I am going to be blunt.

APRIL SUCKED. 

Even though Randy and I still worked our butts off, not one extra dime was able to go toward our debt {other than what we already budget from our salaries}.

Because life.

Here are just a few things that life threw at us this past month:

• We unexpectedly owed on our taxes {when we expected a return}. Blah.
• Our “tax guy” who we’ve used for the past eight years charged us almost double what we’ve paid in the past without warning {he unfortunately lost a  loyal customer . . . I’m not about that kind of inflation}.
• Even though we usually budget well for all the everythings in life, I did not do a good job of budgeting for our upcoming summer expenses—summer camps for the kids, a family reunion, swimming lessons, etc. It’s a lot and most of it had to be paid right then.
• We had to pay the tags and taxes for our vehicles {I usually use our tax returns to pay for this  . . . but that didn’t happen}.
• Randy’s painting crew was supposed to be finished with a large job four weeks ago, and they STILL ARE NOT DONE!!!
• I had a fairly slow month with my Bondbons business.
• Randy dropped his brand new cell phone in a cup of coffee {of all things} and had a pay a pretty penny to have it repaired.
• Our children had to attend child care before and after school—something they rarely have to do {and each time costs money}.
• ‘Tis the season for those dang baby ants.  Anyone else have those? We had to hire the exterminator to come out.
• And the worst: Randy’s sweet 93-year-old Grampie passed away.  This not only emotionally took a toll on us, but extra time and money went into trips to the hospital to visit him before he passed, the visitation, funeral, burial, etc.

So, yeah . . .

To meet our goal of being debt-free by the end of 2016, we have to put at least $3,000 toward our student loans each month.  This month, we were only able to do $1,211.

That’s not even half.

Amid my grumblings above, I am thankful that we at least still put a dent in the balance. It could be worse.  We could have made no progress at all, or even gone further into debt. It’s still incredibly frustrating though.

Like I said, we still worked our butts off.  I was not able to sleep in one Saturday in April because I was either supervising the ACT or a detention. During one detention, a detainee called me a “bitch” for asking him to remove his hat . . . so . . . that was nice.

My husband and I also catered a wedding at the end of April.  The bride and groom ordered 65 dozen bondbons {that’s 780!} for their big day.   I love doing weddings.

We weren’t the only ones who worked hard.  Our kids did too.  They had to pull some weight into raising money for their summer activities.  One thing they did was go door-to-door around our neighborhood and sold candy bars.  They did pretty well and, in my opinion, were the cutest solicitors our neighbors have ever encountered.

Oh!  And one more thing to add to the list.  I found $0.35.  That was definitely put to good use. {wink}.

I’m praying that May will be a much better month.

Love,