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SRT Run/Hike 30 Mile Race: Part 2

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Where were we? Oh yeah, I was running away from checkpoint #5…

From checkpoint #5 to checkpoint #6
This section of the trail was very easy to run on, despite the inclines. The trail was wider and we were in the forest with plenty of coverage/out of the sun. Exactly two miles after the previous checkpoint, my watch beeped and I had to take a hard left. Totally could have missed this turn but didn’t thanks to the conference call with the directors the previous week. It was shortly after this hard turn that I wandered off the trail to pee (it had been at least 5+ hours since my last pit stop) and within a few seconds of standing up, felt the urge to pee again. I tried, nothing. Oh shit. A UTI on the trail. It was uncomfortable to run but I told myself heck, if I feel the urge to pee, I’ll just let it happen because I was already a sweaty, muddy, disgusting mess. It never came to that BTW – the more I ran, the less I felt it.

Five miles came and went and quickly turned into six miles. I knew I had to be getting close to the checkpoint when the trail spit me out on to a road (pretty sure I saw a young woman doing unspeakable things to a young guy in an SUV at this trail head ha ha I almost interrupted to tell them they should move because a number of people would be shortly behind me, but I didn’t want to stop ha ha). I had to run the road into a little wooded section with an old cemetery and then cross another road (thank goodness for the map app!). I ended up passing two 70 milers who told me I looked strong and encouraged me to keep up my pace. I had to walk up a big ‘ole incline and remember ending up in a field. I had just started to walk so that I could pull out my map when I heard a woman cheering me on in the distance. “Well hot damn I must be close!” I thought and started running toward the sound. I let out another whoop! whoop! as I approached the beau, I think with the BIGGEST smile on my face. 6+ miles well under the two hours I had set for myself. He was shocked to see me so soon.

I didn’t stay for long at all, just enough time for me to give him a kiss and tell him I felt AMAZING. I think I also told him that I was going to do this, I was going to finish 30 miles! I had 7 miles until the finish line and told him to expect me in 2, 2.5 hours? It was all up in the air because I had no clue what was ahead of me, if I’d hit a wall or how fast I’d move in the dark. I remember asking what direction I needed to run (this section of the course was no longer marked, only with random pink tape and let me tell you, the tape was useless) and took off uphill into a grassy field.

From checkpoint #6 to the finish line!
Like I said, the tape was scarce so I frequently had to check my map. It was during a big incline that I saw a woman walking toward me and I thought, “there’s no way I’m heading in the wrong direction.” I confidently told her she was going in the wrong direction and she told me she was quitting the race. Without skipping a beat, I said NO WAY! I looked down at my watch and we had less than 6 miles to go. I told her I was moving fairly slowly up this hill and that I’d love for her to walk with me. She hesitated every so slightly then started up with me.

Her name was Claudia and it was her fifth time running this race! I get it, we all don’t have great race days but I wasn’t about to see her throw in the towel this close to the finish line (especially because she wasn’t limping or visibly in pain). I asked her if she needed anything – world peace was her request – and we pressed on, chatting our way to the cliffs, where I stopped to take a photograph of the sunset. Having someone on the trail really made the miles go by! I had been out there solo for miles and just about everyone knows I’m a social runner and never run by myself (it’s just not fun ha ha)…

This was when a 50 miler ran by us. Claudia had told me to pick it up if I wanted to and this was the perfect opportunity. We had just passed two other 30 milers and I think they waited for her, so I took off. He was moving much faster than me so my goal was to keep him in sight. I caught up to him when we had to cross the marshy swamp area that had a water crossing up to my shins. He stopped to rinse his face (I had done that two times earlier in the day, took everything in me not to stop for a swim, ha!) and we also came across a couple that were in my initial starting wave (in the first photograph I shared in the previous post). They started following me!

They hadn’t seen anyone in quite a while and like Claudia, were happy to have the company. We all ran after the 50 mile guy (who I think was Alex after looking at the race results), walking when he did up the incline, and taking off when he’d take off. When we’d get to tricky intersections, I’d whip out my map and lead the group in the right direction. Everyone else’s watches had died earlier in the day so when another mile would pass, I’d hold up my fingers signaling how many more we had to go. The anticipation was building and there was no stopping me!

No matter how fast I tried, there was no beating the dark at this point. Alex already had his headlamp on so I paused to get mine on. I eventually caught up to him at an intersection and made the comment that his lamp was MUCH brighter than mine. It was at this point that he said he owed it to me to light the way since I had the electronic map. Yes! He’d light the way and I’d lead the way! Those last two solo miles with him were a blur. They were my fastest, strongest miles of the day and I had him to thank. When the blister on my left heel burst, I let out a little moan of ouch, this effing sucks and told him I might slow down a tad… he said that would be fine, he was only hauling ass because I was! That was just what I needed to push on! We crossed the rail trail bridge under the stars and I thought the race couldn’t get any better than this *easy* finish. We passed a family walking in the dark and I made the comment that we HAD to be close (no one takes two young kids out walking in the dark, do they?) and before I knew it, we could see the glow of a few head lamps waiting for us at the finish.

We pushed it hard down the gravel path to the finish, to the sound of his crowd of cheerleaders (3-4 people who I am assuming were family or friends). If you’re looking for a big finish, this race is not for you. There are volunteers physically writing down bib numbers and times and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Alex (gosh, I hope his name is Alex ha ha) turned around and gave me a big fist bump and thanked me for the help and I stood there looking for the beau. He had missed it! He was on the other side of the road in disbelief that I had just finished when I did.

He asked me if I wanted to run up the hill again so he could get a photo finish – ah, no.

I crossed the street to the finisher’s tent where I got my medal and chugged a ginger ale and ate a handful of delicious green grapes. I chatted with some other runners that I had seen at the start and then saw the couple who were following along behind us finish. I tried to go to the bathroom again – no go – and grabbed my t-shirt before heading to the car. This is where I took my shoes off and saw the HUGE blisters that my feet were covered in. Woof! I texted my family and running friend Caroline and then we hit the road for home. I wasn’t hungry but ordered some Chinese food and ate takeout in bed after soaking in an epsom salt bath (this was all around 11PM).

My thoughts on this race: I fucking loved it! When I crossed the finish line my first thought was, “I could have gone another 20 miles!” but didn’t dare say that out loud after finishing with Alex who had just ran 50 miles. I feel like I’ve got some unfinished business on this course and am already looking forward to the SRT 2019 to give it a second go, this time without walking the first entire half of the race. My official finish time was 10:45:00. It took Jen and me almost 6 hours to hike the first 13 miles and it took me only 4:45 to finish the last 17. I’d love to race again and aim for sub 9 hours.

Race details: as mentioned in the previous post, you cannot receive any help throughout the course of the race. While there are checkpoints, there are ZERO aid stations – no water, no fuel, no medical tents etc.. Your bib doesn’t have a tracker on it, the course isn’t specifically marked for the race and it’s your responsibility to know how to read a map and navigate the trails. If not, you must alert the race director before search and rescue teams are dispatched looking for you. Was it more difficult that I thought it would be? Yes, tenfold. But I think that’s why I loved it so much! It truly felt like I was hiking, very rarely seeing other people on the trail.

p.s… this was my fortune that night… I think that means I have to go for it! (Registration is open!)

SRT Run/Hike 30 Mile Race: Part 1

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Sooooo about a week or so ago I did a thing. I RAN MY FIRST ULTRA MARATHON! Whoop whoop!

From the top:
Saturday morning Jen met the beau and me in Troy at 6AM to hit the road. It was about a 2 hour drive to the start of our race (Sam’s Point), which gave us plenty of time to use a rest stop and settle into our surroundings before tackling the course. The bugs (the annoying flies that hover around your face) were fierce and the bathrooms weren’t open for a while, so we hung out in the car until it was time to get in line. I was really nervous going into this race for 3 reasons:

  1. I was slightly under-trained. 100% my fault but I knew I could walk 30 miles if it came down to it.
  2. My neck was stiff and only got worse leading up to the race.
  3. I had my period and I had it bad. Friday I was in bed all day because the cramping / flow was too.damn.much! I felt like I was 15 again. Completely ignoring the fact that I would have to worry about how heavy the flow was, having your period sucks all of your energy from you. Ugh, don’t get me wrong, I was happy to have it, just not on race day. #sorrynotsorry for sharing.

The more people showed up, the more I got nervous because they all looked like pros! Their tiny little packs and fit bods. Ha! I mentally said, “okay, no tomahawk for you today, it’s all about that A goal.”

A Goal: cross the finish line at 6PM (9 hours)
B Goal: cross the finish line at 7PM (10 hours and avoiding running in the dark)
C Goal: cross the damn finish line before midnight (15 hours)

While I was in the bathroom, the beau overheard that we were in the first wave. Awesome! We lined up where the race director (Ken) pointed to the gravel (very low key race) and waited for the count down. 30 seconds, 10 seconds, enjoy one of Earth’s last great places, 5 seconds, and see you at the finish line!

Start to checkpoint #4 (the first checkpoint for the 30 milers)
We all immediately started jogging up (UP) the gravel road until it got pretty steep and then we walked. Ha! It was steep! And I wasn’t about to get winded within the first mile, let’s be honest. I tried to move as fast as my legs would go and then started to jog as the ground evened out. Before I knew it, my watch beeped to signal a mile and then we were running on to the teal single-track trail. I remember one woman flying by me asking “oh, this is where we need to go?” and me thinking, giiiiiiiiiirl, I hope you have a map.

This section of the trail was narrow and the rocks were very sharp and shifty. We were on the ridge and because of a major fire a number of years ago, we were completely exposed in the sun. It was hot and humid! I had to stop every so often to let people pass me and to let Jen catch up, which was a little annoying but it did give me a breather. I don’t remember much other than having to stop to walk a lot because I didn’t want to trip/fall and that it was a lot more wet than I anticipated. In fact, we reached a waterfall within the first three miles or so.

There were some steep climbs that slowed us down and unfortunately this is where Jen rolled her ankle. She was already hiking with poles and decided to push forward to reach the first checkpoint (around mile 13). I gave her the race director’s phone number and the beau’s number just in case we got separated (we never did) and hiked on.

Somewhere between miles 5 and 6 Jen and I did find ourselves off of the trail. Ugh! But it was easy enough for us to find our way back (and gave me a quiet place to walk off course to use the bushes aka bathroom). This mistake cost us half a mile.

The terrain for this course changed dramatically a number of times throughout the race. We were on sharp rocks, we were on the most slippery slabs of rock, in the forest, crossing old planks, dodging roots – you name it. In the forest, on the ridge line. Up cliffs. Over boulders. We even hiked through the squeeze! It was at the squeeze that two women kinda (read: rudely) pushed us to the side because “they were concerned about their checkpoint times.” I mean, yes, I wanted to reach the checkpoints but I thought we were hours ahead of schedule. It was funny because when we had to hurl ourselves off a boulder, we finally caught up to them and I could see the uneasiness in their eyes. “Go ahead, you’re so concerned about your checkpoint times…” – as I hurled myself off the boulder on the other side ha ha

Competitive Jona was starting to kick in…

…but Jen wasn’t feeling it. Her ankle was a bother and she couldn’t run. At this point I called / texted the beau to let him know that he had to pick her up at the first checkpoint. When I had turned my phone on for the first time, I got an SOS text from a friend who was attempting the 50 mile race; she needed the race director’s number. I quickly sent her that contact and called to make sure she was okay – no answer. I turned my phone off.Eventually we made our way to the Rainbow Falls trail. The two ladies passed us and we caught up to a gentleman named Doug, who was filtering water in a stream. Jen stopped to filter a liter of water, we chatted then got our photographs taken near the waterfalls. After a short climb (about an hour later), I turned my phone back on and much to my surprise, nothing from the beau. I called and called and texted and texted: nothing. I started to worry, thinking he was in an accident. Your mind can surely drift when you’re miles into the woods…Jen connected with her fiance and I felt comfortable leaving her at the checkpoint once we finally arrived. I sat down to empty out my sneakers of pine needles and tiny pebbles and asked the volunteer if they had heard from my friend who sent the SOS text. Yes! She got lost! Like, 25 miles in the wrong direction lost! I felt horrible for her knowing she was pulled from the race, so I turned on my phone to send her a quick message. I said my quick goodbye to Jen and then took off running with Doug toward the next checkpoint – “only 3 or so miles away,” they said. No big deal I thought!

Checkpoint #4 to checkpoint #5
I don’t remember much between these checkpoints but I do remember passing the two women after crossing the road. Hell yes! I think I literally threw my fist up in the air and remember telling Doug that we were going to finish before them. He didn’t know why but Competitive Jona likes to set a goal to mentally get herself across the finish line. We chatted and walked when it was necessary (read: any incline) and thank goodness for him, he kept me on trail because I totally would have wandered off at one specific intersection. I have no clue how long I was with Doug but at one point he told me to keep going, he was going to pull back to lower his heart rate. I didn’t think I was moving too much faster than him, but I continued on and tried to run whenever I wasn’t walking up an incline. I did  wander off trail but I caught myself pretty quickly and only added .1 on to my total mileage for the day.

I think the mileage in between the two checkpoints turned out to be more than 3 miles (it’s all a blur really), closer to 4+ and all I can remember is coming out at a little parking lot, seeing a little Ranger’s station and seeing the beau sitting at the front of his car. “WHOOP! WHOOP!” I hollered as I approached him, big smile on my face.

The volunteers at the checkpoint wrote down my bib number and gave me a small round of applause as I sat down on a log next to the beau. I wanted a few minutes to regroup and connect with the beau, as he didn’t have cell service and didn’t know my progress/what had happened up to that point (he had connected with Jen when he left the checkpoint because he was worried when he didn’t see us sooner). It was at this point that the ranger offered me water from a 5-gallon jug and I said no and showed him my full bladder.*

*So, a major rule for this race was that you COULD NOT take any support from anyone during this race. No water, no fuel, nothing. You couldn’t even drop items throughout the course for yourself. Carry in, carry out. Later on in the evening I had told the beau that I thought I was being tested at that checkpoint when I was offered water. Was I thirsty? Yes. Was I about to cheat? Hell no! It was at this time that I learned A LOT of runners stopped and took water from this ranger, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE VOLUNTEERS! This is the ONLY complaint I have of the race: I wish those runners had a big fat DNF on their records. Heck, if I knew they weren’t going to take this rule seriously, I would have requested vegan pizza rolls from the beau…

I kid. But seriously, pisses me off.

Back to the race: I knew I had/was getting blisters so I didn’t dare take off my sneakers. I took a couple electrolyte pills, a couple honey stinger gummies and a few swigs of water and was up probably within five minutes. The volunteers said it would be about 5 miles until the next checkpoint, so I gave the beau a kiss and told him probably 2 hours until he’d see me next, as the volunteers said there were a couple big climbs ahead of me. I took off and never looked back, determined to not have the beau wait two more hours for me…

[Sorry for the lack of photographs – I was either running or terrified my phone with die before I crossed the finish line.]

ONE YEAR! August in Review

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Holy smokes! This past year has FLOWN by! Flown by. I remember starting this process and thinking 12-16 months seemed so far into the future, but here we are. Twelve months later and a shit ton of debt behind us. We’re doing it! I knew we could but I didn’t expect these kinds of monthly numbers.

$70,531.27 paid off in one year. Just twelve months! That’s an average of $5,878 paid toward debt per month; talk about hustling!

In August alone, we paid off $5,175.16 or 21.82% of our remaining debt. That means we only have $18,544.18 remaining! Another milestone: less than $20k to go! (Isn’t it sad that $20k of debt doesn’t seem like a lot?!) The student loan that we are snowballing right now started off at $16,656.09 last September and is now only $1,520.67. Blows.my.mind! These last two student loans seemed so daunting a year ago, being the largest, but I can now picture them gone and friends, the end is near.

But Murphy did pay a visit to us this month, which reminded us that big expenses can creep up at any moment.

Our 27″ iMac shit the bed. Like, can never be used ever, ever again. As of recently, we’ve been using this computer to stream shows/movies. But more importantly, this is how the beau has been freelancing/side hustling. Ugh. I still have my old mac laptop from college, so we are going to push it to see how long we can hold off from purchasing another desktop computer and in the meantime, back up all of our work and photographs.

Also, my iPhone 5S went crazy. No more texting, receiving texts, photographs, using the alarm/clock app or any app for that matter. I’ve been wanting the iPhone SE for a while now, especially for taking photographs while hiking, but am holding out until Apple releases their newest phone… which will drop the price of the SE. Hopefully this purchase will happen in September, as I also need a phone to navigate my upcoming trail race. You better believe I’ll be paying cash; no leasing cell phones in our household.

And in true transparency I have to admit that we did not stick 100% to our budget in August. Here are the items we purchased with cash that weren’t originally budgeted for:

  • mouse traps (I caught three – remind me again why we have a house cat? Especially when said mice are eating the cat’s food!)
  • a CL50 hiking map
  • epsom salts
  • hair product for the beau
  • renewed my ARE membership
  • fire tower patch / registration
  • towing fee / uber charge

Yeah, the beau’s car got towed. That “oh we’ll go out for just one beer downtown because I deserve it after a long hike” turned into quite the expensive beer. P.s… we had two. ($200+ night FYI)

Here’s a quick recap of the budget lines that didn’t end up as planned, the good and the bad:

  • Our cell phone bill was even cheaper than last month! I have no clue why and even called, but gave up when the representative gave me a nasty tone. I figured I shouldn’t argue over an unexpected discount. Honey my friends! A $12.39 savings (total bill was only $73.23)
  • Gas: even though I’ve upped this line from $120 to $160, I still went over by $36. Once again I blame hiking and know this will decrease once training for my race is over (so, so soon!).
  • Essential oils: I budget $300 each month and in August I only spent $114. I’m being very conscientious of our oil use and basically only ordering supplements from now until the end of the year. More on that via Instagram. $186 savings!
  • Eating out / alcohol: we only ate out together once this month with friends but did consume a lot of alcohol, including the Nine Pin 26er challenge, cider at Indian Ladder Farms after one of my weekly ARE STRS runs, the expensive beer night out mentioned above, a beer and dinner out in Tupper Lake after hiking the Saranac 6, I had a reasonable dinner out with a friend visiting from Delaware, a backyard fire with friends, and a night out at the Schagheticoke Fair. $99.73 over to be exact, and worth every penny. ($195 originally budgeted)

Speaking of the fair, we both love this one! This was our third year going and I love more that it’s becoming an annual tradition. We decided to go on opening night because it was only a $1 to get in, all of the rides were just one ticket ($1), and each food vendor had a $1 menu. Hot diggity dog! I like wandering through the barns to see all the animals, especially the chickens, checking out the exhibits and of course, seeing all the lights once the sun goes down. The rides creep me out and yes, I get more nauseous the older I get, but I love going on the ride that blasts the music and spins so fast you smush the rider you’re with. Oh and the giant slide where you sit on a sack… but they didn’t have that one this year.

Other free/cheap entertainment throughout the month: we got 4 free tickets to see the Philadelphia Orchestra perform the soundtrack to the Red Violin at SPAC from my place of employment (this is how I also saw the Cuban & NYC ballet this summer with my mom), we got 2 free tickets to a Tri-City Valley Cats game – a box, free bevvies and food, fireworks and this is where I found the diamond! from the beau’s place of employment and we also took a couple short hikes together locally to do some mushroom foraging.

Grocery-wise, we did great this month! We even had $6 leftover in our food envelope ($294 to start). With the Denison CSA and our garden, we’ve been overloaded with veggies and just pairing them with rice and pasta… both very budget-friendly carbs. And despite the heavy portions, my waistline doesn’t seem to mind – it’s even happier eating in season – as I’ve managed to lose 3 pounds. Not that that was my goal, I’ve just noticed by the way my pants feel. Riding this veggie high into September!

Feeling powered by plants: I ran only 62.2 miles this month. I also hiked 34.2 miles! Total: 96.4 miles. Admittedly I’m kind of over this training cycle and slogging out long miles. I’ve never looked forward to training for a 10k so much before in my life, ha! Two more weeks until my 50k – and typical taper feelings alllllll the way. Right now I’m just hoping it’s not a 90* day with full humidity – I’m ready for the autumn-like (cooler) temps!

My second FPU class begins tonight (!) with 5 more people looking to change their future. I couldn’t be more excited for them and what I’m about to witness over the next 9 weeks.

Oh! And with the new month, we’ll also be participating in the 30-day minimalism game. I didn’t think we had a lot of stuff but then I took a look into one of our closets, extra bedroom and unused office… all filled with stuff! We either need to find a home for them (put art up on the walls, etc) or toss it! We shall see how far we make it; less is definitely more.

Weird kind of luck

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I’m that person that gets chosen to participate in a local radio contest for a chance to win $10,000 cash and a brand new Honda Civic. But I’m also the kind of person that loses thanks to a game of rock paper scissors.

I’m that person who last minute decides to go to a sold-out concert, pays more than she should have for nose-bleed tickets and is then randomly upgraded to front row, front and center tickets.

And this week, I was the person who found a half carat diamond buried in a baseball field.

What luck, am I right?!

But I also don’t know if it’s part personality, part determination on my end. It can’t all be by chance, right?

I mean I had no stinkin’ clue where that diamond was buried but I did have a gut feeling and a pretty legit game plan before walking on that field.

Here’s the story:
I guess at the last home game of each season, the Tri-City Valley Cats bury a half carat diamond on their field for one lucky woman to find. Don’t get me started on the whole woman thing… but that’s another blog post. Well, we were a couple innings into the game and a co-worker of the beau asked me if I was signed up for the “Diamond Dig!” Nope, but I was intrigued. I did look at the beau at one point and told him that if I won, I’d sell it for money toward our debt. So, I marched downstairs and signed myself up.

And also asked the rep. a ton of questions!

Where is the diamond buried? Between third and first base in the warning track.
Is it a diamond? It’s a necklace pendant.
When did they bury it? Overnight.
How many people are participating? I thought she said 150, but the real answer was 115.
She told me they’d give me a wooden spoon to dig with once I gave them my ticket / entered the field.

For the entire rest of the game, that was all I could think about. I just sat there staring at the field, trying to visualize where that diamond was buried. When it was the bottom of the 9th inning, we all walked downstairs to line up… and this is where the first decision was made. You could enter the field on the left (third base) or right (first base). I immediately said right while the other women wanted to go left… they did follow me. We lined up and chatted with a woman in line who seemed like a pro. She had participated over the last couple of years but had never won – close but not enough. She did tell us that it would be in a box and that after some time, they’d give us clues. Okay I thought, I’ve got this.

Once on the field with a wooden spoon in hand, a few of us took a selfie together (not me, remember, no phone) and did a little team on three chant. I mean it was all fun and games but I wanted to be the winner. I proceeded to look around, trying to see any clue or difference in the soil – nothing. 3, 2, 1…

And we all started digging! Or I should say, scratching at the dirt. Hard as a rock! I felt like I was just scratching the surface, so I moved on to a different patch: same. We were digging for what felt like only a minute when the guy on the microphone stopped us all to give us a clue: everyone from the home plate to third base was on the wrong side of the field. I knew it! I knew I had chosen the correct side! In that moment I blocked out the rush of women coming toward us and got back down on the ground to try something new.

I’m not going to share my tactic in hopes of giving it a-go again at next year’s game, but within what felt like 10 seconds I knew I had found it. Dirt was flying and there it was, the plastic bag containing a box with the necklace inside. I shot my arm up in the air, bag in hand, and yelled “I FOUND IT!” From there, pure laughter. Mostly because I had found it so fast, partly because I couldn’t believe it. Had I just manifested this find?!

The rest was a blur: photographs, meeting the jeweler, showing other women what the diamond looked like. I was in shock – it was larger than I had expected AND I couldn’t wait to see the look on the beau’s face.

Classic.

He too was laughing! “Of course you found the diamond!” he said when I marched up the stairs to greet him with a kiss. I just couldn’t believe it! The fireworks started but I could barely concentrate, as my adrenaline was high.

Was it luck that I had chosen that spot to dig? I was within a five foot radius of the diamond the entire time. My tactic might have been spot on but if I had chosen the other side of the field, I would have been out of luck. Or would I have been out of time?

Either way, I’m still super happy and can’t wipe the smile off of my face.

I’m not a diamond kind of gal and am still up in the air with what I should do with the pendant. How does one even go about selling a diamond?! I’ve got another necklace and pair of earrings at home from a previous relationship… help a girl out.

Needless to say, I’m wearing the diamond today and loving it.

July in Review

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July was a pretty boring month for us. No big numbers, just stuck with the budget and trudged along.

And despite it being a blah month, we still hit a milestone… we’re officially under $25,000!

Looking over our budget, these areas came out different than planned:

  1. Gas: we’re usually pretty spot-on with our allotted $120 but this month we went over because I went hiking twice, both trips totaling an additional 10 hours in the car. Next month I anticipate hiking even more so we’re going to up that line most likely to $160.
  2. Cell phones: last month I received a random message from AT&T stating that my plan had been changed, unannounced. I called and they reassured me that nothing had changed. Well, when I received our invoice, it was higher, as they had changed our plan by upping the data. I immediately called them and gave them hell because A. we didn’t authorize that change B. they had told me nothing had changed just a few weeks prior and C. we don’t come close to using the 6GB of shared data as is, there’s no reason for us to pay for 12GB. The representative couldn’t understand why I was refused double the data for just $5 extra and tried to convince me to watch tv on my phone = I was officially pissed. When the rep. transferred me over to the customer retention department, I was on hold for over 45 minutes and gave them even more hell, as nicely as possible I may add. That honey paid off! Not only did the new rep. change our plan back to the original one, he took $20 off of our monthly invoice from here on out as an apology. AND he gave us an additional $25 credit that will be popping up in August. Long story short, our old monthly expense for cell phones was $104.95, it’ll now be $85.62. I’ll take it!
  3. Groceries: for the first half of the month, I planned our meals and everything went as scheduled… until the second half of the month came and I decided we could wing it. Well, we can’t. I’ve learned we overspend with this tactic so in August I’m going to have to try harder by keeping staples in our pantry. The thing is, our pantry is so low every month because we only buy the necessities. Mom, please don’t read this and think we need money or food. We don’t 🙂 We just can’t have the pantry packed like we could a year ago. In just a few short months however… golly, I CAN’T WAIT to stock up on 81 cent pasta and 69 cent beans, ha! Oh, the shit-eating grin on my face just thinking about all the canned and bulk items we’re going to have on hand. I’m picturing myself walking through the isles with, “they see me rollin’, they hatin'” blasting in the background. Back to reality: we went over by almost $50 this month, also partially because I needed to shop for backpacking food options.

Speaking of food, we did eat a lot of delicious meals! I checked out Chloe Coscarelli’s Flavor cookbook from the library and it’s so so good! It might be my favorite vegan cookbook! The flavors are spot on so far with every recipe we’ve tried. The beau said I’m like the woman cooking through Julia Child’s cookbook, except the vegan version. Made me laugh! (Photographs of the food on Instagram)

Items we didn’t have in the budget but paid cash for:

  • deodorant cream from Meow Meow Tweet (the beau now uses this too!)
  • I split a hotel in Philly for the Taylor Swift concert – see, you CAN budget fun!
  • 2 rides on the subway in Philly
  • running coach
  • AAA batteries for my headlamp
  • shampoo
  • a nozzle for our gifted hose (so we can water the garden more easily)
  • and a visit to my favorite spa friend

More fun this month: we continued the Nine Pin cider 26er challenge and I scored free tickets to the opening night of the NYC Ballet.

To the numbers because that’s my favorite part! As of July 31st:

We’ve paid off $66,060.21 in 11 months!

That’s 73.37%!

In July alone, we paid off $4,682.07 of debt, or 16.49%. This month we did receive our STAR rebate and a refund from Navient because we were eligible to have 6 months worth of payments (on one specific loan) refunded to us. Their story/reasoning isn’t straight but I’m not complaining – I’ll be fighting like hell to get a refund later this year on a second loan with this benefit.

When I recapped the numbers with the beau, I could see the excitement (FINALLY!) on his face. Every payment I make, I do a little happy dance. Literally. My excitement has been present since day one, but then again, I’m the nerd watching the spreadsheet change multiple times a month. He’s been happy and supportive of this process and gives me the high fives I need to celebrate, but this morning I could see that reality was finally hitting him: we have less than 6 months to go.

I remember when we paid off our last debt and realized we only had two more student loans / debts to go. They’re our two highest debts, $16k and $17k and I’m not going to lie, it felt daunting. I knew it would take months to pay off each debt and the satisfaction wouldn’t be instant like we’ve experienced in the past. But I no longer feel that burden – it’s actually been really exciting tracking the progress on these bigger balances. Less than $15k to go! Less than $10k to go! And now, we’re in the $5,000s! It’s happening, the process is working. We’re taking it one month at a time and we’re so close to being down to one student loan. Ahhhhh!

Fitness recap for the month: I only ran 61.6 miles in July due to the heat and my lack of motivation, but I did hike 39.6 miles! So that’s 101.2 miles total for the month. Included in those hiking miles, was my fire tower challenge finish on Cathedral Rock! I’ve officially climbed enough (23/23) to earn the patch but I’m going to keep climbing the remaining towers in NYS; there are 7 left that I have yet to summit.

My goal for August is to not skip a workout, as this is my last full month before my race, and to hike at least 8 times. I’ve got a couple other challenges planned for the month ahead – more on those in the next recap.

Finalizing the location for my next FPU class this week – I can’t wait to start back up and witness the a-ha moments! These are the women who took the class along side of me this past spring. In the 9 weeks, the group paid off over $25,000, saved over $3,000 and cut up 15 credit cards! Now THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about!