Part of my "Saving and Budget Plan" was to get myself back to my simple life.

I didn't use to have debt as in credit cards, attorney fees and small loans. I have always had a mortgage. Then over the past couple years, I replaced my older Jeep with a newer Jeep - add a car payment, had to add Central Air and replace my furnace when it caught fire and burned up during my mom's funeral. Thank God it shut down and caught nothing else on fire (like my home), but added a credit card payment and have been restoring and maintaining my teeth (which is an investment, cause I am only half way through my life - I hope), but that was a large chunk of money put on another credit card or two.

I am eliminating those debts above this year, as in my Plan, by November. I thought about trading in my newest Jeep for an even newer one until I read Jeffrey's link to "keeping the old car and maintaining it". I am good with maintenance. I still have my first Jeep, which my husband is driving and it works just as well as mine, so I am going to fix the items that are wrong on my Jeep (i.e., new brakes and rotors, oil change, windshield wipers and eventually tires) and get it paid off within the next couple of years.

Anyhow, back to my simple life. I live in a comfortable size cottage (about 1600 square feet) on about 1/4 of an acre in which I have a few different gardens and such right next to the Lake and Club I work at in the summer.

I like a good cup of coffee in the morning. I like a couple of different wines every now and then (my favorites are Pelee Island's Ice Wine, Belinger's White Zinfandel and St. Julian's Simply Red). I still have the same everyday dishes I had from 20 years ago. My mom taught me to buy quality to save in the long run. I don't own a lot of knick knacks, they would only need dusting. We have one set of sheets for our beds. I take them off once a week, wash them and put them right back on the beds and we don't own a hugh amount of clothing. Mixing and matching changes the look daily. We only replace what wears out or that my children have grown out of. I just don't feel the need to own so many extras of anything and neither does my family. They are simple also.

We do like technology, music and vacationing. But, we also will can our own strawberry jam in the summer cause it tastes so much better and pick our own tomatoes off our vines for our salads and burgers on the grill.

And, after my encounter with the tax man this week, I am thinking that putting cash in a tin box and burying it underneath the swing set is an awesome idea. I am going to re-visit this later on, cause my encounter with the tax man this week was a huge eye opener.

So, I am off to get another cup of really good coffee with really good flavored creamer and bask in my simple life in my simple cottage with my simple children and husband (well he is at work).

Wow, it has been two months since I wrote our "Spending and Budget Plan". I have accomplished everything on that Plan so far.

So, after writing out my bills for March, my debt is just over $10,000; and this is what else I found out, after keeping track for the month of February.

My ING and Savings accounts are going up.

Spent $172.90 on gas, more than last month and this month was shorter.

My stock in my Sharebuilder account has been steadily going up. Still haven't received my $25.00 bonus.

I spent
$340.24 on Groceries
$112.90 on Fast Food/Eating Out

Extras:
B-day gift $15.00
Two Prescriptions for my tooth, Ibuprophin and hair color $31.56
Drywall Mud and ant traps $16.82
Copies and mailer box $3.34
Mail expense for stuff sold on e-bay and half.com $5.97
Bag of Chocolate $3.50
New Pants from Salvation Army $6.34
For a total of $82.53 on Extras

I got everything accomplished for February, like paying my Jeep and Homeowner's Insurances, Sold my Up North Property, but haven't closed yet and got our taxes done.

I will be receiving two fairly large checks the beginning of March, one from my Federal Income Tax Return and one from selling my Property. Some of the money will pay off the first two debts totalling $850.00 and the rest of the money will go to build up my EF account.

I listed my Vacation Package for sale. I will try to sell my last 6 weeks of vacation to get back some of that money. I just don't use it, so I am loosing money.

It is so frustrating with Mortgage Payments. I am never late, but I just got my annual tax and interest statement. So I paid $7,425.95 in interest and only $1,361.29 on the Principal.

My whole goal is to have my credit card debts paid off, so I can add the extra to my vehicle and some on my mortgage payment, to pay it down.

My house is worth $100,000 over what I owe on it; and I am not planning on moving cause I love where I live, but paying all that interest sucks.

Part of my debt free plan is to have the credit cards/small loans paid off by November 2007, take a small break for the Holidays 2007, and then start tackling the Jeep loan and Mortgage in January 2008.