Money

I have spent this evening working on the budget, paying bills, and deciding what to do with our income tax refund.

The refund itself is pretty huge because after Smug-Baby was born we both forgot about changing our deductions. I corrected that a few days ago, and the upcoming paychecks should reflect a bit more money as a result.

I should have enough from the refund to pay off two of the credit cards we used to live on while I was on maternity leave, plus enough to pay my photographer for the DVD of all the shots that she has taken of Smug-Baby over the last year. I am anxious to have those images, to look back at my pregnant belly and my new baby!!

I need to get new tires for my car and we really need to purchase a vacuum cleaner as we have been borrowing my mothers each week for the last year and it is getting to be a real pain lugging it back and forth.

Once I have those few cards paid off, I should have a bit of extra money each month to put toward the last credit card, a loan from Smug-Grandma, and the final medical bill from Smug-Baby’s NICU stay. Once I get those paid off (which should actually take several months) we should have enough coming in to afford to start funding our retirement IRA’s again!

I would also like to pay a few more months on my car and work on getting an SUV at some point this spring/summer. I hope that as the gas prices go up and people start forgetting about snow, the prices for an SUV will go down and I will be able to find a really great deal! I would love to get something that I can put a bike rack on and that will fit the baby trailer in the back end, so that Smug-Baby and I can go biking a lot over the summer and fall!!

Having this money coming in and being able to pay off a few things and be in a less tight position financially is going to be a huge weight off my mind. We are making all the ends meet every month as things stand now, but there is a lot of putting off this bill or that something until we get paid. There have been times when we went without grocery shopping and lived on cans of soup and Ramon noodles until payday; times when the gas light was on for several days as we tempted fate and I don’t want to live that way!

I want to have more than $0.24 in the savings account. I want to know that all the bills are being paid on time. I want to know that I will have food in the fridge and gas in the cars. Like I said, we haven’t incurred any late fees or overdraft fees and we haven’t gone to sleep hungry, but we have gotten close and I like the idea of easing the tension on this a bit!!