Regrouping after the last year of monumental changes

This past year has been one of monumental changes (the babies, the move, S becoming a stay at home parent and trying to restart his business, the major unexpected expenses that have cropped up along the way) coupled with some extremely sad events including the passing of my uncle, S's uncle, and our beloved pup.  I'm not going to lie, I made some costly mistakes and have also caught myself resuming some of my past bad financial behaviors, especially during the move and transition to living in Kentucky.  But I can't dwell on those things I can't go back and change, and in retrospect, we have really dealt with a lot in the past year and mostly handled the finances well.

Since the move we have been scrambling to adjust to our new one income situation.  We've finally stopped the hemorrhaging of money that was rapidly increasing our debt and I feel like we've come up with a workable budget that will prevent us from accumulating any more debt this year.  My full time job income covers all of our regular monthly expenses which are:

Mandatory expenses (everything we absolutely must have):

• Housing expenses: rent, renter’s insurance, utilities including our phones
• Groceries and household expenses: food, toiletries, diapers, pet food
• Cars: insurance and fuel
• Health and Life Insurances
• Debt: Student loans, credit cards and medical debts

Plus the following somewhat optional expenses (we could live without these in a pinch but it would be unwise/ difficult for us):

• Emergency savings- this one is not really optional
• Fun Fund money for the occasional lunch/ dinner out, beer, haircuts, clothes, or whatever (sometimes used for unexpected bills but mostly just to cover the extra "wants" we have)
• Internet and Netflix- we could live without internet but it would be extremely hard to run our businesses which are mostly web based… and Netflix is a very inexpensive form of entertainment
• YMCA membership- we could live without this one but it provides S a break in the day with the babies and supports a healthier lifestyle for us so we're sticking with it

My full time salary does NOT cover the one time expenses (my professional membership fees, some medical expenses we are expecting to have for the boys, etc) or anything beyond the minimum debt payments.  There are some additional sources of income I'm expecting this year including a end of year bonus, some reimbursements from taxes/ insurance paid in Massachusetts, and the sale of baby items which will hopefully cover the one-time expenses.  Plus my side businesses on Etsy are becoming more and more stable and bringing in a little extra cash each month.  S hopes to have his business up and running by the end of the year but may end up getting a small part time job to bring in a little cash and also get some adult socialization time.

In short, our plan for the rest of 2014 is to hold steady on our monthly expenses living off of my full time salary and whatever we can hustle up each month will go to savings to cover one time expenses and extra debt payments.  I can't say I'm feeling great that the debt reduction has taken such a backseat to just getting the bills paid but I do feel better than I have in months about where our finances stand.

Farewell to an old friend

A very short post today.  Our elderly dog, Otto, that I mentioned in my last post did indeed have cancer and declined very rapidly.  We said goodbye to him a couple days ago and are feeling the loss very deeply right now.  He had a great life and was S' best friend for over 16 years and I loved him the 4 years that I got to spend with him.

Farewell, sweet Otto... you will be missed.

Gah! Feeling really overwhelmed since the move!

Before we made the move from Boston to Kentucky (AKA from ridiculously high cost of living to nice and affordable) I did some number crunching to see if my salary could support us while S got his art work back up and running and bringing in some funds.  I knew things would be tight but on paper it looked like it would work.  Maybe not putting away the savings or paying off as much debt as I had hoped but at least we could make ends meet without taking on new debt.

But so far everything about the transition has cost a lot more than I anticipated and the extra cash that I factored into the equation to cover our expenses has been falling short.  One of the biggies is that our old landlord kept $1200 of our deposit leaving us only $90 returned.  The list of "repairs" he had to make to the place after we left is quite lengthy and most of it could be argued but he's a lawyer and kind of jerk and I don't have the energy or time to fight him.  So there's a big hit.  

As for the move, a friend ended up flying up to help us drive/ handle the babies (which was amazing of her to do) but it meant we were paying for an extra hotel room and her food.  We had a late start and ended up needing two nights stay.  I did not do a very good job of estimating the fuel a fully loaded truck pulling a car through the mountains would gobble up.  And I failed to factor in how much we would spend on deposits for utilities and getting the fridge and pantry restocked.  All in all, I think the move was a good $1000 more than I expected.

On top of all that, our elderly dog got really sick as soon as we got here and we've been battling to get him better.  The prognosis probably isn't good but I can't justify spending the $600 for full diagnostic testing to confirm that he has cancer and he's dying and there's nothing we can do.  The vet agreed that the best course of action is to give him some meds (kind of expensive steroids) daily to help keep his appetite up and just enjoy what are most likely our last months with him.  Which is a horrible blow after having just found new homes for some of our other fur babies before we moved.  

So the bottom line is that the transition to our new life has been more difficult than I anticipated, I don't even have a clear picture of our finances at the moment since bank accounts, bills, and paychecks are all in flux which stresses me out to no end but I think we're potentially looking at a shortfall of around $500 a month. 

Kind of feeling like a financial failure since I did such a crappy job of estimating what our new life would cost.  I don't want S to have to scrap his dream of getting his business back up and running so soon out of the gate but unless things change and soon, he's going to have to get a job.  And of course that means he's either working in the evening or weekends and we won't see each other or he's working during the day and we're back to paying someone else almost a full salary to raise our kids.

Gah.  

1st Quarter 2014 report

Starting point:

Student Loan 1 (My fed loan): $38,339
Student Loan 2 (S' state loan): $21,719
Student Loan 3 (S' fed loan): $5,454

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 were we are today:

Student Loan 1: $35,478
Student Loan 2: $19,496
Student Loan 3: $4,759

Car Loan: $0

Credit Card 1: $0

Credit Card 2: $3,171

Credit Card 3: $6,407
Misc. small debts: $4,284
Medical expenses: $550

Parents: $0

Total: $74,145

Paid off to date: $26,978 paid off + $523 in savings

This is kind of a weird quarterly report... the credit card debt balance is a bit deceiving.  Since we just moved we have a lot of money in flux.  We have a deposit from our last place we're waiting for, various small refunds, balances from multiple bank accounts being sent to us since we had to close our Massachusetts bank and set up a Kentucky bank account.  We also didn't know when my new jobs pay cycles would be or when we would have access to our new bank account so we decided to put all the moving expenses on the Credit Card.  Once all our money is consolidated into one account again, we'll make a big payment to the Credit Card debt.

Moving expenses

Just a short post today...

We made our big move from Massachusetts to Kentucky this past weekend and are busily settling into our new life.  With the move and the settling comes expenses.  As many times as I've moved in my life you'd think I would have a better handle on the expenses that come along with moving.  However, the last time I moved was pre-financially responsible days so my memories of how much should be budgeted were pretty useless.  

I haven't sat down and actually counted up how much the move cost but here are some things that I did NOT budget for:

• An extra set of hands. At the last minute one of S' friends offered to drive with us to help with the babies.  Without her help I think we'd probably still be on the road struggling to make the drive!  However, I hadn't budgeted anything for extra food and lodging for a helper.
• An extra day of travel/ extra night of lodging.  We got a late start and couldn't make up the time which ended up costing us an extra night.
• How much fuel the truck would gobble up fully weighted down.  We packed that Uhaul like a sardine can AND towed a car on the back so I'm sure my calculations for fuel costs were thrown off. 
• Restocking the fridge.  I never really considered that we'd be starting over, almost from square one, at the new house.  I think we've spent over $250 at grocery stores over the past week and we still don't have much to show for it besides all new condiments and essentials!
• Deposits for utilities.  These haven't hit us yet but the first utility bills are going to be painful.
• Stuff for the new house.  I didn't budget anything for new furnishings, decor, or odds and ends to help us get situated in new our new home.  Our new place is much larger than the last and we are going to have to work very hard to resist the temptations to fill it with more stuff.  

Once things get a little more routine and I've got the major items figured out, I'll try to go back and figure out how much the move really cost us.

2014 outlook

Since I spent all of January struggling to overcome hardships and most of February preparing for the awesome transition we are about to make, it's high time I got around to thinking about what I want the REST of 2014 to hold for our finances! 

I'm having trouble remembering how much I've written about S and my plan for him to be a stay at home dad and get back into his pottery studio.  We've been kicking around the idea/ hope that we can live mostly off of my salary which would allow him to get back to doing what he loves- making/ selling/ teaching pottery.  We've been trying to figure out how to make this happen since before the babies were born but never could come up with a feasible plan that met all our financial goals and obligations if we stayed in the Boston area.  

But with this move to Kentucky, we might actually be able to make it work!  We've gotten the math to work on paper but we will have to stick to a very skimpy budget until he starts pulling in some money from his art work/ teaching classes.  So Goal Number 1 for the remainder of 2014 is to stick with the slimmest budget we've ever had to give S the opportunity to reestablish his pottery studio and be able to stay at home with our boys!  (This is a major topic so I'll write more about it later)

Goal Number 2 is to get our emergency fund back up to $1000 by the end of the year.  As for our debt, Goal Number 3 is to pay off the remainder of the medical bills ($550), pay off as much remaining credit card debt as possible and to chip away at the rest of the debt with the regular monthly payments for a total debt reduction of $7000.

On the road again

February has been a busy month!  Somewhere around the end of of January, when things were looking so bleak, S and I kind of threw in the towel and decided it might be a good idea to think about moving nearer to my family and somewhere cheaper.  Our initial thoughts were to get somewhere in the one easy day's driving range of Kentucky so that travel for holidays and emergencies would be more doable and perhaps family would be tempted to visit us more often to lend a helping hand with the twins.  We figured it would take several months to land a new job which put us moving somewhere in the late spring/ early summer right before the boys' 1st birthday.

With marching orders in hand, I spent the first weekend in February putting together my resume and portfolio of work examples.  Over the first week of February, I sent out some e-mails to my friends in the profession and started scouring the job postings.  Mid-week a friend from college wrote me back to let me know her company was hiring for their office only an hour or so away from my parent's house!  I sent off my stuff and got an immediate call back.  A week later I was flying down to interview and now, only 19 days after starting my job search, I have officially accepted a position with them and start on March 17!

My head is still spinning with this sudden change but I have such an optimistic feeling about the move.  It seems serendipitous that just when we have reached our breaking point, an opportunity presents itself.  The move means we will be within arms reach of my entire family and most of my closest friends, a whole battalion of helping hands for when things get a little too much to handle on our own.  The move also means a much cheaper cost of living, and with a comparable salary to what I have now, equates to roughly a 30% raise!  Lastly, the move puts me in a job that I believe is much more in line with what I enjoy professionally so I'm hoping there will be a level of job satisfaction I don't currently have.

Fortunately, I did our taxes as early as possible and we have already received our mega return (since we didn't adjust our withholdings after the babies came last year).  I had initially thought it would go towards debt, which would have been nice, but now it looks like it will help us make this unexpected transition!  So many things to get done in a very short amount of time!