My Debt Blog

Thanksgiving is that time of year we’re supposed to be give thanks for the things we take for granted. This is not the case with major retailers given that they make 25-50% of their annual profits in the 40 days between holidays. Not that I wanted to go, my wife and I got caught up in the Black Friday mess.

I noticed a lot of stuff, even on sale, wasn’t that great of a deal considering I have seen the same prices weeks before. So what makes it about Black Friday that gives people permission to spend money? My wife actually didn’t spend that much money and meanwhile I got my mom the doorbuster Mickey Mouse snow globe at JCPenny. So we’re still in the black for now.

December is going to be another story. Just as the issue came up in June, our semi-annual car insurance bill is coming due. An added bonus though my wife’s insurance will be discounted more so we will save over $100 bucks this time around. It will still take some money though to cover our insurance bill so we’re covered the New Year. I’m not sure how we’re going to do both Christmas and car insurance in the same month. My wife starts to look at that emergency fund as though it is regular savings for this time of year. It almost sounds like she thinks we should go into the New Year with no EF.

At the same time along with Christmas is my wife’s birthday. She already told me she wants a Coach purse for Christmas and the matching wallet for her birthday. I’m at a loss here when it comes to figuring out how to cash flow a $300-400 gift. Getting out of debt isn’t a priority to her this year and I don’t know if it will be next year. Sometimes I just want to stop trying anymore because I’m not getting anywhere. Is all the effort on my part really worth it?

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I’m not sure what it is with relationships and money, there is never enough of one or the other. It seems for us when money is there our relationship is good, but as the money runs low or out for the month, it leads to problems and not talking. Why does money have so much power in a relationship?

I think there is a difference between poor and broke. My wife feels that when we run low or out of money we’re not doing any better than poor people. This bothers me big time because I define poor people as lazy and lack the ability to make money. There is a difference in poor and broke, and broke is temporary. We don’t really have a budget or spending plan as some people call them, so after the important bills and such are paid the remaining is used for the day to day. Eating out and clothing seem to be trending as our largest monthly expenses. I’m also finding it highly frustrating that I make a large amount of effort to stay on top of the money.

A friend of mine actually suggested to stop doing everything and let her take it over. I could do this but I cannot say that I would put it out of mind and would be keeping tabs that everything got properly paid for the month. The last thing I need is a bunch of people calling us because they show we did not pay a bill. What I really want to do is for us to work together when it comes to paying the bills and staying on top of the money. She can see what comes in and what goes out, and what little is left if any.

My wife suggested doing separate checking accounts which would split the money to my money and her money, no longer our money. I don’t agree with this because the common household expenses and bills would have to be split based on the income levels between us to make it fair. This almost reduces us to a roommate status living in the house together. The other things like taxes would also be separate on top of that. I am avoiding doing this like the plague.

I’ve taken on a lot more work lately and could very well possible be getting promoted which also comes with a pay increase. It would be nice to utilize extra pay and bonuses wisely in order to pay off debt faster. The problem that always comes up with lump sums of money is my wife almost mentally spends it before it hits the bank. I don’t seem to have much of any control over the extra money, which bothers me. Obviously this cannot continue because it isn’t working for either of us.

Please don’t bother mentioning marriage counseling because it is very expensive for a Dr. Phil to tell us we have a communication problem. I am fully aware of the problem it is more how we can solve it and work together. It’s difficult to keep putting myself on the line wanting to work with her, and she just tells me to keep doing what we’re doing. For the next month I would like us to do a spending activity where we will track every cent we spend every day for a month and identifying if it is a need or a want. At the end of the month we will see what is happening with the spending patterns. I would like to develop a spending plan or budget that we could actually follow, but it hard to solve the problem unless there is evidence of a problem.

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My wife has been doing her student teaching this week and trying to get the whole teacher role down. At any rate, she stayed after school for awhile yesterday to go over plans of what she will be doing for the semester. She is only obligated to be a student teacher for the fall semester and then she is done in December. After that it’s time for her to start finding a job.

This is where it gets interesting. Apparently a science teacher in the same group as the teacher my wife is student teaching under will be going on maternity leave. They are going to need someone to put in their place and my wife has a biology degree already and will have her education masters completed in December. From what she told me it sounds like they want to transition her right into a teaching role as a science teacher when she is done. I’m trying not to get too excited or jump to conclusions about this, but I think this is a very positive thing.

What was funny was I held back my reaction as best I could. My response was along the lines of that I felt that sounds like a good opening. Then she comes out with a compromising statement that if we did stay in our house longer, she would like to replace our kitchen/foyer flooring with linoleum. I estimate the cost of this to be about $500-700 which I would be willing to commit to in the event we hold off selling the house for awhile. This type of stuff my Dad and I could install, as we have done before.

She went downtown this past weekend to go shopping with her friends, which is good because I think she needed some social time with other females. At the same time her friend takes the taxi to places because parking is expensive. Apartments in the area we can afford to live are much smaller and everything much more crowded. I’m not sure if she wants to live close to her friends and the city based only on the idea of making more money when things will cost more overall.

We still have to make it through these next couple months on a tight budget. This is going to be a real challenge to be able to swing all of our expenses and still be able to do anything. What is going to be difficult is not going out to eat and forcing us to eat at home. We need to make it through these final months of her finishing school without an income. If this job is waiting for her when she is done, I think that is her finish line she needs to cross.

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I have been pretty upset with my wife since last night. She is going to be student teaching soon and has some time off until the school year starts. This week she has gone out shopping for clothes and setting things up for school every day. Our ‘budget’ has some room for her to be able to spend some money on clothes, but what happens when it’s gone? That is where the fighting started.

She came home with a few more bags then I had expected. At first I brushed it off because I just didn’t want to know what she spent on all this stuff. Later that night she modeled the various things she bought and I tried to keep my cool. Then the ultimate question came up: how much did all this cost? She told me not to worry about it which confused me at first, then she told me she opened a new credit card and charged about $250 on it. It feels every effort I make to pay off debt is shifted into a new debt.

This is when it got interesting because she told me that when she is done with student teaching and gets her job, she wants her own checking account to handle her money. I told her it is a good thing I’m not that selfish with my income in that I consider it both of ours since it pays the mortgage, bills, and general cost of living. It’s not like this stuff is invisible either because I show her the exact amounts of what all this stuff costs and the extra at the bottom is the only wiggle room we have. Its not that we don’t have enough money, there’s just not enough extra for her anymore.

It always seems like a simple solution is when there isn’t enough money for lifestyle, instead of cutting lifestyle for a period of time, try to make more money so the standard of living doesn’t change. We are effectively going nowhere quickly because any progress is balanced out by overspending. I’m also being compared to our friend who is in the banking industry and recently was promoted to a VP at the age of 25 (same age as me) and got a huge pay increase from his already large salary, which I’m not sure what to think about that. My wife wants me to keep pushing for promotions and pay increases and my response is always the same, it all takes time. It is starting to depress me when I’m trying so hard to make our lives better and she only sees success as job title and salary. She still doesn’t know for sure if teaching is what she wants to do for a career. I don’t know what to do anymore but things are really ugly right now.

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We’re almost through this month of August and I think the money is going to get tight. Pretty much what my wife made for the summer has also been used as regular income. She is going into student teaching now and they (her teachers, advisors, etc) suggest that she not try to work while doing this. It is going to be almost like an unpaid internship where the gain is learning experience. I’m a little bit frustrated because we were having problems before, but now we’re going to have some serious problems if the spending isn’t controlled next month.

Priorities need to really be taken into consideration next month and the months that follow. I have that 1k sitting in an EF for emergencies, not for other things. There are two tires on my car I’m not sure how long they will last but will need to be replaced here soon. I am trying to plan $100 a tire for this month and next month so there will be some money there to fix that situation. What is going to be difficult next month until November or December is not running to the EF to fix a problem.

The other solution is for me to work more to make up for what my wife used to bring in. I can get a second job in my sleep, but the reason for a second job must be justified first. In the meantime I am going to resort to a pastime of doing website design/maintenance services that I did in high school and college. These jobs are small and random as I find them on Craigslist and knock them out quickly because I know what I’m doing.

I don’t think there’s going to be much in the terms of debt repayment for the next few months other than just holding the ship steady. The only positive thing right now is my wife is in her final stage for her masters degree. After that it means no more borrowing money for school through student loans. We could finally put an end to both of us using credit cards for any reason. I hope she lands a job quickly when she is done so that the household income bumps way up over what it has always been. My income has gone up over the two year period I have worked and expect it to increase even more. This time next year we should be on a better path to really focus on getting rid of debt.

My plastic pinch update will be coming shortly.

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One of my little hobbies that really isn’t necessarily productive or anything like that is gaming. I know some people cannot understand why someone would be willing to sit in front of a TV for hours at a time, drinking Mt. Dew, and trying to keep their fingers from not cramping up. Walking through Target the other day and there it was, the Halo 3 preorders are available to reserve a copy for the 9/25 release at midnight. I want this game very badly.

What could I do with $60 though? My Zales credit card could get paid off that much faster if I added $60 to the payment, and I would kill that account maybe a little bit quicker. I could save that $60 for Christmas and just hope a copy is available later. The last one that came out around the same timeframe was Halo 2 and my wife held it hostage from me because it was for Christmas. I can’t go through that again, it’s not a healthy or normal behavior and puts me in a really bad mood.

This sucks so much. My wife has no problem with me buying it since she has a tendency to buy things she is after. She knows better than to go and buy a car or something stupid like that, but I have come home to certain purchases that ran us a few hundred in the past. That is the past though and we have both bought stupid expensive things that I would like to actually pay for now. Not all expensive things are stupid. I’m referring to the Zales account. I still don’t own my wife’s engagement ring and we’ve been married for over a year and engaged a little more than a year prior to that. All the other rings and earrings and jewelry she wears are completely paid for, but not the engagement ring! It feels selfish to actually want something but know that money could be used for another goal.

I got the Xbox 360 system for Christmas last year. It was probably paid for with my wife’s credit card too, so we don’t really own the stupid thing. Sometimes I look at the things in my house and try to figure out whether or not we own it or if we’re still paying for it. All of our furniture is completely paid for which is really nice because it’s nice furniture and the couch feels comfortable to sit in. My basement so much crap in it I can’t completely know for certain what is and isn’t paid for yet. Either way that file box I have with the copies of the statements for the credit cards still have balances on them. Those balances were built up buying something.

This is really hard for me. I try to sacrifice so much and am now plagued by my own want. Now I don’t really know what to do.

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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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