101 Updates!

Since my last post in September about my 101 list, I’ve managed to cross a few more items off. I’m pretty proud of myself for accomplishing my goals and/or dreams, as well as crossing off some things that just need to be done with life! The whole list can be seen here: 101 things in 1001 days

1. Re-upholster my living room chair – my parents bought this chair as part of a set back when I was first born. The armchair is the only thing left from that set and it has held up remarkably well! I used it in my room in high school as a reading spot (and shared it with the cat) and its traveled with me all over the country as I’ve moved. It’s had the same fabric on it for the past 35 years and definitely has acquired some holes and tears, and the cushion and backing needs to be fluffed up. My mom is actually having it re-upholstered professionally as a birthday gift to me since she wasn’t sure if we would be able to do it without screwing the whole thing up. I won’t receive the chair back until February but I’m crossing it off now since it’s been “handled”. I’ll show some before and after photos when I get it back!!
2. Experience a Buffalo Bills tailgate – I’ve been to a few Bills games over the years but I’ve never gotten to tailgate in Buffalo. K and I went up for the Bears/Bills game in November and had a blast wandering with our friends and the coolest Bills bus. I also saw no tables being smashed or people lit on fire #Billsmafia.
3. Cut out alcohol for 1 month – I accomplished this one during the month of October. Some of it was difficult, but I’m glad I strengthened my willpower (it needs some exercise sometimes!) against a small temptation like that.
4. Pay off my car – This one was actually a surprise. This is the one bill I always pay via check because for some reason the bank wouldn’t let me pay it online. I had somehow gotten locked out of my account because I kept screwing up my password and login so hadn’t signed on in a while. I called them while I was going through and changing my name on all my accounts and checked my balance while I was on the phone – I had less than $200 left to pay!!! Talk about the best surprise. On my next pay-day, I immediately called and paid off the remainder. Best feeling ever.
5. Move into a house – K and I have been trying to move into a specific house for over 2 years now and circumstances have just not been in our favor. But this month we are actually doing it! The house itself is going to be a lot of work, but we’re looking forward to the challenge. Interior architecture and design is a huge interest of mine and I CANNOT WAIT to get my hands on this place. Plus financially, it’s a huge win for us compared to what we have been paying in our apartment rent so we can finally have some wiggle room with building our long-term savings account and paying off some more debt!
6. Pay off 1 of my student loans – Technically if I had just kept up with my automatic payments, my loan for undergrad would have been paid off this upcoming February. Paying off my car really helped me up my payments to knock it down quickly and I finally got really antsy and just took some money out my savings account and paid it off TODAY. I’m already planning on going back to putting 10% of each paycheck immediately into my savings account starting in January, so I’m not worried about replacing the money. It will build back up quickly. I am, however, extremely excited that another loan I took out has been crossed off!! I thought about immediately moving onto my grad school loan and boosting those payments but everything I’ve read says that school debt is a “better debt” than credit card debt so instead I’m going to tackle one of those. It is so satisfying to scratch a line through this.

My time frame to complete this list is August 2019 and I’ve completed 41 things. I probably won’t get to everything this time around, but there’s still plenty of time to accomplish a few more!