For the first time in my adult life since I have been married, all of my bills are paid this month. I know, that sounds crazy, but I have lived the past 16 years hoping to get my bills paid before the cut off date. Since being on my own, I have become obsessed with making sure that my bills stay current. I am trying really hard to undo some of the damage that was done to my credit during my marriage. It's not easy. In fact, it's pretty dang hard considering how little money I make, but I am doing it. And I am pretty dang proud of myself.
Thankfully, I don't have too many bills. I don't have any credit cards, and my bank, like Discover, offers all kinds of services that make paying my bills easier. The other night I sat here at the computer and set up online bill payments for my water and my internet services. It's so much easier paying them online, especially with the hours I work. I leave the house at 6:30am, and some days work straight through until 4:30pm. Most days, though, I have a few hours off in the afternoon. The only bad thing is that I have to stay close to the van in case my boss calls for me to go make a delivery. This makes getting to a payment center difficult, so using online bill pay is a blessing.
I also do a lot of my banking online. Well, I could probably say that other than depositing my paychecks into the atm every week, I do all of my banking online. I love my debit card, and hardly ever carry cash anymore. It's so much easier to track what I am spending when I can see it on the screen, and my bank posts debits and credits immediately.
I am hoping than I can afford to have the cable hooked up soon. We have been watching dvd's since we moved, and to be honest, you can only watch the same program over and over for so long. Ryan hooked up netflix on the wii the other day, and that has been pretty cool, but you can't watch "real" television on it, and I miss "real" television. Now that my bills are straightened out, I can try and budget my money more efficiently to afford another bill every month. At least that is what I am hoping.
For now, I am going to enjoy paying my bills on time, and work hard to keep us afloat. It's a good feeling knowing I can take care of myself and my kids.
1 comment:
Congratulations, Jenn, that's a HUGE accomplishment!
In the meantime while you're waiting for the right time to hook up your cable, try using Hulu or something like that to watch regular programs. It's not the best, but it's something! We turn our TV off in the summer (except for DVDs) to encourage the kids to go outside and play. (But shhhhhh! every now and then Mama needs a little fix of HGTV LOL!)
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