8:28 a.m. - 2009-02-13
Unexpected boon.
Everyone - go give Sixweasels all your luvin'. She's in hell right now.
I almost feel crappy with my news, given Six's situation... But, since my big company did fairly well last year -- not great, but we did OK, because we worked our asses off and scrimped and saved and did more with less -- we got partial bonuses this year. No raises, but the little people got full bonuses, and the bigger people got a smaller percentage of theirs.
I wasn't expecting anything, so this was a boon. And I was able to pay off one big credit card, one smaller one (both vacations now paid for) and I get to put a bit of the bonus and all of my tax refunds away in savings!!!
This leaves one credit card left. I cut up the two others. That was hard. My security blankets are gone.
But there is such freedom in this. Not complete freedom, because it also scares me to death, and I'm freaking out, these credit cards have been my best friends for 20 years now. I can acutally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm still in awe of it.
I wasn't sure about the savings, because I guess I could have put that toward debt too, but I think I need it. Plus, if I buy a house this year, so I can take advantage of the low prices, low interest and rebate, I'll need to show I have a bit of savings in order to get the loan.
And I want new living room furniture...
I guess what I'm feeling the most is pride. I'm finally getting somewhere, and I did it by working my ass off and putting up with an enormous amount of stress and pressure, and I am on the downward slope and maybe within a year or so, I can actually make choices again. And that choice may be working a few more years and socking away money for college (again, because I did that once already) to re-career.
It's all swirling around in my head right now. So I'm going to try really hard to be in the moment.
Breathing is good.
