Credit Card Goals: Like waiting for Christmas

I like to think that I am a patient person. I used to work as a reporter for a cops and courts beat and I used to tell people that my career and life was spent waiting in the lobbies of courthouses or at the cop shop waiting for some ranking officer to come read me the protected Initial Compliant Report (ICR) report. And there were times when I was in those police stations where I think I was kept waiting on purpose, to see if I would get tired of waiting and leave. I never did. I got paid to wait.

I was kind of impatient before the wedding, but that was tempered with caution. I was only going to have that one day to try and capture every memory, so I wanted to make sure that I didn’t get too caught up in the excitement and end up having a panic attack which would just waste about an hour of my time. And I did pretty well …

I’m still on goal to have my remaining credit card debt paid off by the first week in November. My beloved hubby asked me the other day if I was still on track to pay my weekly $200. So far I’ve only skipped the one week in lieu of better vision, but I’ll pay that back eventually too, so I’ve been doing alright.

So here’s our conversation …

Me: yes, I can do the $200 this week. And in terms of last week’s $200, I’ll pay it when I get my check back from my glasses/eye appointment

Him: yep, just saw that on DR101.

Me: slowly but surely, babe…

Him: yep, you’re getting there. I bet it feels good to have a plan and a weekly goal.

(We’re pretty darn romantic, aren’t we …) But Hubby’s last comment had me thinking about November, our future and what it will mean when we’re debt free. And I have to be honest – in some ways, waiting for November is like waiting for Christmas or summer vacation for me. I want it to be here very badly, but at the same time I know that as soon as it’s here it’s going to be over.

Then what?

Here was my last response: “what’s cool is that I’m looking at my credit card spreadsheet right now and I can basically have my chase card paid off in four weeks, you know? And then it’s the last one. And then I’ll be done.

I know that I talk about it ad nauseum, but I really struggle with what the future is going to be like after I’m done. Should I keep working for awhile. Should I quit the job. Should I cut back. What will it be like? Will we finally get more things done? Will we feel like we’re getting ahead or are we going to be content with it for a little while and then look for the next fix?”

Financial freedom is going to be a wonderful epoch in my life. But I still have my car to pay off (then again, after all this, that’s going to take one month, max – cake walk!) and then it’s time to try to get college paid off, maybe pay off the mortgage early. And then there’s the future that will hopefully feature those little bank account sucking beings known as babies. And as much as I want to be a mom and as much as I know that I can be a mom without running up credit card debt, I shudder when people tell me how much kids cost. And I know that it’s something that you absorb and that it’s a gradual change that occurs.

So yes – financial freedom. Oh, I can’t wait to embrace you. But my financial future – I have the bedrock laid and I know that I have created a solid foundation, but still – I grapple with what I want my future to be.