Found an electric bike for sale on craigslist for $350. I live a little over 2 miles from my work and in passed years I’ve tried biking to work but I could never stick with it since there is this one massive hill that I need to walk up. I’ve wanted an electric bike (the motor assists you on hills when you use the throttle) for a while now but could never justify it since we were still digging out of debt. Since we now have a 2k buffer (nowhere near a real EF but I’m working on it) and no non-mortgage debt, T said I should get this for myself. He’s thinking he might be able to complete some of the car repairs himself which would save us money on that upcoming expense.

I’m hoping to use the electric bike 3 days a week to commute to work (and pick G up from daycare once I attach my “trailgator” bike attachment). The sitters house is only 1mile past my house (3mi from work) and on that trip I shouldn’t have to use the electric motor at all since all those hills are easy to climb. I’m hoping this will lessen my dependence on a car. I still will obviously need the car for bad weather and on the days she goes to my mom’s house (35mile distance cannot be done on a bike!) but overall I think this is a healthy lifestyle change that might end up saving us some money on gas to boot!

I've never used an FSA before and I was wondering if anyone out there has? Supposedly my employer will take the money out pretax and I submit a form each time I get a receipt from my daycare provider and I will be reimbursed. I've used an online calculator and it looks like this is better than the childcare tax credit of 600 for the year that I was previously getting. Looks like this works out to an additional 1200 for the year? Sounds great, keep your fingers crossed it's as easy as they're making it out to be!

We are debt free (aside from mortgages) as of Friday! My mom hasn't cashed the check yet but she told me she was planning on doing it today.

T estimates all the repairs to the cars we've been putting off to cost about ~1500 total. I'm hoping that's on the high end but I've budgeted for the total amount.

Next up after that is saving for oil for winter and then hopefully getting the replacement windows for the downstairs of our house before the cold sets in (late Sept?). I want to pay for it with cash and I'm hoping I can get the 6 downstairs windows done for less than 2,750 but I need to start calling around for estimates soon.

So happy to start this new part of the journey and be debt free. Only our mortgages (home and rental property) left!

Need to get everything wrapped up today since I'm off next week on a family vacation! Next friday is payday and I've already written out the check for my mom to cash so that we are DEBT FREE (aside from mortgages)!

SO exciting. I've been counting this down for the last 2 years! We were briefly debt free two years ago after paying off the student loans, car loans, credit cards, etc. but then I got it in my head that we needed a half bathroom on our main floor. We ended up getting the bathroom/laundry room addition but the amount I had estimated in my head was WAY off. To add approx 100SF addition to our house was 17k (18k including materials we bought). We had some cash on hand but we ended up borrowing from my mom again. In 7 days it is all paid off ! I think it was an outrageous price but it has made our house so much more livable. It was much easier to potty train our girly and its nice not having to send guests (some of them elderly family) up the stairs every time they needed to use a restroom. Plus having laundry within steps of the kitchen/family room has been a nice change.

I want things to stick this time. We've got to play catch up on some car issues and other things we've neglected since throwing it all at the debt, but I want to make sure other house repairs are done with CASH and that we build up a tiny emergency fund. This website has been awesome with keeping me accountable. I don't post often but I'm always here checking in and reading up on everyone else's progress which I think helps!