Been a long long time ....

Looks like I haven't posted on my blog in over a year.  Wow, that's REALLY good, Wendy!  It's been a whirlwind year, that I can promise you.  So let's backtrack just a touch.  Rewind to July 2010.

YEAR THREE UPDATE:
Gazelle?  No.  Steady?  Yes.  We entered our third year of getting out of debt by STILL using envelopes, STILL sticking to a monthly written budget, STILL paying cash, NO new debt and plugging away at that last credit card with the almost 0% for life APR and the loan on the Mazda. Monetarily, life was steadily moving forward.  Should we be out of debt by now?  Sure.  Could we have been?  Possibly.  Three envelopes got a little extra money than they had in the past:  Dining, Grocery and ENTERTAINMENT and the additional money placed in those envelopes could have helped out the debt.  To that I add: "ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES WENDY A DULL GIRL"

FAST FORWARD TO PRESENT:
Not the best of news but with a definite silver lining -
Writing on the wall:  Felt it coming.  Oh boy, did I ever feel it coming.  So much so that I was actually relieved to hear the words: "We're going to lay you off, Wendy."  It came at a good time.  While monetarily everything was working right, so many more aspects of life were not.  This time off is giving me the ability to work on getting everything on an even keel.  Meanwhile, on DH's workfront - several raises and a promotion since I last posted.  Our "storm cloud savings" has us set with a pretty good buffer for my off time. So much so that I could actually pay off the credit card, but with the cloud still looming. I'm waiting it out.  Quick thinking had me save for Christmas PRIOR to the layoff, so I had my 3rd Debt Free Christmas.

COUPONING:
Have had a lot more time to play the coupon game a little more, and have been on so many great blogs and message boards so I am back to saving some serious coin on groceries.  My stockpile has increased again.  It's amazing what a comfort it is having that stockpile.  It's like a safety net. 

Here's a few of the great places that I've been hanging out lately:

A Full Cup - Message Boards for just about ANY store you'd go to!
Couponers Welcome - Message Boards like above
Jill Cataldo - OMG! She's amazing!

So all in all, would Dave Ramsey be proud of me?  Not entirely.  He'd probably yank my ear and tell me we're dragging our feet and it shouldn't take this long to become debt free and that doesn't even begin to talk about retirement savings. I'm proud of how far out of the pit we've climbed, but there's always someone to tell me I'm doing it wrong. ;)