Baby steps.

Today is my Friday so I'm up a little late =) Tomorrow I'm going to focus part of my day on sorting/photographing items to sell. Once we make some progress we'll post a link to our "for sale" blog that we'll be linking to craigslist in case anyone wants to take a peek at our items. Our progress so far: we've finally switched entirely to paperless everything. It took us awhile because it's a hassle to get on each website and switch everything separately- but we got the job done. It's SO nice not receiving statements and papers in the mail that we don't know what to do with. Makes less recycling, less filing, less JUNK. Love it. We also found all of these old check book boxes (full of old checkbooks) below, a combination of numerous separate accounts pre-marriage. We had not gotten around to sorting them all out. All of these below are old and got shredded. 8 boxes of junk out the door! Seems small but sometimes it takes baby steps!

Tonight we spent some time going over our financial situation and figuring out how much we owe total for our student loans. My Dad just made the final payment on mine and that was really exciting for us. Now all we have left is Jay's. It's so amazing to know that his student loans and our home is the only debt we have. Like my Mom says, that's the "good" kind of debt. We still have a ways to go with his loans, but I'm encouraged by our saving habits and dedication to pay it off. We are sending in a check to pay off a little chunk of it and although it's a little like throwing money away, it still feels great. We are on our way to be free of debt! We are so strict with our budget and it totally pays off. If only we were taught the value and weight of debt before we went to college! We also went over our budget so we knew how much we needed to save and what we want to save for. It was overwhelming and exciting and scary and fun at the same time.