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Archive for October, 2013

Time to loosen the vice grip

October 25th, 2013 at 06:21 pm

Lately I've been so focused on money that I have let other goals fall by the wayside. I need to relearn balance.

I have stuck to being frugal and next week if everything goes well I will be credit card debt free. After that I will go back to saving and making double payments on my car.

But I have other goals I'd like to reach and I keep not going for them. I have had a goal to lose the 15 pounds I gained like sick and I keep putting it off. I need to start back at it. A week ago I was all pumped up for it. Picking out my gym clothes and updating my bag. I guess my thing is really that I want swim but there are only certain times when the pool is not busy so that I'd actually get a turn. I suppose I should just stick to my plan of waking up earlier and seeing what the pool crowd is like at that time.

It would be nice to focus on fitness again and fit back into my old clothes not to mention cost effective.

Does anyone else out there get to caught up in finances?

Possible New Medical Bill

October 22nd, 2013 at 05:42 pm

My teeth have been killing me lately the fillings on them have worn down I think. I still have no insurance and even with it dental work is pretty expensive. I have no idea how I can save up enough money for that but I am sure going to try. There are some places that will give you a free consultation. I think I will try one of those out and get an estimate and then shop around for other estimates. The dentists I have seen haven't all been great so I'll have to see if any of these are decent as well.

Decent probably costs more money. Frown I do need to eat though and its starting to get difficult due to the pain.

Frugal Social Outing

October 20th, 2013 at 08:12 am

Today I did an event that I have done for the past few years. The difference today was that I spent much less money than I had in previous years and I stuck to my guns. It was pretty great. I have to say frugal fun can be fun too. Smile Plus its great to leave the day without a credit card balance.

Countdown to midnight

October 17th, 2013 at 07:32 pm

I am so happy to report that first the first time in a long time I will be getting a paycheck from which I have not already spent a penny out of.

I am so excited to see how much I'll have left over after the bills and how much I can apply to my credit card to wipe out that pesky debt once and for all.

If I wipe it out I will have one less payment when my job ends which means this time I will have enough money left to afford groceries. I am just so excited.

More training to come on my contract job really happy that is going to go on longer. If it goes on long enough then maybe I can build a nice big fat EF before its all said and done. Smile

An end to credit card debt/ 2nd time credit card debt free

October 15th, 2013 at 07:47 pm

Things are going well at my contract job and so it looks like it will be going on for a bit longer.

Originally I was just going to stockpile money but now I see this opportunity to pay off my credit card debt again and it is an amazing thing to be so close to. It means to me one less payment I have to make when my contract job goes away which can be used to groceries.

Last time I had to pay $50 toward my credit card minimum and so I had $20 left to eat groceries. It was pretty gosh darn rough.

If the job goes on even longer than one month then depending on how much money is saved I will probably put my extra money in savings to build my cushion savings from 3 months to 6 months and build my EF back to 3 grand from the 1300 that it is at right now.

This next month is not going to be easy by any means but I will be so happy to know that I paid off my debt. I was credit card debt free once before and it did not last. This time I know it will since I have money in savings and did not touch my credit cards at all for the 9 month bout of unemployment I had. Weirdly or maybe not so I tend to charge on my cards when I have money thinking I will catch up.

After last weeks epiphany I do not think I will feel the need to do that anymore. I have been staying in my spending limits not buying things that I cannot afford right now. It has been so nice. And I know changing my mentality will mean I will no longer be racking up my credit cards.

My car loan is still $1500 over the worth of the car at the moment however I will reevaluate what I would like to do about that once the credit card is done depending on how long my contract employment will last and how much money is in my EF and my account with 3 months worth of expenses.

It feels so good to be that much closer to achieving my goals than sitting there in the negative because I could not wait to have something I thought I deserved or that I thought I needed.

Transfer approved

October 10th, 2013 at 07:25 pm

It appears that my balance transfer has gone through which I am super happy about. I got news from my job that I will be working for just a little while longer which is nice.

Things are okay and the car they say is fine, they just lubed everything up. I need to secure the tire in the trunk but can't figure it out. Putting it in my tiny studio apartment is not an option and there is a space for the donut but it's too small to accommodate the full size spare.

Stuck to frugality which was pretty awesome. It's really helping nothing extra is being charged on the cards keeping me on track to pay off the last revolving cc balance. I'm so thrilled. Next I just have to get my butt back at the gym! Ha one step at a time.

Balance Transfer Approved

October 10th, 2013 at 06:07 pm

I logged in today to find that my balance transfer had been approved. I had a meeting for my contract job that seems to imply that I will be working for a little while longer and it turns out it might be the tire in the trunk making the noise in the car after all. Problem is I'm going to have to secure it somehow because I cannot put it in my tiny studio apartment. The space where the donut is not big enough for it so I'm not sure how to secure it.

Fun stuff. Still sticking to being frugal and figuring out what to do finance wise but I'm pretty happy right now. I have some extra money in the next check I'm thinking I may put it toward paying off that cc balance and getting rid of it once and for all.

Sticking to frugality

October 7th, 2013 at 07:07 pm

Last week I had a little hickup in that I was too lazy to make myself coffee at home for a few days sadly that cost me $20 in starbucks coffee. Frown

I did however do good at eating at home and only spent just $10.00 out. Just now I put in for a balance transfer from a 19.8% interest rate to a 0.00% offer on another card plus a $57 fee. I did some calculations and the likely hood that I will not pay off this card while still working this contract job is high. I will probably get one, or if I'm lucky, two more paychecks out of it. So I realized it only makes sense to switch it over because when I have to go back to making minimum payments they will now be applied solely to the principal which will help me pay it off quicker even if I am not gainfully employed.

Now let's just hope the bank approves the transfer. I still have to bring the car in and will make that appointment shortly. I might as well find out what's wrong before something bad happens to the car or if it wipes out what's left of my emergency fund and I have to find a way to refund it quickly before my job ends.

Time for one last doctor's appointment and then hopefully after this week things will go back to normalish.

You can't always get what you want

October 4th, 2013 at 08:19 am

Today at midnight my one check came in. I had to take so much time off from my part-time job that I didn't even get a paycheck for it this week. I was so worried about this week because my regular paycheck from my contract job would also be short and I had to pay off the balance on CC1 (now clear), and I really wanted to make a large payment to CC2 (now marked as CC). I signed up for a pasta class at my local Sur La Table and I had two more in mind that I wanted to do. I wanted to do a run and another fun event. Plus I have a doctor's appointment coming up and an appointment to check out my car plus having to fill it with a full tank of gas.

I was sitting here racking my mind trying to figure out what possibly way I could do all these things and then it really hit me. I told myself: You don't need to do all of these things and you cannot afford it! You would have to charge it and since charging it would deter you from paying off the cc balance then you cannot afford it. Besides that you have a finite amount of time at your regular contract job. You do however need to refund your EF and you need to pay down your cc balance. You are just going to have to pick a few things and let the others go.

It's just hit me if I want something I will just charge it or try to save less etc to make it happen but right now having paid off two credit cards and being so close to paying off another I realize in order to stop having a balance I need to only get things that I can afford right now, at this moment. Yes there are things I could afford and I could charge them and pay them off by the end of the month but doing that would just take away from paying off a long standing balance on other card. The past two months I have screwed myself out of paying off that card and months before that I was building up an EF. Although I don't feel bad about the EF since if I had paid off the credit card the cost of my medical bills would have just negated what I paid off putting me right back where I started.

I'm just wondering why its been so hard to tell myself no before. Why I couldn't just put my foot down and stick to the plan. Maybe its the whole growing up thing. Maybe its the fact that after paying off my credit card debt once the easy way and now the hard way I've learned my lesson and can finally use them responsibly. Whatever it is I'm glad that it happened and that I am sticking to my guns. Yes I would like learn skills in cooking classes and do fun runs. But I can imagine how much happier I would be in that cooking class knowing its paid off (like the one I will be attending) or doing that run knowing that I was able to pay for it with a debit card than having it sit on a credit card with crazy interest.

I'll be much happier doing these things later when I know choosing to do something fun didn't impede my being able to make a payment that could help to wipe out my debt.

I'm so glad I'm finally sticking to a if you can't afford it than don't buy it plan.

When you have two jobs and money is still tight

October 1st, 2013 at 08:55 pm

Today I was once again going over what needs to come out of my next paycheck. About 39% of it is bills, then the plan is to do 40% to credit cards payments, then to keep on track put 18% for savings which leaves me with a whopping 3% of my paycheck for myself. It's been like this for a month now ever since the medical bills. Although those percentages of where the money went was different (x amount toward medical bills, x amount toward savings etc) things have been really tight.

It just seems like there's been one big money event after another, the wedding, funding my savings fully, draining my savings in order to cover medical bills, trying to build back savings while aggressively paying off my credit cards before my assignment ends. And now the credit card pay off plan may need to be put on hold depending on what they say is wrong with my car.

I am very happy that this all happened while I was gainfully and not so gainfully employed all at once since my not so gainful employment made it easy to build an emergency fund while my gainful employment covered the wedding and paying credit card bills but it feels like such a struggle and I'm getting sick of it.

I have been struggling my whole life and while things are certainly getting better. There's still no steady income on the horizon. Just strategies to hold on to the money I make while I make it and hope it carries me through to the next assignment. I'm hoping that this one will stick or at least get me a call back.

I don't mean to be depressing and whiny but I just feel like something has got to give!