So Much for Getting out of Debt

This last five months have been rough. There are a lot of good things that have either happened, or will be happening, but it has come at a price. Let's take a look:

• In vitro fertilization process
• Car repairs (x2 - same problem...damn mouse)
• Home assessment for mortgage refinancing
• Pulled wisdom tooth
• Root canal
• Crown for the root canal
• Leaking basement (and possible foundation stablization)

When all is said and done, we are looking at having dropped about $17,000 since August with money we don't have...but our credit cards do. Frustrating.

When Leandra and I got married, we had about $20,000 in various credit card debt from college, wedding, etc. For many years, we did the 0% credit card game and jumped from promo to promo; consolidating our credit cards and paying off our debt while avoiding the interest.

This worked great for us. It may have affected the credit rating, but it was something I was willing to accept while getting about $14,000 paid off. We sort of plateaued at the $6,000 mark. Sopme of this had to do with the Leandra's emergency surgery in Dec. 2007 and having to redirect funds to get that paid off...which we are still working on.

The good news is that Leandra has been making some good sales at work and we have been able to redirect some of that money towards these credit cards. We pay a good chunk extra already each month so there has been some peace of mind knowing we are making some progress.

Unfortunately, it also means that we are not stashing anything into a "rainy day" fund. Doubly frustrating. Probably the biggest frustration was being able to pay an extra $300 to one of our cards and charging $450 the next day for my root canal.

With neither of our work places providing a family plan for insurance and day care going to come into play very soon, money is going to be an issue in our upcoming future. How we budget our money once the summer rolls around will be challenging. I'm fortunate to have friends who have already felt my pain in one way or another and are doing very well now. So I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We just have to be creative getting there.