So… once again, not a lot to report. However – This is hopefully the last month that the debt snowball is on pause!
While I was laid off in April (and now plan on staying home), the self-employed one in the house has had a tremendous increase in work. Praise the Lord!
Also, baby boy was born mid month! 🙂 He’s so precious. Yep, I’m bias, but he’s a super cutie!
And if you recall from previous “by the numbers” once the hospital bills are finalized, we’ll be able to use the Crisis Fund to Pay All the Medical Bills (creating no new debt!) and throw the rest at my student loan.
I’m guessing that the total number toward debt will be a bit smaller than I would have liked or hoped (mainly due to my not working since mid April), but every little bit helps.
I was looking at my student loan this month, and just paying minimum or a few dollars over minimum since November means we’ve still made a little progress. We are now almost under 13K for the loan. To put this in perspective, this loan was around 35K when I consolidated it into a 20 year loan, in 2008. (We’ve paid off 22K in 6 years. And we plan on having it done in less than 12 months, which is ultimately 13 years ahead of schedule.)
All that to say I can’t wait to report back for “August by the Numbers.”
One thing that was a bummer for July is that we seem to have spent a lot on food. However, this is because my mom was in town and we made trips to Costco and Sams. We purchased extra, and then she made us a bunch of meals – of double or triple proportions. Now we have somewhere between 10-15 meals in the deep freeze for simple cooking. We also have a wonderful community of friends that are providing us with meals a few times a week for the next few weeks. Which means the August food bill will be low and more than make up for the larger food bill in July.
Life & Love & Why 
He is precious. Congratulations again.
Stay on top of the billing. Reconcile every EOB to an invoice. With over 100 EOBs with the Twins (my head spins when I think of Brent and Kristen’s paperwork) we learned that every billing error was in their favor. We also learned to stop paying when you discover a billing error until they fix it. I tried disputing the error and paying the correct amount. It didn’t work. They just applied the payment to the oldest invoices first and ignored the dispute. Then it is harder to get them to fix the invoice, because they show it as Paid. Hang in there, because the bills do stop.
This was the part time job that I didn’t need, but I (Shawn) couldn’t wrap my brain around just paying the bills as they came in and not knowing where we stood. Yes, I’m the nerd. I have spreadsheets for my spreadsheets. I don’t use Dave’s software, because it isn’t detailed enough. Pray for Carol.
On Baby Step 6 and you guys will be there soon.
Shawn and Carol
Thanks for the words of encouragement & tips. I am hopeful our hospital bills will be a little simplified because once our deductible is hit, I believe it’s 100% covered (no co-insurance).
And I totally hear what you are saying about spreadsheets for your spreadsheets! I too do not use the Ramsey budgeting software and instead opt for spreadsheets that I can be very detailed on. (I drive JJ nuts with them haha!). But they work and keep us on track.
I especially love our savings account spreadsheet, where I can list all of our sinking funds and know exactly to the penny how much we have for Christmas gifts, for home improvement, car repair, etc.