Quick check-in

Very quick check in.

I've spent a total of $96.52/$150 since the start of the year. That means that if I intend to save $50 of those, I really shouldn't spend another penny until the end of January (or Feb 2nd, to be exact).

I have also saved a total of $11.60 extra in coupons, bringing my total up to $44.54. Who knew small value coupons actually added to so much so quickly?! Go me! I am almost at 1/3 of the way and it's not even the end of January. I am definitely increasing my goal later on. Coupons are addictive.

I made my second snowball payment of $150 to my CC1. I am thrilled about this, really. Snowballs really do get going once they start going. However, once I get all of my tax paperwork settled, I know I will have to redirect half if not all of that fund to pay for taxes. But again, not thinking about it until I get the last of my tax forms, hopefully by mid Feb. Although I dread it, I want to get it over with. I hate waiting in limbo. They don't even have good wait music in there.

I honestly think I need to laugh about something...
We switched to Progressive auto insurance a while back because of a bad situation I won't get into, and I've been rather pleased with them. I pay the full amount monthly, since I refuse to leave it to someone else and get it cancelled (again). We all signed up for the "Good driver discount" with the Snapshot program. For those not familiar with Snapshot, they send you a little device to plug into your car, and it records your speed and stops and trips. It doesn't record destinations, locations or anything like that. I told everyone to drive carefully or at least mindfully for the following few months. So far, only I have qualified for a 10% discount of my portion, which is awesome. Then I needed to renew the 'student discount' for my two younger siblings. The youngest sister had an A average in HS, so that was easy. She's always been the bright one. The youngest brother, lucky to get a C. But it turns out, my sister's grade slipped on her first semester in college. Badly. So the money I'll be saving for being a safe driver will be overturning by the extra we'll have to pay for the lost of the good student discount.

Yeah, yeah. I hear you. I ought to force her to pay for the increase. But that gets into the "make everyone else pay a portion of it", which still doesn't quite work in that house.

I have locked the cellphone account for my youngest brother starting tomorrow morning, and will put strict limits on his phone usage until he starts paying a monthly fee, including the fee to activate parental control ($4.99). The younger sister is already paying for her portion of her phone, so heck with it. See, I am trying to make them pay for something! It's all about the baby steps.

I hope things settle down for me. I miss reading posts and actually having time to reply to them! I've seriously been MIA in January.

Ok, I lied about the "quick" part. Hope everyone's having a fun week! I'll return tomorrow to update the Low-spend January, since I should be done spending until Feb.