<$Monday, March 10, 2008$>
Smooth Sailing Ahead: Windfalls, taxes, and a house in our future?
| Last week, Husband got his student loan check for the semester, and it was double what he expected it to be. I want to put the entire amount toward the credit cards, but he's concerned that we need a larger emergency fund, so we're going to split the difference and put half of it toward debt and half in the bank. That's still going to make a pretty significant dent in our credit debt, though. We got our taxes done last week--actually, a week ago last Friday. Between owing a small amount to Federal, getting back a slightly larger refund from state, and the tax preparer fees, we pretty much broke even, which, I'll take it. Now we're discussing what to do with our tax rebate check when it comes. Again, I want to throw it at the credit cards, but it's really hard for Husband to let go of that much money and not have access to it. So, we'll see. We're also considering using part of it to take a mini vacation to Eureka Springs, the town where we got married. Then again, we might end up putting it towards a down payment. This week is the week I'm FINALLY going to complete our mortgage application. We should qualify for first time home buyer grants that will cover our down payment and closing costs, but it won't hurt to have a few thousand that we can kick in if we need to. And even if we don't, buying a house is a scary enough prospect that having extra money in the bank in case anything goes wrong with the house will make us both feel more secure. So we've got a big credit card payment in the offing, money in the bank, money on the way, and we're on the verge of starting to build some home equity. Add to that my raise, which kicks in this pay period, and the fact that I've got enough work to justify overtime, and after a few uncomfortably lean months, we're starting to breathe easy again. The future's looking pretty rosy for the time being. I tend to believe that these things go in cycles, so we're sure to hit some choppy waters again at some point; but for now it's smooth sailing, and I intend to enjoy it while it lasts. Labels: credit cards, debt reduction, emergency fund, financial planning, goals, house-hunt, money management, personal, tax time |
<$Tuesday, February 26, 2008$>
Goodness.
| Sorry for the silence, folks. I just needed to take a break from blogging for a while, to rest my brain and catch up on other stuff. Good news abounds. If you look over at the charts on the sidebar, you'll see that my net worth is up and my debt is down. Even better, yesterday I received a job promotion along with a pretty decent raise. It's not huge, but it is enough to make up for the extra withholdings we have this year after enrolling in my health plan's Flex Spending Account and adding Husband to my dental plan. This will significantly increase my overtime pay, too, so if I can rack up some extra work hours, we'll be in a pretty good place. This Friday we're getting our taxes done. Subsequently, next week we'll be finalizing our mortgage application. ...aaaand that just put me off on a whole ADD tangent where I spent the last hour looking at home listings. Every time I check them I land on a house that, based on the photos, I think I kinda love, and that is very affordable. It's an older home, though, built in the 1930s, and it's not in the best part of town (though it's not in the worst, either; and the sad fact is that unless you're talking gated McMansion subdivisions with 24/7 security guards, there is no such thing as a safe neighborhood in Tulsa these days), both of which would be a hard sell for Husband. Sigh. ANyway. Point is, 2008 is beginning to shape up into a pretty good year for us, financially speaking. I'm starting to get excited. Labels: goals, house-hunt, net worth, personal, tax time |
<$Thursday, January 24, 2008$>
Just say no to McMansions
| Stop the Ride lists thirteen reasons "Smaller Is Better" when it comes to buying a house. This is advice I'd heard before, and it's advice we intend to heed when we shop for our new home. We don't really need that much room, especially for a starter home. We have so much junk that we plan to get rid of before we move. I really want to de-clutter and simplify my home life. I think having a small home will force us to be ruthless in letting go of our stuff. Not to mention the lower energy bills... just go read the list. All of my reasons are already over there. Labels: finance+blogs, frugality, goals, house-hunt |
<$Monday, January 21, 2008$>
Payday Report - January 18
| Since today is a bank holiday, I received my direct deposit on Friday. There's not really much to tell--it's a slow time of year at the office, and between short pay periods and zero overtime, things have been a bit tight, and this half of the month is no different. I had enough to pay the bills, put a very little bit into savings, cover our usual grocery spending and give my husband and I each a small personal spending stipend, of which mine mostly went to help pay for my sister's baby shower. I now have just $20 to last me the next sixteen days. I don't think we'll have to dip into our savings to help stretch this one out, though, so that's an improvement over the last couple pay periods. I'll have some overtime on the next one, too, plus in a month I'll have blog ad revenue starting to roll in again, but that all goes straight to the credit card debt. For a while last year I started tracking my Net Worth IQ, and that was fun until it started going the wrong way. I want to start back up again this year, though, and do it consistently from month to month. Once I get time to set it up, I'll post my progress. I know I have a negative net worth right now. It will be a triumph just to get it to $0. I think by stepping up my blogging game, though, I just might be able to make that happen this year. Labels: goals, money management, personal, spending |
Kicking around some ideas
| I've been planning for a while now to take some online classes in web design. My company will foot the bill for any education I receive while I work here, so it seems pretty foolish not to take advantage of that. I've just been waiting until we a) replace our ancient computer and b) move to an area where we can get high speed internet access. However, lately I've been having some doubts. Web technology moves so fast that anything I learn in a formal setting is bound to be out of date by the time I learn it. Also, back when good web design just involved HTML, basic CSS and a little bit of javascript, I taught myself by reading books and studying source code of other web sites, and managed to create some pretty nice looking web pages, if I do say so myself. I have no doubt that I could learn advanced CSS and PHP the same way; and once I learn, as long as I can create a good end product, potential freelance clients aren't likely to care where I learned how to do it. And that's what I want to learn it for--freelance work. I plan to be a work-at-home mom one of these days, and I want to have something other than writing lined up to bring in extra income. I was mentioning all of this to a coworker--a mechanical/electrical drafter--the other day, but as soon as I mentioned taking classes in web design he cut me off: "You want to become a designer? That's great!" He didn't hear the "web" part and, being that we work for an engineering firm, he assumed I meant becoming a drafter/designer. Instead of correcting him, I paused, and a light bulb clicked on. Why not? This is a question I've been pondering ever since that conversation. I can think of plenty of reasons why: Like I said, I already work for an engineering firm. Getting a degree in drafting and design would put me in line for a major promotion and a substantial raise. I don't believe my current position is going anywhere any time soon, so I'm not too concerned about layoffs, but I could definitely stand to earn a higher salary. I don't see myself being able to quit working outside of the home anytime soon, at least not until my husband finishes school and finds a job with health benefits as good as the ones I get, and that will take a few more years. And as much as I don't hate my job, I don't love it, either. It would be nice to be qualified to do something other than either social work or glorified secretarial work--both of which tend to be underpaid and under appreciated (although the latter seems to be an exception at my company--they treat us project admins great, and pay us pretty decently, too). My biggest why not is the ADD factor: what if I don't enjoy it enough to be able to stand to do it all day? At least my current job only requires short-term tasks that match up pretty well with my attention span. What if I don't have any downtime in which to write? I had made up my mind to pursue a more creative career, knowing that kind of work makes me happier; what if I don't find this sufficiently creative to stave off boredom and keep from making me miserable? I guess my best advice to myself is to go ahead and take a class and see how I like it. After all, since my company will pay for it, I've got nothing to lose but time (although time is pretty valuable to me, so that's a pretty daunting loss), and if I don't like it I don't have to commit to pursuing it further. Of course I've got until the A and B up there in the first paragraph happen to make a final decision; but this is definitely something under consideration. *** Speaking of moving, another thing my husband and I are starting to consider is buying a duplex. I already mentioned that we're planning to buy a house this year. While looking at the listings to see what kind of housing is available in our price range, I noticed a few duplexes in the listing. This almost seems like a no-brainer: we could live in one side and rent out the other half for the cost of our mortgage payment. Meanwhile, we could make improvements to our half, so that when the tenants move out we can move to the other side and rent out the improved half for higher rent and work on fixing up the other side. Then when we're ready we can buy a proper house and draw rental income from both sides of the duplex. It all sounds pretty good on paper. In reality, though, we don't know anything about being landlords. We've never even owned property, let alone rented it out. I suspect we still don't have a full grasp on what all it entails to own a house. Owning somebody else's house might be deeper waters than we're ready for. Fortunately, my older sister and her husband got into buying duplexes last year, and they now own several. Husband and I have discussed taking them out to dinner to get their opinion on whether they think we could handle it. I ran the idea past my sister when I saw her the other day, and she seemed to think it was a good idea. Her husband is pretty handy, though, and able to complete most repair jobs himself; we're both pretty useless in that area, so we'd almost certainly have to hire someone to do repairs. There's also all of the legal stuff to consider. Not only renter's rights, but would we be allowed to handpick the tenants we believe would make the best neighbors, or would that be somehow considered discrimination?* I think all of the cons I've thought of so far are things we could overcome simply by getting educated. Otherwise, it sounds like a great way to increase our earnings. I suppose I really should complete my mortgage application and see just how much we're eligible for before making any decisions in this regard, though. It could all be rendered moot pretty quickly. Labels: education, extra income, goals, house-hunt, investing |
<$Tuesday, January 15, 2008$>
2008 Finance Goals: Life Insurance
| I'm enrolling my husband and I both in a life insurance program through my employer. This will fulfill one of my financial goals for this year. I think I would be okay financially (though the complete opposite of okay in every other aspect) if anything happened to my husband, God forbid, but seeing as I'm the current breadwinner, I'll rest easier knowing he's covered should anything, God forbid some more, happen to me. I'm having a little trouble with the paperwork, though. It's confusing enough that I think I'm going to have to call the HR rep to walk me through it. It says that "the guarantee amount is $150,000", and I'm not sure what that means. Is that the amount my work provides, or do I have to pay premiums for it? Or do I only have to pay premiums on any amount above that? Gah! It might be pretty straightforward to anyone who's familiar with this stuff, but this is all new to me. Once I get it figured out, though, I'll fax my forms to HR and we'll both be covered. And then we can start plotting each others' untimely demi-- oh, wait. Did I write that out loud? ;-) Labels: financial planning, goals |
<$Thursday, January 10, 2008$>
New Look, New Outlook
| I renovated and rearranged the furniture, and now I'm feeling more excited about this blog again. Which is good, seeing as how I'm planning to expand it into three blogs. This one will continue to focus on personal finance. The health/fitness and home/family topics will each be getting their own space. Speaking of getting own space, I've been sitting on this for a while now, not wanting to mention it until it becomes concrete, which it's not yet, but still; I want to get it out of my system finally. We're going to try to buy a house. I've already talked to a mortgage broker, who thinks our chances look good for being able to afford a starter home. I've turned in the loan application, but I still need to gather some additional info before they can process it. Actually, I've got all of the info gathered--I just keep psyching myself out of turning it in. I'm so paranoid that they're going to find something in my credit that I missed and deny us the loan, or that we'll get it and I'll either find out that I've miscalculated or something will happen so that we won't be able to afford the payments, and we'll lose our home. I'm simultaneously terrified of not getting this and of getting it and getting in over our heads. This is the kind of neurotic paranoia that a decade of being a financial screw-up will instill in you, kids. On paper, we CAN afford this, and my credit has improved enough that our chances of getting it are very good. Housing is extremely affordable in Tulsa--it will be more of finding a safe neighborhood that we can afford than simply finding a house. I've been keeping an eye on the real estate markets, and I've even seen duplexes in our price range, which is something we might consider. We could live in one half and rent out the other half for the cost of our mortgage payment; but that's me getting way ahead of myself. This is the main reason I want to give the home topic its own blog, so that I can blog about the process of getting a house, and then about learning how to be a homeowner and all that that entails, without skewing the focus here. This is exciting to me. I'm excited. And also, still with the terrified. Maybe starting this new blog will also provide me the kick in the pants I need to turn the rest of my paperwork in. Labels: goals, house-hunt, site maintenance |
<$Monday, October 22, 2007$>
Debt Reduction Milestone
| I'm feeling a lot closer to normal now, but being out of commission so much last week left me with a lot of catching up to do, both online and in 3-D. Mostly in 3-D, actually, which means that the blogs will probably remain relatively quiet for another week. But I'm taking a break long enough to post a quick update on my debt reduction progress. With my most recent payments I managed to knock my largest credit card--which carries the bulk of our consumer debt--to under $4,500. It's now hovering just above $4,400, in fact. I want to challenge myself to knock out that $400 and get it under $4,000 by the end of the year, but I'm going to need to do some thinking about ways to make that happen. I'd need to step up my blogging game here, for one, and my schedule doesn't look like it's going to allow that for a little while yet. I know I've got plenty of stuff at home that I could/should be trying to purge, so maybe I can get off my duff and sell some of it on eBay. Even so, with the holidays looming, it will definitely be a challenge. $400 might not sound like much, but for us, that's quite a lot to come up with in just two months. I think it just might be doable, though. And even if it's not, trying will only result in more progress. Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a goal. Labels: credit cards, goals |
<$Tuesday, August 28, 2007$>
Major Change
| *Sponsored Post* Husband is a criminal justice major. He chose his major when he first started college, half his lifetime ago (man, that's some depressing math right there), when he had two good legs and ambitions toward law enforcement. When he went back to school this year he pretty much automatically went back into criminal justice, but we've both been wondering what, exactly, he's going to do with that degree now that being any kind of cop is out of the picture (and I can't honestly say I'm sad about that). Since going back, though, he's realized he has a knack for writing, as well as a passion for films and everything that goes into making them. Now we're beginning to wonder if he shouldn't switch his major to film studies, even if it means he has to change schools (his current university is fairly new and doesn't have many arts degree programs in place yet). So I'm searching for college information for him, to find a school with a good film studies program. There are a couple in our state, but of course the best are going to be in New York or California. I don't know how we'd pull that off, but I told him if that's something he'd really like to pursue, we'll find a way. Fortunately, he makes good grades, so scholarships aren't out of the question. Now if we could only get a scholarship that would cover housing, moving costs, all our bills if I need to relocate my job.... It's a scary prospect. At least its not one we have to make a decision on until he finishes his core studies, and that's still at least a couple of semesters away. Labels: disclosure, goals, PPP |
<$Wednesday, August 22, 2007$>
Married With Debt
| Speaking of vigorously attacking debts, Get Rich Slowly has an excellent guest article on When a Spender and a Saver Say "I Do". It's pretty inspirational, and also contains some good ideas for going at those debts full-throttle. Husband and I started out pretty much even in the saving/spending department, with neither of us really big on saving. It didn't take long after we got married to realize that at least one of us needed to step up and become a saver if we were ever going to make any financial headway and live a comfortable life. This is all still fairly new to me, and although I suffered a backslide in the last couple of months, I'm ready to pull ahead again. I'm doing my best to drag husband along with me. I think I might print out this article and (try to) get him to read it. Maybe it will inspire him to get in step with me and give us an opportunity to sit down and make a plan together to reach our goals. Labels: credit cards, finance+blogs, goals, money management, personal |
Stupid debt. Smart (er) me.
| *Sponsored Post* Things aren't really quite as bad as I indicated in yesterday's payday report. While it's true (and sucky) that our savings has been cut in half, it's also true that the remainder of Husband's student loans for this semester should be enough (even after we purchase a computer) to replenish our savings and even bump it up to the goal I was aiming for before we had to start dipping into it. What's really frustrating me is the fact that I took our focus off of our debt and have only been making the minimum payments on our credit cards for the last couple of months so that we could beef up our savings, and now it feels like that was all for naught. The good news is, with Husband's SL funds filling in the emergency fund gap, I can get re-focused on debt management and come at my credit cards with renewed vigor. Vigor, I say! *shakes tiny angry fist at creditors* So I'll be going over my options, and reading up on the topic in hopes of lighting an inspirational fire under myself. I've previously considered debt consolidation--either by taking out a loan (I even tried to, through Prosper) or doing a balance transfer--but now that we're down to the two credit cards, with one having 0 interest and a low minimum payment, that seems pretty pointless. Once we get this big one paid off, the other will be a cinch to knock out by comparison. It's hard when things get tight, though, and the bugger about the big card is its huge minimum payment, which makes adding enough to it to make a difference in the balance a challenge. It makes me wish that the US had an equivalent to the UK's IVA (Individual Voluntary Arrangement), that provided an option for repaying your debts on your own terms that could make life enjoyable while you still meet your obligations. That would probably keep a lot more people from declaring bankruptcy to get out of having to repay their debts at all. So anyway, that's where I stand: getting re-inspired to tackle my debts and re-educated on ways to go about doing so. I'll keep you posted on my progress and any good info I come across. Labels: credit cards, debt consolidation, disclosure, goals, money management, PPP |
<$Wednesday, July 25, 2007$>
Applying Talent to Debt
| So apparently the internet really did crash yesterday, or at least the parts of it hosting LiveJournal, Typepad and Craigslist. It also happened to be the part of it that currently hosts the stylesheets for this blog, which explains what the what happened to my template yesterday. If you stopped by during the outage, I'm sorry you caught me without my clothes on. *blush* Elsewhere, the lovely and constantly clad Blogging Away Debt is featuring a guest post on how to fight encouragement about debt. It's good advice, and relevant, seeing as how fighting discouragement about my own debt is pretty much a constant for me these days. One way I fight discouragement is to keep plugging away at my novel, and entertain fantasies of how much our lives will change if this turns out to be the one that sells. Even a crappy advance would be enough to eliminate our consumer debt, thereby dramatically altering our quality of living and opening up our choices. I'm not pinning all of our hopes on that possibility, though, and so I'm constantly looking for more practical and immediate ways to raise extra money to throw at those credit cards. Earlier this year I was determined to start making money from my knitting, but somehow that project fell by the wayside. I think it's time I took it up again. By the end of the week I plan to have my Etsy shop stocked with some new made-to-order items. I also went through my yarn stash recently and weeded out an entire 13-gallon bag's worth of yarn that I can sell on eBay. I don't expect these things to bring in a lot of money, but every extra bit helps, and at least this is something I'm already spending time on anyway. Also in that vein, I'm creating a goal for myself to write at least two Associated Content* articles a week. The first one I'm planning to do is a review of Bridal Bargains*, a book that proved incredibly useful and more than paid for itself when I was planning my own low-budget wedding last year. Once I'm done with the review, I'll be holding a contest here to give away my copy to another frugal bride-to-be. So that's a plan for action, at least. Whether it actually works out the way I hope or not, at least it makes me feel like I'm doing something to take back control of my finances. This is giving me some much needed encouragement at a time when I'm weary and tempted to lie down and give in to minimum payment limbo. *Affiliate links Labels: credit cards, finance+blogs, goals |
<$Thursday, June 21, 2007$>
Should I stay or should I go-o?
| Today is a good day. It's payday. All of my bills are paid, there's plenty of money in the grocery budget, our fun money allowances are paid out, and there's still about $50 left to spare. I didn't even think about what to do with that extra $50--I just signed onto my online savings account and hit the transfer button before temptation even had a chance to start whispering in my ear. It's a great feeling to know that everything is covered for the rest of the month, but it's made even better by that last bit. This has been a tight month, and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to contribute anything to our savings. So even that small of an increase feels great. We finally have enough saved up to finance our move into town, so for the last month or so we've been looking at rental houses and duplexes in the area, without much luck. We've only seen two houses that held much promise, but both times we were beaten to the punch by the competition. After looking at a few houses in our price range in dismally poor and rough neighborhoods, we had a powwow and figured out that we could raise our budget if we repaired Husband's truck instead of replacing it. With the new price in mind, we checked out a duplex last weekend. It was in a decent neighborhood and had everything we need, so we turned in an application. But we checked it out during an open house, and there were a lot of other interested lookers. We haven't heard back on our application yet. I guess we'll keep looking. We have plenty of money to move, and I think there's enough left over to handle the most important of the truck repairs, but that's it. We don't really have an emergency fund, and this bothers me. So now I'm wondering if we should just stay where we are until we've saved up an emergency fund on top of the moving fund. I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I'm used to our current budget. I know how to work with it, and I think we could save up the fund in a few months. The way things are going, it might take us that long to find and lease a suitable home, anyway. On the other hand, I think moving to town would ultimately save us a lot of money, even if we almost double our current rent. It would save us well over $100/month in gas, for starters, and I'm pretty confident that we could pull off enough energy hacks to keep our utility bills low. And then there's the grocery budget. Right now, we don't have a kitchen. We have a mini-fridge and a microwave. It's like we live in a dorm. Except instead of Top Ramen, we eat a lot of pre-packaged and frozen foods, anything that can either simply be heated up or assembled, and we also eat out or pick up fast food a lot more often than we should. That stuff's expensive. I believe having a full-fledged kitchen where we could actually cook healthy meals from scratch would cut down significantly on our food spending. Really, I think probably what we're saving now by living out in the country and renting cheap and what we'd save by living in the city will all even out in the wash, and our month-to-month budget won't see that much of an impact as far as how much is left over for savings and debt reduction. It probably won't really make that much difference when we move at this point, as long as we make that emergency fund a priority. So we'll keep looking, and we'll keep squirreling away what we can into savings at every given opportunity. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is one of those areas of life where slow and steady really does win the race. Labels: goals, money management, personal, saving+investing |
<$Tuesday, April 24, 2007$>
Plans, frustrations and useful papercrafts
| I'm having a blogging slow-down this week as I catch up and get some stuff squared away at my job and work on finding a better work/blogging/writing balance. In the spirit of getting organized and setting goals, though, here are some topics I'd like to tackle here once my workload lightens up a bit: ~~~ That's what's on slate for the future. Meanwhile, between not being able to make a significant impact on what's left of my highest-interest credit card this month, and having to dip into our savings to get us through this pay period, I'm feeling a tad discouraged. It's not really putting me in the mood to talk about my finances. Part of the reason I'm focusing this week on getting on top of things on the job front is so that I'll have more time for some of my extra-income pursuits, such as writing for Associated Content (or referring people to sign up and write their own articles; do it through that link and I get a little referral kickback). I have plenty of article ideas, as well as things I want to add to my Etsy shop, not to mention promoting said shop; but I'm too distracted by things piling up around the office, and all of the guilt that goes with neglecting them. I think I'll be more motivated and productive on the extra earnings front once I'm not feeling quite so overwhelmed in my actual job. Which will be a very good thing, seeing as how we really need that extra cash to help us get ahead. Without it, we're just treading water. ~~~ Want to save money on what you carry it in? Check out this Instructables on making a paper wallet. I whipped one up on my coffee break a little while ago. I've been looking to replace my bulky and worn-out wallet with something less apt to weigh my purse down, and while this might not be the most fashion-conscious choice I could make, it's perfect for containing my money and credit cards without any bulk, all for the cost of a sheet of paper. As one astute commenter points out, it also doubles as a scratch pad to jot down grocery list items, and it's easily replaceable when you run out of room to write. And it's recyclable, too! Very nifty. Labels: extra income, freebies, goals, personal, random |
<$Monday, April 2, 2007$>
The "About Me" Post
| For those just joining us, I might as well tell you a few things about myself. So, randomly... I think that's everything relevant, and probably more than you really need to know. But now you know where I'm coming from, as well as where I'm (hopefully) headed. |