My Debt Blog

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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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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I know it’s almost the end of July and I have put this off long enough because I was scared of it. It is time for me to suck it up and deal with it though. I feel like I got kicked in the financial gut last month. This is a blog about paying off debt and then I went and spent money I didn’t have and that set me back. Part of the issue was I didn’t properly budget in advance to handle the car insurance bill, which was paid in full, but everything got tight. Unforeseen expenses early in June drove me to the point of using the EF to hold us over until I got paid and then correct it. At any rate, here’s the ugly truth on the credit cards:

My Citi Dividend card is going to get even uglier because I used it to replace my wife’s stolen sunglasses. There are also some auto charge things that end up on that card, so I’ll beef up the payment to that account since those charges should be paid instead of charged. On a positive note all the other balances on the plastic are lowering and my payment on Bank of America has rapidly dropped by about $30 that can be refocused to other debt. I think for a short term goal, I would like to pay off the Zales account. Currently I pay an inflated payment anyways but if I were to double or triple that amount, it could be easily knocked out by the end of the year. In an attempt to reduce some of the comments, I have already taken the credit cards out of my wallet and now the only plastic I have is my debit card.

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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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