This was an interesting (and slightly unexpected) month.
To start with, while the numbers at the end of this post might seem to show otherwise – we have definitely hit the slow portion of the year. The very first few days of the month, my husband had a slew of freelance jobs pay – resulting in, for all intents and purposes, no outstanding invoices. Meaning – no checks waiting to come in until work picks back up, and more invoices go out. And even when more invoices start going out – it can be a couple of months on average for checks to start coming in.
It was also an odd month in that the way I get paid, is every two weeks. This means two months out of the year, I get three paychecks in the calendar month. This happens to be one of those months.
To top off the “this is not a normal month” list, we’ve had family in town for a week and a half helping us with a remodel of the garage. Normally, a project of this magnitude would wait until someone is out of Baby Step 2. However, in this case, the HOA is painting all garages this summer and they were going to “just fix” any with rotten wood and charge us. We thought it would be better to fix it ourselves so that it was done right, and done without having a huge gaping question mark to our home maintenance budget.
Fortunately, we were able to cash flow this project with the unexpected checks that came in at the beginning of the month. We estimated high on what the renovation budget would need to be – and ultimately, it didn’t directly affect our normal monthly budget, but it did take way from what we could have paid off.
And so, the numbers:
Extra income: none
Cash flowed to Garage Reno: $2,000
Extra Debt paid: $4,185
Total Debt paid in June: $4,431*
Since 1/1/2012 – Total Debt Paid off: $25,930*
One Major item to note – With this month’s extra debt paid – we are now over the 1/2 mark. Which is terrific since June is the 1/2 point in the year. It’s so hopeful seeing focus and determination pay off. We might actually make our 2012 goal! We will have to wait and see how the next quarter goes – we’ll certainly get behind on the pace we need to finish – but there is always hope that the 4th quarter will be outstanding and catch us back up.
*For the purpose of Baby step 2 we are not factoring in our home mortgage
Life & Love & Why 