The past three days, I’ve gone Christmas shopping and ran errands. But for the most part, I’ve sat around the house our shack in my pajamas, eating unlawful amounts of pasta, pizza, chocolate-drizzled caramel popcorn, and cookies, while watching Dexter, Oprah, and Christmas movies.
I took three days off between jobs. I start the new one on Monday. I’m nervous.
Budget-wise–I paid off all our credit cards Wednesday morning. And we were completely credit-card debt free….for approximately 1.5 hours. And then I hit the mall and bought Christmas presents. This is one of those times though where we’ve learned our lesson. We no longer buy things–including presents–if we don’t have the money in the bank.
Our savings account is also back up past the $1500 mark, thanks to an extra freelance check I had forgotten about.
Overall, I’m so so proud of us. Never, ever could I have imagined that we would be starting 2011 completely credit card debt free–four months early. It’s a fabulous feeling.
Now let’s just hope we can squirrel away and pump up that savings account over the next several months. Luckily, we’re almost done with Christmas presents.
How have you been handling presents with your budget?
14 comments
Congratulations! To answer your question, I went ahead and got gifts anyway…but kept it simple and practical. Due to the economy, our debt is a long term thing, and we have children, so some shopping must occur.
It’s been a while since you’ve posted! You should come back to the blogging world!
Woo hoo!!! Yay for the extra freelance check! Congrats!!!
Congratulations!!!!! That’s awesome, and ahead of schedule! I bet you are majorly relieved!
I actually made Christmas presents part of my budget every year. I’m also really lucky because my company offers a $600 Christmas bonus which is always deposited just before my birthday so I have extra cash in December anyway. Before I had that, back in the day when I ate ramen noodles 5 days a week, I would get so behind at Christmas that it would take me months to catch up. So glad I’m not there anymore… and SO GLAD you’re not either!! Yay!
P.S. I want to know how your new job is going… send me an email!!
This year we are giving gifts from the heart….
Love= FREE!!
We are trying to find inexpensive ways to give everyone on our list something more meaningful than last years robe.
Mixed tapes(CD’s, but tapes sound better)
Childhood shows (Cantinflas, Chavo del ocho)
Favorite cookies
Special photos
WOW! That’s awesome! Congratulations on being debt free!
Congrats on starting 2011 debt-free! That’s wonderful news!
Luckily for me, my family and friends don’t do much gift exchange. I’m planning to make some cookies for close family and friends and co-workers. Other than that, I’ve got a couple of things for BF. Usually my sisters and cousins just get together for a day out and either lunch or dinner.
Woohoo!! So excited for your new job. As for me and the holidays? I’ve tried to budget some and so far, have failed. Hopefully when I get paid, I can handle it, but at least the light is nearing the end of the tunnel 🙂
Handling presents? By not thinking about how much money I’m spending. I know, I suck! I’m glad things are financially going so well for you. It’s a tough time of year. If you can make it through this, you’re golden.
Nice girl! You are my new debt free idol 🙂
Btw, ASSETS said they mailed your stuff again today so watch out for it!
Congratulations! You and your husband are such an inspiration – hopefully I’ll be debt free one day! This year, we’ve kept the budget very low and handmade most of the gift – we also bought a lot of our extra Christmas stuff at Hobby Lobby during their half off Christmas sale.
wicked! Congrats. We’re probably only spending a couple of hundred, so itll just mean less saving for us this month.
I put everything I can on the CC, so in terms of how it looks to the bank, we are rarely ever debt free except for a couple of days a month usually 😉
That’s awesome!!
Luckily I actually got a bonus this year, so that went to a bigger than usual payment to the credit card and Christmas gifts… 🙂
wow! that is so awesome! I wish we were debt-free… we have about another 6 months before we are at least one loan and one credit card down. 🙂 slowly chipping away…. we went really small with Cmas gifts this year, we used the “we got married card” and are gifting everyone wedding pics!