Brandus's parents recently came into aLOT of money when Mimi (his grandmother) died.

So, when Brandus told me they wanted to "spoil us" with the money, my ears perked up.

"They want to pay off your car? Or your student loans?" I asked eagerly.

Oh, how little I knew.

No, they wanted to buy us expensive gifts and come visit us for Thanksgiving in Anchorage and take us shopping.

I think, oh! They'll pay for a Sam's trip! We're out of food, and we can get some nice food luxeries that we usually can't!

They came. They bought gifts.

And then we went to Sam's.

"Sure! We'll pay for it!" They laughed, throwing boxes of suger cookie mix (?!) and hummus and avacados in the cart.

And then? As we pushed the buggy to the front of the store to check out?

They DISAPPEARED.

And by the time we realized they weren't coming back in, and we're going to pay, everything had been scanned, and we couldnt pull EVERYTHING out that wasn't a necessity.

$500. Fortunatly, all of it is edible. Its just not all stuff we would have even agreed to if we had known it was going to be on OUR dime.

Wow, its been a while! Sorry about that, but things got WAY overwhelming.

We did make it to Alaska, sadly spending most, if not all, of our bonus checks buying (mostly) necessities.

And some toys. Because I have yet to develop the ability to exlain rationally to my husband that he has PLENTY of toys, and no, we dont need a lego robot.

And neither does your classroom, dear.

And it is expensive to live out here. Especially because, as soon as we got up here, we found out I was pregnant.

Which is awesome. But doctor's appointments are expensive, when you have to factor in airfare!

Roundtrip for both of us, from Kotlik to Anchorage, is $1280. If we BOTH have doctor's appointments, then our health insurance reimburses us for 90% of that.

Eventually.

But, they dont help with hotel costs, or food while we're in town.

Its expensive!

However, even with all that, we have STOPPED using the credit cards completely!

Ok, so, last month I had to use the Discover card once to pay for my score results to turn into the state teaching license board, but other than that, they are COMPLETELY UNUSED!

This is so very major!

It used to be that we would discuss it, decide not to use the cards, and then Brandus would convince me that we needed groceries, and we didnt have any other money...

But it's so exciting now to actually be able to see our credit card bills go down. Slowly, omg slowly, but still, DOWN!

We have three, and are close to the limit on all of them, but they are dropping! They are!

I will be trying my very best to update more often, as actually blogging about money helps me keep it in mind.