Month in Review- August

Hey Everyone! This has been a crazy summer filled with some great opportunities to make extra income through AirBnB, but it has also been a summer filled with trips and the first crazy work season at my new job. Now that we get into Fall, I think it is about time I got back on this writing horse and get you some new posts. 

Month Six provided an opportunity to evaluate where we stand financially and determine if we are on the right path toward financial security. 

Unexpected Costs: 

Nothing unexpected. We were living in three different places for three weeks and stayed in budget, but as soon as we got home from the gypsy lifestyle we were living, we realized we needed to bulk up on staples, so we went a bit over budget on groceries. Thanks Costco :) 

Unexpected Income: 

I get paid bi-monthly and Nick gets paid every two weeks. We always budget for a 4 paycheck month, so when Nick (twice a year) gets a third paycheck in one month it is always a happy surprise!! August happened to be a three paycheck month, which helped us cover overspending in our grocery line and put a dent in our student loan payments. 

August Splurges:

We bought a membership to a program called Fill A Seat. It provides tickets to theater and art events around the DC Area. We found a Living Social coupon for 45% off and have already been to one event. 

Basically, they give away seats to productions on days that they aren't selling enough tickets. We go and "fill a seat" with our membership and don't need to pay anything extra. Nick and I give up a lot of opportunities to go out, for the sake of saving money, so this provides us a great chance to actually keep exploring the city we live in for the next year without paying anything more then our membership fee.

We already went to a Shakespeare play and we are headed to another play on Thursday :) Fun little date nights! 

Funniest Moment: 

We got to dog sit for TWO dogs in August, Beth and Chopper. Now we both can't stop talking about dogs :) Seriously people, we ended up calling my uncle a few weekends ago and asking if we could pick-up the dog and take it on a hike. We just missed her :) 

Yup, getting a dog would not be frugal of us and not really fit into our work schedules so it is probably not happening, but I do think that a dog walking volunteer gig is in our future. Or perhaps more of our friends should get dogs so that we can dog sit!! 

Lessons Learned: 

We have a breaking point!! As a couple, Nick and I have been pretty flexible for two months, but we both came to a point roughly two days before we got home that we knew we needed to just STOP. 

We have been out of a normal routine, normal commute, and normal cooking habits for 2 months. We were ready for home base. I had two work trips and Nick had been over the top fantastic about dog sitting alone for a few days and managing the AirBnB. 

When we finally got back to our apartment mid-August I think it took us a week just to run the dishwasher. We wanted to do nothing but SIT and watch TV, hence my lack of posts for the past month :) 

We both agree that our crazy summer  was worth a great vacation and the extra payments to our student loans, but we also learned how to work as a better team which was even more important. 

Total Payment to Debt: $1,386.65 , on top of our minimum payments for August

AWESOME month for us with an extra paycheck and AirBnB income :) 

Current Debt: $166,777.53 This amount is out of date, but I'll have an updated amount for you next week in the September run down! 

We started with a total of 35 Student Loans.
We are currently at 34 Student Loans and we need to pay $358.06 more in order to reach #33 :)

Student loan #34 has our highest interest rate at 12.5% ! We originally anticipated this taking us a total of 8 months, this being month 4, but I think we may be able to get rid of this one in 1 more months, cutting off 3 months from our initial plan!!