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.
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.
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.
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!
Monday, February 6, 2017
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Renewing my commitment
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Time to start anew
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, January 1, 2017
End of 2016 Report
Starting point (Oct 2011):
Student Loan 1 (My fed loan): $38,339
Student Loan 2 (S' state loan): $21,719
Student Loan 3 (S' fed loan): $5,454
Car Loan: $11,684
Credit Card 1: $10,577
Credit Card 2: $3,635
Credit Card 3: $0
Misc. small debts (S' small debts in collections): $5,443
Medical expenses: $3,672
Parents: $600
Total: $101,123
Here's where we are at the end of 2016:
Student Loan 1: $33,579
Student Loan 2: $18,186
Student Loan 3: $0
Car Loan: $0
Credit Card 1: $1,698
Credit Card 2: $5,856
Credit Card 3: $6,930
Misc. small debts: $4,284
Medical expenses: $0
Parents: $1,856
Consolidation Loan: $5,354
Total: $77,740
Paid off to date: $23,381 paid off + $3,543 in savings
Friday, December 30, 2016
What?! A year has passed?
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
And now the not-so-great things:
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
And now the not-so-great things:
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.
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...
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.
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.
Monday, January 4, 2016
End of 2015 Report
Starting point (Oct 2011):
Student Loan 1 (My fed loan): $38,339
Student Loan 2 (S' state loan): $21,719
Student Loan 3 (S' fed loan): $5,454
Car Loan: $11,684
Credit Card 1: $10,577
Credit Card 2: $3,635
Credit Card 3: $0
Misc. small debts (S' small debts in collections): $5,443
Medical expenses: $3,672
Parents: $600
Total: $101,123
And here's where we are today:
Student Loan 1: $34,040
Student Loan 2: $18,369
Student Loan 3: $0
Car Loan: $0
Credit Card 1: $4,362
Credit Card 2: $0
Credit Card 3: $0
Misc. small debts: $4,284
Medical expenses: $0
Parents: $3,185
Consolidation Loan: $7,273
Total: $71,513
Paid off to date: $29,610 paid off + $1,199 in savings
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.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Been a busy 6 months
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'll post again soon with our year-end finance report and our new budget going into 2016.
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.
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.
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.
I'll post again soon with our year-end finance report and our new budget going into 2016.
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