You know when you go to a fast food chain and get French fries in the little container, some of them fall into the bag, right? Those are called bonus fries because it’s something you didn’t expect at all but more is always better than less.

I get paid once a month and around 2am I check my account to see if I got paid yet as I have been sweating bullets because I had bills due today and if my check came any later, I would be screwed. I did indeed get my direct deposit and I see that my check was nearly five grand for the month.

Now mind you, I did a lot of overtime (31 hours to be exact) but my 209 hours total for the month did not equate to nearly 5k.

Then I read my paycheck stub and I apparently received a bonus of $1,000.00 and I honestly have no idea why. I haven’t been with the company that long, this would be my sixth month with them and I’m not sure if I’m the only one who got a bonus or not. It could be a holiday bonus or a bonus just because? Or a six month bonus I have no clue.

But I know this much: not to look a gift horse in the mouth! I will accept the bonus fry and by bonus fry it’s more like a whole damn meal with how much I got.

Now I know what you’re thinking… Dani and money don’t play well together. But I was responsible and did my budget immediately and I paid everything through the end of this month. I have to wait to pay December 1-9’s bills because that billing cycle hasn’t changed over quite yet so I wouldn’t be putting money toward the minimum payment if I paid it now. So I’m sitting on some money. I’m saving some money and I did a debt snowball payment of $250 toward a line of credit that’s costing me a fortune.

I feel good about how I’m allocating my money. I now have money for an oil change for my car and I’ll have more than $5 to my name in my checking AND savings accounts which hasn’t happened in a while.

I finally feel as though I’m getting on track with my finances and that money really helped me get there. I paid off one loan today and so it reduces my debt to $2k a month instead of $2500 a month. Which is huge. And then when I pay off my line of credit, which hopefully I can do before my birthday in February my debt minimums will go down toward $1600 a month and I can use that extra $900 a month on a debt snowball and get rid of some of my credit cards!

I also was looking at four year universities to transfer to when I receive my associates of the arts in social work and my SUDP certification from community college. I want to major in social work obviously and get my BSW… but I want to minor in Spanish language so I can become bilingual as a social worker. For most online universities, I have found that most schools have one or the other but not both that you can major and minor in at the same time. So if you or someone you know has an idea of where I could go education wise to accomplish this, please let me know.

Confidence is key I guess and tonight wasn’t half bad.

Much love,

Dani