My Thoughts on My Debt
So it turned out that H cooked at my place last night so I didn’t have to supply the food…but I sorta did anyway, what with bread I’d already baked and party mix that I made on Monday. Anyway, it was fun.
It’s been nearly a year since I began reading all these personal finance blogs. Some are instructional in nature, while others are similar to mine: just updating on our own financial lives and giving tips when we come across them. These are the ones that I like best: just regular people trying to get out of debt.
What I’ve been noticing lately is how my outlook has changed in the past year. Prior to all this reading, I never felt hampered by my car loan and student loans. I didn’t like them, of course, but I felt like it was normal to have these kind of payments going out each month. I had the desire to pay them off early if I could, but I wasn’t actually doing anything towards that end–I simply paid everything due each month. I was going around without concern.
Once I started reading, though, I started feeling like I had to get rid of the debt as soon as possible. I’m constantly trying to find ways to save money or get a little extra money, feeling guilty when I don’t do something as cheaply as possible, etc. Frankly, I’m exhausted and my debt has become a weight instead of a nuisance. And my debt is so managable! I pay $262.72 every month. There are people that would LOVE to only have to pay that each month to stay afloat.
I’m not always exhausted, though. Some days I get really excited, whether it’s seeing my amount of debt lessen or saving a few bucks on something at the grocery store. I just sort of miss not worrying about things so much.
But that’s today. For the rest of this month I’m going to work on my 2009 goals because I’ll feel brighter everytime that I accomplish something…especially the things that get me more organized / neater, etc.
My Resolution Progress
I still need to update my expenses for this month, but I wanted to mention that I’m not doing too poorly on my resolutions so far!
Probably the most important goal that I made was to write 7500 words a month for my novel and I’m at 3538 for the month! Sure, I’m skipping around and writing the fun parts first, but the larger the chunks I have the more inspired I’ll get to finish (I hope). Anyway, all that took less than four hours total, so I estimate that if I simply devoted two hours a week to writing, I’d meet my goal each month. I’m not going to set THAT goal, though, because I really never know when I’m going to get writer’s block.
I’ve finished two books so far, out of the fifty I want to read this year. When I told B that one of my resolutions was to read fifty books in 2009, he pointed out how ridiculous this was. “That’s like me resolving to sit on the couch and watch TV for several hours a week,” he scoffed. He’s right. I should have made it harder…like fifty books I’ve never read…or a hundred books total. Oh well. The main thing is that I keep track of what I read.
I haven’t missed any deadlines yet, either, so I’m not failing yet! Yay!
My NEW New Year’s Resolution
So I’m already thinking of editing one of my New Year’s Resolutions, namely the creating and sticking to a budget every month. It’s just no good. Rather, I’m no good at it. There are certain areas where I know exactly how much I’m going to spend, but others where I have zero clue.
I have to do SOMETHING, though, so I’m going to document everything that I spend. I did this in May and November and I think that I went under budget both months (or if I didn’t in November it’s because of buying in bulk at Costco). I tend to spend more when I’m not paying attention everyday, so the end result of the resolution will be the same: to control my spending.
Since I received a $100 Visa gift card for Christmas, I’m going to start using it on a regular basis for everyday expenses (I know that’s not the point of the gift, but saving money will help me more than a new pair of shoes will) like when I go to Panera every other Tuesday. This way my spending won’t count too much against me, either.
So along with accounting for my expenses, I’m going to keep a list somewhere (maybe a new page to this blog?) where I keep track of what exactly should be in my Gift Fund, Emergency Fund, Car (maintenance/insurance/etc.) Fund, and Regular Savings each month. Here’s my initial plan:
Savings- $100/month
Gift Fund- $50/month
Car Fund- $200 + $50/month
Emergency Fund- $1000
I need to put a lot in the car fund right away because in just a few months I’m going to have to get a new timing belt and that’s going to cost somewhere between $600-700. So, by 31 January, I’d like to see these at:
Savings- $100
Gift Fund- $50 (minus what I spend on B’s birthday gift)
Car Fund- $250
Emergency Fund- $1000 (HA! That won’t happen. The E fund will be funded with what’s leftover or from the Regular Savings until it’s full. Luckily this is a three paycheck month, so it’s a good time to get started on each of these accounts).
My New Year’s Resolutions
Happy New Year, folks!
Generally, I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions because I never stick to them. On the other hand, I never even TRY to do stuff without goals, either, so maybe it’s time that I make an attempt.
Here goes:
1. Write 7500 words per month for my novel. This should put me at over 100,000 words when added to the 10,000+ words that I already wrote. That still probably won’t be enough for a full novel, but it’ll give me a humongous chunk.
2. Write 10+ songs (lyrics only). I enjoy song-writing, or used to enjoy it, anyway. Now, I rarely think about it. I think that I might tailor them to fit aspects of my novel to keep everything related.
3. Save $2000. I think that if I have $2000 “extra” money by 31 December 2009, I’ll be pretty pleased with myself. That’s less than $200/month, after all.
4. Update Redskin Letters at least once a week in the off-season.
5. Update Living Paycheck to Paycheck at least three days a week.
6. File my tax return EARLY this year; I’m saying by 14 February 2009 (St. Valentine’s Day) as long as my parents have their copy of Turbo Tax by then.
7. File away all my “important papers” (tax documents, credit card bills, bank statements, car repair information, etc.) by 31 January 2009. Yup. I have a stack of stuff that I haven’t sorted in over a year. I’m great. This is to cut down on the massive amounts of clutter. In fact, I’ll change this to “File away all my ”important papers” by the last day of EVERY month.”
8. Limit my “Sims 2″ playing to 15 hours a week, or rather 60 hours every four weeks. This goal also requires that I keep track of this, and I really want to know how much time I’m wasting spending on the computer when I could be doing other, more productive things.
9. Use my pool once a week in the summer. B and I hardly used the pool at my complex this summer, mostly because we were away so many weekends, and I want to change that. Maybe this is where I can spend some of my non-Sim hours. Also, it’ll help with my tan.
10. Get down to a solid 130 lbs. I don’t know what I weigh right now, but I’m expecting that it’s not good since I’ve been pigging out like crazy since Christmas and I still have fudge and other chocolate in the apartment. I should just invite B over; he’ll take care of it for me.
11. Create a budget every month and stick to it. Haven’t for this month yet, but I’ll try to get on that.
12. Create a gift fund like I’ve been saying I’ll do for a long time now. One that will be for birthdays, weddings, showers, and Christmas. I figure that if I tuck away $50/month that should cover a large chunk of anything thrown my way.
13. Read 50 books (and keep a list). I’m not requiring that they be NEW books because I love rereading old ones, but I do require that they’re read from front to back; no skipping parts that I don’t like.
14. I’d like to resolve something to do with cooking, but I hate cooking. And as long as I don’t HAVE to cook, I’m just not gonna. I enjoy baking, though. I already make awesome cookies, so no need to mess with perfection (haha), so maybe I can try out biscuit recipes until I find a kind that I love? Sure. I resolve it.
15. I will write things down as soon as they pop into my head (unless I’m in the car or otherwise unable) instead of not writing stuff down and forgetting it later and being sad that my memory ain’t what it used to be.
16. I will finish what I start. This is something that I’m TERRIBLE at (hence so many resolutions). I’d love to start a chore and finish it before starting something else and not finishing that, either. Take this weekend, for example. I did five loads of laundry on Saturday, but didn’t fold them until yesterday. Guess what hasn’t been put away yet? Likewise, I cleaned one of my kitchen countertops and then set up my new knife set rather than finishing cleaning the other countertops, stove, etc. It’s amazing that I finish getting dressed every morning before work.
I may add more to the list as the year goes on, but right now this works for me. And I haven’t broken any yet (so long as I make that January budget).
My Procrastination
My apologies for not posting for the last few days. I was concentrating on the presidential election a lot, working a lot, and I just didn’t feel like I had much to contribute.
I still don’t exactly. I figure that tomorrow or Monday I’ll post with my spending for the month so far, but right now I’m just tired. I think that I need to spend more time doing what I want versus what I feel like I have to do…but isn’t that the story of my life? 
Anyway, each week I have a mental list of things that I need to get done, but I only do the ones that MUST.GET.DONE. Other things I put off for a long time. With that in mind, I want to do something new with this blog.
Every month many PF bloggers post a list of goals and then let us all know how they did. Well, I’m going to do that with my chores / errands weekly and keep the post at the top of the blog and update it everytime I can cross something off. Hopefully this will cause me to plan ahead and actually get things done. So, look for that above this post soon!
My November Goals
Goal #1: Decide what I’m buying for Christmas gifts. I don’t have to actually purchase them, but I want to have a list of exactly what I’m getting so that I can spend time finding the best deals.
Goal #2: Earn more money than what I get from my paycheck. Once again, I’m going to try to arrange time to work for my dad, but this money could also come from other places. Like cashback from my Discover card.
Goal #3: Spend less than I earn! We’ll see. If I start up with the Christmas gifts and buying in bulk from Costco, I may not be able to swing this.
Goal #4: Vote! This one’s easy. I’m doing it tomorrow!
Goal #5: Get down to a size four. I don’t think that I can do this by the end of the month, but right now I seem to be too big for a four and too small for a six. Even if the Wakefield twins were perfect size sixes (and that’s what I aspired to be from the age of 11 when I started reading Sweet Valley High), I’d rather go smaller if I can.
Instead of doing daily updates for my expenses, I think that I’ll do weekly and I’ll add in a weight category. I haven’t weighed myself since Friday morning and I think that I was around 135 or 136 then. My old goal (which I met) was 133 lbs, but that sticks me in the no-pants region of Nothing Fits land, so I’m going to make it 130 lbs. Can I lose 5-6 lbs. in 27 days…including Thanksgiving??? And believe me, I’m not scrimping on food at Thanksgiving just to lose a pound or two. I’m pigging out even if it means I don’t meet my goal.
So there you have it. My November goals!
My End-of-October Recap!
Let’s begin with my October goals:
Goal #1: Eat on less than $2.50 / day. Passed! Adding up my grocery purchases, and eating out / ordering food, my total came to $28.97…unless you want to count drinking at the Maryland Renn Festival, but I’m not. That was for entertainment, not food.
Goal #2: Earn extra money. Passed! I didn’t work for my dad like I intended, but I did get a bonus!
Goal #3: Spend less than I earn! Passed! My grand total for income minus expenses was $460.50!
Goal #4: Save money. Passed? I mean, I’m saving that money, yeah. I guess this kinda went with Goal #3.
On the other hand, I didn’t give as much to my church as I planned because I only attended Mass at my own church once during the entire month. The other times I attended B’s church. So to make up for that, they’ll be getting a lot more this month.
Now onto my Net Worth. My retirement accounts went down a bunch, just like everyone else’s have (keep in mind that I put more in this month than usual because of money taken from my bonus and it still went down). My assets went down considerably, but my debt went down by approximately $5,143 because of my payment to Mom and Dad. I’m still very happy about getting such a huge chunk out of the way. So my net worth actually raised by $346, while my raise (after taxes and such) was less than that. All in all, not bad.
Now I just have to worry about Christmas!
My Goals for October 2008
Goals, goals, goals.
Goal #1: Originally my goal was going to be to eat on less than $2/day, but I think that might be a little TOO ambitious for me. I’m switching it to $2.50/day on average, so the goal is $77.50 for groceries. I think that I can beat this since I still have leftovers in the fridge / freezer and I won’t be able to finish before tomorrow.
Goal #2: Earn extra money
To do this, I expect to work at my dad’s office for him. While I’m there, I can pick up my Costco card and maybe actually use it! Woohoo! I hope to find Ramen for less than .20/package which is the best price I’ve seen so far.
Goal #3: Spend less than I earn!
I haven’t been doing this and it wasn’t a problem until I started eating up my savings. I think that I’m going to try to work on Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover plan, so the first thing that I need to do is save up $1000. I’m not close.
Goal #4: Save money.
I’ve made a zero-based budget, but I don’t know what I’m going to come out with at the end of the month, obviously. I’d love to have $200 at the end of the month, though, through extra work or rewards (like from my Discover card). Which reminds me that I need to buy gas tomorrow so I can get that 5% back one last time before the end of the 3-month period.
My Dilemma
When I got back from the beach I read Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover and enjoyed it, but it left me torn on what’s best for me right now: paying down debt or saving money.
Usually when this question is asked of an “expert” they suggest that you save if you’re getting a better return than the interest you’re paying on your debts. If I had substantial credit card debt, I’d know that it must be paid down as soon as possible, but I’m not in that boat.
I’ve never had credit card debt and never plan to, either. I didn’t get my first credit card until I was nearly 22 years old, so I bypassed relying on credit like other college students do. I might have accrued some credit card debt if I’d had one, but I doubt it. It never occurred to me that I should buy things now that I won’t be able to pay for when the bill comes due. So it was not from a strong sense of responsibility that I never fell into the credit trap, but a lack of someone telling me, “You can buy it now and pay for it in a few months!”
Currently I have the student loans that I pay interest on every month and I can write it off come tax time. I read today that I can do this every year until it’s paid off instead of only for the first five years as was the original tax law. As my pay increases every year, the payment I make will be a smaller and smaller chunk out of my monthly budget. Theoretically I could just pay every month for the next 13 years and four months and it would be no big deal. The money I would have put to extra payments could be put into savings for a car or a house or something.
But I’m not planning on working for the next 13 years and four months. Here are a few of my goals:
1. Get married in 2-3 years (this depends on when/if B proposes)
2. Replace my 4Runner with another used SUV in 3-5 years (this depends on how long it lasts…I’m averaging around 24,000 miles a year presently, and I’m just over 106,000 right now…I’d love for it to still be reliable at 200,000, but….it’s unlikely)
3. Buy a house in 4-5 years
4. Quit my job after having first child in 5-6 years (depending on when/if I get married)
I’d like to increase my net worth as much as possible in the next 5-6 years that I’ll be working, either by paying down the debt or putting more in savings, so that we’re in better financial shape by the time kids come along. B expects to help me pay off debt once we’re married, just as I expect to help him pay off any of his own, so I don’t feel an all-consuming need to be out of debt before getting hitched…but it would be nice to have a chunk of it out of the way.
So what I’m getting at is I don’t know what to do. Does it make more sense to save or pay off?
My Party, Part III
I didn’t keep it below $60, but I gave myself some great excuses as to why not.
I didn’t thaw the shrimp correctly and had to trash the entire bag. I was counting on it being a substantial part of the food that I was offering, so I decided to get more food. I also had to run out and get more things for the gin bucket. One of these gin buckets costs almost exactly $10.00 and it was almost gone with only four or five of the guests there, so I went and got more. My grand total came to $78, rounded to the nearest dollar. Since the shrimp cost $10-12 to begin with, I added that to the original $60, so I came quite close. I also had almost a full case of beer left over, a fair amount of boxed wine, and I received three bottles of wine as presents which I was not expecting, so I feel like I came out ahead.
Soon I will come out with a list of goals to help me to avoid spending more money. One of my goals is to post each day on how much money I spend so that I can see what I’m buying. I think that I will start this on 1 May, so that I can look at it as a month-by-month thing.
Today I will finish my taxes; when I started them last week, TurboTax showed me how much I could contribute to an IRA and what my tax refund would turn out to be. I need to enter some new documents that I found first to see how it’s changed, but last week it looked like I could contribute over $1000 and still get $1500 back. I can’t wait to get this money back, especially since it should bump up my net worth.
