Farewell, sweet Otto... you will be missed.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Farewell to an old friend
A very short post today. Our elderly dog, Otto, that I mentioned in my last post did indeed have cancer and declined very rapidly. We said goodbye to him a couple days ago and are feeling the loss very deeply right now. He had a great life and was S' best friend for over 16 years and I loved him the 4 years that I got to spend with him.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Gah! Feeling really overwhelmed since the move!
Before we made the move from Boston to Kentucky (AKA from ridiculously high cost of living to nice and affordable) I did some number crunching to see if my salary could support us while S got his art work back up and running and bringing in some funds. I knew things would be tight but on paper it looked like it would work. Maybe not putting away the savings or paying off as much debt as I had hoped but at least we could make ends meet without taking on new debt.
But so far everything about the transition has cost a lot more than I anticipated and the extra cash that I factored into the equation to cover our expenses has been falling short. One of the biggies is that our old landlord kept $1200 of our deposit leaving us only $90 returned. The list of "repairs" he had to make to the place after we left is quite lengthy and most of it could be argued but he's a lawyer and kind of jerk and I don't have the energy or time to fight him. So there's a big hit.
As for the move, a friend ended up flying up to help us drive/ handle the babies (which was amazing of her to do) but it meant we were paying for an extra hotel room and her food. We had a late start and ended up needing two nights stay. I did not do a very good job of estimating the fuel a fully loaded truck pulling a car through the mountains would gobble up. And I failed to factor in how much we would spend on deposits for utilities and getting the fridge and pantry restocked. All in all, I think the move was a good $1000 more than I expected.
On top of all that, our elderly dog got really sick as soon as we got here and we've been battling to get him better. The prognosis probably isn't good but I can't justify spending the $600 for full diagnostic testing to confirm that he has cancer and he's dying and there's nothing we can do. The vet agreed that the best course of action is to give him some meds (kind of expensive steroids) daily to help keep his appetite up and just enjoy what are most likely our last months with him. Which is a horrible blow after having just found new homes for some of our other fur babies before we moved.
So the bottom line is that the transition to our new life has been more difficult than I anticipated, I don't even have a clear picture of our finances at the moment since bank accounts, bills, and paychecks are all in flux which stresses me out to no end but I think we're potentially looking at a shortfall of around $500 a month.
Kind of feeling like a financial failure since I did such a crappy job of estimating what our new life would cost. I don't want S to have to scrap his dream of getting his business back up and running so soon out of the gate but unless things change and soon, he's going to have to get a job. And of course that means he's either working in the evening or weekends and we won't see each other or he's working during the day and we're back to paying someone else almost a full salary to raise our kids.
Gah.
But so far everything about the transition has cost a lot more than I anticipated and the extra cash that I factored into the equation to cover our expenses has been falling short. One of the biggies is that our old landlord kept $1200 of our deposit leaving us only $90 returned. The list of "repairs" he had to make to the place after we left is quite lengthy and most of it could be argued but he's a lawyer and kind of jerk and I don't have the energy or time to fight him. So there's a big hit.
As for the move, a friend ended up flying up to help us drive/ handle the babies (which was amazing of her to do) but it meant we were paying for an extra hotel room and her food. We had a late start and ended up needing two nights stay. I did not do a very good job of estimating the fuel a fully loaded truck pulling a car through the mountains would gobble up. And I failed to factor in how much we would spend on deposits for utilities and getting the fridge and pantry restocked. All in all, I think the move was a good $1000 more than I expected.
On top of all that, our elderly dog got really sick as soon as we got here and we've been battling to get him better. The prognosis probably isn't good but I can't justify spending the $600 for full diagnostic testing to confirm that he has cancer and he's dying and there's nothing we can do. The vet agreed that the best course of action is to give him some meds (kind of expensive steroids) daily to help keep his appetite up and just enjoy what are most likely our last months with him. Which is a horrible blow after having just found new homes for some of our other fur babies before we moved.
So the bottom line is that the transition to our new life has been more difficult than I anticipated, I don't even have a clear picture of our finances at the moment since bank accounts, bills, and paychecks are all in flux which stresses me out to no end but I think we're potentially looking at a shortfall of around $500 a month.
Kind of feeling like a financial failure since I did such a crappy job of estimating what our new life would cost. I don't want S to have to scrap his dream of getting his business back up and running so soon out of the gate but unless things change and soon, he's going to have to get a job. And of course that means he's either working in the evening or weekends and we won't see each other or he's working during the day and we're back to paying someone else almost a full salary to raise our kids.
Gah.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
1st Quarter 2014 report
Starting point:
Student Loan 1 (My fed loan): $38,339
Student Loan 2 (S' state loan): $21,719
Student Loan 3 (S' fed loan): $5,454
Student Loan 1 (My fed loan): $38,339
Student Loan 2 (S' state loan): $21,719
Student Loan 3 (S' fed loan): $5,454
Car Loan: $11,684
Credit Card 1: $10,577
Credit Card 2: $3,635
Credit Card 3: $0
Misc. small debts (S' small debts in collections): $5,443
Medical expenses: $3,672
Misc. small debts (S' small debts in collections): $5,443
Medical expenses: $3,672
Parents: $600
Total: $101,123
And here's were we are today:
Student Loan 1: $35,478
Student Loan 2: $19,496
Student Loan 3: $4,759
Student Loan 2: $19,496
Student Loan 3: $4,759
Car Loan: $0
Credit Card 1: $0
Credit Card 2: $3,171
Credit Card 3: $6,407
Misc. small debts: $4,284
Medical expenses: $550
Misc. small debts: $4,284
Medical expenses: $550
Parents: $0
Total: $74,145
Paid off to date: $26,978 paid off + $523 in savings
This is kind of a weird quarterly report... the credit card debt balance is a bit deceiving. Since we just moved we have a lot of money in flux. We have a deposit from our last place we're waiting for, various small refunds, balances from multiple bank accounts being sent to us since we had to close our Massachusetts bank and set up a Kentucky bank account. We also didn't know when my new jobs pay cycles would be or when we would have access to our new bank account so we decided to put all the moving expenses on the Credit Card. Once all our money is consolidated into one account again, we'll make a big payment to the Credit Card debt.
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