Total Debt: $275,226.22 We have paid off 0.37% of our debt since the last Debt and Net Worth Post. It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m fine with it. Fine. ::sigh:: Yeah, it’s not going anywhere very fast. So, what action did we take this month? I signed up to start having the monthly mortgage payment come out of my check every two weeks, on the day after I get paid. This will work out to be one full extra payment each year. That simple trick will shave five full years off of…
Month: May 2016
Our Compost + Freedom for Pigs Flotsam & Jetsam
I spent three hours Saturday pulling weeds by hand, clearing 8-12″ wide circles around the new seedlings so there would be less competition for water. It was probably only about 1/3 of our massive garden. I pulled weeds until my hands wouldn’t grip anymore. Surprisingly, the numbness in my hands I usually experience from doing fine motor movement was gone. Pulling weeds _IS_ exercise! I pulled weeds around where a seed was planted but failed to germinate. We will come back today to put another seed or seedling in its…
Join My Money Saving Teams Here!
SAVE MONEY NOW – Links to Join My Teams: This post contains links to join my teams and sign up for the money saving apps I use regularly. *BONUS* Join using my link, make your first purchase, and get $10.00 bonus in your account! Turn that money back around and put it to work for you. Join using my link. Read my post on Swag Bucks Here. Get a $5 bonus for signing up with my link and redeeming your first rebate! you can stack Checkout 51, Ibotta, and coupons on some…
My Townhouse is Staged For Sale
So, my husband and I decided to Stage our townhouse for sale since it had been on the market vacant for over nine months with no offers. Because we are going under by about $600 a month for every month it sits unsold, he agreed to let me take two months’ worth and stage it for sale. Instead of using our credit cards, I used a Flexible Spending Account reimbursement check as working cash for my tag sale purchases. I scoured the Facebook Yard Sale sites… and happened upon a…
Two Stinky Baby Pigs
Two baby piglets came home with my husband this weekend! They’re so stinking cute! (And I mean stinky!) Last week, Rocky came home with some new birds: five guinea chicks and a turkey chick! He put them under the heat lamp with the two surviving black copper maran chicks he picked up in April. And while I was there, I walked to the goat house to take a peek at the ducks. They’re getting so big, so fast! And they’re so black-and-white that they look like an old black…
How to Make Money with Swagbucks
So, you know how I like the phrase, “Every Dollar Goes to Work.” In the next few months, I want to talk about some ways to make a little extra money that you can use to put toward getting out of debt. Today I’m going to talk about an old favorite savings app, Swagbucks.com. This is not an affiliate post and I’m not trying to sell you anything. If you join Swagbucks from my link then I would get a few Swagbucks for the referral. I’ve been a member of Swagbucks since 2009. You can…
Garden Update: Consider Yourself Planted (Mostly)!
So, early last month, we moved hundreds of seedlings outside to get some sun and then life happened and they all died, except for three tiny seedlings I managed to revive. It’s May 8 and all I wanted for Mother’s Day was to plant my garden. While the Ax Man napped, my husband, Rocky, and three year old son, Sting, got started in our ambitious 2600 square foot garden on Burton Farm. I forgot how much work it was to get a garden in the ground. Last year we were moving…
The Right Decision – A Country Farmhouse
Our Happy Place We searched for nearly a year for our new home, as we had quickly grown from a family of two to three, and then four in a matter of a few short years, and the townhouse just couldn’t hold us anymore. When we saw this house online, we fell in love, even though it was nearly twice as much as we wanted to spend. After talking about it in depth, my husband and I realized we could afford the payments, but we would have to make some…
Update: Moving From GoDaddy to Bluehost
Story of my life: I should have done more research. The truth is, I get overwhelmed when there are a million choices, so I just pick one that appears to meet my needs and just go with it. It’s easier to figure out what I need when I get to using something, and boy, this was evident in the first week. Who signs up to blog with a host that doesn’t have a blogging platform? Me. But in classic C. Erica Burton Original style, I made it work (until I could move…
How we found ourselves $276,243.63 in debt
April 8, 2016. I’m not going into details today about the circumstances surrounding it, but this was a burdensome, heavy-hearted day in my life. An informal, undocumented loan was called due by text message at 3:30 AM, followed up by an email at around 4:30 AM, net seven days, mind you, so I applied online that evening to four different reputable lenders. The next morning, my local credit union dumped fifteen grand into my checking account and it was official. I was the deepest in debt I had ever been in…