Thankfuls - Bitter Defeat, but Happy News!

Yeah, I give up. I'm never going to write all those Thankfuls posts. SORRY.

I am feeling incredibly thankful today, though. For many reasons, of course. Like...it's Friday, and, you know family and all that shizz. But I'm not going to write a long post about how blessed I am because I'm just hopping on here real quick at work to say this:

Just checked my bank account and after my paycheck next week I'll have $5k in savings. ($500 from every paycheck goes into my savings account, lovingly named "HANDS OFF" - when we were saving for a house, it was "HOUSE FUND MOTHERFUCKER" so it is a bit more classy than it has been in the past...but I'm getting off topic and spending too much time on this post!)

Just having $5k is enough to be thankful about. That's how much my savings account had, oh....seven years ago? When I started as a wee freshman at MTSU. And then it slowly dwindled away over my six-year college career (hey, Judge-y, I got two degrees in those six years!) until we had -$1k at graduation (every $1k GTA check would pay off my maxed out credit card from the month before). So the fact that we've saved up in six months what I lost over the course of six years is fan-freaking-tastic, but the REALLY good news involves a slight backstory. (this post is way too long!)

A few weeks before we got married, Mr. T started getting troubling phone calls from credit companies. They were telling him all these loans in his name were about to go into default (is that the proper terminology?) and he needed to do something quick. Well Mr. T rarely feels a sense of urgency, so it took him a while to get around to calling up his madre to ask her what the deal was. He had two student loans and a credit card that had all been taken out for him to go to school a long, long time ago. And his mom was supposed to be paying them. Well, about two weeks before the wedding he heads to his hometown to talk to her about it. She goes over to a desk drawer and starts pulling out unopened envelopes from credit companies. Apparently she just....stopped paying them.

So Mr. T's credit is in shambles. Our home loan (and his Jeep loan) is in my name only, because his credit was so bad we probably wouldn't have been able to get a loan if he was involved. He has to pay hundreds of dollars on these guys every month - his entire paycheck, practically. And the interest rate on the credit card is so high his balance has barely gone down in the two years he's been paying on it.

A smart Wilson Family would have paid off Mr. T's loans before taking on more debt in the form of a mortgage (and also Mr. T's Jeep), but we're us so we didn't. And to be fair, he really needed a vehicle and this one was pretty stinking cheap. And our house is freaking ah-mazing. Anyway, after I started saving up money I was like....we can fix this now! So I told Mr. T that when I had $5k in my savings (wanted to have a decent buffer in case something terrible happened) we'd pay off his credit card. And then when I get back up to $5k we'd pay off his Jeep. They're right around $2k each. AND I'M ABOUT TO HAVE $5K IN MY SAVINGS ACCOUNT.

That's going to be over $200 each MONTH Mr. T doesn't have to throw away to debt! And in another couple months, ANOTHER $200/month!! That means my paycheck (and Miss C) won't be the only money available to pay bills! *happy dance*

SO THANKFUL.