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.