Two weeks. I don’t think I’ve taken that kind of break from blogging since I began! But I finally carved a pocket of time to dedicate to writing.
Never mind the fact that a dead truck battery gave me this time. 😉
Last week, the big day we’ve anticipated for well over two years FINALLY happened.
WE PAID OFF EVERY BIT OF CREDIT CARD DEBT!
It wasn’t as smooth as I thought it would be. I’ll admit that we used our tax refund to finish off the debt. But it didn’t quite cover the entire bill. But I was so anxious to be done that I scraped together every bit of cash I could come up with to bring that balance to zero.
Adding that frantic movement to our last day of credit card living kind of curbed the joy I was looking for. But the sweet relief of standing on our own two feet without those bills hanging over us anymore was so worth it.
I expect that our next payday is when it will hit me that we don’t have to turn over all of that cash to a credit card company. That’s when the balloons will fall from the sky.
I assume.
Now, just because we left the credit card life behind doesn’t mean I’m ready to slack off on saving money. NO SIR! We are determined to keep our money saving habits alive and well. Building a reserve of savings is a top priority. So the 5 ways series will live on!
The 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week
If you’re a fan of this money saving series, click back through the entire list of money saving ideas here. If you prefer a simpler method, the 500 Money Savings Tips book I pulled together might be more your style. (Don’t worry, it’s less than $4!)
Treating Ourselves!
Hubby and I decided last year that the first month we were done with cards we would treat our family. The kids lived through more than two long #yearsofno, and we wanted to reward them for a job well done.
A debt free family trip is in the works! We booked a hotel room for a week night. I’ve found that booking.com gives us the best rates.
Date Night
Knowing that I’m a fan of adventures over stuff, Hubby gave me tickets to the symphony for Christmas. (I was a music teacher in a former life.)
We found some free babysitting and stopped by a fish fry on our way to the city. It was a super frugal date, and I absolutely loved it!
Pi Day
I’ll never be accused of loving math, but I am a huge fan of pie. So I’ll take part in Pi Day if I get a yummy dessert from it!
Our 10 year old had a competition at school. Rather than sending it another pie with the pi symbol on top, we decided to make a pie in a square pan with an R on top.
Get it???
Baseball
We’re huge baseball fans, and we spent some time getting everything ready for a new season. Even though we have 4 ball players, we only needed a few new pieces of equipment (luckily!). So we decided to take advantage of a sale paired with some coupons to get a sweet deal on a ball glove for our oldest.
They threw in a free steaming, so that was a great bonus! It saved us weeks of breaking in a new glove.
I always save our cleats and equipment of varying sizes, so mainly I just have to dump a pile of equipment on the floor and have the kids sort through what fits them right now. We even managed to get two lefties and two righties, so they can pass things down to someone!
No More Credit Cards!!
Spoiler alert? I mentioned this in the intro, but we are so happy to be finished with credit cards! It’s amazing how many small things you notice when you’re done with that kind of debt.
I got junk mail with an offer for 0% interest. And I didn’t have to do any math or decision making to see if it would benefit us to juggle debt again. (Whoop!)
We can’t wait to build up our savings account and get a contingency fund firmly established. Those things should help to keep us away from credit cards for good.
Those are the 5 ways we saved money this week!
I’m still breathing a sigh of relief from our #yearofno. And making a list of things we’ll slowly fix and replace in our home after two long years of saying no to everything!
This feeling is so good, I want to share it with you! Want to start your own #yearofno? Click here to learn how to do it.
How did you save this week?
I'm Jamie, and I want to help you afford a beautiful life with your family. 
Congratulations! You will definitely feel the “huzzah!” when you go 2, then 3, then 4 weeks and — no money is set aside for the card monster! Been there, done that, it took me a month for it to really sink in — I was free!
Boy, I can’t wait!!!
Congratulations!! I have enjoyed reading your story about paying off your credit card debt. I am glad that you are going to continue your 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week series.
Thank you so much!!
Congratulations! I am so happy for you!
I’ve been following your journey for over a year and I wanted to say CONGRATS!!! You were so honest and real it took a lot of courage to be so truthful. I am excited to see what’s next… Also what is steaming a baseball glove? I have two kids in little league and never heard of it?
Thank you!!! 🙂
I think steaming gloves is a fairly new thing in local stores. It’s a square box that seems a little like a steam room at a gym for gloves. haha They put the glove in it for a few minutes, and it made the leather pliable. So then he was able to beat it with a mallet and break it in. Usually we have to break in stiff leather by running over it with the car or sleeping on it for a week! (But you probably know that routine!)
Congrats on the getting rid of credit card debt. If you can build a little bit of an emergency fund, you will have no trouble avoiding paying credit card interest ever again. Great work.
Congrats, Jamie! I am so excited for you and your family. It was a long, hard road, but you did it. You definitely deserve a debt-free treat.
Your super-frugal date sounds wonderful. For a combination Christmas-Valentine’s Day gift, we went to our local movie theater to see an HD stream of the Metropolitan Opera. The great thing about adventures is you don’t run out of space to store them!
And of course I’m a big baseball fan too, and when I was young, I spent all my time playing. They didn’t steam gloves back then, so we ended up putting a baseball in the pocket and tying it up to form around the ball. Steaming sounds a lot easier.
Just adding my Congratulations!
Well done.
Pie R squared! Hilarious!!
Congratulations on getting rid of your debts. It is huge, even if you don’t feel it right now:)
Thanks!! It’s definitely HUGE.
How Awesome! I love hearing testimonies of individuals successfully paying off credit card debt! You go!
Thank you!!