$1000 Down and A New Job

I am finally able to make my first big payment toward my credit card and I am so excited.  I ended November with an extra $500, but I didn’t feel comfortable making it through the first 10 days of the month with less than a $100 in my checking account, so I waited until now to make the payment.  After pay day, I had another $500 to put toward my debt.  The sacrifice is working, and budgeting out these huge payments toward my credit card helps to keep me on track, especially at the grocery store (the only shopping I’m doing).  I have been looking forward to this day for weeks and finally this morning, the transfer cleared and I am making progress!

And, as you might know from my personal blog, I got a new job at the end of last week.  My full time job remains unchanged, but I got a new title at my second, part-time job.  It means more hours at an increased wage.  I don’t officially start this job until January, and I don’t know what the wage is (which is killing me).  I debated asking, but decided not to (I am more comfortable talking about money than I used to be, but it still seems a little taboo to me).  Unfortunately, grad students get paid very little for work done around the university.  I make a lot more and have benefits at my full-time job that doesn’t require even a BA.  That’s just the way it goes.

I think the new job will mean another $300-500 a month.  That will get me to goal quite a bit faster.  My instinct has been to put absolutely all the money I can toward my debt.  I’m doing this with the gazelle-like intensity that Dave Ramsey talks about.  What a lot of people don’t know about me, because I appear so calm, is that I’m really about the most impatient person ever.  But, it would really do me well to have at least a little more in savings as an emergency fund.  If my impatience doesn’t get the best of me, I will try to put a little bit of the money from the new job into savings.