Our Debt Free Christmas (and a cat update)

One thing I wanted to blog about earlier and didn't get to because of all the household illness was the fact that we had our first debt-free Christmas! By "debt-free", I don't mean that we are completely out of debt -- quite the contrary, it's a work in progress but we are getting there. But, I'm proud to say that since July of this year, neither of us have pulled out and used a credit card for anything, Christmas gifts included. Everything has been paid for in cash. As in, except for things we purchased online, the cash was taken out of the ATM and used for purchases.

Back in October, I looked over our finances and set a reasonable budget for Christmas, and we stuck to it. And it was hard. We're still paying for the bills of past Christmases (you know that 12 Pains of Christmas song...you know, "Five months of bills!" Well some of ours are going on five YEARS. Yikes!) so we knew better than to go over budget. We focused on Angelica having the best Christmas, getting something nice for each of the other kids in the family, and making sure we could get at least a little something for each other and the adults. It meant not buying the gifts for everyone that I wanted to. (Honestly, I love giving gifts more than getting them.) But next Christmas we'll be able to do so, so much more for everyone because hopefully by then, the majority of our debt will be gone.

Sticking to our Christmas budget and paying cash also meant that when my poor kitty Mindy wound up at the animal hospital on Christmas Eve, we didn't have to put her bill on credit because we had an emergency fund in place. It took almost our entire emergency fund...but that's what that's there for. It broke our hearts to see her so, so sick but, as Dave Ramsey says, the emergency fund turns a crisis into an inconvenience. We had the funds to pay for the bill and could instead turn our concerns and worries toward her recovery.

Speaking of Mindy, she's making progress. She's able to stand on her own and walk again. She's still not quite eating on her own, but the vet thinks it may be because of her ear infection making her dizzy so they're cleaning out her ears today and I hope and pray she starts eating after that.

Last night Angelica looks at me and says out of the blue, "Where's Mindy?" I told her Mindy was still at the doctor, and Angelica said, "Yeah! The doctor is going to make her awwww better an' she come home!" She absolutely loves that cat...just a half-day before all of this happened, Angelica was snuggling her and saying, "Aww, Mindy! You cutie! I love you!" And Mindy, being the sweet cat she is, just took it in stride when she got her tail tugged or when Angelica tried to pick her up. So when Scott found Mindy in the state she was in, my heart was breaking thinking that we may have to say goodbye and explain that she went to kitty heaven to our daughter (because when you see an animal unable to walk that's the first place your mind goes).

Just to show how much my girl loves her cat, here's the two of them together. You can see how tolerant this kitty is of Angelica. This was over the summer, hence the tank top, shorts, and sandals. Ahh, those were the days.

And don't worry, no cats (or toddlers) were harmed in the taking of that picture.