Overcoming Obstacles

    Today I finally threw a big snowball. It's been awhile since we've done that. This morning as I was about to hit the 'confirm payment' button I thought back to why it's been so long.

    Here's a list of things we've encountered in the past 6-8 months that have slowed our pace dramatically.

• Between gas and car rental it costs us around $350 for us to make a trip back to Missouri. We went back for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. 
• We ended up needing a new to us car due to extensive rust, we saved up $3,000 for that. 
• Phillip broke a tooth and it was about $400 for a crown and fillings.
• My wisdom teeth were impacted and needed to be surgically removed - $800. This probably could have waited but it was causing a bit of pain so we thought it was best to go ahead and do it rather than waiting for them to get infected. 

   Those are just some of the smaller things. In February we had a little bit stashed in our savings account from saving for a car. We knew were hoping to start a family soon and wanted to get started on saving a little bit each month. We found out in early March that I was expecting. We started making more transfers to savings. Our goal was to have 4 months of income saved up by November to pay for medical bills and cover maternity leave.

  On March 31st my Dr. couldn't find a heartbeat. I had 2 options, have a D&C or take some medication. We chose the D&C, I got the bill on Monday for $500. We also did some emotional spending after we found out. After being home from work for a few days we got a little stir crazy so we got a hotel and went to Gatlinburg for a night. We also decided to travel home for Easter to see our families. We hadn't seen them since we lost our baby and sometimes you just need your mom no matter how old you are.

   This morning hitting send on that big payment was kind of a realization that life goes on, no matter what obstacles we face. We were saving that money for a crib, cute onesies, and lots of children's books. Instead it went to SallieMae and we are $4,000 closer to debt freedom.

  I didn't mean to turn this into a sap-fest but I guess I'm just feeling introspective tonight. My next post won't be nearly so sappy. I'm hoping to complete our new Harry Potter themed debt thermometer to post soon. I have a digital spreadsheet made, now I just have to do the crafty part.

  Good night for now!