Okay, this one is for the parents. I finally went to church, okay?! Happy now? lol. For the first time in a very long while, I attended a Catholic Church (St. Joseph). How it happened was totally unplanned, but I leapt at the chance when it presented itself. Mrs. JW has been having health issues so her dad was visiting her. He stopped by our apartment and told me of his plans to visit Mrs. JW and attend church. I was not doing anything so I quickly showered and slipped into one of the cute dresses I got from TJ Maxx with a pair of shoes I purchased from Rack Room Shoes. We went to see Mrs. JW and then headed off to church. It was a great feeling and I definitely intend to attend church more often. It was like being back home in Nigeria because I still remembered all the chants and responses. It really took me back down memory lane. 🙂
After we went to church, we had a healthy Wendy’s meal of chili and I added a side salad to mine. I actually have foregone dressing in order to use my chili as the salad’s accompaniment. Wendy’s is still my favorite Fast Food restaurant to go to simply because of those two items. I thought my heart would break when Wendy’s stopped serving their yogurt with granola super value item, but I find that I am still visiting Wendy’s. My previous ordering combo would have been: a side salad, a small chili and a yogurt. Now, it’s just the side salad and chili, both which have seen price increases that aren’t enough to break my Wendy’s addiction. 🙂 Which brings me to my next bullet point: finances.
I am proud to say I didn’t let the impending job loss prevent me from seeing the bigger picture vis a vis saving for the future. I continued dedicating a certain portion of my pay towards our emergency fund which reached a milestone this week. It is small, but it’s a start. To recap, the goal is to build an emergency fund that will be 4 months worth of living expenses i.e. rent, food and utility bills. In fact, the highly ambitious goal is to have that amount saved up by the end of the year which is highly feasible under the condition that we continue saving aggressively as we have been doing. Of course, one thing that will help this account swell faster is getting our credit card paid off. Right now, the balance is 15% of the total credit available to us which is pretty darn good. My credit scores from the 3 credit bureaus are finally on the same page i.e. above 710 so I am feeling pretty happy. Again, the strategy I used to help my credit score was: getting my credit card issuer to bump my credit limit to decrease my debt-to-credit ratio. Once that was done, I consistently made payments on the card even when my monthly statement hadn’t come. The aim is to get the credit card balance down to nothing by the end of the year. This is totally do-able and I cannot wait to celebrate when that day arrives. lol. There’s no better feeling that ‘paying’ yourself in form of savings, etc.
Part of what makes this month a particularly good month for debt reduction and a savings increase was the fact that I got paid for the vacation time I had accrued which, thankfully, meant that I was essentially being paid for the 2 weeks I was out of work. So I was able to dedicate a larger-than-budgeted snowflake to the credit card and give the savings account an extra $100 boost. I’m excited about my second chance at working for the same employer because this time, I will be given my choice of a 401(k) plan. Before I was restricted to a “defined benefits” style plan. Now, I can opt for a “defined contribution” plan and contribute more than the 5% I was previously limited to. They also instituted a background check, but I had nothing to fear (obviously). 🙂
Lastly, have I told how much I love Anderson “The Spider” Silva? I watched the free UFC fight last night with M and I was so scared for Silva because of James’s wicked Knockout power. However, Silva showed him that he also had a few tricks up his sleeve. Damn, check the video out!