Almost there!

I have sorted through a boat load of bills, tossed the ones for the ex husband that are his bills, tossed duplicates, and am very pleased with myself.

Tomorrow I will be categorizing them and entering them into the budget.

I had a pile about 12" thick that I sorted through and have gotten it down to about 4" thick. Some of that is insurance paperwork (health insurance and the new car/renters insurance policies). 

I feel very good about what I have accomplished tonight. I feel that being organized is key to being ready to be debt free. If you know what you have and what you owe, when certain bills are due, what is being paid through EFT, what you pay via check, money order etc it is much easier to keep track of exactly how much you need to pay off to become debt free.

I am seriously considering selling the diamond ring my ex gave me to start my emergency fund. It is a very nice ring and I am torn about selling it, saving it for one of my girls *not his*, or taking the diamond and having it made into a new piece of jewelry for me.

I am leaning towards selling it just because I want to get my baby emergency fund going. The ring doesn't really hold any special memories for me or sentimental value so I think selling it would be the best bet.  Yes, I think so. The wedding band will also be sold with the diamond. No sense in keeping one but not the other.

This will be a big boost to the emergency fund without having to touch my regular monthly income. Not a bad deal really.

I also have a sapphire/diamond ring that he bought me that I will not be selling. That ring I love. Funny how that ring means more to me than the diamond engagement ring. I often thought that the sapphire/diamond ring should have been my engagement ring instead of the diamond.

I also have some small appliances I have that I have never used or only used once or twice that I know I won't ever use again that I could list on Craigslist or our local buy/sell group online to help get the baby emergency fund started. I have a ton of books also but I know I won't get much for them and I would really like to keep somethings I enjoy. I do plan on trading the books in at the local used book store when I am done reading them. You get so much in store credit for each good used book that you trade in. Then you can turn around and buy other books with that store credit. A good way to "recycle" my old books when I am done reading them and either my daughter or I can get "new" books to read. It could be a never ending cycle.

We do spend a lot of time at the library too but I prefer to know I don't have to return the book in so many days. If I get busy or change my mind about reading it right away I won't get penalized for not returning it when I should etc.

Once that is at the $1000.00 level I can then start the debt snowball. I have 2 credit cards that are still being paid on that I hope to keep until they are paid off then I will cancel them. I know it will hurt my credit to close them but I do that I won't have the temptation to use them, even though I only have a $300.00 limit on both of them.

I also went to http://www.annualfreecreditreport.com/ and printed out a copy of my credit report from all three credit reporting agencies.

Tomorrow I will be going through them with a fine tooth comb and seeing what I can dispute if anything and what I need to take care of right away and what can wait for awhile. I do know that I have a few things that will be removed from my reports this year starting in June (they have hit the 7 yr mark and will be removed even though I never paid them). Having those off the credit report should help to raise my score but I don't know by how much and I would like to pay them off but I don't know if that means that they stay on the credit report for another 7 yrs or if they still disappear. I also don't know if I wait till they disappear if they can show up again on it suddenly and if they do will they still show as negative?

These are all things I want to find answers on and have to do some research to find out the answers. I am not saying to not ever pay your bills (even though I am guilty for doing just this right now) and I want to pay these bills I just don't want to end up screwing myself again in the long run.

I will see what answers I can find tomorrow. Right now it is almost 11:30pm and I know if I don't get to bed and sleep soon I won't be any good to anyone tomorrow.