Goal accomplished

Today I paid off the last credit card that has a balance that we're paying interest on. First time ever.

There's still a card with a balance but it's at zero percent for life as long as I keep making minimum payments on time (long story, but good outcome) so it'd be silly to try to pay it off early.

That's one goal for the year accomplished! One paycheck ahead of the schedule I estimated back in November.

I'll have to wait until the IRS releases updated itemization forms and schedules before I know exactly what and when the next goal will be.

Making this goal should make it easier to make some of the others.

Astronomy stuff

After paying bills this morning, I ordered the last major Astronomy bit - a base and tripod for the telescope tube that showed up last night. I got it from a place I'd never shopped before, Optics Planet, over in the Chicago area. I'm normally pretty careful about lowest price, but the video on their website led me to believe that they seemed like a legit company.

They had it in stock in their warehouse and had the lowest price and free shipping, they confirmed stock on the phone and I had a tracking number via email within an hour.

This will let me put all the pieces together next week, to make sure everything works with plenty of time to fiddle or get additional parts before it gets warm enough that I'm likely to want to use the thing much.