Milestone

I sent off the final payment on our Sequoia yesterday. I actually sent it Express Mail, which ultimately didn't do me any good. It doesn't take 1 day like mail from normal places, but 2 days. So since I sent it Thursday afternoon, it should get there by Saturday. But the place is closed on Saturday, I'm sure, so it will be Monday. I think I could have done Priority for that, since it's just going to Plano.

Regardless, the payment has been sent and will be received within the date range specified with the payoff quote we got.

So now we turn to Sallie Mae - lovely student loans. We consolidated several loans 9 years ago, but in the intervening years have only paid down $5K. How frustrating! But now, thanks to Dave Ramsey and his "debt snowball" concept, we can start throwing money at it left and right since we've paid off our other debts (student loan, 401(k) loan, Sequoia). Now we can use the payment amounts from those debts to "evict Sallie out of the guest room" in Dave's words. We'll be debt free except for the house next spring. To celebrate, we're taking the kids to Disneyworld. Plus we fixed our W4 (again) and increased our exemptions to some ridiculous number because we got a refund this year from the IRS. So we'll be able to throw that money at Sallie, too.

I'm so ready to be done with debt. It's going to feel strange when all we owe on is the house. But then we're going to start throwing money at that, too. Well, actually, we won't start throwing money at that until we have 3-6 months' of expenses in an emergency fund, max out retirement, and max out college funds for the kids. *Then* we'll pay off the house.

We bought the "Financial Peace Jr." kit for Caleb & Audrey. I don't want them to fall into the same traps that we fell into. I don't want them to be normal. Normal is broke. I want them to be weird. I want them to be financially free. So now is the time to teach them. They tell people that they get "commission" and they have no idea what an allowance is. They get paid when they work. Just like the real world. And when one of them sees something on TV that they want, the other kid says, "Save your money."

Speaking of saving for something, Caleb is saving up to take Steve to go see the new "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie on March 23. He's excited about saving up for it and excited about seeing it. I think he'll get a kick out of buying the tickets himself and buying snacks himself. I remember paying for stuff when I was a kid. I particularly remember going on a clothes shopping spree as a senior in high school with my money from my job at Sonic. I bought some awesome clothes and I was so proud of them. I don't remember all of the clothes, but I do remember one green and cream striped blouse. It was my favorite forever.

Enough about my pay-off-debt-and-become-financially-independent obsession. I'm going to go now and just surf and do nothing.