Merry Christmas and a job offer

Merry Christmas!

The older my kids get the more I lose the holiday magic. Maybe one day it will come visit me again. 

 The good news is this is the first year I wasn't doing the "just one more thing" dance that I am guilty of. As in I need to buy one more thing to make everything perfect. 

I actually spent the first few days of my break documenting all of our debt. I bought a worksheet for $5.60 on Etsy that I had seen elsewhere for $27. The exact same worksheet from the same author. I plugged everything in as it does a debt snowball or avalanche. I was happy with it until I realized that I didn't have any freedom to tweak my numbers how I wanted. For instance, I could add an extra payment but it HAD to go on the lowest balance card. What if I wanted to add it to the highest one? I ended up finding a Youtube video that walked me through setting up my own Debt Snowball worksheet.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiZ0t2eUqoo  Here is the link in case you would like to check it out. It uses Excel and I was able to follow it as he goes over it step by step and shows you on screen as well.  I like this one better because I have more freedom.

One thing that I realized I did "hand in hand" when I was successful losing weight was debt reduction. It is so much easier to reduce your food spending/intake when you know what is going on money wise to the penny in my humble opinion. It is easier to be stricter on both when you stop hiding your head in the sand. I have been eating decently the past week at least till Christmas Eve. And to be honest I didn't go crazy on either Eve or Day. I ate what I wanted but I didn't overeat. I decided to weigh in today and I am actually down .4 from last Sunday!  I may keep this weight for the week or use Sunday's number if it is lower. Hah! Yes, I will "cheat" in that aspect if it makes my brain feel better. I have just been calorie counting with about 90% accuracy. I am not stressing myself out because if I do I will fizzle out quickly. 

I may be on break for these 15 days but that means I lose an entire two weeks plus two days of income since I am hourly. I am scrambling as I do every Dec/Jan to circle the wagons and make sure everything is paid. August and Jan are always our tightest months due to the lack of paychecks for me. We also lost a week of my pay in November due to Thanksgiving break. 

Of course, every end of year/ new year I start keeping track of things and thinking that *this* will be the year I get my stuff together.  Never happens but I am still going to keep trying! I remember being in a dark place last break and realizing that I just didn't care about anything. I don't even think I did my yearly "this is my new idea I am going to succeed with" last year. Ok I just looked at last year's Dec. post and I see I did tell you all how I was feeling. Goodbye 2024   

I do have some great news to share. My degree finally conferred and I received this. 

Technically I already sent my transcripts but the college dropped the ball. I had them marked "hold for degree" and they sent them on Thursday Dec 18 but they were UNDATED.  The college closed for the break starting that same day so there is nothing I can do until Jan 2nd. Someone downtown was able to speak to a contact at the college though that is supposed to be following up for me as well on Jan 2nd. 

The principal forwarded me the official recommendation of hire email and the one above. It had gone to my personal email so I had not seen it yet. I may have squealed out loud and the kids asked me what was going on and I told them I had gotten a positive email about something. We were in a middle "study" period so no one was testing at the time.