Last minute call...

So the home loan guy did call this afternoon. It was around 5:30pm so I'm thinking it was a late last minute call. He pulled my credit again to see the progress and we are pretty happy with it!! My credit report has been under work and things have been disputed for four months now and my score went up a whopping 58 points!! Woohoo. I am just under the right numbers that I need for us to start the home loan process!! Yes, I'm telling you that my credit score was crap. I'm not embarrassed to say it either because it was my own dumb fault. I don't know what dumb bank (well I do but I won't say) will approve a 20 year old girl with a $2000 limit and then up it another grand after she's been making payments on time. Well I maxed that out and honestly have nothing to show for it. It went into collections and all that terrible stuff that people don't like to talk about but hey, I made a mistake and now I'm paying for it. I have no idea what I bought with that dumb card. I did some other dumb things as well with a Chevron card and a Kohl's card but those 2 are taken care of and paid off.

I can say that Chris and I are doing great getting our bills paid off. I know sometimes it seems like we will never get there but we are making much better progress then what I originally thought we would. It was always so scary and hard to know where to start to even get things paid off. We started forever ago and now we just have 2 cards left to pay. Chris' last credit card will be paid off in January!!! Woohoo. My big one should be paid off next fall but we are hoping for another great tax return next year so we can just pay it off in a big chunk and have it done and over with!

We will be keeping up on our credit reports yearly so we know what's happening with our scores and catching things that need to be fixed! We will also keep going in a positive direction and staying credit card debt free as much as we possibly can. We will only get one joint credit card and use it in a positive way.....not just to buy a whole bunch of crap that we can't afford. I know it will be tempting but I know we can do it!

I really am proud of us and how much things have changed financially for us over the past couple years! Man, I was terrible with money but now I find it very rewarding to be able to keep up on balancing our check book and paying bills on time. Money is such a huge stress and I don't want to put any unnecessary stress on us! We've taken baby steps and it seems like we will be paying these big bills forever but I know they will eventually be paid off and we can look back and know we accomplished it and don't ever want to do it again! haha

We talk about it almost daily and I cannot wait until the day we are approved for a home and can start looking for something our family can grow into!! I can't wait to have our own space to decorate our way (especially the kids' rooms). I also can't wait to have our own backyard that Claire can run around in and we don't have to make a special trip to the park just to have fun outside. The pavement and driveways aren't very exciting here at our apartment complex. I know lots of people have less space then us with their kids so I'm still very thankful to have a roof over our heads that we can afford! Someday though we won't have smoking neighbors right by our front door and their smoke won't travel into our bedroom windows and gross me out!