Going for Not Broke

Every now and then, I go online and find a calculator that will breakdown how long it will take to pay down my debt. I like to see it amortized so that I can see at a glance how many months it will take for me to knock milestone amounts, such as $1,000, $5,000, etc., from my total debt. One of the best calculators I've found is at What's The Cost . This one gives users the options to see how long it will take and the total interest they'll pay if the take on their debt by balance and by interest. The problem, though, is that sometimes, once I see that how long it's likely to take, I start feeling rather overwhelmed by what we owe. That's what happened to me last night. I ran my debt on the calculator right before bed, then I had trouble sleeping. I'm trying very hard not to feel overwhelmed but rather feel spurred to action.

I mentioned in a previous post  that I haven't been showing much self discipline financially so far this year. Thankfully, for now, I'm having a spell of doing better. Sitting down and seeing exactly where I am helped get me back on track. Hopefully, I'll continue to do better. First off, I'm going scale back the anniversary party  I was going to hold for my folks to just a big family dinner. I was going to do games with door prizes, but now, I've decided to just make lasagna using my mom's best recipe. It will still be costly, because it will be dinner for at least 20 people, but it will still be easier on my pocketbook. The next thing I hope to do is to figure my checkbook* daily. I have a tendency to try to keep track of it mentally, then when I start to fear that I might've left something out of my mental total, I'll charge necessities, like gas or diapers. So far, for the last week, I've done better with my checkbook. And knowing exactly whe