A reason to celebrate!

So, back on my birthday (March 13th), we purchased windows for our whole house. They were well over due (many were original from 1950's). We had been putting it off year after year because of how much all our windows would cost us. Not a cheap home project, let me tell ya.

But the hubby was getting tired of putting plastic up every fall and taking it down every spring, so we started collecting quotes and went with D&W Windows. Out of all the big named people in the area, they were the nicest to us and the most reasonable priced.

 

So we took the leap and purchased windows for the whole house. 12 windows, with one being a huge bay-like window. So around $5,000 later......we had new windows.....and a huge bill. YIKES! We were on a 12-month interest free deal, so in the hubby and my eyes, we had 12 months to pay over $5,000+ off. If we rounded it to a easy $5,000, that came to $420 a month ON TOP OF OUR NORMAL BILLS! YIKES!

I began to get worried and scared!

That is a lot of money to come up with. And we aren't rich. We don't make 6 figure salaries either. We pay our bills and bargain shop whenever we can so we can make our few pennies go as far as we can for a family of 4.

We knew we would have to pick up extra hours at work, extra side jobs, and cut the vacations down to practically none.

One year.

One year of being worried, eating  cheap, no new stuff....so we can pay the windows off.

One year.

We began to plug away, Dave Ramsey style. Making a budget every month, squeezing every penny we could out of every place we could. We knew paying the windows off in one year was more important to us that going out to eat, or being able to buy new clothes or have 2 nice cars.

I mean, having new windows would help keep our heating/cooling bill down and the money we would save on not buying plastic too would help.
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So we kept plugging away.......
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A few months into it, we had a huge storm, lost power, and lost our freezer, stove, and tv. DARN IT!
Paid cash for freezer and stove. Decided we don't need a tv. We used our little tv from the bedroom and made due in the living room.......it's small but you can watch the news....all that matters right?
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Plugging away again.....
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Hubby has to switch shifts at work which means our day care costs goes up. (LOVE my day care lady! But a cost that we weren't planning...) ugh...
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Plugging away again......
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Hubby's van dies! =o( I tell ya. This wasn't an easy journey and everything that could go wrong seem to have......... get hubby a car so he can work again........
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Plug away again... fingers crossed, praying!
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AS OF TODAY, 9/9/13, days away from the 6 month marker of having this windows bill hanging over our heads, I am SUPER SUPER proud to say.........the windows are

 

 

Oh Yeah! You read that loud and clear! $5,000 PAID OFF IN 6 MONTHS!

 

6 FREAKING MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!! 

 It makes you feel like superwoman/man!

 

We scrapped by for 6 hard months but to have new windows AND to have them paid in full is a glorious feeling!

 

Yup, being in the Dave Ramsey FPU had paid off! How many people can say they can pay a bill that big without stopping their normal bills? A mortgage (and that fact we have 2), car payment, daycare costs, raising gas costs, my student loan payment, etc.......

 

 

But we did it! Now that's something to celebrate about!!!!!! =oD