week 12 and month three

Suffice it to say the money diet is going well, and it felt fabulous to finish month three with a zero balance on my line of credit. I'm going to keep plugging away and now the big focus will move from debt repayment to saving, which is going to be cool. A few big ticket items on the horizon . . .

First of all, I'm typing this post on my brand new SHINY lenovo thinkpad laptop. It was high time I joined the new millennium and got myself one; my desktop at home (which I got five years ago as a hand me down from my brother) has been chugging along and getting slower and slower, a lot of the advanced level courses I teach now require powerpoint presentations, and it was getting not cool to try to borrow laptops all the time. I did some searching around and eventually found what I wanted at a good price, and now I have it. And it's shiny. My tax return will pay for about 1/3 of it, and the rest will come from some upcoming courses I'm going to be teaching and the inevitable end of semester rush of nursing student CPR renewals.

Next I've got an ever so important birthday for an ever so important soon to be legitimate sister in law coming up, which necessitates a weekend visit to Calgary. I've got to plan for the flight, and for the fun while I'm there.

After that another someone special has a birthday coming up, and I've got something extra special up my sleeve, since this will be the last birthday he will enjoy with an old lady who has a full time job. Once I become a hobo, I doubt I'll be forking over for special events like this one. More to come on this after, say, the May long weekend.

Then there is the minor detail of the wedding, which looms just four months away. FOUR MONTHS. Warm socks, anyone?

And after that, the supporting of myself through school without a reliable full time income. So the savings becomes so uber important.

For a variety of reasons, one of which is certainly the money diet, I have decided to go off the sauce for about a month (or until finals are done). While I'm not drinking I can do EXTREME money diet, like this week for example, which I'm attempting to get through on just ten dollars cash. Anyhoo, more later. I have a chemistry pre lab to get through (last one of the semester!!!) and a SHINY new laptop to play with.