Week #1 Goal

I am now paid weekly (on Fridays) so I would like to budget weekly too.  Here are my budget goals for the upcoming week.  They are:

Groceries/Household: $100
Gasoline: $65
Mr. Green Lunch: $25

I haven't included any misc. items because I save a set amount per paycheck and deduct from that account as needed.  Let's see how the week goes.  I haven't been very good at accountability and that is a large part of our debt problem.  I'm hoping to stay on track this week.

Good Stuff @ Casa Green

Good things are happening at the Green homestead.  I was informed today by my new boss that I would be getting the "member" discount at my son's school starting this summer.  This will take about $1000 off my son's tuition for pre-school for the year. Also, I can sign him up for extra programs at the school and if they are on the days that I work (which is pretty much every school day), he can attend them for free. Pretty cool if you ask me.  Today was also my first paycheck from the new job.  It was a whopping $83.55 but money is money and I'll take what I can get.  After reconfiguring the budget to include the lower pay from this second job and also to account for a once a week baby-sitter for my son, it stands to reason that we can put about $300 extra per month towards debt.  It's a little less that we were able to put away with the other job, but it's still something and the work environment is fantastic.

Debt Updates

I've updated my debt totals for the month.  Technically, the total amount is up but it will be down next month when I post numbers.  I had to pay my son's outstanding school bill and also pay for summer camp (which was put on one credit card).  A large payment has already been paid to that card but hadn't been posted on the credit card's website yet so the total numbers are a little misleading.  But, that's what the online statement said, so that's what I'm going with.  I did pay off my Gap card though, so the remaining balance is my husband's card.  This will hopefully be taken care of with my next paycheck.  Until then...

What Are The Odds?

So my intentions for the day were to collect my paycheck and put in my resignation as I was leaving.  I was beat to the punch by the owner's wife.   Before I left for the day, I was called into the conference room and promptly fired.  They are currently having financial issues and need to consolidate a few positions.  I do know that they are letting one other person go but I left before finding out which one of the three left it would be.  What are the odds of getting fired on the day you're quitting?  It was actually pretty nice because I hate confrontation and it's a whole lot easier to get fired when you know you're starting a new job on Monday.  It was actually kind of comical because she asked me if, when they get back on their feet financially, if I would consider coming back to the position.  I did let her know that I had no interest in returning once I left.  It really is strange how things work out sometimes.

Extra Money

Yesterday there was a check waiting for me in the mailbox from E-bates.  I don't buy a lot of stuff via e-bates (only if there is free shipping and it's something we were going to buy anyway).  But it's free money nonetheless, so into the emergency fund went $16.43.  I know I said that I was going to start paying down the debt monster (and I will) but I decided one last contribution to the EF wouldn't hurt.

Future Plans...

Me In Millions commented on my last post the following "Congrats on getting the EF over $1000! Now that it's there are you focusing on getting rid of your debts?" and I'd finally like to comment.  I'd also like to apologize for not responding to the comment earlier but the last week or so has been all over the place.  If you're expecting a reader's digest version, you should probably stop reading because this is probably going to be lengthy.  Initially, because I have two jobs, I was going to focus on paying down my very large amount of debt.  But as I progressed in my new job, I discovered some things out about my boss (the owner) that made me uncomfortable.  I work for an insurance broker, and in my opinion, he is not a good person.  I discovered through conversations with a co-worker that he has a shady past.  She didn't know any of the details and didn't know exactly what he had done but she knew that a previous executive assistant had been fired because she found something out about our boss.  So what did I do? I googled him.  What did I find?  That he used to be the president of one of the largest property management firms in California.  What did he do that was so bad?  Co-mingling of funds, fraud, embezzlement, use of company funds for personal gain and a whole slew of things that aren't good.  Now, I shouldn't be all moral and preachy, but that in and of itself is bad enough. Does it get worse?  I'm glad you asked, because yes it does.  How?  He lies on his insurance appointment contracts.  About 50% of the questions, he lies on the applications, which I'm pretty sure if fraud.  There are also some rumblings from the agents that work for him that he and his wife (who handles all the financials) have been stealing their commissions.  I made the decision (after discussing it with my husband) that I would quit the day job and just rely on the side job's income.  My last day is going to be Friday and the only reason that I haven't quit yet is because I feel like they might do something shady like withhold my paycheck.  Since they hand out hard checks (yeah, no they don't do direct deposit).  So at point, we were going to be on a bare bones budget with not a lot extra for anything, let alone debt.  But, alas, that is no longer the case.  I had a job interview last Wednesday, which I didn't want to write about and jinx myself, because I really, really, really wanted the job.  I found out today that I got the job.  It's a little less money than the shady day job but it's still enough to pay some extra on the old bucket load of debt.  On top of that, it is at my son's pre-school.  This is my absolute dream job.  I can see myself in this position for a very long time.  I'm incredibly happy and incredibly excited.  So, to answer Me in Millions.  Yes, I do plan to focus on my debts now.  I finally feel secure in my job and think that I can shift my focus from stockpiling cash to paying down debt.  Stay tuned for progress reports.

New Savings Numbers

I've finally tallied my savings numbers and here they are:

Emergency Fund - $1019.68 (yay, it's over $1000)
Annual Fund - $448
Tax Savings - $200

EF- of course, it an emergency fund
Annual Fund - used for anuual expenses like HOA dues and car registration
Tax Savings - since I've increased income without increasing income, I anticipate a larger tax bill.  This account will hopefully cover that increase or at a minium heavily offset it.

Secret Plan Part 2

So I left off with Job#1 boss offering me more money and freedom to come and go as I choose.  I fully intended to work both jobs and let the money roll in.  That is until after I was settled in and found some things out about my current employer Job#2.  In the interview, everything was love and roses.  Supposedly, they are a small (only 4 other people besides me in the office), family oriented company.  Although a specific schedule was never discussed, it was stated that as long as I don't work more than 25 hours per week any schedule would be good and I could design my schedule to accomadate my son's preschool schedule.  During the first week, I trained with the girl I was replacing.  Her schedule was 8-noon so I just assumed that I'd be able to do something similar to that.  Umm, not so much.  On my first day of employment (on a Friday), I left at noon like I had been all week.  At about 2:00 that afternoon, I received a call from the owner's wife (she was the interviewer).  Apparently, the office busy body had heard me discussing my schedule arrangements with the girl I was replacing and told the owner about our conversation.  The wife called to tell me that her husband (owner) was concerned because that was not the schedule we discussed in the interview and that it wouldn't really fit their needs were I to leave at noon everyday and that she wanted me to stay until 2:00p everyday.  Ummm, lady we never talked about my specific schedule.  You just said that I couldn't work more than 25 hours per week and that you'd like it if I was there by 8:00 in the morning and being there at 8 was the most important thing.  By my calculations, if I worked 8-2, that would be 6 hours per week.  I expressed my confusion to her and tried to extract what her exact expectations of me were.  This proved to be a useless exercise because she never specifically stated what she thought my hours should be.  She kept spouting the most important thing is that I be there by 8:00.  So as of now, my schedule is 8-1.  That in and of itself is not that bad.  But add to it the fact that I was hired as an administrative assistant (i.e. filing, answering phones, answering client questions) and my boss (the owner) wants me to handle his "writing" of the business.  He is an insurance agent and has agents underneath him.  They all handle their own stuff, but he wants me to meet with clients to discuss their insurance options, walk them through the applications and submit their paperwork (basically "write" their business) and even wants me to sign for him.  #1 I am NOT a licensed insurance agent, so the fact that he wants me to run their quotes and discuss their options is not legal.  #2  I will NOT sign his name to any document, legal or otherwise.  I don't even sign my husband's name.  So far I evaded these not so subtle hints.  I was hired as an administrative assistant not an insurance agent.  Six months is my "I'm out of here" date, but things may end more quickly if he outright demands that I do something that I find unethical or illegal.

Secret Plan

I have a secret plan that only my husband knows about.  I haven't told anyone my plan because of self-preservation.  My plan is to put notice in on my day job (Job#2) on September 13.  Why am I doing this you ask?  I need to give a little backstory before I can fully answer that.  I have been employed at Job#1 for a little over three years.  The pay and schedule were(are) great, but I was/am the only part-time employee and tended to get overlooked because I only had morning office hours.  At my 3 year anniversary in January, I tried several times to schedule my annual review with my boss.  Seeing as he is constantly traveling for business and I left at noon everyday, I never got in to see him or when I did he would say it needs to wait for another time.  Needless to say, I was feeling a bit unappreciated.  I hadn't had a review/raise in 2 years and I couldn't even get my boss to discuss.  So at this point, I started looking for another job.  I eventually applied for my current day job or Job#2 and was hired.  The pay is 60% less than Job #1 but more hours so my bi-weekly pay is greater than or equal to what I was making at Job#1, but if I wasn't going to be appreciated at Job #1, this is what I needed to do.  I immediately let my boss know that I was quitting (effective immediately) but that I would be more than happy to work in the off hours to keep things current for him until they could find a replacement or absorb my work into the department. I fully expected him to say "see ya when I see ya, don't let the door hit you in a$$ on your way out", but that wasn't what happened.  He asked me what requirements needed to be met for me to continue doing my job (in addition to Job#2) until it was no longer mutually beneficial.  I said, of course, that I wanted more $$$ and I wanted to come and go as I please (for me that means very early morning or weekends).  He agreed with no hesitation.  So, here I am with one more job than I planned on.  What to do?  What to do? to be continued...

Whoo Hoo Unexpected Money!

Over the holiday season, I had a temp job.  I've done that every year but this year I received an unexpected surprise.  I guess the job that I worked let part-time employees accrue personal time and mine was direct deposited into my account overnight.  Imagine my surprise when I logged into my account and saw the deposit.  Before I let my mind wander into thoughts of what I could do with it, I immediately set up a transfer so it would go to the EF.  It's not a lot (only $45.15) but I'm happy to transfer it to my account anyways.  One of my favorite bloggers, Jolie @ Shaking the Money Tree commented on a previous post about what my next goal will be.  I think that until the end of the summer, I'm going to focus on hoarding cold, hard cash.  I'd like to have a small emergency fund in place because one of the jobs that I have isn't necessarily permanent.  The owner of the business could change his mind very quickly about the arrangement we have in place.  With just my day job, it would be cutting it close as far as expenses go, which is why I'd like to have a little bit of money set aside for emergencies.

Payday

Somehow I forgot today was payday.  It's probably because all the bills have been scheduled to go out for a couple of weeks already.  I'll have to "shore up" things when I get home tonight.  There's a transfer to ING to be made for our annual fund but that may be all that's left on the agenda.  I feel so disorganized not having this done already.  I will blame it on my excitement at watching William and Kate getting married this morning.  Yes, I was one of "those" people that got up early in the morning to watch it live.  It's not the same when it's recorded (although I did that too).  I imagine I will watch it at least a couple of times over the next couple of days.  I absolutely love Kate Middleton.

Green Life

I've been going back and forth with myself since the inception of this blog.  Should it be personal finance? Should it be personal lifestyle?  Since a lot of my personal choice impact my financial life, I've decided to write about both.  I'd like to get a handle on "greening up" my finances but I want that "greening up" to touch the non-financial part of my life too.  Therefore, I have changed the name of my blog to reflect my true goal, which is to be a more green person overall.

Hmmm...at least it's not going up

I've updated my current debt to reflect the progress (cough, cough) that we're making towards paying off our debts. Not a whole lot IMO but at least it's not going up.  I have since removed the remaining credit card in my wallet after this tabulation.  It is obvious that I can't be trusted and will not "pay myself back" if it is in there.  So it's only the debit card from here on out.

Payday

Friday was my payday for both jobs.  I was happy with the amount for my second job because the more I can make at that job, the closer I am to my savings goal.  My check at the second job was $541.  I conservatively estimate that the amount will be about $375 per pay check, so the fact that it was so much more makes me very happy.  The breakdown of that check is $25 to tax savings, $25 misc savings and the remaining $491 goes to the emergency fund.  I'm not sure what the totals are for the tax savings account or the annual fund account but my emergency fund is sitting nicely at around $700, which coincidentally is $100 more than my goal for the month.  I hope that I can keep this kind of progress up and keep the money flowing.

Financial ADD

I think I may have Financial ADD.  I can never isolate our top priority and thus I have changed focus again for our extra money.  I was intially gonna go all gung ho trying to pay off debt but stopped almost as soon as I began.  I now plan to funnel all our extra bucks to an Emergency Fund account.  The reasoning behind this is simple.  I don't know how long I'll have two jobs to help pay down the debt.  I anticipate that it will be long term but would like some $$$ cushioning before we go at it with "gazelle-like intensity" (not that we are subscribing to the Dave Ramsey school of thought).  So as for now, our new goal is to bank $4000-$5000.  I might try to tinker around with my settings and put up a few savings progress bars.  We have a three savings accounts right now.  A tax savings (because I'm making more than I was last year I'm withholding on my own), an annual fund (for things like HOA, car registration, etc...) and now an EF.  Let's see how it goes.

Big Chunk O'Change

On Friday, I was able to slap down $310.23 towards the medical debt.  I know it's not technically number one on the priority list but I felt that I should put something towards it since it's been due for a few weeks and it made me feel better knowing that we had put a little somethin, somethin towards it.  I havent' updated my numbers yet because I'm going back and forth between updating when I make a payment or waiting until the end of the month/beginning of the month to do it.  In other good news, I originally estimated our debt at $50,500.  I was wrong and it is actually $49665.44, which is $834.56 lower than what I thought.  Glad, I was wrong :)

Hopeful Of Progress

So it looks like I’ll be able to put a little over $300 towards debt with Job#2 paycheck.  I did an online paycheck calculator to see what my check should be.  I just received a raise at Job#2 and it should be on this paycheck but the main accounting guy at that job is a little lackadaisical so it could be a little less if he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.  So if everything goes according to plan.  I will put the entire amount towards the medical debt which will put the total amount owed around $500.  I’m slowly chugging along, but I will get this under control.  I would also like to note that when I say “I”, I really mean “we” as in my family.  I’m only speaking in singular because I’m the one doing the writing and the household financial manager.  That also brings me to the half way mark as far as monthly goals go.  Yippee!!!

Tentative Progress

So far I have about 14 hours posted at Job #2 for the current pay period.  I intend to go in tomorrow morning for a couple of hours so it will be around 16 which will get me half way to my goal of $600 extra per month.  That means I should be able to pay off part of the medical bill this month.  I know that it’s not the #1 debt but it’s been around for a couple of months and needs to get paid.  It also says $800 for an estimate on what’s owed and that because I know there will be another amount added to it for my son’s physical therapy expenses.  Right now, $460 is due.  I estimated $800 because each therapy appointment is about $200 out of pocket for us.  We’ve been to one that hasn’t been billed and we have another scheduled for later this month.  I think he’ll only be going to a couple more appointments this year, so this debt will move around on the priority list as my son incurs more therapy costs.

What I Think My Debt Is!

I have a vague idea of what my total debt (I'm not including car, student loan or mortgage) is.  I'll put up more accurate numbers as I get the statments in but here is an estimate of what I think I owe:

#1 Gap: $450
#2 Medical: $800
#3 School: 650
#4 BOA (24): $1800
#5 BOA (56): $2300
#6 DSCV: $2500
#7 BOA (00): $5000
#8 CITI: $15000
# 9 DPL: $22000

For a whopping $50,500 and in order of priority for me.

Tentative Budget

Goals for the next year:   1.)    Pay down as much debt as I possibly can!!! 2.)    No unnecessary new clothing/misc purchases (i.e. my husband can wait on the new carpet shampooer) 3.)    Stay organized (this is key to accomplishing my goals) 4.)    Take this challenge one day at a time 5.)    Keep and stick to a budget!!! 6.)    Make at least $600 from second job each month to put towards debt 7.)    Do NOT incur any additional debt     Tentative Budget   First job - $675 bi-weekly   Car Payment - $280 Gasoline - $90 Lunches - $50 Groceries - $205 Tax Savings - $25 Misc Savings - $25   Anything over $675 will be put towards misc savings.  Misc savings is a temporary savings account or a “holding place” for things we’ll need eventually.  Tax savings is just what I want to hold out for the next year’s taxes.  Since I have two jobs now, I know our taxes will go.  I could adjust my holdings but I’d rather put the money in a savings account and earn whatever interest I can.   Second job - $375 bi-weekly (this will probably be more but I want to be conservative)   Tax Savings - $25 Misc Savings - $25 Debt Repayment – Any remaining $$, hopefully at least $300   Like I said, this is a tentative budget.  It might change based on what I find out about our family’s spending habits.

About Me

I don’t want to do this forever.  I don’t want to be in the debt/shame spiral that I’m in right now.  How is it that a family that makes close to $100K annually has over $50K in credit card debt?  I’m an accountant.  How did that happen?  I’ve said it a million times before, “I need to get control of this situation before we go bankrupt”.  Honestly, that’s where we’ll be if we don’t make any changes.  There aren’t any excuses, we did this to ourselves and now it’s up to us to get ourselves out of debt.  So, today I start my journey to become debt-free.  I’m not under any illusion that it will be easy.  I know it’s going to be hard and I know that there are going to be slip-ups but I need to keep at it if we are ever going to be secure.