So, as far as finances are concerned, we have had a lot of change recently. I started a part-time job back in October, to help bring in a little extra and snowball our credit card debt. I started a spreadsheet in May of 2010 to help track our debt progress (complete debt, as well as broken down into credit card, mortgages, etc...)
Here were the numbers in May of 2010.
Credit Card Debt: $22,489.99
Mortgage Debt (House and Land): $96,204.06
Misc. Debt (Car, Medical, In-laws, etc..): $14,117.30
Total Debt Accumulation: $132,901.35
And now, 9 months later...
Credit Card Debt: $16,064.73
Mortgage Debt (House and Land): $94,190.88 (sad, isn't it?)
Misc. Debt (Car, Medical, In-laws, etc..): $9,873.94
Total Debt Accumulation: $120,149.35
We've paid off almost $13K in 9 months!! WOOHOO!!! Now, we have about $2K in debt for the business that I have not included, but hopefully the photography business will take care of most of it. On top of that, we started sinking funds in January for saving money for different things.
Our Sinking Fund categories are: Car Repair, Medical Expenses, Home Improvement, Luke's Blow Money, Clothing, Holidays/Gifts, and our $1K Emergency Fund.
We have contributed to them as planned so far this year, and we even bought new to us tires for the car in cash. Right now, we are planning a vacation to Florida because Luke's cousin is getting married, and he will be doing the photography. So for now, my paychecks are going straight into a vacation savings so we can pay for the vacation in cash.
We are planning on doing yardsales again this year, and selling some bigger items on craigslist or ebay to hopefully bring in some extra cash for our debt snowball (Dave Ramsey style). I am putting any babysitting money into our Emergency Fund to get it to $1K as quickly as possible as well. (For Dave Ramsey people, we are doing baby step 1 and 2 at the same time). I am also saving up cash to get a few trees cut down this spring, and we are contemplating on how to go about putting up a fence and what the costs would be. We now realize that realistically we will be stuck in this house for a few years yet, and a fence is a must have with the "kind of neighbourhood" that we have :(
We just got our tax refund today, and I paid off a credit card, leaving only 2 left (3 if you count the business expense), so we celebrated by getting chinese food at Asian Wok for lunch. Hopefully, we can continue to be a bit frugal (we've cut cable tv quite awhile ago), and I need to get better at meal planning.
Oh, and a bonus to me working part-time, although I hate to leave the kids. It is close enough to walk to, and since Avery stopped nursing in December, I've lost between 10-15 pounds :) (For everyone that says breastfeeding makes you drop weight, you are all liars to me!!)
Showing posts with label debt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label debt. Show all posts
Friday, February 25, 2011
Monday, January 18, 2010
I'm Selling The Farm...
OK, not really, since I don't even have a farm. Another 2010 goal of mine is to PURGE this house. De-clutter as much as possible. At the same time, I am taking all of these purged items, and either boxing them up for a yardsale, or if I think I may be able to get rid of them quicker on craigslist, then list the items on there right now. I am swamped with baby clothes, toddler clothes, toys, home decor, and many other miscellaneous items. I've actually thought about making a list of things for people not to buy the girls for birthdays and Christmas, because we have too much of some things, like 3T shirts, or baby dolls. When we moved into this house 5 years ago, we had only our bedrooms to move into the entire downstairs, along with some misc. containers from the basement from our childhood years. Now we have expanded to an office upstairs, and we are bursting at the seams. I feel that my house is very UN-inviting to people, and therefore we don't get many visitors. (It doesn't help that the house is a construction zone as well)
So, right now I have a list going of things, and as they sell, I will write them on a spreadsheet with the price they went for. The spreadsheet is hanging on our bedroom door next to a big chart listing out our credit card debt totals, and I hope that this will motivate us to sell more and put that money towards the debt. We need to learn to live with less, because many other people do each day. We just don't need all of this stuff!! I have a pile in the dining room of stuff listed on craigslist, and boxes sitting around filled with yardsale items. I will do another toy and clothing purge after the girls' birthdays, so that will be around May, and that is prime season for yardsales to start. I'm hoping to do at least one yardsale a month from May-August, and then take some leftovers to goodwill like we did last year.
So, right now I have a list going of things, and as they sell, I will write them on a spreadsheet with the price they went for. The spreadsheet is hanging on our bedroom door next to a big chart listing out our credit card debt totals, and I hope that this will motivate us to sell more and put that money towards the debt. We need to learn to live with less, because many other people do each day. We just don't need all of this stuff!! I have a pile in the dining room of stuff listed on craigslist, and boxes sitting around filled with yardsale items. I will do another toy and clothing purge after the girls' birthdays, so that will be around May, and that is prime season for yardsales to start. I'm hoping to do at least one yardsale a month from May-August, and then take some leftovers to goodwill like we did last year.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Financial Goals for 2010
We know we have accumulated way too much debt over the past couple years (a few kids, a miscarriage, buying a car, and having a money pit for a house doesn't help). I am tired of the stress it causes me (I stress about everything), and it's getting to the point in life where we need to get our stuff together because Lexi and Lilly are getting to an age where they will remember things that happen, and I don't want them to remember a bunch of negatives in life. We are going to loosely follow Dave Ramsey with our debt snowball. We also need to make our credit look as good as possible, because our land loan will require a balloon payoff next in April 2011 (It was supposed to be a loan that wraps into a construction loan to avoid that balloon). We will have to find a way to get a loan to take over that loan so we can keep our land (where we will build one day), so we can't mess up our finances this year! Here is our credit card debt list in the order we would like to pay them off. (I am doing a combination of small balances first and higher interest rates first)
Debt as of December 31, 2009
$602.52 FirstMerit 11ish%
$808.74 Circuit City/Best Buy Chase 0% until Nov 2010
$4,323.59 Luke's Bank of America 16ish%
$4,192.29 Holly's Bank of America .99% until June 2010, then 10ish%?
$3,912.64 Luke's Discover
$7,415.67 Luke's Chase
$21,255.45 Total Credit Card Debt End 2009
The First Merit card will be paid off with e-Bay proceeds from camera gear Luke is going to sell. He is putting them on auction starting the 7th, so hopefully by the end of the month that balance will be gone, but that card will be kept live since that is our overdraft protection card from the bank.
The Circuit City turned Best Buy card is the remaining balance on Luke's a700 camera. It is 0% until November, but since it's such a small balance compared to the other cards, it is next to go. I hope that a bit of extra from the e-Bay sales, combined with craigslist selling, babysitting money, and some odd job money will get that card taken care off by the end of March. That card will then be canceled, because we don't need a Best Buy card.
We aren't sure what our total federal tax refund will be this year. I had Luke up his allowances to they took out less, then that Obama tax thing took out even less than what we were claiming, but we had a baby as well, and I'm pretty sure we are considered dirt poor now by the government, so we will get at least what was put in, even after claiming Chris' rental income. Dave Ramsey suggests a $1000 starter emergency fund, but we never made our shuttle vacation last year, and this year NASA is planning on retiring the current shuttles, so here is my plan.
Put $500 into savings for the emergency fund. Give up hope on getting tickets to the NASA Causeway to be as close as possible to the shuttle for launch, since the tickets are in such high demand this year, we will be lucky to even get them. We also won't be tied to a specific launch that may get delayed again and again, since tickets are good for the launch mission, and not the date. Plan trip as cheapily as possible for a possible Florida shuttle launch vacation, seeing the launch from Titusville or Cocoa Beach, and renting a BIG A** lens for Luke's camera. Hopefully we get enough back in taxes to cover the trip in full, but this is one thing we have both agreed that we can charge, because we are space buffs and this is our last chance for this to happen. I haven't come up with an as cheap as possible scenario yet, but I am going to start working on it.
Anything that may be left over in taxes will hit his Bank of America card next. It's not the next lowest balance, but it's the highest interest rate card we have, and I want it gone. I am planning on pulling both of our credit reports soon, and I am going to pick some credit cards that we can close and cancel as we pay off. Not sure if this one will stay open or not, but I will detail that after looking over the credit reports.
Any extra money coming in from the photography will hopefully get split between Uncle Sam, the business, and debt. Any extra money from babysitting, odd jobs, and selling our stuff will mostly go to debt. If it's an odd job Luke did, he will get a portion of that money to put towards camera stuff for the business. It will help keep him motivated to sell things.
All of this while trying to find money to put towards the house will be a nice challenge (the budget allows $50/month for house fixing). I'll have to post a finalized budget, but I think I may hold off until the beginning of February, after these e-Bay auctions and whatnot.
Good Luck to us!
Debt as of December 31, 2009
$602.52 FirstMerit 11ish%
$808.74 Circuit City/Best Buy Chase 0% until Nov 2010
$4,323.59 Luke's Bank of America 16ish%
$4,192.29 Holly's Bank of America .99% until June 2010, then 10ish%?
$3,912.64 Luke's Discover
$7,415.67 Luke's Chase
$21,255.45 Total Credit Card Debt End 2009
The First Merit card will be paid off with e-Bay proceeds from camera gear Luke is going to sell. He is putting them on auction starting the 7th, so hopefully by the end of the month that balance will be gone, but that card will be kept live since that is our overdraft protection card from the bank.
The Circuit City turned Best Buy card is the remaining balance on Luke's a700 camera. It is 0% until November, but since it's such a small balance compared to the other cards, it is next to go. I hope that a bit of extra from the e-Bay sales, combined with craigslist selling, babysitting money, and some odd job money will get that card taken care off by the end of March. That card will then be canceled, because we don't need a Best Buy card.
We aren't sure what our total federal tax refund will be this year. I had Luke up his allowances to they took out less, then that Obama tax thing took out even less than what we were claiming, but we had a baby as well, and I'm pretty sure we are considered dirt poor now by the government, so we will get at least what was put in, even after claiming Chris' rental income. Dave Ramsey suggests a $1000 starter emergency fund, but we never made our shuttle vacation last year, and this year NASA is planning on retiring the current shuttles, so here is my plan.
Put $500 into savings for the emergency fund. Give up hope on getting tickets to the NASA Causeway to be as close as possible to the shuttle for launch, since the tickets are in such high demand this year, we will be lucky to even get them. We also won't be tied to a specific launch that may get delayed again and again, since tickets are good for the launch mission, and not the date. Plan trip as cheapily as possible for a possible Florida shuttle launch vacation, seeing the launch from Titusville or Cocoa Beach, and renting a BIG A** lens for Luke's camera. Hopefully we get enough back in taxes to cover the trip in full, but this is one thing we have both agreed that we can charge, because we are space buffs and this is our last chance for this to happen. I haven't come up with an as cheap as possible scenario yet, but I am going to start working on it.
Anything that may be left over in taxes will hit his Bank of America card next. It's not the next lowest balance, but it's the highest interest rate card we have, and I want it gone. I am planning on pulling both of our credit reports soon, and I am going to pick some credit cards that we can close and cancel as we pay off. Not sure if this one will stay open or not, but I will detail that after looking over the credit reports.
Any extra money coming in from the photography will hopefully get split between Uncle Sam, the business, and debt. Any extra money from babysitting, odd jobs, and selling our stuff will mostly go to debt. If it's an odd job Luke did, he will get a portion of that money to put towards camera stuff for the business. It will help keep him motivated to sell things.
All of this while trying to find money to put towards the house will be a nice challenge (the budget allows $50/month for house fixing). I'll have to post a finalized budget, but I think I may hold off until the beginning of February, after these e-Bay auctions and whatnot.
Good Luck to us!
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Debt Snowball and Emergency Fund
As for the budget, I really want to follow Dave Ramsey’s baby steps for the Total Money Makeover. Baby step #1 is a $1000 emergency fund, and baby step #2 is debt snowball. Right now we have $152.12 in there (since the car broke and we spent $300 on springs and lower ball joints and a tire). I also have another $50 to put towards it right now from Christmas. I hate paying a little above minimums and that is it on the credit cards, but we would need to do that for another 2 months to get us to our $1000, depending on what my paychecks look like. I will post the table of our debt snowball, but I’m not sure if we will put that much to our first credit card in line, or if we will do the minimum and put the money towards our E-fund. I have to think about it and talk it over and crunch numbers, so we will see. FYI, we keep our Emergency Fund in a Capital One Money Market account. It gets better rates than a normal savings account through our local bank, but the money is still liquid enough that we can access it instantly if we need the funds. It has a debit card and a checkbook, and we can do online transfers that will take a few days to clear.
We have 5 credit cards in our debt snowball, and I have them listed in the order we hope to pay them off in (higher interest rates first). We are also going to start paying Luke’s dad $200/month starting in January for the land loan he gave us (4 ½ years ago)! We also have $50/month for home improvement, $50/month for medical savings, and hopefully $20/month for thrift (which will be a savings for this coming summer’s yard sales). Then we have our usual bills, mortgages and a car payment. I’d like to try and follow the budget as closely as possible for a month or two before I post every amount of expense we have, but I’m sure I will post the entire budget sometime in 2009, to show our progress and help inspire others. As it stands right now with the current figures, it seems as though it should take us around 2 years to pay off these 5 credit cards.
My plan for now is to post our debt snowball table at the beginning of the month to show our goal, and then at the end of the month, repost it with the actual totals to see if we met our goal…or hopefully exceeded it!
| Credit Card | Minimum Payment | Projected Payment | Actual Payment | Balance as of 12/31/2008 |
| Holly’s BoA | $110.00 | $300.00 | $- | $4,176.20 |
| Luke’s BoA | $80.00 | $80.00 | $- | $4,798.05 |
| Luke’s Chase | $180.00 | $180.00 | $- | $8,493.16 |
| Luke’s WAMU | $65.00 | $65.00 | $- | $1,502.77 |
| Luke’s CC | $30.00 | $30.00 | $- | $1,114.74 |
| Total | $465.00 | $655.00 | $- | $20,084.92 |
| Time Table | Months | Years |
| Minimum | 43.19 | 3.60 |
| Projected | 30.66 | 2.56 |
| Actual | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Emergency Fund: $152.12/$1000
Monday, December 22, 2008
The weekend before Christmas and I'm sick
Well I’ve decided to hold off on any large projects until after the holidays. There are just so many places we have to go this week. The plan is my dad’s house on Christmas Eve, before I have to go to work (because retail stinks and I work on Christmas Eve), then Christmas Day we will spend at Luke’s brother’s house with the Cowgar side of the family, then the day after Christmas we will go down to Wilmot and do Christmas with my mom.
This past weekend was quite busy. I’ve been feeling sick for the past few days, and spent Saturday morning dry heaving for nearly 2 hours. I was supposed to work 7am-12pm, and that just didn’t happen. Sunday morning I felt sick as well, and the same goes for this morning. On top of that my grandparents came up from West Virginia Saturday and spent the late afternoon and evening here with the girls before heading up to my uncle’s house. Sunday we had our niece Samantha’s birthday party, and left there early to make it to my uncle’s for Christmas on my mom’s side of the family. Lexi has been feeling a bit sick lately, and Lilly missed her nap Sunday since we were out, so they were absolutely terrible half the day. Lexi seems to be having attachment issues since I’ve gone back to work. She constantly needs me, and can’t seem to do anything herself. On top of that, she has been having horrible whining episodes that no kind of consequence seems to fix. I honestly don’t think that this gig with K-Mart is going to last very long. We are having these issues with Lexi, and I’ve been there for a month and a half and missed 3 days. Two days I was really sick, and the other one, the strut spring broke on the car and flattened our driver side tire. On top of that, we are waiting for Luke’s brother’s wife to have their fourth baby. She was due on Saturday, and the baby still hasn’t come yet. I’ve already written a note to HR that I will be calling off that day if I am scheduled to work. That should be the last day I would miss, unless some unforeseen disaster happens (like the car).
The weather has been freezing the past two days. The wind has been blowing, keeping the temperature with wind chill at below zero! Needless to say, the electric heaters in the house aren’t keeping the house warm anymore. Old house equals drafty, and this wind is sucking our heat away. This makes it hard to do anything in the house except sit here cuddled up and shivering. Good new is that it is supposed to warm up. No snow for Christmas, but at that this point I don’t care.
I think after the holidays are over, I will keep myself in line by maybe posting a picture of one of the rooms in the house. That room will be my project room, for me to reorganize and declutter. I’m not sure of a timeline for each room. I guess it depends on my schedule with work and with babysitting. I’ll figure it out. I also will post a picture of a home improvement picture, and keep the blog updated on our progress. We only have $50 each month set aside to go towards home improvement, so projects will take a bit longer to complete, but we will get there.
I am also going to keep myself in check with a monthly debt snowball. I want to find a format that I will post with the stats of what we hope to do that month, and then show how much we were able to put towards the snowball. We will have a set amount from just Luke’s income, but extras from babysitting and K-Mart will hopefully be thrown into that snowball as well. I think I will maybe work on the debt snowball chart, and post that later, maybe with a couple pictures from the weekend.
This past weekend was quite busy. I’ve been feeling sick for the past few days, and spent Saturday morning dry heaving for nearly 2 hours. I was supposed to work 7am-12pm, and that just didn’t happen. Sunday morning I felt sick as well, and the same goes for this morning. On top of that my grandparents came up from West Virginia Saturday and spent the late afternoon and evening here with the girls before heading up to my uncle’s house. Sunday we had our niece Samantha’s birthday party, and left there early to make it to my uncle’s for Christmas on my mom’s side of the family. Lexi has been feeling a bit sick lately, and Lilly missed her nap Sunday since we were out, so they were absolutely terrible half the day. Lexi seems to be having attachment issues since I’ve gone back to work. She constantly needs me, and can’t seem to do anything herself. On top of that, she has been having horrible whining episodes that no kind of consequence seems to fix. I honestly don’t think that this gig with K-Mart is going to last very long. We are having these issues with Lexi, and I’ve been there for a month and a half and missed 3 days. Two days I was really sick, and the other one, the strut spring broke on the car and flattened our driver side tire. On top of that, we are waiting for Luke’s brother’s wife to have their fourth baby. She was due on Saturday, and the baby still hasn’t come yet. I’ve already written a note to HR that I will be calling off that day if I am scheduled to work. That should be the last day I would miss, unless some unforeseen disaster happens (like the car).
The weather has been freezing the past two days. The wind has been blowing, keeping the temperature with wind chill at below zero! Needless to say, the electric heaters in the house aren’t keeping the house warm anymore. Old house equals drafty, and this wind is sucking our heat away. This makes it hard to do anything in the house except sit here cuddled up and shivering. Good new is that it is supposed to warm up. No snow for Christmas, but at that this point I don’t care.
I think after the holidays are over, I will keep myself in line by maybe posting a picture of one of the rooms in the house. That room will be my project room, for me to reorganize and declutter. I’m not sure of a timeline for each room. I guess it depends on my schedule with work and with babysitting. I’ll figure it out. I also will post a picture of a home improvement picture, and keep the blog updated on our progress. We only have $50 each month set aside to go towards home improvement, so projects will take a bit longer to complete, but we will get there.
I am also going to keep myself in check with a monthly debt snowball. I want to find a format that I will post with the stats of what we hope to do that month, and then show how much we were able to put towards the snowball. We will have a set amount from just Luke’s income, but extras from babysitting and K-Mart will hopefully be thrown into that snowball as well. I think I will maybe work on the debt snowball chart, and post that later, maybe with a couple pictures from the weekend.
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