Goals for 2013...work in progress

1. Walk at least 30 minutes (on treadmill) per night.
2. 1000 item declutter (trash/donate)
3. Pay at least 1 credit card off and a total of $8500 total
4. Use cash (for big items will still purchase with cc but payoff)

For now, those are the big ones.  The thing is that our financial goals are always in limbo for a month.  The dust doesn't settle for us until the beginning of February (and maybe later than that will any IRS changes).  Our health insurance premium and our mortgage payment is increasing on January 1.  Mr. Green's review isn't until mid-January so we won't know if there is a pay increase on the horizon until then.  We'd really like to increase our grocery budget a little bit.  So #3 and #4 are on hold until our budget stabilizes.

People Who Deserve A Punch In the Throat - Gift Giving Edition

And the award for People Who Deserve A Punch In the Throat goes to:

Parents that use the "group gift" as a cover for being cheap-ass bastards

Dear Cheap-Ass Bastard Parent,

I want to thank you for seeking me out when you heard that I would be willing to oversee a group gift for our childrens' class.  When I agreed to collect $, purchase holiday gifts and hand out cards for our wonderful teachers (all four of them) whom our children adore, I purposely left it to your discretion to come up with an amount you found suitable for your family and your budget.  I have to admit, I was a little surprised to find your $7 check in my child's backpack.  The oddity of a $7 contribution was a bit unusual, but also because you have two children in that class and it works out to be an $.88 cent contribution per child for each of the teachers.  The confusion was cleared up for me though, when I read your facebook postings on some upcoming expenses.  I should have know that you were strapped for cash because of the hundreds of dollars of liquor you purchased for your family's annual holiday party this weekend.  I think the exact figure was $346.27, right?  That's the caption on your facebook picture anyway.  Couple that with your New Year's trip to Aspen with your family of four and that makes you nearly destitute.  So, it's completely understandable why you'd think that $7 is a reasonable contribution.  Fortunately, the other parents that contributed were a little more generous and we were able to pull together a good sum to put towards the gifts cards.  A little voice deep, down inside me tells me that's what you were counting on.  That other parents would pick up your slack and you'd still be associated with this thoughtful group of parents because you contributed something.  Shame on you!  Therefore, the award for People Who Deserve A Punch In the Throat goes to you!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Green

Decembe Debt Numbers

At least it's going down :)

Original Debt (6/26/12): $175,209.81
Paid: $5,558.42Remaining: $169,651.39

Original CC Debt (6/26/12): $63,731.78
Paid (12/19/12): $1,959.68
Remaining (12/19/12): $61,772.10

Original Other Debt (6/26/12): $111,478.03
Paid (12/19/12): $3,598.74
Remaining (12/19/12): $107,879.29

Gap: $0
Best Buy: $0
Furniture Mart: $0
Credit Card 1: $0 Credit Card 2: $1,009.25
Credit Card 3: $2,588.86
Credit Card 4: $15,972.98
Credit Card 5: $13,169.31
Credit Card 6: $13,581.68
Personal Loan: $15,450.02

Auto Loan 1: $10,011.77
Auto Loan 2: $10,619.52

Student Loan 1: $55,690.42
Student Loan 2: $31,557.58

November Debt Numbers

Original Debt (6/26/12): $175,209.81
Paid: $3,859.07Remaining: $171,350.74

Original CC Debt (6/26/12): $63,731.78
Paid (11/16/12): $919.28
Remaining (11/16/12): $62,812.50

Original Other Debt (6/26/12): $111,478.03
Paid (11/16/12): $2,939.79
Remaining (11/16/12): $108,538.24

Gap: $0
Best Buy: $0
Furniture Mart: $0
Credit Card 1: $0 Credit Card 2: $1,080.58
Credit Card 3: $2,588.86
Credit Card 4: $16,298.98
Credit Card 5: $13,302.01
Credit Card 6: $13,791.68
Personal Loan: $15,750.39

Auto Loan 1: $10,227.24
Auto Loan 2: $10,836.70

Student Loan 1: $55,776.91
Student Loan 2: $31,697.39

 

It's slowly creeping down :)

Organization is my saving grace and my downfall...

In order for me to maintain my household, I need to be organized.  If I'm not, all things go to hell in a handbasket.  When I'm on, I'm on and things run smoothly.  Finances are good, cabinets are stocked and bill are paid.  When I'm off, nothing gets done.  It's take out for dinner or processed pop in the oven kind of dinner, the budget is non-existent and my house looks semi-hoarders like.  I know how I'd like things to be but it seems that I don't have the motivation to make it happen.  This week seems to be a good week because I'm keeping the budget in check and I'm keeping up on housework. I'm really trying to maintain a healthy balance of getting things done.  I've been extremely lazy and our finances reflect that.

So Proud

I'm extremely proud of my husband for staying within the cash budget he has for lunch.  I know some may think that $40 per week for lunches out is one area that could be cut back on.  I agree, but that is another fight for another day.  When I looked in his wallet this morning to see how much he had left of his weekly budget, he had $16.  That is two days of the budget for lunch.  I was incredibly surprised that he didn't go over his budget.  When he uses the credit card and I say you have $40 for lunch.  He is using the card for lunch, a snack, a quick trip to the grocery store on the way home.  All in all, he probably spends his $40 plus $60 or so more.  This morning I asked him how he was able to stay within the budget.  His response was that he took his lunch one day and went hungry the rest of the time.  I'm guessing that the budget is taking some getting used to but it's a much need permanent change.  Yay to small victories and I love you hubby for cooperating on this :)

Has The Bleeding Stopped?

I sure hope so.  It looks promising.  Tomorrow I will do a weekly spending recap and see what damage we've done this week (I'm keeping track of our balance, just not where it's spent).  The good news is that there haven't been any new charges to our credit card.  It seems that giving my husband cash to spend on lunch is, do I dare say, working?  The only activity on the credit card is a return I made to a salon.  I didn't like the product, shouldn't have spent the money.  So, I took it back.  As of yesterday, the credit still hadn't appeared on my card after 4 days so I called the salon.  They said that their records showed it was returned the day we were at the store but that she'd pass along the info to her manager.  Magically, the credit appeared today but it was short two dollars.  I'm not going call them on it.  It's just not worth it.

Look How Far I've Come

Even though we have $63,000 in credit card debt, I'm still amazed at how far along we've come.  It wasn't until recently that I began to organize our bills and actually become aware of what the total number owed was.  Again, it was recently that I actually started thinking about how much an item costs instead of just swiping away willy nilly.  Now the hard part is actually spending less than we make.  I think that getting out of debt is a lot like losing weight.  It's a slow process and getting there is hard.  You may have slip ups but you just have to keep going until you get there. Even though our debt has gotten larger since I've started this blog, I'm not going to give up until it's gone.  It will go down and we will be able to spend less than we make.

Budget Allocations

It's Friday and a payday so here's the plan for the next two weeks:

Total paycheck: $804.36

Minus Allocations:

Car Payment: $280
Groceries/Misc: $250
Husband Work Lunches: $80
Gasoline: $80
Mini Savings: $25
Halloween: $25

This leaves $64.36 plus $13.49 left in the checking account totaling $77.85 which is being sent to our personal loan.  I had put the AMEX as the first goal, but the personal loan's interest rate is more than double that of any other debt we have and it has the largest balance.  You might notice that I've budgeted $80 for husband work lunches.  I think that he could make a homemade lunch for a lot less than $40 per week, but he prefers to eat out.  And, no amount of begging and pleading with him to find a way to reduce this amount has succeeded.  So, I suck it up and put it as a line item in the budget.  Does it make me angry? Does it make me resentful?  Yes to both.  Since the school year began, I have eaten lunch out a handful of times and most being my office treating me.  The others being a $4 bowl of soup from Panera.  Oh well.  The mini-savings is for an "Oh crap" moment where we need to pick up some random thing.  This week it was to buy a book from the school book fair.  This money is transfered to savings and if not used, it stays put.  Seemingly the balance could grow but usually doesn't because it's not hard to come up with things to spend money on.  The Halloween money is for a pizza dinner.  We are hosting a couple of my son's friends for Trick or Treating.  I don't think it will be $25 but I'm also including candy to pass out and any other little incidentals.  This week's goal is to track where the money goes.

Excuse Me For A Moment

I was having a small moment of complete and utter freak out on Friday.  I apologize.  Since then, I have had a discussion with my husband and let him know what my frustrations were.  We've both agreed that going to a cash only basis will help stop overspending (or at least slow it).  Starting on Friday (payday).  I will put our cash into its various piles and try to slow the bleeding.  My paycheck Our budget for the two weeks looks somthing like this:

Groceries/Food: $280
Household/Misc: $54
Gas: $80
Allowance: $6
Emergency: $25

Total: $445

This is just the basic budget.  It changes depending on how many hours I've worked in the payperiod.  Anything above and beyond this amount, I'll be sending to the #1 debt on our list.  My husband's paycheck is dedicated to bill paying and such.

Starting Over...Again!

What the f**k?  How do we let ourselves keep going down the path of debt?  I'm so frustrated with myself.  I've let our budget get out of hand and now we're no better off than when we started.  I hate being the only one in my family that spends any energy in worrying about how much we spend.  I'm pissed at myself and I'm especially pissed at my husband.  I'm so tired of being the babysitter.  Not that it matters because noone listens to me anyways.  Why do you think it's okay to tell our son that we will buy him a $60 video that is so obviously not in our budget?  It always comes down to me saying yes or no.  I hate being the person that has to make the reasonable choice.  Something has to change because we are headed down a very dark path.  I am just so exhausted.  Debt is exhausting.  Debt makes me a terrible person.  I am done being the only one concerned with where our money goes.  It's time that my husband is an active participant in controlling our family spending.  Things change today.  I can't do it on my own with no cooperation.

Getting A Plan Together

Currently, I'm just paying a set amount towards my credit card debt.  It started out that the payment was just the minimum payments but over the past few months, the minimum payment has went down and I've just kept paying the same amount.  I've finally got a plan together on how we're going to pay off our credit card debt.  The decision has been made once and for all to use all extra money to get rid of this debt.  Any extra money that I make on my check is going to debt.  The first debt on the chopping block is our American Express.  Later today, I plan to cut it up and never use it again.  It had been a convenience because Costco only accepts debit cards or American Express.  It became to easy to use it for purchases that we had cash for and then turn around and use the cash for something else.  The balance on that card is about $1100.  My goal for having that balance eliminated is January 2013.  After that, we will focus on the next in a long line fo credit cards.  Until then, Happy Debting!

Checking In

I've been so busy that I havent' been on a computer in two days.  My energy levels are at an all time low and I just can't find the energy to complete small tasks.  I haven't been on the computer in a couple of days but as I was catching up on blogs that I read, I ran across a paragraph from one of my favorite bloggers Bridget from Money After Graduation was talking about debt as a dating deal breaker.  Since I'm married that part doesn't apply to me but she aptly described how debt makes her feel. 
She said "Debt is a one-of-a-kind, soul-crushing burden. It puts a damper on every day. It turns my decent salary into pittance. It forces me to go without many things I enjoy. Ultimately, it just exhausts me with its demands on my bank balance. I want to keep the money I earn, I don’t want to give it away to my past spending — or someone else’s."  That paragraphy just resonates with me.  That's how I feel about our debt.  My husband makes a good salary and with what I bring in, we should be able to do fantastic things (along with saving a ton of money), but because of our out of control past-spending, we're stuck in a not so fun place.  The only way to get out is to put our focus on paying off the debt and whittling it away as fast as we can.

When It Rains, It Pours...

inside my house, ruining part of the ceiling, carpet and wallboard. Awesome, I know.  You wish you were me.  It wasn't really an expense we were expecting, but thus is home ownership.  It's not the roof (he took a look today), it's the chimney.  So now we wait for the chimney guys to take a look and give an estimate so it can get repaired.  I'm surprisingly calm about this situation.  So we will wait...

Another Monday Morning

It's another Monday morning and I'm enjoying the sound of silence and the crisp temperatures that have descending on my little town.  It's amazing how much more energy you have when 100+ degree weather isn't around.  I have a lot going on this week.  I need to buy some back to school items for the kiddo and do a general prep of all that.  We started putting him to be earlier so that by the time school starts next week he will be on a good schedule.  The only test will be if my husband wakes him up early this week while I'm at work to prep him for the morning portion.  Things are going okay on the money front.  We could be doing better, but we could also be doing a lot worse.  Just trying to make it until payday without spending too much.  Have a great day!

A Moment of Peace

Right now, I'm sitting at work enjoying a moment of peace.  It feels so good.  This whole summer has been a blur of activities, job training and miserable temperatures.  I'm the type of person that needs to have some quiet time each day to focus on my daily goals and to just be a pleasant human being.  Today is the first day of the entire summer that I have been allowed more than 10 minutes of quiet reflection.  It's amazing how much it invigorates me and helps me organize my thoughts.  I know the chaos will start soon but being able to have this time for reflection helps me conquer the day.  Ahhh....quiet time, how I've missed you.

Difficulty Keeping On Budget

My frustration level with my husband is at an all time high.  It's very difficult being the only adult that watches the budget.  I know that I'm not perfect and I buy things that I don't need (hello Diet Coke) but I feel like I'm the only person taking our debt reduction plan seriously.  I've tried to have conversations with him but they never get very far.  He's onboard as long as he doesn't have to be deprived of what he wants.  For example, he wanted to go to a local consignment shop that sells brand name clothing.  He ended up finding a pair of practically brand new tennis shoes and decided that they were something he needed.  He needed them because he didn't have any casual tennis shoes and they were only $20.  Forget that he has at least three other pairs of tennis shoes and will shortly need to replace his work shoes that are wearing out.  Was there $20 in the checking account to pay for these shoes? Yes.  So what's the problem?  Well you need work shoes and the $20 you spent on tennis shoes could've helped pay for the work shoes that you actually needed, not shoes that you want. This only leaves me more frustrated because I feel like I need to make up for his budget shortfalls by scrimping on things that my son and I need.  I'm so tired of putting myself in second place when it comes to finances. 

Just Blah

This summer I have had absolutely no motivation to get things done.  I feel like I'm just hanging in there.  I have no desire to take my son to the pool, to clean our house.  I have no desire to do anything except get watch TV and mess around on the internet.  It's been very difficult to get the motivation together to do anything I should be doing.  In my mind, I'm always putting it off until the next day and then the next and then the next.  I need to snap out of this funk and just get excited about something, anything.

Precious Dollars

I withdrew our grocery money for the next two weeks from our bank account today.  I am determined to stick to the grocery/household budget for this week and I think using cash will make me more mindful of my spending.  It certainly did today after I left work.  It has been 100+ degrees this week and I've made it a habit of stopping at the grocery store on the way to pick my son up from camp and grabbing a bottle of soda.  With tax, it's almost $2.  I really wanted a soda today.  But I just couldn't bring myself to stop and grab one because I didn't want to part with my precious dollars knowing how scarce they are and that we still need to do a big grocery shop.

Being Taken Advantage Of Comes To An End

WARNING NON-PF RANT AHEAD:  I am completely flabbergasted by what some people will ask of others.  This last year has been a growing year in terms of offering to do something out of kindness and just keeping my mouth shut and going on my merry way. Over the past year, I have been bamboozled over and over again by a co-worker that is just plain lazy.  Let's get things straight, this person is a co-worker, not a superior.  Unfortunately, she thinks she "rules the roost" and would ask me to do things that I now know are not my job.  All in the vein of being "too busy" to complete the task herself.  Now, I'd be more than happy to help if she really needed it.  But I don't think that checking personal e-mail, paying your household bills and surfing the internet qualifies as being "too busy" to perform your job.
When I was starting my job, I was told that we just work through lunch (which I'm fine with) but that often times one of us girls goes and get carryout for our office of 3.  It turns out that I was always the one that went to go get lunch.  I don't begrude my boss because she physically can't leave the office during office hours.  Not only would I get lunch, but she never gave me enough money to completely cover her portion.  If the meal was $7.69, she give me $8 even though with tax it was $8.35.  In the beginning I didn't quibble because it was only $.35 but after awhile when she never gave me enough to cover her meal, I started to get pissed.  I didn't want to make waves so I just stopped going to get lunch (which is better for the budget anyway).
Last but not least, the summer "carpool".  Because my son is not old enough to stay home by himself, he has to go to camp so I can continue working.  Because my schedule is flexible and part-time, I can adjust my schedule to his camp schedule in order to get him to and from camp.  Co-worker decided that she would sign her son up for a couple of weeks at same camp my son attends.  But, uh-oh, he had no way to get there and back because her work schedule wouldn't let her.  She asked if I could take her son to and from camp.  Because they only live a few minutes from camp and were signed up for the same early drop off program, I didn't mind.  The first of two weeks, I texted her and asked that he be ready and waiting for the early morning run.  She texts back that MWF his older sister would take him to camp before she had to be at work because it was too early for him and he wanted to sleep in a bit but wanted to make sure that we could still take him on T & R because his sister wanted to "sleep in".  So excuse me, you have a method to take your son to camp but you're going to ask someone else.
So, in conclusion, all of this comes to an end tomorrow afternoon when I drop off her son for the last time because it his last day of camp.  And it will really come to an end in a couple of weeks, as co-worker is moving out of state.  My parting words to co-worker is GOOD RIDDANCE and GO F**K YOURSELF! 

Decluttering

I saw on another blog (but can't remember the name) that they were doing an all house decluttering.  The idea is to pick one room a week and start there.  I've never started before because it all seemed so overwhelming and I just didn't know how to start.  Well, starting with one room seems like a good idea to me so that's where I'll start.  Now I just need to decide which room I'm starting with :)

I Think I Can, I Think I Can

Although our debt seems daunting right now, I know that it won't always be.  And that, my friends, is my positive thought for a lovely Friday.

What's Been Happening Since We Last Talked

So when we left off last year, I still had two jobs and was theoretically able to pay off big chunks of debt.  Unfortunately, shortly after my last post, I was given an ultimatum from my side job.  It was work more hours and leave the job at my son's school.  Working more hours wasn't a choice that I was ready to make at that time, so I opted to stay at my son's school.  So not only do I not have an extra paycheck to put towards debt/savings, I make about $200 per pay period less than I did when I had just one job. This meant we were running a deficit every month.  Which resulted in an increased debt load. Fortunately, we've been able to sort of slow the bleeding and refocus on debt repayment.  We were able to refinance our house earlier this year, and I've been asked to work more hours in the school office come this fall.  This is round 2 of a very long fight.

Wow, it's been over a year since I've updated this blog.  But since we find ourselves in an even bigger debt hole than we were last year, I'm hoping that re-establishing a routine of accountability will lead us to finally get out of debt for good.  A lot of things have changed since last year.  I have changed jobs moving from two jobs to one.  Even though I'm paid less at my current job, the flexibilty I have with my schedule is awesome and has added to my quality of life.  Of course there are days when I wish I made more money or consider switching jobs to make more money but in the long run it's better for me and my family to stay where I'm at.  So, here's to making an effort again to finally living a life in the green.