Christmas is Coming!

Wow, it's been awhile since I last posted.... Things kind of got away from me but I since I paid off another loan this week I thought I'd better get back to posting on a regular basis.

We paid off the truck last month which as I've said was a great feeling.  At the moment we're working on the next loan down the list which is the first gate loan.  We have just paid that loan off so in January we'll be working on the second gate loan.

Quick list review:

• The Truck: DONE!
• Gate 1: DONE!
• Gate 2: $2628
• Gate 3: $2798
• Gate 4: $4909
• ECSI: $5290
• K Loan: $10710
• FSA Loan:: $23000

Christmas Mishaps

So... Christmas time is always interesting.  And by interesting I mean I spend too much money.  Let's start in the beginning, shall we?

I wanted a tablet.  In order to buy the tablet I told Kristi I would sell some board games in order to pay for it.  I would also look for the best deal I could find, which naturally came on Black Friday.  I did a bunch of research and decided to purchase the ASUS Transformer with a Keyboard Dock (so it becomes a little netbook).  On Black Friday the tablet was $250 and the dock was $100, totally $350.  

I sold a slew of games and ended making $360 give or take a dollar so I had the whole thing paid for.  Great!  I was buying something I wanted without going into debt, definitely on the right track.

However, I ended up overspending for the month because I bought a second, smaller tablet for Kristi.  I also bought a bunch of accessories/cases for both tablets, memory cards, and cables.  Furthermore, I went in with Adam, Kristi's brother and my new brother-in-law for a second present for Kristi, her new Kitchenaid Stand Mixer.  So, what was originally supposed to be a zero sum purchase ended up being a -$600 or so venture.... ooops...

While this obviously wasn't ideal, it turned out to be not that bad in the end.  We had the benefit of John's rent ($300) and Adam paying me half of the mixer ($100) so it actually wasn't the end of the world.  The problem is that what I'm doing now is justifying my bad spending in December.  I will use this month as a lesson in overspending and falling short of my goals.  We could have put more towards the Loan List, but the money got spent on things.  Lesson learned.