Week 12 Wins: In praise of small daily choices

Let's flash back to about 12 weeks ago. After truly taking stock of my daily spending for the first time in quite some time, I found so much that I wanted to change. I had an expensive latte habit, huge monthly parking expense, a frequent tendency to splurge on gifts that were beyond my means, and (true confession) small purchases on PokemonGO had even added up to $20. Almost every pay period, I was spending 100% or more of the spending money I had leftover after bills. 

Today, I'm making so many of those choices differently. Even though we've reduced our spending money in order to more quickly pay down debt, I usually still have some extra each pay period to sock away. Here are the wins I am celebrating for Weeks 11 and 12: 

1. My new thrifty ways are now solid habits.
I don't feel deprived without a soy latte, fast food, or paid parking. I don't even think about it.

2. I saved $76.61 of my spending money from the peril of unnecessary purchases!
...Then I put that money directly toward our credit card debt. Booyah!

3. I started my (very) limited Christmas Shopping using cash, not credit.
In fact, all of my holiday spending will be cold hard cash. More than 1 in 4 Americans go into debt over the holidays, but we won't be among them. This year, the money I saved painlessly using Digit before I changed my habits helped fund gifts for my husband. I stopped using this tool for awhile while I needed the motivation of larger debt payments to keep me on the straight and narrow. Now that my habits are firmly established, I restarted Digit savings this pay period to bolster my holiday spending money and get a start on next year! We saved proactively for gifts for our son, and I got creative finding ways to fund other purchases for close family.

4. I submitted work travel expenses immediately.
I love my job, but there is no benefit to paying unnecessary interest for expenses that I can reclaim. Before I was being more mindful about my spending, I would often delay this task as it seemed less pressing than other items on my desk. 

5. We made BIG plans for 2017.  
We built on our solid new foundation of daily spending and set some big goals for 2017. I could not be more excited about it! 

6. We finalized our mortgage refinance. 
Gotta love a lower interest rate. We'll keep paying more than the minimum, but less of our hard earned dollars will be going toward interest. 

What wins are you celebrating during the "season of spending"? 

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