I am not sure any of you will remember me, but I blogged here 2007-2011 as a single mom of two kiddos (in high school and middle school). I had declared bankruptcy and when I started my blog I was working a job that paid me less than what my rent was each month (thankfully I did receive child support). I also had over $13,000 in credit card debt when I started the blog (incurred after the bankruptcy, so the APRs were astronomical). In the 3.5 years I blogged, I secured a new job with excellent benefits and regular salary increases, and I paid down about 70% of my debt; I went on to pay off all of it during the time I was away from blogging. I also learned so much about spending, saving, and budgeting! This forum changed my life.

Since my last post in 2011, a lot of things are different. I met and began dating a man during the time I was blogging (in 2009), but I’m not sure I ever mentioned him. We ended up continuing to date, then lived together, then got married in 2016. My kiddos are both adults now, living in their own homes. My son graduated college in 2012, and my daughter graduated in 2018. My son got married in 2015, and on July 4, 2019 he made me a grandmother to twin boys … being a Gigi is THE BEST THING EVER!!! So, yes, life is BEYOND good! One thing has stayed the same since my last post … I still work at the same company I became employed with in October 2007. I have moved up over the years, and I am now executive assistant to the CEO of the company. It was truly one of the best things to ever happen in my life, being offered that job 12 years ago!

Financially, my husband (MH) and I are beginning to look forward to retirement. Since I didn’t start my retirement savings until the age of 46 I won’t have a whole lot built up, but MH has significantly more than I do. Honestly, when I started working at my current job (and for many years after that, until fairly recently) I just made up my mind that I would work as long as the company would have me. I knew that I’d never be able to afford retirement on what I could save alone, and I wasn’t totally clear on what MH had saved. You see, we just combined our finances this month; up until now he’s paid the bulk of the house bills and we didn’t even have a joint account of any kind. But now we have our joint checking account that most everything is paid from, and we each have our own checking account for things like clothing, haircuts, lunches with friends, etc. We also have a joint savings account. So, it will be interesting to see how it all works out as time passes, and how much we can save when we work at it together. Since I’ve known him, he’s proven himself to be a rather free spender at times; I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to share finances with him, LOL! He seems to have become more mindful of his spending in the short time we’ve been doing this, though, and his resolve seems strong; he REALLY wants to be able to retire by the time he’s 62, so that’s a pretty strong motivator at the age of 58!

That’s more than enough for now, I just wanted to get an update posted. Oh, and I have to say I never really “left” the blogs … I have been reading all of yours several times a week during my “blog hiatus”! I am glad to be back.

I started my blog here one year ago today! I have really made some good progress, and look forward to making even more during the coming year. A few changes that I have noticed about myself in the past year:

1. I have not used credit cards AT ALL in 2008. This is the first year I have EVER been able to say that, since I got my first credit card in 1982!

2. I have managed to pay off 13% of my debt (a little more, actually, since I update my pie chart at the end of the month).

3. I started a 401K at work, and I have 6% of my salary withheld each pay period and my employer matches it 50%. I plan to bump up this percentage when I pay off all my CC debt.

4. My whole attitude about spending has changed. Gone are the days when I spent money like water (i.e., charged stuff!) and got fast food for my kids every time I heard "Mom, can we ..." I NEVER thought I would change as drastically as I have in this area!

I seriously need to get busy rebuilding my baby EF, it's gotten far too low! I withdrew most of my money from TD Ameritrade to do Christmas shopping, which has been my plan all year (I started this account as a "Save Yourself" account, which Suze Orman was touting, and I finally got my $100 bonus recently). What WASN'T in my plan was depleting my ING acct. (my baby EF) due to the reduction in child support which took effect at the first of June. Now that I've gotten a promotion at work and my salary has increased, things have stabilized and I can concentrate on building my savings back up.

I opened an account through Venture Direct (online) -- anyone have an account with them? They've been advertising an APY of 3.8% so I opened an account with them this past week with an initial deposit of $25. The APY on my ING acct. is 2.75% and the APY on my TD Ameritrade acct. is 1.0%, so my plan is to close the TD Ameritrade acct. and move that money into one of the other accounts. The $50/month automatic transfer I have set up to go into that account will be changed to go into my ING account, and I set up another $50/month automatic transfer into the Venture acct. beginning next month, for a total of $100/month automatically being saved, yay me!! (Before I started this blog, I saved $0/month!) Depending on what kind of merit increase (if any) I get after the first of the year, I may bump those amounts up. I also plan to look seriously (again) at moving out of the rent house I am in ... hopefully in March. I need to get my butt in gear and start decluttering and have a couple of garage sales (which will also net me some cash)!!