My last personal update had a ton of good news and it seems like that isn’t going to stop any time soon. In fact, we have some even better news!
Debt Payoff Progress
We paid a total of $391 on our credit cards this month (the first payment in a while). It felt so good to be getting back on top of each of our payments. We’re also happily saving up our $1,000 emergency fund. Once that is in place, we will have quite a bit more cash to snowball our debt. We are half way to our savings goal currently.
On top of that, we have a family first…
Our First Thanksgiving
My other half and I have had two Thanksgivings together (this will be our third). However, we haven’t ever hosted Thanksgiving. Our first holiday together, we visited with his family in Tennessee, and last year we stayed home and had a meal with just the two of us. This year we will be hosting our family!
This is huge for a few reasons.
First, I am happy we have the ability to host our family this year. We aren’t scraping by so badly we can’t spare $40 for a meal. This has given me some additional optimism about our current financial situation.
Second, it is absolutely a big deal to have the family here, in our home, and cook for them and have quality time. We’ve not had the entire crew here before.
Lastly, we have a budget and we’ve managed to stick to it! Here’s how…
Thanksgiving Budget
Like I said, we’ve managed to keep the entire meal under $40. Everything costed $36.89 to be exact. It hasn’t added any additional cost either!
We scoped out the different sales on turkeys and picked a 15-lb bird up for $4.10. The promotion required you to purchase $35 in groceries to get the $0.27 per pound price, so we just purchased our week’s worth of groceries and got the turkey at a decent price.
Everything else, we’ve picked up at Aldi. Because I had some marked down meat stored away, the “extra” cost of the Thanksgiving fixings was offset by having backup meals at home already. So, we didn’t go over our $50/week grocery budget when we got everything else either.
So, essentially, Thanksgiving isn’t going to cost us any extra this year! We are looking forward to a nice Thanksgiving with family in OUR home (without even altering our budget). How awesome is that?!
Readers, what do you have planned for Thanksgiving this year?
Read More
- Our Savings Challenge Update
- Here’s How to Gauge How Long It Will Take You To Pay Off Debt
- Inspirational Money Quotes That Will Motivate You to Pay Off Debt
- Remember, Your Debt Doesn’t Define You
Amanda Blankenship is the Director of Social Media for District Media. In addition to her duties handling everything social media, she frequently writes for a handful of blogs and loves to share her own personal finance story with others. When she isn’t typing away at her desk, she enjoys spending time with her daughter, husband, and dog. During her free time, you’re likely to find her with her nose in a book, hiking, or playing RPG video games.
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