tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63761779106851119272023-11-16T08:30:02.457-08:00Desperately in DebtA documentation of my struggles (and, hopefully, eventual success) to pay off a decade's worth of debt, overcome some of my worst habits, and turn my life around.Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.comBlogger154125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-26481509898653628762017-02-06T14:19:00.003-08:002017-02-06T14:19:38.748-08:00Accountability Partner<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although I didn't blog last year there were plenty of financial things going on. One fairly consistent financial aspect was reporting to my "accountability partner". I'm not sure if, or how much, I've written about my middle sister on this blog but she and I have somewhat been sharing a debt reduction journey over the years. We both racked up student loans and credit card debt throughout our undergrad and grad programs, and both had some real financial responsibility clean up work to do. We started our clean-up/ debt reduction journey around the same time and have over the years have discussed our progress. Our lives/ lifestyles are pretty different but it has been nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of, share tips and resources, and just someone to keep me in check when things are rough.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last year we started more formally and consistently checking in with each other, each Monday having a short phone call where we discussed the upcoming week's financial goals and anticipated challenges as well as reviewing how we did in the week prior. Of course, we didn't hit every Monday but the pattern was established and we've gotten pretty good at checking in at least via text if we don't have time to talk. There are a number of reasons having an accountability partner has been great for me. A) it forces me to look at my to-do list and break up larger, loftier goals into small week-size tasks to get done. B) it keeps those tasks at the front of my mind. and C) the obvious is it makes me accountable to someone outside myself and this blog. Not that my sister is going to come down too hard on me but she will at least point out when I'm trying to justify something that doesn't work.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Figured I could start posting my little weekly mini-goals here as well! I probably won't do it every week since it would get pretty stale when some of my tasks take multiple weeks to break down and finish. Anywho... in the past couple weeks I've made a list of things we will need for new baby and distributed to all my mom friends to see what hand-me-downs we can get, started pricing out the things that I already know we'll need to buy new, tried (and failed) to get an accurate estimate of what the labor and delivery charges will be after insurance (one of my continuing frustrations with our health care system, why does it have to be so damn hard to work with medical/ insurance companies), and started our taxes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This coming week I'll be focusing fairly intensely on taxes. I've completed my income and our deductions but now have to turn my attention to S' business since that will be part of our joint tax filing. No fun but extremely important to get done ASAP. I need to have our taxes filed as early as possible this year so we can get any returns added into the maternity savings planning as well as to get them done before I have a newborn to care for!</span>Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-79544262222965604982017-02-01T03:51:00.003-08:002017-02-01T03:51:55.214-08:00Renewing my commitment<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To kick start my renewed commitment to debt reduction, I've read back through all my archives this month. It was kind of amazing to read, there were so many things that I had forgotten about over the years. And it reminded me that this blog has not only recorded a journey to reduce debt and live a more fiscally responsible life but also a journey from a single person to a family of (almost) five , from a dual income no kids life to a single income with a start up business life, and that we've undergone so many changes, moves, and adjustments along the way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I saw our debt number fluctuate quite a bit. It dropped down fairly quickly in the beginning but in the past years has stayed steady or risen a little which has been a major disappointment to me. I saw plenty of mistakes made along the way but I also saw a lot of major bumps we have hit and overcome. Today's debt number is not where I though we would be after so many years and while the hard numbers don't reflect the huge change I had hoped for, the blog itself is a great reminder of the major transformations we have gone through.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There were also plenty of little debt reducing tips that I was reminded of reading back through the blog that I need to start implementing again. My health insurance has an awards program for doing and tracking healthy things which is as easy as remembering to wear my fitbit and log in every once in a while. It allows me to cash in my awards for gift cards, fitness gear, even movie tickets. There's also a healthy food discount program in which I get 5% or more off healthy food items. Probably the biggest item is making a better commitment to bulk meal prep and making sure I've packed food for the workday everyday. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In all I'm feeling good about getting going again and I'm very glad I have spent the time over the years recording my journey here. </span></div>
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Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-37225471885726243282017-01-10T09:58:00.003-08:002017-01-10T10:02:13.823-08:00Time to start anew<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It’s the beginning of the year which is when I would
normally set some goals for the year. This year in particular is in need of
some focus on goal setting after stepping away from the blog for the past year
and because of the loss of focus and hope we’ve been feeling. It’s time for us
to start anew on our journey, learn what we can from the past and find a way to
move forward to the ultimate goal of being debt free.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the nice things about having documented my journey on
this blog is that I can go back and retrace where I’ve been. With the goal of
rebooting my blog and reinvigorating my hope that we can and will get out of
debt, one of my first goals of 2017 is to re-read all of my own posts. I don’t
want to spend a huge amount of time dwelling on what we could have done
differently but I do think it’s important to revisit what worked and what didn’t.
I also need to start actively reading other debt reduction blogs again, the
lapse in my own writing was coupled by a lapse in reading/ being inspired by
other peoples’ debt reduction journeys.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Another immediate goal is to re-work our budget. We ended
the year with a balanced budget by moving to a much cheaper housing option and
cutting full-time daycare to offset the increases we faced by adding S to my
health insurance and by taking on debt for S’ business. However, I just
received the estimate for 2017 health insurance and it’s going up again plus
our balanced budget only included minimum payments to debt. We need to figure
out how to free up some money and bring in more money to get back on debt
reduction track and cover the increased health insurance. To that end, I’ve
already cut my IRA contributions to get us back to balanced. Over the next
month I will be looking at alternative health insurance plans for S and the
boys to see if we can get something more affordable, S is looking into
part-time jobs particularly ones that may offer health benefits, and I’m
applying for Income Based Repayment on my student loan, which may or may not
lower my loan payment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have not given much thought to the year at large yet,
mostly trying to focus on what I can accomplish immediately to get us moving in
the right direction again. Once we get through the above mentioned goals in the
next week or so and can get a better understanding of what we’ll have to work
with in the coming year, I’ll look at what I think we can accomplish in 2017.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-57229608643152924232017-01-01T06:20:00.000-08:002017-01-01T06:20:02.956-08:00End of 2016 Report<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Starting point (Oct 2011):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />Student Loan 1 (My fed loan): $38,339<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Student Loan 2 (S' state loan): $21,719<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Student Loan 3 (S' fed loan): $5,454<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Car Loan: $11,684<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Credit Card 1: $10,577<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Credit Card 2: $3,635<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Credit Card 3: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Misc. small debts (S' small debts in collections): $5,443<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Medical expenses: $3,672<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Parents: $600<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Total: $101,123<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />Here's where we are at the end of 2016:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Student Loan 1: $33,579<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Student Loan 2: $18,186<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Student Loan 3: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Car Loan: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Credit Card 1: $1,698<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Credit Card 2: $5,856<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Credit Card 3: $6,930<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Misc. small debts: $4,284<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Medical expenses: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Parents: $1,856<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Consolidation Loan: $5,354<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Total: $77,740<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />Paid off to date: $23,381 paid off + $3,543 in savings</span><br />
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Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-26179010601613655142016-12-30T07:29:00.000-08:002016-12-30T07:29:06.639-08:00What?! A year has passed?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm struggling to believe that it's been a year since my last post! This has been an incredibly challenging year, in a lot of great ways but also some not-so-great ways. At the end of last year/ early this year I decided I needed to take a break from some of my various "extra" responsibilities such as this blog and some of my sewing/ Etsy stuff. I really needed to focus on my own career plus helping S' business make the final big push into reality (more on that later). And I needed to focus more of my energies on home life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still, I hadn't intended on taking a whole year off of blogging and I feel, in some ways, that not blogging, not having the record of our financial decisions to "keep us honest" did some damage to my resolve to pay off debt. I am reflecting on the year now, wondering what financial decisions we would have made differently if we'd known how things would turn out. Financially speaking, I am feeling pretty low and am hoping that rebooting this blog may help me find some hope that we will ever get out of debt.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So with that on with a mini re-cap of some of the highs and lows of 2016, starting with some things that were really fantastic:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. The boys "caught up" with peers from their development delays and are doing wonderful! We worked very hard with speech and occupational therapists and they both tested out of, ie were within normal range, by their 3rd birthday! We also enrolled them part time in preschool during the first part of the year and then went to full time during the summer, both to give S the chance to focus on his business full time and to give the boys a huge leap in development and socialization. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. L has been seizure free since early this year! He had one more seizure in February followed by a series of tests which all came back negative... and hasn't had a seizure since! There is still the possibility that he may have another but it's a very good sign that he's had fevers with no seizure activity for so long. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. We are expecting baby #3 in spring of 2017! This was a huge decision, I strongly felt that our family was needing one more member but the financial impact of another child is obviously pretty significant. In the end, we decided that this was the right decision and are happily awaiting his/her arrival in early April.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. We got hitched (finally)! Somewhere right after confirming we were expecting, S and I started thinking perhaps we should go ahead and get married. We had been waiting for our lives to settle down a bit and for us to have extra cash to have the wedding and reception. It was kind of funny how obvious it was that the "right" moment, the moment we had been thinking would happen, was NEVER going to happen. And so we just went for it! We had a small beach ceremony and reception in a rental house when we traveled down to Florida to visit S' family for Thanksgiving. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5. S' business is really off the ground! We put the boys in preschool full time in late spring through most of the rest of the year so he could put full focus on his work. And we finally put some serious cash into the business to get him fully operational. He worked incredibly hard this year, won some awards for his work, made some great contacts, participated in several large art shows, and got his work in some private collections and galleries! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And now the not-so-great things:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Each of the above items came with a significant price tag, one that we couldn't pay on just one salary so we had to make some difficult decisions to take on more debt. Getting the boys in preschool was so beneficial to them (and to S' business) but it came at a high cost. The testing for L was also very pricey but obviously necessary. The wedding was modest and we had some generous gifts that helped cover some of it but it still was not free. Another aspect of getting married that will have a great financial impact is that S is now eligible for my health insurance. We added him but it will cost us a significant amount each month but it is critical that he have better coverage than what he had. And although baby #3 isn't yet here, we've been shifting our income towards the end of the year to savings instead of paying down debt to cover my income during the maternity leave. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We also had very high hopes that S' business would be more profitable this year and the summer started off with a bang but despite the hard work he put into it, the sales were not what we had been expecting. This has been damaging in so many ways: obviously financially we took a big hit but it also damaged our morale and has us questioning this path we chose to go down. I could discuss in length S' work and probably will in a future post but for now I'll continue on with the short and sweet summary of 2016...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With all the financial burdens we took on in 2016 we had to make some difficult decision during the last quarter. We decided to move again and we took the boys out of preschool. My parents generously offered to let us move into one of their properties at an extremely low monthly rent. The house is not in great shape and we had to put a lot of work into it to be able to move in. But we have a roof over our head and a balanced monthly budget as we head into 2017.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we wrap up 2016 and start looking to the New Year, we are feeling a bit uncertain and it's my hope that starting up this blog again will give me the boost in focus that we really need to get back on track.</span><br />
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<br />Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-71203949111142300572016-01-04T09:14:00.002-08:002016-01-04T09:14:33.136-08:00End of 2015 Report<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Starting point (Oct 2011):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Student Loan 1 (My fed loan): $38,339<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 2 (S' state loan): $21,719<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 3 (S' fed loan): $5,454<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Car Loan: $11,684<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 1: $10,577<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 2: $3,635<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 3: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Misc. small debts (S' small debts in collections): $5,443<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Medical expenses: $3,672<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Parents: $600<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Total: $101,123<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />And here's where we are today:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 1: $34,040<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 2: $18,369<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 3: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Car Loan: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 1: $4,362<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 2: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 3: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Misc. small debts: $4,284<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Medical expenses: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Parents: $3,185<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Consolidation Loan: $7,273<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Total: $71,513<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Paid off to date: $29,610 paid off + $1,199 in savings</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The final quarter of the year killed us. We were plagued with car troubles, an expensive move, and just plain lack of dedication to paying off debt. As a result, we have slightly more debt at the end of the year than we did at the end of last year. I really hope we can get moving back in the right direction in 2016.</span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-24988030175461113072015-12-23T06:14:00.002-08:002015-12-23T06:14:38.211-08:00Been a busy 6 months<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I knew it had been awhile since I posted anything but was pretty shocked when I looked at the date of my last post! Soooo much has happened since July 31st and it's high time I get some record of the changes on here!</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let's start with the biggie: I got a promotion at work and we moved again! Probably right around the time that I last posted, my company advertised a position in the Louisville office (about an hour and half from where we were living). I immediately put my name in the ring even though it would have been a lateral move professionally. Moving to Louisville would get us in the same city as my family, a larger and more active market for S' work, and a more metropolitan lifestyle that we were used to having. Over the course of the conversations with my bosses about possibly moving, the manager of the Louisville office turned in her notice. So the conversations turned into a promotion opportunity rather than a lateral move! </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The negotiations took the month of August and we spent the month of September moving. Meanwhile, my workload increased quite a bit and I have been really overwhelmed by the new job... hence the lack of posts here even though there are a TON of things going on in our financial and debt world. I would love to report that the majority of these financial things have been positive but that's just not the case. I'll do my best to summarize what's been happening the last three months but the truth is, I've been so busy and overwhelmed at work and with the move that the finances are a bit out of control right now. Now that we're settled in it's time to get our financial house back in order.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The big positive financial impact is the promotion which puts an extra $360 in the budget each month plus a phone reimbursement and some moving expenses. There is also the expectation (built into the offer) that there will be an additional increase after 6 months on the job. On the flip side of the move, we decided to overlap our rental houses by a month to give us some breathing room on making the move. I received some moving expenses but only enough to cover the actual move so the cost of having two places plus utilities for both for a month was on us. And since we still haven't replenished our emergency fund the cost for the overlap (around $1,300) was financed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another factor of the promotion is that I was immediately in front of clients on a daily basis and the atmosphere with the Louisville clients is more business attire than my past office. In the past I could get away with a couple dressier outfits and just dress nicer on days that I would be meeting with a client. Now I need to dress nice everyday so my wardrobe needed some immediate upgrading. I went ahead and purchased a few essentials, spending around $200, to stretch the more casual wear I have and will be adding a piece or two to my professional wear each month for the next few months.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another big financial item we have been dealing with for the past few months is vehicle repairs. One of our cars started shifting very poorly and we were concerned the transmission was going out. Thankfully it is not the transmission but instead a number of smaller repairs plus some general maintenance that needed to get done. The price tag on all these repairs is approaching $1,500, all of which has been on the credit card. Additionally, I was rear-ended on the way to work right before the move by a hit and run driver. Since we don't have comprehensive the repairs to the bumpers (back where I got hit and also front where I was pushed into the car ahead of me) will be out of pocket if we decide to get the car fixed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was fortunate to get a nice bonus this past week so we were able to replenish the emergency fund, put a bit aside for some upcoming one time expenses, and pay off some debt. But it wasn't enough to pay off everything so we're ending the year slightly more in debt than we were last year. I'm trying not to be too disappointed, the past 6 months have been pretty crazy and I think we are in a very good place to make some serious progress in 2016. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll post again soon with our year-end finance report and our new budget going into 2016.</span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-65771393054142527752015-07-31T08:08:00.000-07:002015-08-17T08:08:41.464-07:00Spare change challenge update<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Last July I started a “Spare Change
Challenge”. Basically, for the last year, any money that I’ve found (outside of
my house, car, and laundry), I’ve put in a jar. This experiment could also be
aptly named “I am looking for ways to break up the monotony of slowly paying
off the debt.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anyhoo, besides just setting aside
any spare change, I also challenged myself to increase my chances of finding
spare change. I started walking more, taking a short walk before work, on lunch
if I could get away from my desk, and in the evenings with my boys. I also
started paying more attention to my surroundings when I was walking. I quickly
realized that I spend a LOT of time daydreaming, texting, looking at social
media updates, and generally NOT paying attention to my surroundings when I’m
walking about. It has been really refreshing to walk around and observe my
surroundings. AND it has paid off…. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">In the past year, I’ve found $21.63
worth of dropped money including a $5 in a storm drain inlet, another $5 in a
wad along a sidewalk, and a soggy $1 bill at the playground. My little
experiment added more to my wallet than the interest on my emergency fund with
the added benefit of getting me walking regularly. Aside from the cash I also
found some cool and expensive sunglasses, a couple small car toys, a fitbit/
bracelet (the actual fitbit was broken but I kept the bracelet so I can have a
spare), and a gas gift card with $2.96 left on it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Here are a few tips I can give
after my year of finding spare change:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Walk more!!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Increase path of travel such as parking farther away from building
entries and creating walking loops instead of walking back and forth along the
same route.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Walk along the edge of the sidewalk and pay attention to the edge
of the road at the curb line especially at paid parking spots<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Walk where people partied the night before… I feel pretty
confident in saying that the $5s I found were dropped after an evening of
excess as they were found around known nightlife spots. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Also, pay attention in places where people frequently have cash
out like shops, festivals, parking meters, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Keep your eyes open and mind on the surroundings, I was surprised
at how easily I space out when I’m walking about and had to make a concerted
effort to stay alert to my surroundings. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-77451778088687699602015-07-27T10:32:00.000-07:002015-07-27T10:32:08.034-07:00Budget Assessment 5: Debt and revised budget<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To rehash the previous assessment
points, we were trying to come up with enough to cover the following:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$260 for pre-school<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$140 additional for medical expenses/
savings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$150 for IRA plan<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So far we’ve cut $45 from utilities
budget by enrolling in balanced billing, getting water leaks fixed, and other
energy saving techniques. We are working on cutting at least $30 in the diaper
funding by starting potty training DS B (who proudly made his first pee pee in
the potty this past weekend). We’ll be tracking our grocery and fun money
expenditures closely over the next two months and seeing how we can reign in
our spending or possibly even make cuts. And, for now, the $8 Netflix stays…. Got
major pushback on proposing that cut!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The last budget area to assess is
our minimum debt payments. Our minimum payments are as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$205 consolidation loan<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$183 to my parents<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$225 my student loan<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$210 S’ student loan<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We’ve received all of the new
medical bills from DS L’s seizures and owe $1,909 to many different
organizations so there are many different minimum payments. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We’ve decided to put the two
student loans in deferment and use my anticipated end of year bonus to cover
the accumulated interest. This frees up $435 in our budget to cover the
pre-school and medical savings. We’ve negotiated with two of the smaller medical
bills organizations to get payment plans set up and will owe $114 for the next
five months to pay those two off. There are four additional accounts that are
all under the same parent company but since they are different departments,
they cannot be combined and the minimum payments are unaffordable. We have been
advised to let these four accounts go into default at which time they will be
sent to the parent companies central billing department. Once the central billing
department has all four, they can combine and offer more flexibility in
repayment length. I’m anticipating this process will take several more months
and hopefully our first payment will be due after we pay off the first two
bills.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The adjusted budget we’re working towards
is as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$1,170
29% Rent & Utilities: gas, electric, sewer,
water<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
$580 15% Insurance: Health, life,
disability<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
$270 7% Cars: insurance and fuel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
$135 3% Tech: phones, internet, Netflix<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
$620 15% Household: Groceries, diapers,
toiletries, pets, etc<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
$180 5% Extraneous/ Fun: haircuts,
clothing, dining out, projects, gifts<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> $200
5% Medical/ Savings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> $260 7% Pre-school<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>
$585 14% Debt: minimum payments</u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$4,000
Total after tax income<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The goal is to have fully
implemented all of the cuts and re-organization from our assessment by the end
of this quarter, September 30. We will need to re-assess at the end of the year
when our loans are close to coming out of deferment. For now, retirement
savings is still off the table but is a high priority once we get a handle on
this medical debt.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-82568361214143889312015-07-20T11:55:00.001-07:002015-07-20T11:55:45.507-07:00Budget Assessment 4: Household Costs and Extraneous/ Fun Money<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The $650/ month Household Category
has a number of individual items so I’ll break down this category and assess
each item separately. Included under household are groceries, toiletries,
diapers and baby items, and pets. We also have $180/ month for extraneous/ fun
money. Currently it breaks out like this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">
$60 diapers, wipes, diaper cream<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">
$25 pet food, cat litter<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$565 groceries, toiletries,
laundry, cleaning supplies, general house upkeep<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$180 gifts, clothes, haircuts,
projects, dining out<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">In the first category, $60 for
diapers and such, one of our boys is showing readiness to begin potty training.
Of course this will be a process and we can’t really put a target date on when
he’ll be out of disposable diapers but I can expect sometime this year we’ll at
least be able to cut this number in half. Who knows, maybe both boys will be
done with diapers by the end of the year. Once we begin the potty training
process, I’ll also introduce reusable cloth training pants so at the very least
we’ll see a minor reduction in the amount we’re spending on diapers. We already
buy the absolute cheapest diapers we can find so getting them out of diapers is
the only way we can save any more in this category.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">In the $25 pet category, we are at
the bare minimum. We have found the Costco food is comparable in quality to the
more expensive foods we were using and it’s about half the price. This is a
category that I would love to increase when it becomes possible because right
now we are not doing any monthly heartworm or flea prevention and have nothing
being set aside for vet bills. For now, I just don’t see how we can increase
the money in this category.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The next category, $565 household
and grocery, is one that we tend to go over on each month. To be perfectly
honest, my record keeping in this category is not great as it tends to get
blurred with the next category. My initial thoughts were that this category
needed to be increased but I’m thinking what I really need to do is keep a
better track on the next two categories to really assess where we are going
over and why. I know we could do some things better in this category. I’d like
to see us cutting down on the pre-packaged foods like individually wrapped
cheesesticks, frozen meals like those I take to work as a back-up meal, and
other processed foods. We could also have more vegetarian meals, it seems like
we’ve increased our meat intake over the past year and particularly once I
started meal prepping, as almost all recipes I’ve tried center around a meat.
For the next couple months, I will be more diligent about tracking expenses in
this and the next category and do a better assessment afterwards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The last category is the $180 “fun
money” which covers gift giving, clothes, haircuts, dining out, and the
occasional date night. As I discussed above, we go over in this category a lot.
When I look at it on paper, I think $180 is a lot to be spending each month on extraneous
stuff. But when I break it down into what it can actually cover, it doesn’t
seem like much at all. Here’s an example of what $180 could cover in a month:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$20 1 take-out/ fast food meal out<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$15 1 haircut<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$30 gift for someone’s
birthday/baby shower/wedding (this summer has been especially heavy on the special
events)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$80 10 lunches out at approx. $8
each (we always try to pack food when we’re going out/ to work but aren’t
always prepared)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$10 clothing item for 1 of us<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$25 date night: movie tickets,
drinks and popcorn<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Perhaps I’m not prioritizing my
debt pay-off appropriately and we should be forgoing most of the things on the
list above. I think tracking for the next couple months to see how we really
are spending in the grocery and extraneous category will help me understand
where we can truly cut.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-1573597467298971472015-07-10T11:12:00.001-07:002015-07-10T11:12:04.989-07:00Budget Assessment 3: Housing, Insurance, Cars and Technology<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I started a budget assessment in my
last couple posts and today I’ll continue by looking at the first four
categories in our budget: Household, Insurance, Cars, and Technology. These
four categories make up 55% of our monthly expenses <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Housing categories include our
rent, gas, electric, water, and sewer utilities. There’s very little we can do
to reduce this category at the moment.
We are fairly diligent about energy savings although there are a few
ways we could cut back a little more including:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Fixing the broken dryer timer, we have to set an alarm to remember
to turn the dryer off since the timer is broken and there have definitely been
a few times we forgot and over-dried our clothes/ wasted a bunch of
electricity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Fixing the small leak in our shower faucet and toilet. I’ve put in
a work order with the rental management company so that should be fixed soon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We can always look into moving into a cheaper place but probably
won’t consider this until our lease is coming up next March as the termination
penalty would outweigh any monthly savings. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">More cold water washing, more line drying, shorter and cooler
showers and other energy cutting things we can do to help reduce our energy use
each month.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Insurance category includes
health, short and long term disability, life and rental insurances. I don’t
feel that we are over-insured as we have very modest coverage for life and
rental insurance; health insurance is what it is through my employer. Perhaps
the disability insurance is a variable that could be cut however I think that
would be a last resort and I honestly feel like keeping the insurance is a
higher priority to me than paying off debt. It’s a fairly low cost of $31 a
month and since my income is our only income and I have already experienced
something (the pregnancy) that took me out of work, I feel it’s important to
keep as a safety net until we are able to set aside a more substantial
emergency fund.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In the Car category we have insurance,
fuel and a small amount for maintenance. We perform almost all of our general
maintenance for tire rotations and oil changes so there’s no reductions there.
Bigger repair jobs we usually save up for out of our variable income and do it
ourselves if possible. We have the lowest insurance rate I’ve been able to find
so we’re also stuck there. The only thing I can think of that could help reduce
these expenses is:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Riding our bikes more. I am working up to being able to bike ride
to work and hopefully will feel comfortable in my ability by the end of summer.
This is probably the least bike-friendly place I’ve ever lived (both my sister
and my father have been hit by vehicles in this town) and my lack of confidence
and skill on a bicycle need some more work before I’m willing to head out into
serious rush hour traffic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Walking or biking to the grocery more. There’s a store within
walking distance and a bigger store within biking distance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Be more diligent about combining errands and reduce the number of
trips we take over to visit my family (about an hour and a half away from us).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For Technology we’ve got our cell
phones, internet, and Netflix. We recently switched our internet provider and
have the lowest rate we could find. We’re also fairly diligent about checking
around for better cell phone rates but always end up staying with T-Mobile as
the lowest cost provider. The last item in the category is Netflix. At $8 a
month and our only set entertainment budget item, I hate to say goodbye to our
cheap entertainment but I think we can cut it without too much pain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In summary, I’d like to achieve at
least a $10 cut in our utilities, a $10 cut in our fuel use, and the $8 cut for
Netflix and get that $28 dollars allotted elsewhere.<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-44150330777279879132015-07-08T08:20:00.000-07:002015-07-08T08:20:18.997-07:00Budget Assessment 2: What’s missing in the budget?<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Before I really dive into each
category and assess what we’re spending our money on, I’d like to take a moment
to talk about what is currently missing from our budget. Several biggies jump
right out from our recent experiences. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">First, we do not have enough budgeted
for medical expenses each month. I looked at the last three years and we needed
an average of $200 a month for medical expenses. Our current budget has a mere
$60 a month allocated towards medical expenses and that’s also supposed to
cover savings if our emergency fund needs replenishing. So there’s the big,
huge, right-there-in-my-face, obvious reason we continue to stay in medical
debt despite “paying off” the debt a couple times. We need to stop planning for
a great, healthy, uneventful year and start planning for more medical expenses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Another biggie, we do not have
anything budgeted for pre-school and yet we will owe $260 a month starting in
August and continuing through April. Really, this will be an ongoing expense
since we intend on keeping them in pre-school until they enter the public
school system. There is the possible exception that next year one or both will
be accepted into the early public pre-school program due to their developmental
delays and there will not be a cost associated with pre-school. I don’t want to
plan on that though because I am very hopeful all the hard work we are doing
will have them caught back up with their peers soon. The most conservative
approach is to plan on spending $2,800 a year on pre-school and start budgeting
for it in a monthly basis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I’ve become skeptical that $1,000
is enough of an emergency fund, seems like the emergencies we have carry a
bigger price tag. The other concern I have looming in the back of my mind is
what happens if I lose my job for some reason. $1,000 would not cover that type
of emergency. We need to re-assess if we really feel comfortable having only
$1,000 in the bank to fall back on and balance that against our debt free
goals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The last issue that’s been looming
in my mind for the last year is retirement. S has absolutely nothing saved and
I have a meager $15k in an IRA that I rolled over from previous employers. I
have not enrolled into my current company’s plan which matches 3%. We’d need to squeeze another $150 out of the
budget each month in order to be able to at least put in the minimum for the
company match. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">So there are the items I’d really
like to have in the budget as soon as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-22583462423935022812015-07-06T13:50:00.001-07:002015-07-06T13:50:22.564-07:002nd Q 2015 report<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Starting point (Oct 2011):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Student Loan 1 (My fed loan): $38,339<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 2 (S' state loan): $21,719<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 3 (S' fed loan): $5,454<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Car Loan: $11,684<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 1: $10,577<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 2: $3,635<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 3: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Misc. small debts (S' small debts in collections): $5,443<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Medical expenses: $3,672<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Parents: $600<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Total: $101,123<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />And here's where we are today:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 1: $34,042<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 2: $18,367<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 3: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Car Loan: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 1: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 2: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 3: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Misc. small debts: $4,349<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Medical expenses: $1,861<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Parents: $4,200<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Consolidation Loan: $8,173<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Total: $70,992<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Paid off to date: $30,131 paid off + $733 in savings</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not as much progress as I would have liked but I suppose I should be happy to be moving in the right direction.</span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-35370249670362204912015-06-29T08:26:00.003-07:002015-07-06T13:51:43.371-07:00Budget Assessment 1<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There have been a number of things
that have occurred recently that have brought a budget re-assessment to the top
of our financial to-do list. The biggies were deciding to enroll the boys in
pre-school as early as possible, paying off our medical debt (again) only to
have a medical emergency put us right back in debt (again), practically wiping
out the e-fund to support S’ business, and the realization that we have been
overspending on certain budgetary items for months which had been masked by the
complicated system we created for ourselves with the credit card.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve written more about each of
these factors in other posts as they were occurring but as they say, hindsight
is 20/20. Regarding the boys’ preschool and S’ business, I have no second
thoughts that we made the right decision although how to pay for them is still
up in the air. As for the medical debt and the credit card, they reveal a major
flaw in our debt repayment plan and current budget: we just don’t have enough
budgeted to cover our medical expenses and our household/ grocery expenses. Our
mission to pay off our debt but having a limited income to do so was forcing us
to cut budget items that, now obvious, couldn’t take any more cutting. What we
ended up doing was “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here’s the budget that we were trying
to adhere to (and failing) by amount, percentage of after tax income, and
category:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$1,215 30% Rent & Utilities:
gas, electric, sewer, water<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
$580 15% Insurance: Health, life, disability<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
$270 7% Cars:
insurance and fuel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
$135 3% Tech:
phones, internet, Netflix<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
$650 16% Household: Groceries, diapers, toiletries, pets, etc<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
$180 5% Extraneous/
Fun: haircuts, clothing, dining out, projects<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
$60 2% Medical/
Savings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
$910 23% Debt: minimum payments<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$4,000 Total after tax income<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The only income we can count on is
my bi-monthly pay check so that is what our monthly budget was based on. Extra
income from my etsy sites, selling stuff off, tax returns, etc. go towards
saving for one-time items that we need, like new tires. Once there’s enough set
aside for the item, we make the purchase. We did a fairly good job of
estimating what one-time items we might need and what extra income we can expect
so far this year except that our extra income is frequently needed to cover the
overages in our budget and we added a biggie with the pre-school decision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m pretty much maxed out on
bringing more income to the table. S is currently not bringing any income as he
continues to focus on building his business up. Given the pitfalls we’ve faced
trying to get his business up and running, we expect that his business will not
be a significant contributor to the budget this year as most income will be put
back into the business. Hopefully, next year we will start to see some profit.
Options here include S holding on the business so he can find evening and
weekend work to bring in some income or finding full time work which means the
boys would have to go into daycare. Currently, we plan on sticking with the
original plan of S focusing primarily on our sons (especially in light of the
delays one of the boys is experiencing) and part-time on his business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is turning into a lengthy post
so I’m going to end here. I’ll follow-up later with an assessment of each of
our budget categories and how we might make adjustments to get our spending and
budget aligned.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-56736786122090159562015-06-23T10:31:00.000-07:002015-06-23T10:31:00.838-07:00Credit card use<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Throughout this process of paying
off the debt there’s one cardinal sin we’ve always broken: we still use a credit
card for regular monthly purchases which we pay in full every month. There are several
justifications for our breaking the no credit rule and I’m sure most people
will disagree with our decision. The method has been working for us for years,
until recently. Before I get into our current plight, let me at least explain
our justifications for continuing to use the credit card:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>It’s easier to pay one lump sum for a bunch of the little bills we
pay each month. Our internet, phones, Netflix, medical debt, and utilities are
all set up to auto-pay on the credit card. Since all these bills pretty much
the same from month to month, it’s easiest for me to budget one larger payment
and only have to remember to set up one payment each month.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>We get cash back rewards. It’s not much (2%) but right now, with
such a slim income, any little extra helps.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->We also put the big items we’ve saved up for on the card to get
the extra cash back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>It gives us a wee bit of security in addition to our emergency
fund. We pay the cc bill on the day it is released so there are several weeks
of padding before the actual due date in case something comes up where we need
to put that money elsewhere while we hustle up the cash to cover the unexpected
instead of hitting our e-fund.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So now our current situation:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Earlier this year, we decided that
we should try out paying for other things besides those listed above with the
card to maximize the cash back. So we started putting everyday expenditures on the
card like groceries, gas, diapers, etc. The idea was that we would take our
cash for those budgeted items and put it in a reserve account so we could cover
the expenses when the credit card bill was due. This worked reasonably well at first but
it was complicated for me to keep track of everything since these other budget
items where often variable and purchases are frequent and throughout the week. I
was spending way too much time trying to figure out what expenses had occurred since
the last time I transferred cash. Also,
psychologically, I did not like the feeling I got looking at a steadily
increasing cc balance each month, even though the cash was there waiting to pay
it off. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After a few months, I also realized that
we were spending a little bit more on the credit card than we were setting
aside and had been “dipping into” the next month’s cash reserves. The date that
we were paying the card was also slowly creeping towards the due date.
Basically, our little experiment failed. We are ok at paying set amounts and
for large, saved for items on the cc but the smaller day to day stuff leaves
too much room for error and overspending. So we’ll be transitioning back to our
old method which will take a couple months since we overspent for several
months. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Besides the basic lesson that
making our finances more complicated like this DOES NOT help in the long run, there
are also a couple other issues at play here that I’ll need to examine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">-<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Were we going over budget each month because the cc was tempting
us back to our old ways and giving us false security to overspend? Yes, I think
we were guilty of this for at least a little bit of the overspending.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">-<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Were we going over budget each month because we don’t have enough
budgeted to cover our expenses? I think this is a major factor, we’ve been so
focused on “paying off the debt” that we are putting ourselves in a situation where
we can’t cover the regular expenses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">-<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Should we have dipped into the e-fund for some of the things that
went on the cc? Yes, we definitely had a few totally unexpected things come up
that should have been e-funded. We need to get comfortable with the idea that
the e-fund is there to help us when we need it not some sacred account that’s
untouchable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Moral of the story, it’s time to
get back to basics, assess the budget and simplify the finances. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-67113741362852428192015-06-16T09:12:00.001-07:002015-06-23T09:38:30.249-07:00Early Pre-School<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve been meaning to write this
post for quite a while but better late than never I guess. We enrolled the boys
to start in pre-school this fall. Since Kentucky doesn’t have open public
pre-school and since, even if the State did, most don’t start until 3 years
old, we’ve had to enroll them in a private pre-school that offers a 2 year old
program. We struggled with the decision given that we really can’t afford to
send them to school so it will definitely mean cutting back on our debt
pay-off. However…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m not sure I’ve ever written
about the boys’ development delays since they haven’t had a financial impact on
us in the past. Both boys have a speech delay and one also appears to have some
other possibly sensory delays that we are still working to uncover. For the
past six months we’ve been working with a speech therapist through the State
First Steps program which helps cover the cost after our insurance for weekly
therapy. DS B is making pretty good progress in getting caught up but DS L is
still lagging behind hence us deciding they need as much additional help as
possible. The bottom line is that we feel that we should supplement the therapy
sessions to help them overcome the developmental delays as quickly as they can
and catch up to their peers before kindergarten.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Given that the cost for pre-school
has to come out of our already strained budget we had to go with the most
economical route possible which narrowed down the field to a handful of
options. Of those options, a cooperative preschool really rose to the top for
us. To keep tuition costs down, parents are required to assist in the classroom
a set number of days in each semester. This really appealed to us as a way to get
a great quality education but also to experience first-hand a pre-school type
curriculum and schedule which, in turn, helps us to improve their learning
environment at home. The school is also pretty convenient to our house which
will allow me to take them to school on my way to work on the days S is not
working in the classroom. Another added bonus is that, on the days S is not
working the classroom, he will be able to have more time to focus on his
business.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-10726705348285045782015-06-01T11:13:00.001-07:002015-06-23T09:38:18.325-07:00Quick update<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A lot has been happening lately in
our lives that impacts our finances but I haven’t had a lot of time to write
about it. Figured a quick bullet point synopsis would be better than nothing at
all:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We decided to use the emergency fund to put towards S’s kiln rebuild. He will
have to work on it in phases as we didn’t have enough to purchase all the supplies
outright but ultimately we can’t justify taking out a large business loan at
this point.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<ul><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<li>My parents offered to give us a loan
for the credit card balance we were about to refinance. They offered the $4,200
needed at a 4.5% interest rate for a term of 24 months. Gets them a better
return than some other short term, stable investment opportunities they were
exploring and it gives us a better interest rate than we would have been able
to get elsewhere.</li>
</span></ul>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<ul>
<li>My parents also received some inheritance
money from my grandmother’s estate and, graciously, decided to pass on a
portion of it to me and my sisters. We were able to pay off the remaining
medical debt we owe and minimize the impact that S’ kiln rebuild had on our
emergency fund.</li>
</ul>
</span><ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Paying off the medical debt felt
great and was even more important due to the fact that our DS L was admitted to
the hospital over the holiday weekend with a high fever and seizure. He was
cleared and the doctors believe it was a “typical” fever seizure so there
shouldn’t be any long-term repercussions to his health. Given that we had
already met his deductible for the year with his surgery, I’m hopeful the bills
will be minimal and not have a long-term impact on our financial health.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span>Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-68917149441564372602015-05-18T09:39:00.003-07:002015-05-18T09:39:51.096-07:00So you want to be an artist…<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When we moved from Massachusetts to
Kentucky a year ago the plan was for S to stay home with our sons and rebuild
his pottery business. In the past year we’ve both learned a ton about the
difficulties stay at home parents face, especially those that are also trying to
build a business. To say we were naïve when we went into this would be an understatement.
Incredibly, S has been able to rebuild his studio, launch his website, and
begin producing work for sale… all while providing wonderful care for our sons
and without the benefit of significant start-up capital. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Building up to and shortly after
his launch at the end of last year, we were feeling really optimistic. He
literally sold out of his inventory during the holidays and quickly put that
income back into supplies to continue building the business. Then the long,
colder than normal winter set in and we were quickly confronted by the fact
that our rental property and it’s uninsulated garage where he set up his
studio, wouldn’t allow him to make work not to mention the fact that it doesn’t
have the electrical service required to run his electric kilns he usually uses
for the first firing of his work. He struggled all winter to try and insulate
and build a wood burning heater and set up a small studio inside the house but
progress really stalled out for a few months. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once the weather started turning,
he started producing work again and was finally able to do gas kiln firings.
Upon opening the gas kiln he discovered that the firing had not gone well and
most of the work was unsellable. He did some repair work on the kiln, tweaked
his glaze recipes, produced more work and did another gas kiln firing. Again,
almost a total loss. Yesterday, he was trying to figure out what the problem
could be and began to disassemble his kiln to do a complete examination and assessment.
I was watching from the kitchen. When he pulled the last ring of the modular kiln
up, the entire floor of the kiln gave away. The whole bottom of the kiln had
degraded to the point of crumbling away and now sits as a pile of rubble in his
kiln shed. So now we have two electric kilns that are unusable at our rental
and a completely dead gas kiln.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We spent most of yesterday morning feeling
pretty awful about the situation. All of the hard work he has done over the
last year to overcome all the ridiculous obstacles trying to build a business
with no capital and two toddlers on hand has come to a screeching halt. At this
point we have to make a decision about proceeding, options range from scrapping
the whole business idea to using the emergency savings to build a cheap make-do
new kiln or, on the really big financial impact side, taking out a business
loan to get him the equipment and studio space that would really support art as
a business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How do we proceed? At this point we
have very little (financially speaking) invested, do we put the idea on the
shelf for a few years so S can seek other income opportunities while we continue
to focus on debt? Do we dip into emergency savings and continue to trickle
money into the business as a bare minimum approach? Do we go “all-in” and move
to another location that would better support a pottery studio, or rent studio
space, or buy a place and build a permanent kiln and studio? It’s so hard to
decide what to do, we want desperately to be out of debt but we also want to
raise our sons at home and both have careers doing what we love to do. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-26229380833489601952015-05-15T13:55:00.001-07:002015-05-15T13:55:22.325-07:00Doing the shuffle <div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the course of our debt pay-off
journey we've shuffled debt around numerous times to take advantage of lower
interest rates, to lower our monthly payments, and to consolidate debts. The
last shuffle we did consolidated a high interest credit card with a defaulted
loan at an 8.39% interest rate through Lending Club. Before that, we had done a
balance transfer on another credit card debt to secure a 0% interest rate until
June 2015. Now, with the promotional 0% rate coming to an end it’s time
to come up with a plan to pay off the remaining $4,200. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our options include: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Doing another balance transfer on the credit card (we have two
that we have just transferred debt back and forth between) which would secure a
0% rate for another year but cost us a transfer fee and potentially set us up
for another transfer in the future if we can’t get it paid off in a year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Leaving it where it is and continuing to pay it off as quickly as
possible. The interest rate would be high somewhere between 8.99% and 15.99%.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Taking out another Lending Club loan. We could probably get a lower
interest rate around 6% for a three year loan which would make payments affordable
and easy enough. This would also cost us a fee.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Consolidating it with the larger Lending Club loan for a lower
rate for a three year loan. This would be a more aggressive pay-off for all
consumer debt and would also cost us a fee.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My next step is to explore cost and
feasibility of each option this weekend. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-70023162665423291582015-03-31T09:09:00.002-07:002015-03-31T09:09:56.529-07:00End of 1st Q 2015 Report<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Starting point (Oct 2011):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
Student Loan 1 (My fed loan): $38,339<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 2 (S' state loan):
$21,719<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 3 (S' fed loan): $5,454<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Car Loan: $11,684<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 1: $10,577<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 2: $3,635<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 3: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Misc. small debts (S' small debts
in collections): $5,443<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Medical expenses: $3,672<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Parents: $600<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Total: $101,123<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
And here's where we are today:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 1: $34,501<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 2: $18,860<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student Loan 3: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Car Loan: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 1: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 2: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit Card 3: $4,344<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Misc. small debts: $4,349<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Medical expenses: $1,544<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Parents: $0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Consolidation Loan: $8,610<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Total: $72,208<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
Paid off to date: $28,915 paid off + $1,426 in savings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u2:p></u2:p><u2:p></u2:p><u2:p></u2:p><u2:p></u2:p><u2:p></u2:p><u2:p></u2:p><u2:p></u2:p><u2:p></u2:p><u2:p></u2:p><u2:p></u2:p><u2:p></u2:p>So
far 2015 is heading in a much better direction than last year. We are making
slow but steady progress on the debt pay-off and have maintained the $1000 emergency
fund plus we still have $400 in savings towards DS L’s surgery bills.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We still have some unknown bills
for DS L’s surgery that we are waiting for and we still have an outstanding tax
return coming to us. Once all the surgery bills are paid/ tax return is
received, we’ve decided the balance will go towards the medical debt. I’ve been
going back and forth on paying interest bearing credit card debt or paying
no-interest medical debt. In the end, knocking out the medical debt ASAP won. The
medical is a small enough number that we can get rid of it this year for a boost
in our debt reduction mission. We’ll be able to snowball our payment towards
the credit card and, on the really lean months, ease some of the burden on our
budget.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
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</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve also realized looking at this
quarter’s numbers that we are nearing the 1/3 debt pay-off mark! If we stick
with our projected payments through the next two quarters, we will be able to reach
that goal by October which is the 4-year anniversary of the beginning of the
debt reduction journey!</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-9626758895902049882015-03-09T13:48:00.000-07:002015-03-09T13:48:08.742-07:00De-clutter<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I spent this past month de-cluttering our house. I feel like
this is a never-ending battle for me. I have trouble parting with things that
have a potential future value, S is a borderline hoarder and we are both guilty
of dragging home all sorts of found/ free stuff for projects we will never have
time to complete, plus anyone living with kids knows how much clutter they
generate. One of my goals for the year was to compress all selling of stuff to
two months to coincide with the bi-annual kids consignment sales my twin parent
group hosts. The spring sale is coming up which makes March one of the selling
months but I realized I would first have to identify all the items I wanted to
sell hence the month of February becoming a deep-cleaning and purging month.
Besides, what else am I going to do when it’s stupid cold out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the past I’ve mostly organized and gotten rid of things
as a reaction, like “oh crap, we’re moving again. Better try to get rid of some
stuff” or I’m just irritated to the point of action by the amount of junk we
accumulate such as the lotion incident. Since I’m really trying to turn over a
new leaf this year, I decided to take a more organized approach to getting
organized and getting rid of clutter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I set out a systematic approach to make sure I didn’t give
myself any wiggle room to back out of getting rid of stuff. I wrote out a list
of each room in the house and made a checklist for each of the following steps
under each room. I focused on one room at a time and chipped away at each step
as time allowed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Step One: Trash and recyclables</u>. I went through all
drawers, cabinets, stacks of stuff, closets, etc and got rid of anything that
was trash/ recycling. This included expired coupons, food, or medicines, old
notes, broken stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Step Two: Home the homeless.</u> Part of our problem is
that we have a lot of stuff that doesn’t have a set “home” since our last move
so things end up just getting stuck wherever there’s open space. I spent a good
amount of time in each room relocating stuff to a more permanent home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Step Three: The Purge</u>. This was the hardest part. I
set a goal of getting rid of 10 items per room. Some of the items included toiletries
that I will never use, clothes that I will never fit in again, movies we can
get online, books we can get in the library, etc. The removed items went into
one of three categories: stuff to sell, stuff to give away, and stuff to toss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Step Four: Organization wishlist</u>. I jotted down some
notes as I went room by room about any organizational items that would help
keep the room in order better. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for free or super cheap
items to meet those needs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Felt really good to go through the house and get more
organized and reduce some of the clutter. I’ll be repeating the exercise in the
fall!</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-91613141432400477792015-02-19T08:22:00.003-08:002015-02-19T13:38:54.246-08:00Reality check<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since deciding to put all extra
debt payments on hold until after we receive all of the medical bills from DS L’s
procedure, I’ve been thinking about how little progress we’ve made in the last
year. On one hand, I know that the decision was prudent in order to make sure
we could cover the unknown expenses we will be incurring (tomorrow is the big
surgery day). On the other hand, a big part of the debt pay-off mission is
psychological and it kind of feels like putting extra payments on hold is
damaging what little momentum we have left after last year’s debt increase.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After a few days of stewing on this,
feeling like we were never going to get back on track and wavering on the
decision we made, I realized I needed to adjust my perspective on the debt
payments we make each month. Using the terms “minimum payments” and “extra
payments” has been a great mental motivator to upping the amount we are paying
each month. I feel really uncomfortable doing the “minimum” when it comes to
anything in life. Every dollar of “extra” we have been able to pay is like a
quantifiable measure of how much better than minimum we are achieving. So
deciding to cut extra is like deciding to be an underachiever (at least in my
mind). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reality is that over the years
we have done a lot to refinance our debt and we’ve been fortunate in that we’ve
been able to access low interest rates. Because of this our minimum payment
makes a good dent in our principal balance each month. Our minimum payments
total $771, $188 of which goes to interest. So each month we are paying off
nearly $600 ($7,000 a year) on the principal and these numbers will only
increase is the principal balance decreases. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another reality is that when we
started this journey we weren’t even making the minimum payments on some of our
debt. All of the student loans were either in default or deferment, meaning
they were growing instead of shrinking and digging us further into the hole. Before
starting the debt reduction journey, we were in a downward spiral and truly believed
that we would never get out of debt, that we would always be dragging around a
100k and growing ball and chain. Just being able to make the minimum payments
on half the income we used to have is an incredible achievement for us let
alone having paid off over 26% of the debt!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we were to keep making only monthly
payments of $770, holding our current minimum and snowballing the payments, we
would be debt free in 9 years. Obviously our goal is to pay off the debt as
soon as possible by making the extra payments. It still helps me feel better
about making the minimum payment for a few months, realizing that we are still
moving towards our goal even if it is a little slower than I would have liked.
At least now, I can actually see an end in sight where a few short years ago I
believed debt was a given part of life.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-42963786303281974642015-02-09T06:43:00.001-08:002015-02-09T06:43:01.281-08:00extra debt payments on hold<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I laid out my goals for the year I had wanted to push
everything I could at the remaining cc debt to try and pay it off this year.
This is a lofty goal and will require some major sacrificing and work, and it
may not be achievable depending on what unknowns occur throughout the year. I
was able to make a fairly sizeable payment in January but it doesn’t look like
I’ll be able to pay any extra for February which has me wanting to re-examine
the goal. Another factor I recently wrote about was upcoming medical expenses
and whether to take on new medical debt in order to put our tax returns towards
the cc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The more I thought about it the more I felt like increasing
the medical debt and putting the tax to our cc was not the best solution.
Potentially raising our monthly minimum payments for some unknown amount of
time would make our tight budget even tighter and probably make it harder to
pay extra towards the remaining cc. This decision also got me thinking about
our current medical debt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While paying off the cc this year is a pretty tall order,
paying off the remaining medical debt is totally achievable and will free up
$86 per month to throw at the cc and give us a little more breathing room in
our budget to deal with the unknowns. On the other hand, the promotional 0%
interest rate on the cc expires in June. The longer it takes to pay it off the
more we will pay in interest. I ran a conservative scenario were we increase
the pay-off time on the cc to the end of 2016 and it will cost around $345 in
interest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For now, I’ve decided to take a wait and see approach. My
reasoning is that neither the medical debt nor the cc are accruing interest, so
only making the minimum payment for a few months will not cost us. Another
driving factor here is the unknown cost of the upcoming medical expenses, I
want to make sure we can cover every bill as they roll in. All additional
payment money will go into our savings account and once all the new medical
bills are paid, we will make a decision on which debt the remaining lump
payment should be distributed to.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-80156845619325732552015-01-28T11:34:00.000-08:002015-01-28T11:34:10.550-08:00January recap<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve been taking January off from
some of my usual habits. I’ve said “no” to a lot of family/ friend
get-togethers, put very little effort into promoting my etsy businesses, and have
done zero craiglisting/ ebaying or other methods of selling off our outgrown
kids stuff and other junk. In turn, I’ve made zero dollars from my side
businesses/ selling stuff off. I was worried that without the extra bit of
income we would be in a really tight place this month. However, I discovered
that my time was more valuable spent in the home reducing how much we spend,
particularly in the food department. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The biggest reduction in our food
expenses came from a food prep day at the beginning of the month when I put
together 16 slow-cooker freezer recipes from the 5-dollar dinner mom Costco
Plan. It didn’t go as smoothly as I had envisioned, I’ll write another post
about the experience, but it was awesome having half of the months dinners
already assembled. Also, the recipes were each for 4 portions and since the
boys are still small enough to share a portion, there was always a leftover
serving for me to take to work. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also started batch assembling
breakfast sandwiches and freezing them so I could have easy breakfast on the go
as I run out the door each morning. By doing the food prepping I essentially
eliminated the need to get take-out this month which has always been a part of
our budget that I knew was excessive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aside from freeing up my time to
allow more for food prepping, I found that I was a lot less stressed out and in
general made more thoughtful choices on where/ how much to spend. I had more
time to think about where and when purchases needed to be made. I also found
that with more time spent doing things that benefitted me, like sewing my own
projects instead of things for other people, I felt less inclined to make
splurge purchases with the “I deserve this” mentality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bottom line, I think I’m going to
carry the attitude forward into February. I need to spend some serious thought
exploring how much of my valuable time gets spent on my side businesses, this
blog, and all the other things I heap on my to-do list. Hopefully another month
of being a homebody and doing some inward focusing well offer some clarity on
the rest of the stuff I try to tackle.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6376177910685111927.post-32734056626324615742015-01-26T07:14:00.004-08:002015-01-26T07:14:57.340-08:00Tax return dilemma<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been working on our taxes this week and am expecting
a sizeable return mostly due to the major move expenses last year. I had been
mentally reserving the tax return to pay for some upcoming medical expenses we
are going to incur next month when one of our boys has a procedure. I know we
can expect at least the $1000 deductible and possibly another $1000 in co-insurance.
The bills will start coming in towards the end of March and we can reasonably
put them off for another couple months before we have to either pay in full or
set up a payment plan. So let’s say they are due at the beginning of June which
gives plenty of time for all the tax returns to have been paid out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">June is also when the remainder of our credit card debt
(currently $4,300) goes from 0% interest to 8.99% interest. I’m highly
motivated to pay the credit card off this year and particularly motivated to
pay off as much as possible before it starts accruing interest. Putting the tax
return money towards could knock out a significant portion of the debt in
addition to the minimum payments and whatever extra we can squeeze out of our
budget each month. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So do we pay off medical expenses or do we pay down the
credit card debt?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Pros for paying off medical expenses</u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No new debts. If we didn’t pay off the medical expenses we
would be adding a new debt to the list which would be damaging to the mental
game of crossing off the debts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No increase in minimum payments each month. Our budget is
really, really tight each month. An increase in the minimum amounts we owe on
debt would be a hardship and would make it more difficult to come up with
“extra” payments to continue to chip away at the remaining credit card debt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Pros for paying down credit card debt</u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Paying off the credit card will be a huge accomplishment for
me as I’ve been juggling credit card debt for my entire adult life. Using the
returns to pay it down will help us get it done as fast as possible and give me
a boost to keep at all the other debts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit card debt is going to start accruing interest, the
medical debt will not. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Medical expenses are not on the credit report while the
credit card debt is a negative mark on the report. We’re not planning on taking
out any additional loans at this point so this may be a neutral point but it’s still
nice to have better credit in case the need arises.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Both options offer positives and negatives. I’ve got some
time to decide, especially since I still have to complete the taxes before I
can expect the returns to start coming in. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that
the returns exceed my expectations and the medical bills are under what I am
expecting, that way I could pay off the bills and still have some leftover for
the credit card debt!</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Desperately in Debthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662822463868749242noreply@blogger.com0