Dear Friends and Family,
You're probably just as stumped reading that title as I am writing it. Credit card debt, seriously? Trust me, we're usually fascist about paying credit card debt off each month. But, we didn't in November. Why?
First, Mr. mouse bought a whole bunch of "spare" tickets for our trip to the Seychelles. I won't go into the craziness of why. Suffice it to say, he knew and I knew we'd only use one combo and the rest would be submitted for refunds. Second, we were using points when we stayed at Le Meridian. But, when we went to check out, there was an issue and they said we needed to settle it back in the States. But, in the meantime, they were going to charge us for the room and we'd have to get a refund later - thought it'd be a major hassle, but one call and one email and it was settled.
This is how we walked into a balance in December. High probability it'd be all sorted out, but no guarantee. Then, in December we had Christmas shopping which isn't a lot of money, but still gets charged nonetheless. And, Mr. mouse's car needed to go in for repairs which turned out to be a lot less expensive than we dreaded. Fortunately, the refunds started coming through.
January - Mr. mouse gets a quarterly bonus. Between that and the refunds, I was 95% certain we'd be able to pay everything off and get back to good. But, I wasn't 100% positive. I just did the math. We're good. The cards are back down to zero and we have some money left over. I'm glad we didn't need to carry a piece of it another month. And this much mental trauma over two months debt? I'd go crazy if we had a continuous credit card debt burden. We've been there before, it's not fun.
Now, despite the market bruising our retirement account took, again, I feel like I'm in a decent spot. We have no credit card debt. We have a rainy day fund. We have another lump sum headed towards the mortgage center at the end of this month. I must be one of ten people in the country who loves getting their mortgage bill each month.
Cheers!
mouse
You're probably just as stumped reading that title as I am writing it. Credit card debt, seriously? Trust me, we're usually fascist about paying credit card debt off each month. But, we didn't in November. Why?
First, Mr. mouse bought a whole bunch of "spare" tickets for our trip to the Seychelles. I won't go into the craziness of why. Suffice it to say, he knew and I knew we'd only use one combo and the rest would be submitted for refunds. Second, we were using points when we stayed at Le Meridian. But, when we went to check out, there was an issue and they said we needed to settle it back in the States. But, in the meantime, they were going to charge us for the room and we'd have to get a refund later - thought it'd be a major hassle, but one call and one email and it was settled.
This is how we walked into a balance in December. High probability it'd be all sorted out, but no guarantee. Then, in December we had Christmas shopping which isn't a lot of money, but still gets charged nonetheless. And, Mr. mouse's car needed to go in for repairs which turned out to be a lot less expensive than we dreaded. Fortunately, the refunds started coming through.
January - Mr. mouse gets a quarterly bonus. Between that and the refunds, I was 95% certain we'd be able to pay everything off and get back to good. But, I wasn't 100% positive. I just did the math. We're good. The cards are back down to zero and we have some money left over. I'm glad we didn't need to carry a piece of it another month. And this much mental trauma over two months debt? I'd go crazy if we had a continuous credit card debt burden. We've been there before, it's not fun.
Now, despite the market bruising our retirement account took, again, I feel like I'm in a decent spot. We have no credit card debt. We have a rainy day fund. We have another lump sum headed towards the mortgage center at the end of this month. I must be one of ten people in the country who loves getting their mortgage bill each month.
Cheers!
mouse
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment