Things are going well at my contract job and so it looks like it will be going on for a bit longer.

Originally I was just going to stockpile money but now I see this opportunity to pay off my credit card debt again and it is an amazing thing to be so close to. It means to me one less payment I have to make when my contract job goes away which can be used to groceries.

Last time I had to pay $50 toward my credit card minimum and so I had $20 left to eat groceries. It was pretty gosh darn rough.

If the job goes on even longer than one month then depending on how much money is saved I will probably put my extra money in savings to build my cushion savings from 3 months to 6 months and build my EF back to 3 grand from the 1300 that it is at right now.

This next month is not going to be easy by any means but I will be so happy to know that I paid off my debt. I was credit card debt free once before and it did not last. This time I know it will since I have money in savings and did not touch my credit cards at all for the 9 month bout of unemployment I had. Weirdly or maybe not so I tend to charge on my cards when I have money thinking I will catch up.

After last weeks epiphany I do not think I will feel the need to do that anymore. I have been staying in my spending limits not buying things that I cannot afford right now. It has been so nice. And I know changing my mentality will mean I will no longer be racking up my credit cards.

My car loan is still $1500 over the worth of the car at the moment however I will reevaluate what I would like to do about that once the credit card is done depending on how long my contract employment will last and how much money is in my EF and my account with 3 months worth of expenses.

It feels so good to be that much closer to achieving my goals than sitting there in the negative because I could not wait to have something I thought I deserved or that I thought I needed.

It appears that my balance transfer has gone through which I am super happy about. I got news from my job that I will be working for just a little while longer which is nice.

Things are okay and the car they say is fine, they just lubed everything up. I need to secure the tire in the trunk but can't figure it out. Putting it in my tiny studio apartment is not an option and there is a space for the donut but it's too small to accommodate the full size spare.

Stuck to frugality which was pretty awesome. It's really helping nothing extra is being charged on the cards keeping me on track to pay off the last revolving cc balance. I'm so thrilled. Next I just have to get my butt back at the gym! Ha one step at a time.

I logged in today to find that my balance transfer had been approved. I had a meeting for my contract job that seems to imply that I will be working for a little while longer and it turns out it might be the tire in the trunk making the noise in the car after all. Problem is I'm going to have to secure it somehow because I cannot put it in my tiny studio apartment. The space where the donut is not big enough for it so I'm not sure how to secure it.

Fun stuff. Still sticking to being frugal and figuring out what to do finance wise but I'm pretty happy right now. I have some extra money in the next check I'm thinking I may put it toward paying off that cc balance and getting rid of it once and for all.

Last week I had a little hickup in that I was too lazy to make myself coffee at home for a few days sadly that cost me $20 in starbucks coffee.

I did however do good at eating at home and only spent just $10.00 out. Just now I put in for a balance transfer from a 19.8% interest rate to a 0.00% offer on another card plus a $57 fee. I did some calculations and the likely hood that I will not pay off this card while still working this contract job is high. I will probably get one, or if I'm lucky, two more paychecks out of it. So I realized it only makes sense to switch it over because when I have to go back to making minimum payments they will now be applied solely to the principal which will help me pay it off quicker even if I am not gainfully employed.

Now let's just hope the bank approves the transfer. I still have to bring the car in and will make that appointment shortly. I might as well find out what's wrong before something bad happens to the car or if it wipes out what's left of my emergency fund and I have to find a way to refund it quickly before my job ends.

Time for one last doctor's appointment and then hopefully after this week things will go back to normalish.

Today I was once again going over what needs to come out of my next paycheck. About 39% of it is bills, then the plan is to do 40% to credit cards payments, then to keep on track put 18% for savings which leaves me with a whopping 3% of my paycheck for myself. It's been like this for a month now ever since the medical bills. Although those percentages of where the money went was different (x amount toward medical bills, x amount toward savings etc) things have been really tight.

It just seems like there's been one big money event after another, the wedding, funding my savings fully, draining my savings in order to cover medical bills, trying to build back savings while aggressively paying off my credit cards before my assignment ends. And now the credit card pay off plan may need to be put on hold depending on what they say is wrong with my car.

I am very happy that this all happened while I was gainfully and not so gainfully employed all at once since my not so gainful employment made it easy to build an emergency fund while my gainful employment covered the wedding and paying credit card bills but it feels like such a struggle and I'm getting sick of it.

I have been struggling my whole life and while things are certainly getting better. There's still no steady income on the horizon. Just strategies to hold on to the money I make while I make it and hope it carries me through to the next assignment. I'm hoping that this one will stick or at least get me a call back.

I don't mean to be depressing and whiny but I just feel like something has got to give!

So my car is making knocking noises. I'm going to bring it in and pray that there is nothing wrong or that it is covered by the warranty/deductible. My EF is almost empty and so I hope its nothing serious. I have another account with 3 months of expenses so I can cover it but I just really hope that's not it. I also hope that its not something so serious I have to get a new car.

My loan is 1500 more than what the car is worth, so that loan would stink. My checks are both going to be low from the time off I needed to recover my from my illness. Please send some warm wishes my way. I'm really going to need them.

Well its time to start focusing on debt. After a week or two my emergency fund will have the money back in it and then I can put money toward my credit card again.

I currently have 3 student loans that are growing instead of shrinking, 2.5 K on a credit card with an 19% interest rate and 500 on another that I will pay off immediately because that card has a 29.99% interest rate. The 2.5 K card scares me though. Last time at my old temp job I and all the other temps were laid off three weeks into our new contract and also the same week I was about to make my first big payment on my credit card.

And then there's the car loan. I've always had the thought that I shouldn't pay off the car loan before the time because if I get in an accident it was a waste of money I'm not sure how solid that thinking is. The fact of the matter is that the car needs a check up as it has been making strange noises. I hope its fine because that would mean having to make repairs and another depletion of my EF. Hopefully the repairs are under warranty.

The car is old though and paying it off would be awesome then I could use the trade in value toward a new one when the time comes.

But between the ageing car, the credit card debt I've feared paying off and my student loans of which half of growing instead of shrinking I'm frightened. Not to mention that this employment is temporary although its gone on longer than I could have ever imagined.

Guess I just have to take it one day at a time.