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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!

Hiking Pillsbury Mountain Fire Tower

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I’m on a blogging roll! Can you believe it?!

Last Wednesday I took advantage of the cooler temperatures and lower humidity to hike another fire tower. And this time I brought a friend! He’s just getting started on his fire tower list so we plan to hike a lot together over the next month to get his numbers up and me in shape for this race.

Rocco and I were on the road at 6:30AM from Saratoga and headed west on Rt 29 and then north on Rt 30 until we reached the seasonal road leading us to the trailhead. I pulled over briefly at the lookout on Mason Lake to confirm on my map that we hadn’t passed the dirt road and saw three loons! They were at the edge of the lake closest to us, such a treat! Rocco had never heard of a loon, noting that they looked like ducks, so later that evening I sent him a YouTube video of loons at night. “Loud!” he said.

About the dirt road: it’s approximately six miles to the trailhead and at times, very bumpy. I had read warnings about low-riding vehicles and parking at the Sled Harbor “clearing” (didn’t look like much of a clearing to me) but I wanted to take it slow and give it a try… mostly because when we stopped the car at one point for an oncoming vehicle, the car was SWARMED with deer flies. Nope. I wasn’t about to tack on 3+ miles if the bugs were that bad. I took it slow, at some points needing to downshift into first gear, and got us there safe and sound and in one piece. It took us about 30 minutes to cover those 6 miles.

Before getting out of the car, we lathered on the Young Living Insect Repellent. I was admittedly a little nervous about it working because this was my first test hike but let me tell you, worked like a charm! Neither one of us came home with a bug bite, despite the deer flies attacking the car and the trail being wet due to rain the previous day. It says it’s not greasy, but it was. Never did I feel heavy or sticky however, I just noticed the sweat beaded up more so than usual. It didn’t stain my clothes and it’s vegan / plant based sooooo that’s all that matters in my book.

Reading reviews for this hike, it states that it’s strenuous and difficult over the 1.6 miles up to the summit. I tried to prepare Rocco as best as I could for this immediate climb and told him to lead the way; we’d take a break whenever he needed one. It wasn’t that bad! And the kid agreed! While there were sections of continuous climbing upward and a couple of water breaks, there were nice recovery sections throughout. I want to say the last half mile or so was pretty enjoyable. We chatted about vacations and other hikes we’d like to do eventually and before we knew it, the tower was in sight!

There was an old caretakers cabin and some lumber on the summit, I’m assuming for updates to the cabin of the tower. I had read that the tower cabin was closed but I wasn’t expecting there to be minimal wire on the stairs. As someone who’s afraid of heights and watching a kid not her own, we only climbed up three levels. There was still a wonderful view and a breeze to keep the bugs at bay. We each enjoyed a Pillsbury crescent roll – thanks mom! – and some Pirate’s Booty. We didn’t sit for too long because the breeze gave us a chill.

Note: we saw a lot of toads on this trail! One peed on me when I picked him up; him couldn’t help it.

I enjoyed this hike despite the drive being longer than the hike. I’m determined to get Rocco camping at least twice over the next month so that we can knock out 4 more long distance towers, even if that means having his younger brother tag along for company / moral support; these boys have never been camping! Challenge accepted! Rocco if you’re reading this, get ready!

Pillsbury Mountain brought my fire tower challenge total to 22/23 and 4/23 for Rocco.

Random question: anyone know what kind of animal poop this is?

 

Hiking Poke-O-Moonshine Fire Tower

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Last Friday I took the day off from work to take advantage of the beautiful day and hike another fire tower peak. And to start getting miles under my feet on trails. With my September race quickly approaching, I’m scrambling to hike as much as I can.

This trail head is almost 2.5 hours away from our doorstep, just a few miles off of Exit 33 on the Northway. I hit the road at 5:30AM and was geared up and walking into the woods at 8:03AM… without any bug spray! I couldn’t believe I drove that far and didn’t pack any bug spray. I almost panicked because last month when I had hiked the mosquitoes were UNBEARABLE, and I wasn’t about to turn around. More on this topic to come…

I decided to hike the Observer’s Trail because I wanted as many miles under me as I could, especially because it was such a long drive. Out and back, this trail only totals 5 miles. Almost immediately the trail starts to head up but gradually and nothing to make me stop and need to catch my breath. It was a gorgeous sunny morning and everything looked so green! And because I was hiking solo, my senses were heightened; every chipmunk seemed to make me jump! And there were a lot of them! But I think I scared them too, many of them peeling out making their little screeching noises.

Before I knew it I came to a clearing that’s flooded due to beaver activity. After reading reviews, I was curious how the crossing would be and it was just dried mud but I could see how it would be a problem in the spring or after some heavy rain. I snapped a couple photographs and continued up.

There was a short section just below another clearing where the trail was wet with a small stream running. Nothing sketchy but I made a mental note for the run down. Eventually you come upon a short landing with a privy and lean-to; if you were to continue straight at this junction, you’d start heading DOWN the mountain and down the trail that begins in the old campground two miles up from where I started out. You want to take a left toward the old caretaker’s cabin remains to reach the tower. It’s clearly marked, especially if you turn around and look back at the lean-to (sign is on the front of the lean-to). From there, it’s only .3 up, pretty easily, with a gorgeous view southwest toward the 4,000ers.

Walking past the tower, there’s a spectacular view! Not only can you see the tallest ADK peaks, but you can look across Lake Champlain and see the Green Mountains. And if you work up the courage to climb the tower (I only went up three sets of stairs), you can clearly see more of Vermont and the lake. I sat up there for about 20 minutes eating a snack and snapping photographs, soaking up the views all by myself.

I was back and forth about running down the mountain because A. it was such a long drive and I didn’t want to rush things and B. I didn’t want to fall and get hurt and be alone in the woods, hurt. But once I hit the trail down, I started moving and grooving, convinced someone had to pass me eventually on this gorgeous day. And they did, a summit steward, about a half mile from the trail head. But I hadn’t fallen and I wasn’t hurt, so I didn’t stop and just shouted hello as I zipped passed.

I was back in the car and on the road at 9:40AM.

And didn’t have a single bug bite. There was the occasional buzz from a black fly on the way up but nothing annoying, even on the summit with the occasional breeze. Golly did I get lucky!

I loved this hike and wish it was closer to home. I’ll have to hike it again with my friend that’s just starting his tower challenge. Oh! And you can see the tower as you’re driving up the Northway, which got me excited and pumped to hike, especially while blasting the Black Eyed Peas. There were a ton of cars parked in the old campground when I left, I’m assuming to rock climb; the rock face is impressive!

This tower brought my count to 21/23

Books I’ve Read: Q2 2018

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Quarter 2 was off to a slow start reading-wise, focusing on the garden, running and other life activities, but in June I picked up speed and read three books before month end.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown // This book should have been at least 100 pages shorter; much of what he shared was repeated a number of times throughout the book. There were a couple of ah-ha moments that I connected with, like not doing it all. “What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance?” Taking it all on doesn’t mean you’re successful by any means and I’ve learned this over the past year. I’ve worked on slowing my schedule down by choosing what is truly important to me and saying no when I don’t want to commit or spread myself too thin. It’s been easier being on a budget and practicing saying no because of financial constraints, but I must add, now that I know what it’s like to slow down, being busy really wears me down and I crave a low-key lifestyle. Efficiency is greater than quantity in my book.

Raised Bed Revolution: Build It, Fill It, Plant It… Garden Anywhere! by Tara Nolan // This book, while inspiring from the photographs, was too general. I read it front to cover one evening while babysitting (don’t fret, the kiddos were sleeping), which inspired me to do more specific Google searches the following week. The MIgardener.com is an excellent resource, we’re obsessed with watching his YouTube channel.

The Book of Polly by Kathy Hepinstall // My mom highly recommended this book so I pushed it to the top of my list. It was hilarious, I literally laughed out loud a couple of times. All of the characters are real – they draw you in fast whether you can relate to them or not. Super easy read – I was done within two days. Great beach read.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed // This book has been on my must-read list for a number of years because so many people ask me if I’ve read it when they find out I’m a hiker. I can finally say yes. And I can finally respond, eh, it was okay. It was a slow read, taking me almost two weeks to finish. I suggest taking a hike instead of reading this book. I’m hoping the film is better, ha!

Up: A mother and Daughter’s Peakbagging Adventure by Patricia Ellis Herr // I started and finished this book within 24 hours: super easy read, super pretentious writer. Don’t get me wrong, a 5 year old hiking all 48 peaks is impressive but man oh man, this mother spends half of the book trying to convince us how exceptional they are – she gave up her Harvard PhD to be a stay at home mom, slinging *organic* bars to her bright, home schooled child. The dialog is so phony between the two of them, ugh, she just rubbed me the wrong way… and I’m ALL FOR kids being outdoors, eating organic and heck, I’d love to home school any future kid. It was just written in the completely wrong way.

I started Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams but to be honest, as interesting as it is, it put me to sleep! Ha! I noted the page I left off on (40) and returned it to the library; I’ll try again in a couple of months.

June in Review!

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June: the never-ending month of birthdays and extra spending.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the people we purchased gifts for this month, but golly, the extra spending seemed never ending because our gift envelope was empty before the month even started. I vow to never try to get pregnant that would result in a May, June or July birthday baby, ha! Too much information? I’m just being honest. Eight birthdays, two Dads for Father’s Day, a wedding and our favorite Troy brewery turned four… much to celebrate!

Despite all of the spending…

We paid off another student loan! 
When we started this journey back in September, we owed $14,443.03 on this student loan. It was originally taken out back in August 2005 and was originally projected to be paid off on 9/25/2029, according to Navient. We paid it off 11 years and 4 months ahead of schedule – boom pow!

We started tackling student loan 5 of 6! 
We are down to the final TWO debt balances! TWO! Yes, they are the largest but I can see that little flash of light at the end of the tunnel. We are now tackling unsubsidized Stafford Loan 1-03. The beau originally took out this loan back in August 2007 and its original balance at 5.8% was $12,000. When we started this journey back in September, the balance was $16,656.09 and if we stay on Navient’s track, our anticipated payoff date would be 2/25/2036. My personal payoff goal for this loan is October 2018… that’s a 17+ year difference! After all we’ve dumped on to the balance this month, the balance is now $11,239.87 rolling into July. *Note: we are just now under the original loan balance, ugh! Watch those income based repayment plans if you can…

Our income based repayment plan was denied. 
I discussed this on my IG stories a couple weeks ago, but realizing that some of you don’t follow me there, I’ll share on this space too. We refiled the income based repayment plan application at the beginning of the month and were declined because we filed our taxes jointly this year and both of our incomes were included in the decision making process. I then refiled indicating that our finances are separate, and we were declined a second time because the beau “makes more than the poverty line…”

…which is bullshit because when I asked what the poverty line is, she told me $44,000. Last year when we filed and were granted an IBR plan, he was making more than that number soooooo that makes zero sense and she couldn’t justify the difference in the decision making process. All they know is that he got a $2,000 raise and that’s “too much” money and think he can now afford a couple extra hundred dollars each month. A $2k raise only equals an extra $56 each payday. I’m frustrated because their process for granting IBR plans is flawed but I’m thankful I am on this plan because if we didn’t have a plan, going from a $65 payment to a $276 payment would be so so overwhelming. I didn’t fight it and they didn’t ask me why or how we were paying off the other loans so quickly, so I just let it be.

I got my fitness on!
The beau won a free gym membership at his work health fair day! Whoop whoop! Fully knowing he wouldn’t take advantage of the membership (he rows at home almost every day), he let me have it so that I could start spinning again. Love I tell ya. I reached out to my coach to readjust my schedule and I’m now spinning 2x per week, giving up my recovery runs. Spin it to win it! I’m still aiming to run 4 days a week and for the most part I stayed on track throughout the month of June. I ran 106.89 miles this month, a significant increase from last month! My mileage isn’t as high as I think it should be (because I slacked the last couple of months) but I’ve got two months to slowly increase the time on my feet. In July I’d like to hike at least 4x and complete 2 loops at each ARE STRS location. Gotta get more time on the trails, it is a trail race after all.

I survived my first month without meal planning!
This was hard, y’all. I’m a planner. We both enjoy knowing what we’re having for dinner when we walk in the door every night and I like walking into a grocery store with a specific list and a mission to come in under budget. It’s hard staying under budget without a plan! But we did it, BARELY, and I’ve already got a new game plan for July.

Instead of planning the meal, I’m going to plan the carbohydrate for each dinner. We’re pretty good at getting creative with ingredients and this way we’ll have a general idea of what we’re going to end up with. And this method will help me stick to shopping twice a month. In example:

Mondays: couscous
Tuesdays: rice
Wednesdays: homemade corn tortillas
Thursdays: pasta… and so on.

We have zero time to prep for our CSA delivery each Saturday but so far we’ve been able to easily incorporate / eat up everything. I can tell you it’s wonderful not purchasing lettuce! We’ve got so much growing in our garden, coupled with the deliveries, I’ve been adding lettuce to my smoothies to use it all up. I’m loving the variety – yes, even the zucchini (NOT my favorite)! I checked out the Chloe Flavor cookbook from the library and cannot wait to cook my way through it this summer; the scallion pancakes, cauliflower tacos and corn chowder were delicious! (You can photographs of those meals on IG FYI)

Other fun facts about June:
We finally got our chimney repaired! This home repair has been looming for the last couple of months but it happened the first week of the month and yes, not only did we pay cash ($1,000), but we got a slight discount for doing so. Cash is a motivator, friends! Once the work was done, we withdrew the last of our savings ($500) to dump toward debt, leaving $1,000 in our emergency fund per Baby Step #1.

The only other non-gift that we cash flowed this month that was not part of our original June budget were two metal clothes racks off of Amazon. Total: $2.89, using the Amazon gift cards that we earned from CDPHP to cover the remainder of the balance. We had one wooden rack that was probably 10+ years old and it finally broke from the weight of wet clothes and I knew this was an item I wanted to upgrade, and duplicate. Not only does drying clothes on a rack extend the life of your clothing, it also saves you money on your utilities bill. Win win!

Numbers wise, we paid off 23.41% of debt this month, totaling 68.14%! Two thirds of the way done! Our balance is now $28,401.41, having paid off $60,674.04 since September. LESS THAN $30K TO GO!!! Pinch. Me. It still blows my mind that that much money has passed through our hands over the last ten months. $60,674.04 of essentially extra money. That’s money we’ll never see again. That’s money that wasn’t spent traveling the world. That’s money that wasn’t spent fixing up our home, investing for our future, or given away to local charitable organizations that mean something to us. But soon we’ll be able to do all of those things, and more. February 2019 is my new payoff goal: I’d love to celebrate our second wedding anniversary debt free! You read it here folks, eight more payment months!

When I sent our final stats to the beau after I made our last payment of the month (I’m the nerd), he asked, “how’d our numbers get so big this month?!” This was my response:

  • $500 as mentioned above was transferred out of savings (we are officially down to $1,000, so this won’t happen again)
  • $1,500 reimbursement: the beau took a class this past Winter and paid cash from our savings in full; his job finally reimbursed him
  • June was a triple pay month for the beau: we deposited his entire 3rd check toward debt
  • the rest was all side hustle!

Story time!
For the last three days of the month, our bank account / spending was on hold (because we made our final payment for the month toward debt). The beau wanted a six pack – sorry, no money I kindly reminded him. The beau wanted to go buy waffles – sorry, no money I kindly reminded him. Well, the beau wanted ice cream… so he found a blood drive. After giving a pint of blood on Saturday, they gave him a coupon for one free pint of ice cream! I have never laughed so hard! Now THAT’S sticking to the budget and giving like no one else!

Goals for July: have any? Feel free to take the leap and share them below!