AUGUST’S 10 THINGS

If you’re new around here, each month I share 10 things that have been on my mind over the month, some personal finance related and some not. Here are the past couple of months if you want to get caught up: July’s 10 Things, June’s 10 Things.

Here we go.

(1) We spent a goodly portion of July and August in the doctor’s office. Not my favorite way to pass the time but I’m definitely grateful that we had some savings, instead of just throwing any extra money at student loans. We saved up about 3 months of living expenses before being aggressive in our student loan payments. And now we save 10% of our paycheck before paying anything extra besides our minimum payment to student loans. If we ever dip below the 3 months of expenses mark, we work on filling that back up before making aggressive student loan payments again.

(2) We got to go to Lake Powell with Danny’s family the first week of August. I was real sick the first day but Lake Powell has magical healing powers. It’s one of my very favorite places on earth.

(3) I didn’t think summer in the desert was that bad. I was pretty terrified moving to Arizona at the beginning of summer but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. We definitely are either in the pool or inside during the hottest times of day but honestly I don’t think it’s worse than the midwest’s humid summer heat. I still wish we lived on an ocean but this will do.

(4) We paid off $15k in student loan debt this month. We are in the process of refinancing our student loans (again) because interest rates are insanely low at the moment. I mean like more than 1% lower than they were for us just a few months ago. If you’ve been thinking about refinancing, now is a good time. Or if you’re like us and have already refinanced, definitely take a look at rates to see if you can score an even lower rate. It does not impact your credit score to check.

(5) If you missed the survey that went out in our newsletter this month, we are in the process of hopefully creating an app. It’s a ton of work. Like a mind blowing amount of work and so insanely expensive. But it’s something that has been on my mind for years and we’re working our hardest and doing our best to see if we can pull it off. If you didn’t have the chance to fill out the survey and you want to speak your mind about what you’d like to see on the app, you can fill out the survey here.

(6) We got to stay at the Fairmont Princess hotel in Scottsdale and it was a dream. Danny had a continuing education course that took place at this super cute hotel and we got to stay there for free. I’ve literally never stayed at a hotel this nice– we tried to soak up every second of it. There were 5 pools, a free kids club with all kinds of cute activities (they took the kids fishing in their lagoon). It was just all around such a dream.

(7) We’re going to New Zealand for Christmas this year and are paying for it 100% with credit card points! My favorite part of becoming business owners this year, hands down, is getting business credit cards with rewards points. It makes spending all the money we’ve had to spend this year less painful. For our personal credit card, we use the Chase Sapphire Preferred and for business we use the Chase Ink.

(8) We had a money fail this month. M needed new shoes– he was currently wearing either flip flops or shoes that were exactly two sizes too small. We’d put off buying him shoes for too long and I didn’t want to look online because he’s so picky about how shoes fit. I needed shoes that I knew wouldn’t fall off. So, we popped into Old Navy and scoured their clearance racks first but unfortunately nothing his size was on sale. So we paid full price for his shoes. Then, Danny saw a super hero shirt that was too cute to pass up. Then, I reminded Danny that he literally wears the same t-shirt every single day and talked him into buying two t-shirts for himself. Then we remembered that M doesn’t have a single pair of socks that match, so we grabbed a bunch. And then I was feeling left out and I saw these cute bows in the check out line and got them. When the cashier totaled up our things, it was $76!! It took my breath away. We were naughty for all of our impulse purchases! I suppose we could have put things back or returned them but we didn’t. But dang, it was a good reminder for me about not making impulse purchases. Ouch.

(9) Have you ever tried Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios? Holy moly. They’ve become a nightly treat here and there. I’m still trying my best to stick to the Mediterranean diet (basically eating as many veggies and fruits as I can, going easy on treats and meats). I follow it about 80% of the time. Anyway, try those Cheerios if you haven’t yet. Ooo with some sliced banana. I’m telling ya. Life changing.

(10) M is all settled into preschool, going three times a week for a couple of hours. Every day he tells me he wishes he could go longer which partly breaks my heart and I partly think is awesome. It’s good for him to make connections with other people and be around other kids I know, but I just can’t handle him growing up on me.

How was your August? Drop a comment or send me a DM, I’d love to hear from ya. 

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Here at Deeply in Debt, we offer tons of personal finance advice based on our own journey paying off $650k of student loan debt. If you have student loan debt and aren’t sure where to start or what to do, I highly recommend the CFA’s over at Student Loan Planner to help you put together a solid financial plan for your student loan debt. We personally used them and it literally saved us over $200,000 on our student loans. You can check out the Student Loan Planner here.