My Debt Blog

We’re finally in the first full week of the first month of the year. I was worried about my paycheck being less than what it normally was due to increased cost of insurance, but it wasn’t too bad. Even with that said, it still wasn’t much money to work with coming out of December. At the same time my wife has no money coming in yet which is now a problem.

My wife graduated with her masters, so she is officially a teacher now. I am patiently waiting for her to make the effort to get a temporary substitute job while she is working on a more germinate position. She is fully qualified and will make a great teacher, but the school isn’t going to hand her a job. Money has been tight since she stopped working and did student teaching. We need to get back to DINK (Dual Income No Kids) stage so enough money is coming in so I don’t feel all the pressure.

The reason I’m frustrated during this period of single income, our spending has increased not decreased. Sometimes I would pull from the EF just to hold us over to rebuild it back to its original amount. Since the EF was blown apart in December, we don’t have any cash to spare right now. This is why I get very frustrated when stupid things come up like Coldstone (ice cream) and Starbucks. We can’t afford these things right now and really need discipline when it comes to spending. No more using the credit cards to hold things over.

I’ve tried to have a serious talk about money before, but it usually turns into something else. The last thing I need is a fight because that doesn’t accomplish or change the present situation at all. Something tells me I’m going to have to find an additional job to bring in extra income. I hope she gets some temporary sub spots soon because we can really use the money to help ease the pressure I have been under. We have awhile to go yet before I get paid again and 2/3 of that goes directly to our regular monthly bills. Lifestyle is going to get seriously cut here until the income situation improves.

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This is probably the worst update I have posted thus far while I pretend to get out of debt. Christmas is just too difficult to manage and my income couldn’t keep up with our regular household expenses. What pisses me off the most is I feel like I have no control over the finances because I’m the only one who cares. More money isn’t going to solve anything, it’s just an illusion to be able to spend more. Here’s the breakdown of the damage:

I’m pretty sure I knew this would happen in the middle of December. My wife had to have this expensive purse and all this other crap, paying bills isn’t fun and gets forgotten. She got a rude awakening one morning that her store credit card hadn’t been paid. It isn’t my fault she signed up for the card, bought so much stuff that it is now maxed out, and then doesn’t pay it on top of that. My debt reduction was cut in half due to Christmas on credit and the EF is blown away since she has no income. My wife must find a job so we can get the mess cleaned up. She’s more concerned about her outfit for a social event we’re going to Friday. At some point things need to be paid for before buying more things. I’m extremely frustrated and burned out trying to manage the finances. What a way to start the new year.

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We’re finally in January of 2008. Last year I started my journey to get out of debt in March, and I’m only a few months away from this blog’s one year anniversary. Too much threw me for a loop and December wasn’t a month I was excited about. Christmas cost way too much and the car insurance bill I just wasn’t prepared to deal with.

The primary reason things got more difficult to deal with last year was my wife went from making decent money in the spring, half of what she was making in the summer, to absolutely no income in the fall. Logic and reasoning would be that spending should go down as income goes down the opposite is what ended up happening. I think between the two of us about 2k was spent on Christmas and the holidays in general. My credit card was much abused and my next plastic pinch update will be rather embarrassing.

I need some goals though and the first is to figure out where I stand in a financial aspect. My file box is a mess and needs to be cleaned up too so it will be easier to find stuff. The spreadsheet I use as a check register hasn’t been updated since I went on my vacation, which was the entire second half of December. These things need to get back in order again for me to be able to feel back in control of the money and rebuild the EF that got drained in December. For those loyal readers, thanks for your continued support as I try to get back on my feet.

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