chunk), I don't get paid again until the 9th. So with a little finagaling I figured out that if I just pay half of the house payment out of each check, I can get everything taken care of by the time everything is due. :) Plus bonus....that means that we have inadvertantly made a debt snowball payment to the Window/Bathroom Visa. Awesomeness. A little out of order, and too bad I could have used that money to finsih paying off Tim's smallest student loan, but hey, paying debt is paying off debt. I'll take what I can get how I can get it. I also signed up for another red shift on Friday. 50/50 chance of getting it right now depending on how things go this week in the unit and if we have any call ins from turkey comas. Hehe

On another note I was able to fix the rearview mirror on my scooter with some duct tape. Might be a little tacky, but hey, it still gets me from point A to point B.

Crashed but not burned....

Well, one of the ways that my family is saving money is that I ride a 150cc scooter to work. It gets about 80+ mile per gallon so I can back and forth from work on about a gallon a week. That is definitely better than a gallon each time I go to work. It also helps free up our family car so that Tim can use it for whatever the kids have going on with after school activities, volunteering, or anything else. Well, today was the first time I actually drove it in actual rain. I've driven it in the mist before but the streets weren't actually really wet so that doesn't count. I hadn't gotten but 2 blocks from my house and was trying to make my first left turn from a stop sign and I started hydroplaning in the spin. I ended up dropping my bike and breaking the right rear view mirror( It's still attached but hanging from the wires). I'm all right. Got the bike picked up and test drove it around the block again. Everything seemed find so I proceeded with heading into work. The rest of the ride went well considering now that I had an increased knowledge of how to handle, and not handle, the bike in the rain. It sucks that I broke the mirror but I'm hoping a little duct tape can mend it nicely for a few weeks. Mechanically everything else seems fine and I'm fine( gotta love all the protective gear I put on for the 10 mile trek).

Test me in this.......

Malachi 3:10-12

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁰ Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. ¹¹ I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the LORD Almighty. ¹² “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty.

So, the last few weeks with the progress we have made, I've looked at the budget and have been tempted to not tithe monetarily.  It was so tempting to see how much a snowball payment we would be able to send each month if we didn't.  I tried to rationalize it, by telling myself we give of our time instead, since we are up there almost all day Sunday and then Tim gives of his time several days during the week. As I've been contemplating doing something like this while we are working on getting out of debt, I have been bombarded from every direction to do exactly the opposite. Our church started a series call "In the Zone". You can check it out at www.FellowshipChurch.com.  It's all about being the the "sweet" spot. The pastor, as if talking straight to me, talked about how we try to bargain with God like we have something to bargain with. About how some people with state, I'll just give my time, and keep "my" money for myself. Also, I listen to Steven Furtick podcast sermons on my way to and from work. The last two sermons have been about different kinds of greed and also about giving and being generous and about tithing. Today at church, the started a 7 week challenge to the congregation to tithe the first 10%. This challenge would end at the end of the year, which is really interesting considering a few months back when Tim and I had originally started to tithe regularly, it was based on a dream telling me to test God until the end of the year. I have received the tangible and intangible blessings of God and then got greedy and I was tempted not to, and right at that time I get a helpful reminder. I would rather be Blessed with the 90% then cursed with 100%.

So we've recommitted to bringing back to God what is already His today. So excited to see whats in store for our church during the next year. And God is so amazing....today I had signed up for a red shift at work that I thought  would be impossible to actually work because according to the other night I worked, we would have had too many nurses already scheduled, let alone need anybody else. But I got the call to come in and got it early. So here's hoping I don't get canceled later the week like last time.

You win some you lose some...

Well I was all excited last week about working my redshift Tuesday night so that by Friday I would be in overtime, but we sent a bunch of babies home over the week so our census(the number of babies we have on the unit) dropped to where we didn't need all the nurses that were on the schedule. Since I'm the one that would have been in overtime that night I got cancel from work Friday night. So no extra time for me. :( But on the bright side, and I do believe in always looking on the bright side, my sister had a special Olympics family bowling night Friday night. So instead of me having to go to work, I got to hang out with my kids and my mom and sister and take the kids out for a free game of bowling. Tiger(4 year old) bowled only for 3 frames and then was tired of it. Monkey(5 year old twin) bowled the whole game using a ramp(they were out of lanes with bumpers), and my poor Panda(my other 5 year old) was grounded from being allowed to play due to lying about her eating her homemade lunch and then apparently stealing cafeteria food that she wasn't suppose to have, and also lying about messing with the computer. It seems to be a phase she is going through and we are trying to nip it in the butt.

I was also on call on Sunday night but of course, since the census is down, I didn't get called in. But hey, that is still an extra $24 to add to the pot. Got another opportunity for another red shift on Sunday so here's hoping.

And drum roll please....gonna see about adding a picture to this thing.........

The red at the bottom is the debt we've paid off since becoming serious about this again last month.

And here's a closer look.....

Awesomeness!

Found out today that I'm getting a raise at work. It's not much, but hey a raise is a raise, especially at times like these, and every penny counts. Also at my job they have yearly Wellness assessment questionnaires that you do during insurance enrollment time and they rewards you with $100 worth of gift cards that you can select from different merchants. I also found out that I had another $25 credit for a gift card from earlier this year that I never redeemed so I redeemed that as well. So now we have $75 to spend at home depot to do some house maintenance for the winter and $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble that I'm using for a review book so I can study to get my RN certification in Neonatal nursing. My company gives bonuses to people that get certified and they also reimburse you for taking the test. Can't lose there right? Increased knowledge base and increase money, oh yeah. The next test is in September so I've got plenty of time to study.

Here's my attempt at adding a ticker to the blog.

<a href="http://www.TickerFactory.com/debt/wIRzx8m/">
<img border="0" src="http://tickers.tickerfactory.com/ezt/t/wIRzx8m/debt.png%22%3E%3C/a>

Finally, one bites the dust....

So after having a garage sale and getting aunexpected refund from a doctor from one of Tim's surgeries last year, we were able to fund our $1000 baby emergency fund. Yah!!!!!!
Now that that is done this coming paycheck I have an oncall shift on it. I love tesday nights before payday. Why you might ask? Because I'm able to see the paycheck stub of what my paycheck is going to be on friday online. It helps me budget and finalize everything before I actually get the money. Well I got to go through everything tonight and we will pay off Charron Roofing. So finally, one bites the dust and we are getting our snowball started. :)

On another note, Tim's $12,000+ student loan is actually four student loans combined during billing. I discovered this past week after a little experiment, how I can actually pay extra on one at a time, and so therefore split it up into more bitesized chunks. So after paying off the roof, our next target is Tim's smallest student Loan named SallieMae#4(very original, I know). We owe like $680 on it and already this friday, we will be able to pay $100 on it.

Extra bonus, I got called in for a red shift tonight(that means my regular pay, + night shift diff, + another additional $8/hr) and then by the end of the week it'll put me in overtime so the last 8 hours of my work week will be overtime to boot. Awesomeness! So I'm hoping to knock her out of the house with the next paycheck.

Still need to take pics of our debt thermometer and figure out how to post it on here, just been kinda busy working, ya know.
I'm going to try to get in the habit of keeping more up to date with this add the daily struggle, choices, and sacrifices we are making to one day be debt free so we can live like no one else.