My Debt Blog

I didn’t have much to post last week after the crazy $300 weekend that spawned a ton of comments from my readers. This weekend wasn’t that bad except for Saturday. Our cat decided to jump on a table and chew on my wife’s iPod. Now my wife is extremely picky about wear and tear and needs everything new looking all the time, so this was not good. I got her this thing for Christmas like 2 years ago and now it is no good because the cat chewed a button on it?

We went down to the mall (HATE HATE MALLS!) to the Apple store to their GeniousBar (yeah, and they use Macs, right) to see what could be done. They told us it could be replaced for $99 but he suggested the little wear and tear to this unit, it might be better to eBay it and buy a new one. She likes hers because it’s original and looks to me for the answer regarding spending $99 to replace this thing. I was annoyed that the decision has to end up in my hands, but I told her that we really don’t have the money right now to do this and there is nothing functionally wrong with the device. Needless to say, she didn’t like my answer.

After she calmed down about not replacing the iPod, the tables turned to cell phones. Our current cell phone contract is up and we’re going to switch providers, and get new phones of course. She thinks it would be a good idea to get an iPhone so she can get a new phone and an iPod in one device. I didn’t even have to say anything to let her know my answer. The iPhone is a toy! It is a very expensive, media hyped, expensive, fancy looking, expensive, toy! Then she just told me she would get it with her credit card. I feel like things are spinning out of control. As I am working so hard to avoid credit, spending, etc. the efforts are being counterbalanced by my wife.

Not sure what to do here anymore. I feel like we’re going in our own directions here and not working together. The pressure of having to borrow money to sell our house bothers the crap out of me. Sure it makes sense to trade a larger loan for a smaller one, but I think this is the wrong time to do this. I would like her to get finished with student teaching, currently a few miles from where we live, so that we could move next year once she’s done. The market sucks, moving sucks, and borrowing money to move sucks.

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I feel financially defeated this month already and the month has barely started. My wife’s friend had a birthday party this past Saturday and invited us downtown to celebrate with her. Since according to my wife that we never do anything fun, we had to go do this. I got my paycheck two days early so there was some money available now.

The weekend started with Friday going to the mall (I HATE MALLS!) and eating out at Subway ($13). Then we had to go shopping because I guess I needed a shirt. I got two shirts at the GAP ($62) I hope she won’t mind me wearing for at least two years. At least we went home after that.

Saturday brought the bulk of the expense. I got a haircut at a place down the street ($16) and my wife got her nails done ($40) at a salon she frequents, to her credit this is semi budgeted. Had to fill up the car with gas ($32) and got cash out of the ATM ($100) to bring with us. Drove to downtown Chicago, north side and searched for public parking for 45 minutes so we could stay with a friend (FREE!). Got some drinks ($15 from $100 cash leaving $85) and ate pizza (my friend covered it) and got ready to go out. We decided to take a cab to the lounge ($10 from cash, $75 left). This is where the fun part came in. For $35 a person, cover, drinks, included, to get into the place ($70 gone from cash, $5 bucks left). My wife and I made sure to get our money’s worth out of that though and after about 10 drinks I was good, my wife could still hold her own at 6. By now it’s roughly 2:30 in the morning downtown and we leave the bar and go to her friend’s new apartment. We decided to get some greasy food to go with our booze and I ended up using some random ATM and paid the fee ($20 cash plus $3 fee, whatever the food cost). We had to take a cab back to our friend’s apartment at 4 in the morning (used the last of cash).

Sunday my wife and I were probably slightly hung over from exercising a barely used drinking muscle but were able to function, just not very efficiently. We rolled out of my friends place around 1 in the afternoon and at lunch ($15) and then headed home. I didn’t do much of anything yesterday so I will have to do more today to make up for the loss of a weekend.

We still have bills to pay and need to keep on top of other things and now I feel down $300 starting out. I have a feeling we’re going to be eating at home all month and really watching the money situation for this month now. It is difficult for some reason for me to convey to my wife bills and expenses should be considered before other stuff, but that isn’t always the case. She still wants to move downtown but there is no way we could do this kind of thing every weekend. This month our cell phone plan is also up so that means we will be getting new phones as soon as possible. I just wish I knew how we were going to pay for them without causing a fight, but more on that later.

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I guess my wife feels that our bathroom was holding us back from actually listing our house in this lousy housing market. Lucky for me I had some help to get the bathroom painted. The paint is a blue color to go with our bedspread since the bedroom was already painted back in May. Granted I think the room probably could use some paint because the old stuff was cracking and faded in places.

We went through our closets and storage areas and found a lot of stuff we’re going to get rid of come trash pickup day. I just hope the garbage people will take it all away for us though so I don’t have to locate a dumpster. We need to find a second hand store to try to sell off the stuff we don’t want but don’t want to throw out. It would be nice to get some money for some of this stuff though.

I’m almost at the end of the month of July and there’s still money in the checking account! This has not happened in the past 3-4 months because of things carrying over funny or using money in there for checks making them hot. I hate writing hot checks too because you just never know how quickly that money may try to escape you.

My wife has a limited amount of time to work full time because school will start soon. She is concerned we’re not going to have enough money to make it without her working. After suggesting I get a second job, I suggested to her we should probably be adjusting our lifestyle to fit my income first? Could I get a second job if necessary? I’ve done many jobs prior to my career that may not pay very well but would bring some extra cash in. I’m not at all lazy but at the same time working 70 hours a week to keep things the same as they always are isn’t a solution.

I’m still mulling over things regarding selling this house. The costs of doing this are even more stressful and I don’t know if my wife is concerned about that. She continues to spend time checking out apartments online and pictures make things look so much better than how it is right now. Are stainless steel appliances and granite countertops with porcelain sinks neat? Sure it is but it also increases the monthly rent and delays our ability to get out of debt. I guess it boils down to a balance between money and lifestyle. More money does not mean better lifestyle and our lifestyle should not require more money.

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It has been yet another rough month with some unexpected expenses. All the bills at least got paid, including the dreaded car insurance bill. Some extra money had to come in from the EF and other sources (my birthday) to cover things this month. Part of the problem is things became due early in the month when the money is not available. I also hate playing the catch up game from the previous month. There was way too much month for the money to go around.

I also need to come clean on something. My wife and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary and we started out the month in the red. I ended up using my credit card to buy her gift and go to a fancy restaurant. The damage is about $400 and this month’s payment pretty much covers the finance charges but does not do much to the principle balance. She also used her credit card to buy my gift, something I needed, and another smaller one, something I did not. I at least convinced her that the other thing was not necessary, so it could be returned. Resorting to a credit card when we didn’t have the money is not something I’m proud of anymore. I feel guilty and embarrassed, but did not want to ruin our first anniversary because the money wasn’t available for that moment.

Last big chunk of news is my teeth are breaking down from a lack of responsibility in my early years. I never had much of a problem taking care of my teeth as a kid, but when I got braces it became complicated to try to keep everything clean. A lot of the problems could have been addressed if they were caught early. I also was not the best at going to the dentist during my college years to even have the opportunity. At my dentist appointment this past weekend, I need to have about 3-4 molars crowned at about 1k each out of pocket because I have maxed my insurance for the current year. There is not much of a time frame for how long my chompers will last before they start break down. So far I have had prep work done on 2 of them just to hold me over for now. The good news to all of this (yeah what good news) is I have no problems with the nerves or roots and won’t need any root canals done. The dentist offered me a payment plan system where I could borrow what would be needed to cover the cost, and then make monthly payments over a predefined term. I really don’t want to borrow money, but at the same time I don’t want to lose my teeth trying to avoid debt.

I’m not sure if this is the best time to be selling the house. There is no money on hand to do it right now, which my wife hates to hear. She has been drooling over apartments lately, some of which the rent is higher than our current mortgage payment. That is not a direction I will even let her pretend to justify to me. We’re going to lose money on the house in closing costs because the house is not going to sell for much more than we bought it. The market is soft and slow, there are 26 other houses in our area on the market, and only 1 has a contract. The realtor says we should jump in quickly and get on the market if we want to have a chance to sell. I’m not completely on board 100% about selling anymore which pisses off my wife to no end. We are not in a very good position right now to sell and at the same time get an apartment. She currently has a summer job, but I’m not sure what job she will do later this year if she delays student teaching. I would like her to finish her master’s degree and be officially done with school so she can focus next year on getting a job as an actual teacher. Part of me feels she is not happy about everything is that she has been in college for the past 6 years and is having trouble finding the end. I’m not sure what I’m going to do anymore. It feels like my foundation is coming apart beneath me.

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This past weekend was the time for garage sales for my area. We pulled all or junk out of the basement and storage, brought it upstairs, got it set up on tables and tagged. Saturday morning came, it was raining and nobody near us had their garage door open either. I accidentally scheduled a dentist appointment that Saturday too and was going to cancel it but decided to go because I could at least get something done that day. Dentist didn’t cost me any money because I had a credit, but got some ugly news that I’ll discuss later on the blog.

When Sunday came around, the weather was still lousy and nobody had their garage doors open in the morning. By about 11:00 am there was one small one around the corner of our subdivision, they were just sitting there watching cars. We never even opened the garage door because the last thing I wanted to do was just passively sit there waiting for someone to come by.

All is not a loss though. My wife called her parents and their area has a garage sale day (my parents already had theirs) and we could haul our stuff down there to sell it in August. We’re going down there in about 1 week so we won’t have to store too much stuff in our basement waiting to get rid of it. Out of sight, out of mind is what I’m after, but the extra cash would have been nice.

On the subject of extra cash though, my wife received ALL of her paychecks in a lump sum for the last 4-5 pay periods today. She got a bit wide eyed when she looked at the pay stub we got in the mail Saturday. I told her the majority of this money must be held in savings to cover things for this summer. There is a few ways to handle this. Keep her ‘paycheck’ the same amount as if nothing changed, or her paycheck could take a slight cut to help make that money last us another month depending on how much to cut. I’m trying my best to get her more involved with the money stuff because she does not want to deal with it. The bills was one of those things I wanted her to sit down with me to look at, but because I have always just taken care of it, that’s what she expected me to do. I have to get these things paid and in the mail today though so they make it on time. Maybe next month will be better, at least the emergency fund is refunded back to 1k and the car insurance will get paid. It is nice to feel that we will make it this month after the way it started out.

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It was pretty rough this past week trying to get our bank account to survive until payday. I don’t like all the money going out so quickly either, but the time frame for some of these things put us in a bottleneck. With the money coming back in again it eases the pressure to get things done. I would just like us to have more long term goals beyond the end of this month. At least I am considering December already because car insurance and Christmas always feels like a one-two punch.

This weekend we’re going to have a garage sale to try to hopefully get rid of a bunch of stuff we have taking up space in storage. My wife thinks we should also sell our dining table and the 4 chairs out there with the stuff we wouldn’t miss. I asked her what the intentions are for the money from the garage sale, and sure as I already knew the answer, we would need to go out and buy us a new table and chairs to go with our furniture. The only real positive side to this is we would have the money to pay cash for this new purchase. On the flipside though, why replace the dining table and chairs if we don’t need to? I don’t get it.

My wife is excited for some reason to get rid of our house and go rent an apartment near the city. I’m not sure what timeframe she has in mind that we should move, but the realtor we bought our house with does not want to work with us to sell it. She says that because it has only been a year, the market is soft, and there is not a ton of equity involved, it might be difficult to sell and we wouldn’t make money off it, or even cost us money to sell it. We don’t have the money available at this time if it does cost us to sell. The answer of course is to find a realtor who is willing to sell our house, not considering the cost of course. The house is financed under me alone because I bought it just before we were married, so I could refinance the loans and possibly turn it into a rental that would pay for itself granted I find the right people.

So why is she excited about selling the house even if it costs us money to do it? She has been browsing these rental websites finding various apartments or condos for rent with really nice stuff. Stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, vaulted ceilings, nice view overlooking the Lake Michigan and/or Chicago, and of course these places are near stores, parks, bars, etc. Details of course that I look at are the cost per month, which is lower than what we pay now but only by a few hundred, is that even worth moving?. The other part is most of the time apartments require a security deposit of about one month’s rent. So we would need to have the amount of the rent available just so we can rent the apartment. The money does not have much of a plan so nothing is earmarked to be saved each month. I’m trying to explain to her that we need a budget so the money has a purpose and isn’t spent before we even have it (currently the biggest problem). It is taking time but nothing has clicked yet.

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Along with the accomplishments I have made in my life, graduating college, getting married, buying a house, one of them may have been a mistake. Last year we made the choice to get out of renting an apartment and buy a house. This decision was proposed by my wife at the time and I was reluctant to make such a major move because of the cost increase. I think a warning flag should have gone off here.

We went to the bank to get pre-qualified so we could figure out what we could afford. I knew nothing about mortgages or how the process worked and basically learned as much as I could so I knew what was going on. Somewhere I heard that you should buy the most house for the money, so we used the upper limit of what the bank said we could afford. Being first time home buyers, what we wanted and what was available did not always match. Eventually we found the right house, got a pre-approval for a loan, and went into contract on it.

From that point there were issues with getting all the details together and problems with the underwriting process. I had to make some moves, like paying down the loan of my car so the bank no longer considered it as a monthly payment. Eventually all the financing was cleared and we closed April last year.

We are debating selling the house because it is costing us around the 40-45% mark of our current monthly take home income. That is all the cost for our two mortgages, property taxes, and insurance. Everything is current and that is not the issue, but the payment is about twice what our rent used to be. The idea was this might be high right now but would balance out once she has an actual salary job starting her career once she’s done with school. A majority of the money is going to interest anyways because the mortgages are so fresh, so very little progress is being made to actually afford the house. This is where selling the house and renting in the downtown Chicago area comes in.

The other side of this question is my wife is not happy with where we live because she feels lonely, no social life or friends. Simply put, she refuses to live where we currently live because she is unhappy where we live. I think she feels that if we sold the house and moved into the city, she’ll be happy, have friends, and plenty of stuff to do. I’m very bittersweet about selling the house and moving downtown because it feels like we’re starting over. The benefits of being downtown though would be lower house payment (just rent and insurance) would save money to put towards debt, I could sell my car (which I love but would not be necessary) and we would save on insurance and gas cost, and that extra money could go towards debt.

I think we’re viewing the extra money that would come into play with selling the house and renting again in different directions. The way I see it is we could really make some progress in paying off our debt while my wife would feel the extra money is no longer dedicated to something and can improve our lifestyle. The house does not have much equity in it so after all the fees and such are said and done, I don’t think we would make anything off it which sucks. We have moved every single year since 2001 and I thought we were done moving for awhile. At the time we bought the house, I never intended to just turn around and sell it a year later, but it looks like it has come to that.

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