The Debt Hole

We received some rather shocking news yesterday. Our debt hole is bigger than we thought when we first began this journey.

A debt of Chris' has come up that he thought was dealt with properly years before he met me -- before it became a debt -- and when we knew it was an issue in 2014 we thought we had dealt with it quickly then as well.

Apparently not and now it'll be a massive undertaking to deal with. It has been a blow to our momentum forward to debt freedom.

We are doing our best to get it dealt with quickly and sufficiently but it'll be a little while before we have some accurate numbers as to what the amount owing will be. On top of that, will be the fee for the expert helping us file the necessary paperwork to take on all this and fix it... That bill is over $1,000 a this point.

I will say, we're just starting to save up our $1,000 emergency fund and boy do I wish we had that money saved up already. I could really see the need for a baby emergency fund because Murphy's law has come down on our heads hard.

There were tears and frustrated long talks yesterday with many moments of unbearable silence while we tried our best to wrap our heads around this mess. Still today, in the light of another day, it looks almost worse than it did yesterday.

I'm hoping that once we've gathered the last of the necessary paperwork over the next week or two it won't be as bad as we originally thought.

We've learned a lesson here. All bills should be pay together, work should be double checked and receipts should be issued for paid services.

All we can do now is move forward and do our best.... I'm hoping to get this over with quickly...praying to God it's not as bad as it all looks.... Oh Lord, hear my prayer...

Spring forward with a little cash!

After trying to stay in budget with our debit transactions, we've decided to go back to the cash envelope system starting in June again.

May was a great month in a lot of ways for our budget but for the first time ever we only paid the minimum towards our MasterCard balance and spent the remaining money on things we needed and wanted.

Yup, we slipped up and let a bad month derail debt pay off train.

We also bought a couch (something we desperately needed) and we're very glad we made some monetary sacrifices to buy it. No regrets there.

I will say though, we stayed in budget and we didn't go in the red....we just didn't pay as much towards that one bill like we hoped to.

Chris and I hope to receive an answer back from the Canadian Revenue Agency about my tax return by the end of June. That might help us a little but until then we're just going to stick to the plan of paying cash for things like groceries, household goods, eating out and miscellaneous items that come up. Those four categories seem to be where the money gets eaten up the most easily.

I will say it was so inspiring to see Budget Girl (Sarah Wilson), a well known Dave Ramsey follower, pay off her student loan debt after 3.5 years of budgeting! That began to jump start our focus again to kick this debt's butt! We'll get there...one purchase (or non purchase) at a time... It's all about choices and what ways to cut corners and stay on track for the greater good.

All I can say is Chris and I are not perfect and this has been a tough road for us. We're facing some big realizations about what is possible for our future and what may not be possible... Thankfully, our goal to debt freedom is worth it! So worth it! That we're willing to continue to sacrifice for just a little while longer (another year or so) in order to save for a car, vacation (honeymoon!) and maybe even possibly a house (Rental or ownership? Not sure which yet...)

For now, May will be remembered as the "what not to do month" with the realization everyone makes mistakes, can be forgiven and move on. Really, it wasn't that bad, we still stayed in the black with our numbers, we just didn't make as big of a dent in our debt pay off as we had first planned. June will be better. June will definitely be the "a step towards debt freedom!" month. In the meantime, I'm thankful we've gone back to the cash envelope system again!