$61.17

After the bankruptcy, all of our debts were wiped clean. That was over two years ago, and we haven't really used credit since. We've operated on a cash basis entirely, and I think the experience has been a good one.

However, we have a few small bills that have cropped up that we're working on paying off.

My wife got seriously ill a few months ago- the net result is that we have a number of medical bills that we owe. Most are in the $200-300 range. We've been sending them $20 or so dollars each a month, and slowly the balances are coming down.

Last week, my wife got sick and called MEA to see if they would see her. Unfortunately, we owe them $340. Her calling them brought that to their attention, and a lady on the phone demanded that we pay it off over the next three months, or she would send it to collections. I think she was bluffing, but we're going to pay it anyway. We had been sending so little because we've just started saving, and we've been unable to pay more.

We're paying them $100 this paycheck. Instead of using our savings, we're going to simply save less than the $200 we would normally put in. That way, we're not touching our savings. Saving less is excusable- taking from savings is not. Hence, where only saving $60 of the $200 we normally would. (The other $40 is for a birthday party my wife has to buy stuff for at work- where she works the birthday person is responsible for throwing their own party.)

The trick is to pretend that you don't have any money. If my wife and I had zero dollars in savings, we would be forced to pay the balance from this paycheck. So that's what we're going to do.

Once we pay this bill off, we should have more cash every month. We'll use that extra cash toward the other bills, and eventually pay them off.

The $1.17 is for interest earned on our CD.

Current savings: $18,419.00