Today is a gift

Today is a gift; that's why it's called the present!

Today, after much anticipation, I received my 401k payout. It looked so beautiful sitting there in my checking account that I was almost afraid to spend it. I say spend it like I was buying a new pair of leopard shoes or something, but you know what I mean.

I quickly paid off the credit cards:

Nordstrom     $1,008.03 PAID IN FULL

MBNA           $1958.30 PAID IN FULL

Chase             $500

$500?! Yeah. I know. It goes against the whole spirit of this blog - in theory. But here's what I actually did:

I took the remaining $2,565.19 and broke it up. I paid the student loans so that I'm current ($530.40 and $593.30) and then paid the past due on the cell phone ($100). It leaves me with roughly $841.50.

I know what you're thinking - Hey moron, you whined about not having the cash to pay the bills and now you're not paying them off! True. But not true. My balance on the Chase bank card is now $1840.01. I am going to use the leftover cash to pay for school instead. Whatever is leftover goes toward that balance. And when I get paid on Friday, I can add more to it.

Right now it's about doing what's logical. I could pay off all the credit cards but then I'd be broke again and also deeper in the hole on the student loans. If the school thing doesn't work in my favor then I will just put it toward that last bill.

I felt victorious when I paid off those two credit cards! I noticed that both accounts tried to trick me into paying only the minimum balance and actually made it kind of difficult to find the button for paying in full. Tricksters! That's OK, I paid them off. I win.

In the meantime, I am looking for a summer bakery job at one of the local theme parks. I am a substitute teacher during the school year - that's how I kinda pay the bills. I say kinda because if it paid the bills completely, I would have nothing to write about.