At this point, I have been unemployed for over 4 months and thought I’d be back in the swing of things sooner, so I extended myself slightly each month to make sure I paid all my bills, including my credit cards (which had much lower balances due to the project I had from September through March that allowed me to pay those down). I only slightly increased my debt, and moved some higher-interest totals over to my home equity LOC, which is only 4.0%. In addition, I have told my house/petsitter – who was doing that in exchange for rent – that she had to start paying rent. She may move out instead and find another housesitting gig, because she is not someone who pays her own way with $ but rather with labor and that does not help me move toward this goal. That’s ok. If she moves I will either find a roommate who can pay rent or will just keep cutting costs, since I prefer living alone anyway. I have pretty much stopped eating out, but if I get the urge I do go and buy 2 Jack in the Box tacos for 99 cents, which seems to hold me for a while. Another thing I did was to call DirecTV last Friday to cancel that service – and they offered me two month’s free service, so I took it!