My Debt Blog

My wife and I have contemplated over purchasing a LCD HDTV since last year when the prices really started to drop. Being a guy I think TV is one of those things we gravitate towards. This past Christmas it wasn’t realistic to go out and buy one of these things simply because we couldn’t afford it. Our debt actually increased this past Christmas so that is something we plan to avoid this year.

With my bonus from work we paid off a lot of credit card debt. We got our tax return finally and the money went in the bank Friday. I would like to say I started making some payments on our debt that day, but instead we both went to the store to consider buying a TV. Retail stores seem to look down on younger people as though they’re not worth helping. The guy we talked to was very rude and pissed me off to the point we left the store. We went to a different store and found a younger sales guy that was very nice with us. After considering the different models of the particular brand we were after, we made our selection on a nice 40″ LCD TV. The thing wouldn’t fit in the car too, but some bungee cords were able to keep the trunk partly closed and we got it home.

The damage is done but WE OWN IT and that is all that matters. We have some credit cards the remainder of the tax return is going to completely PAY IN FULL. I’m emphasizing these things because HD does not mean for HIGH DEBT. Now the only problem is finding a HD receiver as it seems a lot of people used their tax return to buy a HDTV.

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I haven’t posted in awhile because it’s been a busy time as December comes in. At work there are projects that have to get done before I am on vacation. At home there are all kinds of things going on like putting up the lights on the house and setting up the tree. It’s a lot of work to go to all this trouble when the stuff is only used for one month in the year (at least for most people). Then the ultimate question comes in, how much are we spending for Christmas?

Did we put money aside to prepare for Christmas? No.
Do we have a budget for Christmas? No.

It is hard to figure out how much Christmas needs to cost, but right now it is at least $1k. As I have said in the past, my wife wants a Coach purse so that’s what ended up happening. Turns out you can’t have a Coach purse without the matching wallet to go with it. Grand total for all of this was $700 and yes it went on a credit card. So much for paying down the credit card debt this year, a lot of progress is lost.

I’m not sure why I let things go on the way they do. Why do I even have a blog about trying to pay debt when it’s become this up and down rollercoaster of a mess? I don’t want to shut down the blog though, it is there for my own personal use but I’m open to comments. Christmas has become a holiday that I dread when it comes because of how bombarded we are by it every year. In October before Halloween even came, Christmas stuff started to be available in the stores. I’m just overwhelmed when it comes to trying to figure out what this year is going to cost us and how we’re going to pay the bills. The EF is going to probably be drained empty this time because I cannot figure out how to things.

Starting out January next year will be a challenge to rebuild the EF back to 1k. On a positive note my wife will be done with school and actually bringing in some real income once again. I hope she gets a job that pays much better than anything she has had previously because an income boost would really help us clean up the mess. Otherwise I am going to take more drastic means when it comes to handling our money.

Currently we share one checking account which all the money goes in and all the money comes out. If we do not figure out a good system using our income together, we’re going to have separate checking accounts and the household account we both contribute to for the mortgage and bills. I really don’t want things to come to that because I want to work together with money but things are going in different directions. I don’t think income is the problem, it’s the spending we have different viewpoints. These are the things I’m pondering lately and don’t know what will happen.

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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 have watched this website closely for when they would actually release this tool. If you have time go check out Mint.com if you’re curious about their new free online money management tool. I’ll give my experience thus far and probably provide a follow up in a month to see how it is working for me. My backup plan is to continue to keep my Excel spreadsheets updated of course.

Signed up an account and after logon I was taken to the tab to add Accounts. So far I have 8 of them in there and the tool creates a secure connection and gathers your transactions. Then I went to my Overview tab to view the summary. There is a getting started area that lets you see how you could save money (for products they probably endorse which is how they make money), setup alerts to track bill due dates, or look at spending trends. So far so good.

After all the initial setup, I clicked the Transactions tab which basically lumps all your accounts into one big pool. A lot of my transactions have no category and there is some updating that has to be done to teach it what those transactions are for. You can filter the view based on the account you want to look at though, which helps since I track regular transactions on my checking account. Spending Trends tab shows me a neat pie graph of the amounts and percentage of my available cash is being spent in different categories.

Finally their Ways to Save tab is where they make the money through this tool. It suggested I transfer my balance from my 9.9% APR card to a 13% card with a cash back bonus of $110. I think I’ll just avoid the extra finance charges by not doing this. I probably won’t use this tab but I understand why they have put it in there. Overall I think this tool is neat and we’ll see how it goes for a month.

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I guess the full force of my wife not bringing home any income is starting to show itself. Spending habits have not changed and in fact seem to have increased this month. Our EF is almost drained at the moment to the tune of $700 because of all these extra expenses that seem to come up like emergencies.

I’m having a real hard time trying to keep my head above water here trying to manage everything. Last week and this week has been very stressful for me and I haven’t put a lot of thought into where we stand in the financial areas. We really need to stop eating out. Spending is really out of control and something has to be done to get the EF back on track and get through this month. I need my wife to be on board with how we’re going about spending money since paying off debt isn’t working. This is getting too stressful for me to handle on my own.

Our debt is going nowhere because not operating on the income we have. I hope all the bills at least get paid this month to say the least. Pulling money from the EF to avoid hot checks I really don’t like doing. I think our bigger problem is the bulk of our income comes at the later end of the month, but there’s still stuff at the beginning of the month too. Something has to be done to reorganize things so when money gets low the EF doesn’t have to hold things over until the next paycheck.

I am fairly confident that I can get the EF back on track by the end of the month but not certain we won’t continue to run into this situation every month. This student teaching experience is important but not having her income is really putting some real pressure on us. The last thing I want to have happen is turning to the credit cards. This really sucks.

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