My Debt Blog

I’m not having a very good July even though it’s only been a week. We can’t pay down debt and on top of that it has gone up because the student loans are growing. My wife got in a car accident, she’s okay but the repairs to the car will clear our EF. I am financially and emotionally drained right now and not sure when I’m going to bounce back.

So where do we go from here? I looked at her student loan statements the other day, she refuses to even bother with them, and the payments make me feel defeated. They can go into a forbearance or possibly economic hardship but we still need to find a way to pay them at some point. I guess for now I will put that issue aside since we have so many other fish to fry.

I know I don’t mention it too much but I still contribute to my 401k plan. I’m down probably 1.5k which is a huge chunk of money. At the same time while it’s down at the moment it will eventually go back up. It is still depressing to see the numbers go down so far and quickly, but that is the risk of the market. I’ve also debated the idea of stopping my contribution in order to increase cash flow to pay down debt.

Our vacation is planned here in the coming weeks and I doubt we can afford to go. My parents are picking up the bulk of our cost but the $600 intended to cover our expense may not cut it. With no EF to fall back on I hope the damage to the credit card will be minimal if we have to resort to it at all. If my parents were not involved in paying for this trip, it would be canceled.

Sorry I haven’t posted as frequently lately but I’m trying to keep the funk to a minimum. I’ll come up with a strategy at some point but right now I’m tired. The stress of the situation could very well be leading to depression. It makes me wonder how much more crap I have to do before things will get better.

Comments(14)

As the weekend approaches I can at least rest assured that the end of the month is Monday. At the start of each month I have a paycheck and listing of known expenses and some estimated ones. I’m always on edge as the money starts to run low in the middle and the end of a month. I’m not sure if something bad is going to happen or there will be an unforeseen expense that jumps on me at the wrong time.

June had some rough challenges due to having to go through a root canal and paying the car insurance bill. This was a challenge however at the same time my wife brought home some extra money this month from her new job. This check was for roughly half a week’s worth of training time and helped us buffer some of these increased expenses. Unfortunately even with the extra money and expenses we weren’t able to really tackle the debt load. July is a new month though and we have a vacation planned towards the end of it. Since we’ll be gone for a week of July, some expenses will be reduced. The last thing I want to do is go into debt or blow away the emergency fund in a month we went on vacation.

I’m in the process of creating a post on the various dental work I have had done. This stuff is expensive even with insurance, but it had to be done right away. My insurance changed and it isn’t easy to front the cost while waiting on a check in the mail to put those funds back in my account. I think I’m going to try a different dentist after this last procedure is finished.

Last thing I’m excited about is the annual Taste of Chicago starts this weekend. We got our Taste tickets early during their presale for $6 per strip of 12, 4 strips at a time. Since we were unable to go last year due to a wedding, it should be a good time this year.

Comments(4)

My birthday was about two weeks ago and something I have wanted to try out was Quicken 2008. I had looked at this software for a few months and considered buying it near the tax time because of the rebates and such. When my birthday came around, and I don’t want or desire much, I received a copy of Quicken 2008 Deluxe. Installed it, got our primary accounts setup, and wondering where to go from there.

This weekend we went to Borders bookstore and I bought a guide on how to use Quicken. Going through this book I have made a lot of progress in the program now. I have entered all the transactions for May and up to the weekend for June, and am tempted to go back and manually enter stuff for January to April to track things on a YTD basis. What I really like about this program is the ability to easly see cash flow for the month. It has the income and the outgo boxes showing what income to expect and an idea of the bills and such, then it shows what is left over we could save (or use to pay off debt).

There is a budget feature in the program, but with only one month in there I’m not sure how it will calculate things. Plus a budget should not be a template that is going to be the same month to month. We haven’t had much luck with a budget, but things were easier to lay out when I put the bills in a list. This makes things rather clear when the bills come in, how much we have to spend to pay them, and then what is left over. One thing I think that Quicken will help us with is the ability to at least track how much is being spent on clothing and eating out.

Doing some quick math on what my wife will make from her summer job, it will be slightly more than what she currently earns at her current job. The flipside though is it will cost more in gas to get to the new job, so this will have to be tracked to see if there is any increase. If there is an increase it will help us pay debt and save more, as long as we keep things relatively the same as they are today. I’ll see if I can get a pie graph or something with where we are spending our money.

Comments(0)

I never like getting to January in that the damage from Christmas is actually felt this month. It has been a difficult month to get through on one income on top of that. With no EF or additional income, it is getting increasingly difficult to keep focus. As the pressure or weight of carrying everything gets to me, it gets harder to keep going. I’m to that paycheck to paycheck point and there is nothing to show for it.

So if January was bad, how does February get better? We need to pay close attention how much is coming in, and what needs to go out. My wife will also be setup to help with our household income, even though it won’t be permanent yet. Spending is the single most important issue that needs to be watched very closely.

Getting through February is important because I’m patiently waiting on my bonus. The bonus does not necessarily fix problems, but it will help turn things in a much more positive direction. I can’t post details yet because it isn’t in hand yet. Priority before paying down debt is to get that EF back to 1k though.

Expect my regular monthly plastic pinch update and my net worth update. I might as well point out that debt is going up and net worth is going way down, partly due to the huge hit I’m taking on my retirement savings. Even though it is only Monday, I cannot wait until Friday comes around.

Comments(7)

I’m actually glad it’s a Monday for a change. Friday is payday and we have no money until then. Right now I’m the sole breadwinner between my wife and me. The student teaching she did for no money was rough and we had to get through that. I never really liked or understood why they cannot pay student teachers since they’re still doing a job. Now she’s done with that and graduated.

We’re half way through the month and I am a little concerned that nothing has happened yet. She puts in applications into places and then has to go get tests done, background check, and a lot of run around. Why wasn’t she informed about the process before now I have no idea? At the same time, no job and no income either.

I’m frustrated about how we’re going about spending money now. There’s only so much money for the month, and the normal household expenses usually stay consistent. Last month we spent way more than what came in, along with the car insurance bill. Now is the time to really assess what we’re spending money on. When we were in the grocery store the other day, I was adding in my head what we were getting. My wife doesn’t always think about the cost of things, so when I reminded her we only have so much in the account, she got upset. I’m doing my best here trying to keep things together, but at times I feel like she could be doing more.

There have been plenty of comments in the past that we’re never going to get anywhere unless we’re on the same page. I agree with that, which is why I’ve stopped trying to pay off debt for now. There is no point in my efforts unless my wife also believes in the cause. I just want to focus on the necessary expenses right now. When the bills come in I track their balances and payments due. It will take a long time to clear the balances when we only pay the minimum required monthly payment. This is where those DMP and credit counseling programs catch her attention. I don’t like resorting to something like that, but the idea of those is you pay one monthly payment and they distribute it between the creditors involved. There’s a specific chart and a roadmap of how long it will take to be debt free. It would be great to get rid of credit cards, but I don’t think we need a program to do this.

I also brought up the sour subject of student loan debt. These loans can’t go anywhere quickly when we are still working on our credit card debt. Getting rid of credit card debt is more important than paying off student loans. It just takes time and sacrifice to dedicate the income towards the cause. I only have so much control over money, and that’s not saying much.

Comments(11)

Don’t be misled by the title, I am current on all my credit card accounts. I also encourage paying beyond the minimum payment on credit cards, of course focusing more effort on the one you want to rid your life of faster. Last night I was crunching the numbers on some of my cards and noticed differences in the balances based on the day I made a payment to the account. This gave me an idea on how to save a little extra each month.

If you carry a balance on a credit card, you’re going to pay interest at the APR of that card. When you make a payment before or on the due date, the balance on the card is less than it was before you made the payment. I usually just make payments at regular points in the month because that’s the system that I structured. This usually means I make a payment to an account a little before the actual due date. I realized I have been focusing on the wrong date.

Every time a bill is generated with all of the previous month’s details, it has a billing date, minimum payment amount, and a due date. Instead of focusing on making sure I make a payment before that due date, I should be making a payment on the billing date to lower that balance as soon as the bill is generated. This would save about 30 days of interest every month. Although it is not much of a difference it would add up in the long run.

So I’m calling all my credit card companies and trying to get some dates shifted around for me so that the billing date is at the date I make payments to the accounts. This will also take some careful planning because I’ll probably have to make two payments within one month in order to pull this off and stay in front of them.

I’m still working on the 0% balance transfer card and thinking about transferring balances from two cards over to that, so I can pay both off at once at 0% interest in 12 months. I’m going to probably transfer $1800 even so that 12 payments of $150 will eliminate that debt once and for all. Transferring credit card debt does not pay it off, it just moves to a place that makes it easier to pay it faster. Hopefully I will have an update on how this is going at the end of the month.

Comments(6)

I’m not sure if it is Wells Fargo’s fault or not, could be trusted USPS, but a payment didn’t make it to the bank. I got a letter this weekend that things are behind so I called them up to take care of it. The collections department isn’t very nice either, but I wasn’t expecting them to be friendly since I appear like a deadbeat to them.

Needless to say I’m fronting some fees that I hope I can get waived since every payment prior to this has posted just fine. There is a concern now that a regular bill payment mailed USPS is not going to make it to the destination. Now more than ever am I wanting to pay everything electronically so I can rest assured my payment is there.

Since I paid it electronically today it will take a few days before my account is brought back current. Unlike issues with credit cards, this one is way more serious and I should of stay on top of these checks not clearing. Can’t always trust the mail these days I guess.

Comments(1)