no news is good news
I took a nice little vacation for Thanksgiving, hanging out with Mister Ant and his family. It was pretty low cost, considering the lower gas prices and that staying with family means that you spend less on lodging and food than you otherwise would when traveling. I did not go Black Friday shopping - I haven’t given up on Christmas presents completely, but it just isn’t my first priority right now. I think I’m going to be a last minute shopper this year.
When we got home, there was a pile of mail waiting for me. I got my annual Social Security statement. Good news - I finally have enough credits to receive less than 80% of the retirement benefits that I’m entitled to one day if the program isn’t already legislated out of existence completely. That was good for a hearty laugh. That reminds me, I’ve already started on my goals list for what I need to accomplish next year financially, and muscling up my IRA and starting a Roth are my greatest priorities along with tackling debt… I’ll get more into this at the end of the month.
But speaking of debt, I got two of those "Direct Loan" envelopes in the mail. Each letter just extended the courtesy of telling me that in accordance with the repayment plan I chose, Uncle Sam will be deducting $13 more dollars a month for my student loan payments, starting this month, so I’d better adjust my idea of what to deduct in my check register. Sigh. I know it’s only $13, but no one wants that kind of news. Y’all just don’t know how happy I’ll be when I get to tell Uncle Sam to get out of my money. I hope that the next time I get one of these letters, two years from now, that I’m already paying more than twice the minimums every month just to get rid of the loan altogether.
Oh yeah! And - I hit my revised goal for the My Own Home fund! Yay! I’ll calculate my Net Worth for you guys tomorrow.
