Snowball in July

Ok, so it's still June, but July sounds better.

Hubbyhubs and I just spent the better part of our afternoon gathering up all of our credit cards and student loan information, and came up with a big debt snowball plan from whatsthecost. Very exciting. If we follow the plan, we will be entirely free of debt -- including student loans -- by November 2011. Pretty frickin' exciting, especially when you consider how much interest we will save by paying it all off early. Wooot woot! It was also just really awesome and affirming to know that we can really sit down and deal with finances and big decisions together without any tensions. It was almost fun. If you're not already convinced that I have the best husband ever, spend five minutes on the "Trouble in Paradise" board on The Nest.

We also tried to lower some of our fixed expenses, and were moderately successful. I called Time Warner Cable, which provides our cable tv, internet, and telephone for $184 a month. By signing a 2-year agreement, we lowered that cost to $162 a month. We'll save about $500 over the next two years (which obviously means I should buy my LV bag now, right?). We also combined our cell phone plans, but only saved about $9 a month on that. We'll see if we make enough of a dent in our talking (my talking) to lower our plan, but it's not likely. Oh, and we lowered the interest rate on a credit card from 27% (!!!) to a more reasonable 15%. We won't have a balance on that one for very long anyway, but seriously, that is an insane interest rate and I'm glad we got it taken care of.

Anyway it's not my favorite way to spend a Saturday but it felt really REALLY good to get all that info on one page and come up with a plan. Hopefully, by the time we are ready to buy a house, being totally debt-free will help us get a reasonable mortgage.

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Meanwhile, we had a great time last night. We met up for dinner and went to the Heartland Brewery at the Empire State Building. I love this place. They always have enough seating, really good beer, and pretty tasty food. The service could be a little quicker, but it's okay.

After dinner, we headed over to Stout on W 33rd for my friend's birthday party. It's always good to see old law school friends.

My friend Katherine (aka "New Katherine," even though we've known her for more than a year) met up with us as well, and it was great to catch up with her. We stayed a little while longer at Stout, and then decided to head over to Ginger Man, which was packed. We quickly left Ginger Man and headed back over to Heartland, which was closed. We headed back in the opposite direction and finally ended up at Caliente Cab Co, where we had giant margaritas and some mediocre guac. One of those items is responsible for the tremendous headache I'm dealing with today.

Tonight I'm going to work on some thank-you notes and clean up the apartment a little, since my parents will probably come by for a while after church tomorrow (they are coming to see us get our crowns removed).

I didn't get to do any of the kitchen wizardry I'd been planning on, but that's okay. Looking like spaghetti from the box for dinner tonight (cost: $1 -- we bought 10 boxes of pasta for $10 a few months ago and we are STILL eating it).

Oh, we also went to the bank this morning and finally officially changed my name on the account. When we got back, I went online and ordered checks with both of our names on them, which is unreasonably exciting for me. Once again, IT'S OFFICIAL! We also signed up for a rewards debit card, which is pretty cool. I am looking forward to getting some free stuff :)

Time to go hit the couch! (I mean time to go write thank-you notes ... right ...).