What It Was All For

 My only debt is my student loan and it is down to 25K.

We (Jesus and I) are finally renovating Mama's house. It costs more than $10K - which I put in the header for the blog title. It costs $100K. But the money is coming in. I had to get loans for 2/3 of it, but I feel confident about being able to pay the loans back. 

It was a long journey to get here. The important part about a journey is getting to the destination and getting there in time, even if you had to take some detours.

I'm still here.

 I'm still here. 

I have a nice income and I'm starting my business again. 

I have some regrets but I try not to focus on those. 

I'm still working on being a more organized person, especially with less stuff and more digitally focused. 

Hopefully I'll have more to write about this year. 

Daddy died and his legacy lives on

July 11

Well, I've been saving and slowly paying down the line of credit debt over the past 2 years or so. Mama's in her house now. It's a comfortable house. I've stayed there for over a week. The plumbing works. The carpet is cushy. The temperature from the new HVAC unit is comfortable. The kitchen cabinets are gorgeous.

Daddy died 1.5 years ago and could not see the repairs and how well off the house turned out to be. However, his legacy lives on. He was a wonderful man. That's an understatement.

After all that, the condo building caught up with me and wanted the rest of the back condo fees that I owed. I never forgot about them. I was ready to pay up. It was actually cheaper than I thought. I owed $4500 when I thought I owed $6K - maybe $8K after years of interest. I felt relief paying it off. I used my line of credit so that's back up again. I could have used savings - and maybe I will pay if off with savings before the summer is up. Save the interest and pay myself back instead.

My finances are the  most organized part of my life. I also like to focus on being organized with time and possessions. So, I think I'll talk in the future more about being organized in life in general.

I'm teaching summer school simply because I had nothing else planned this summer and if I don't have a reason to get out of bed each day, I'll waste time. After one week, I used a week's pay to travel to Montreal for the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed myself. No one else was available or they didn't have passports. So, I told my family to update their passports. I don't mind paying their way if I can to create those memories.

New apartment

My 4-year debt free anniversary will be here in 1 month.

In one month I will move into a basement again but this time at full rental price. It's closer to the price of a 1-bedroom apartment. Fortunately, I can bring my dog and it's only 10 minutes from work. It's close to my post office box and storage unit, which I hope to get rid of.

I had to redo my budget for the upcoming months. The good thing is I can tithe and start saving for retirement and my budget will still balance with money for food, clothes, etc. This is how it should be - although I would like my own place one day (above ground and in a very safe neighborhood).

4 year anniversary coming up

I took Financial Peace University again this summer. I shared how I was able to buy each of my graduating students t-shirts from Oakwood University, and that was important to me. I could not have done that 3.5 years ago. I was able to do this because I'm a Free spirit saver.

9-1-2014 will be the 4 year anniversary of improving my finances. I need to think of a way to celebrate. I would like to celebrate only having a student loan and HOA debt of exactly 50K.


Ideas: a personal weekend getaway
a special eating out meal 
ordering Humans online so I can watch the entire series on a weekend binge with root beer and Ledos

Hobo Ahle

Hobo Ahle video-blogs about how to live in your car. I enjoy watching her videos and re-living my adventurous experiences of living in my car for almost 2 years. Here is the video link. 

In this video, she gives 10 safety tips. They are good. Some that I especially agree with are

2. “Don’t tell people you’re traveling alone.” In my case, I didn’t tell people I was living in my car at all.

3. “Lock doors all the time as soon as you can.” Absolutely! I’ve had this habit since I learned to drive. Mama insisted. And I’ve also heard the story (tale?) of people hiding under your car to slash your Achilles’ tendons! Ha!

4. “Maintain your vehicle.” Yep. Your car is your residence. Without it you have no transportation AND no house!

5. “Hide your belongings.”

6. “Be ready to get up and go.” I kept my househoes under the gas pedal. When I woke up, I hopped in the driver seat, slipped my feet in my househoes, and took off.

7. “Do your research on sleeping places.” Unlike Hobo Ahle, I stayed local. I slept in neighborhoods that I used to live in, so I knew how safe they were, where to park so that wouldn’t be towed, and the foot traffic patterns around my car.  Don’t sleep in the exact same spot every night. Even when I slept in the same neighborhood, I tried to sleep in different parking spots. I didn’t want neighbors to get suspicious and call the police.

10. Have savings. It gives you options and prepares you for emergencies. I remember when the snowstorm hit. I had money for a hotel for 2 nights and food to last when I couldn’t get out in the snow.

11. Don’t share your location till you have left. That’s why I didn’t vlog like she’s doing or post mylocation in my blog.

I’ll end with a quote by Hobo Ahle. “You can’t let fear control your life. Living in a car is different, but bad things happen even in houses.”

That Honda keeps blessing people

"Dec 29, 2015

I'm driving behind my Honda while my brother is driving it. It looks so bad. I look at other people's cars and think how bad their cars look, but I never have the opportunity to drive behind my own and look at it."


I wrote this over a year ago and never posted it. I decided to post it. As bad as that car looks, I would drive it another 5 years if I thought it would make it on the highway. Even though it was time to give it up, someone else is being blessed by it.