This week has brought nothing but trouble. I completely miscalculated the amount I needed to set aside for health insurance and was left grasping at nothing when I had to come up with an extra $260. I went ahead and paid it since health insurance is on the top of the priority list as far as where our funds go. Unfortunately that meant dipping into the money set aside for our mortgage, another bill high on the priority list. We drained savings last week for groceries and granted, we did get a little too much take out. Baby Bee was in the ER last week with RSV and well... nothing else much mattered. All financial gumption goes out the window in an emergency.
I also got denied for unemployment since I can't seek a full time job right now. That is a load of BS. I also got denied cuz they didn't like my reason for quitting my last job. I think I could successfully appeal that one but there's just no way to have a full time job right now. There's no good daycare here (not like we could afford it anyway) and my only caregivers could be Nana or Mom both of whom have busy schedules themselves. It seems our only options are a part time job that's hours could piggyback Billy's off time and supplemented by my mom's off time or both of us getting decent paying part time jobs. Both options would be big fat juggling acts but I don't know how much longer we can make it on one income. Grrr. Also, Billy's car is mere days away from kicking the bucket. And Kevin can't find a job so he's depressed and that has Billy asking if we can help him out... Uh, no. We can barely help ourselves. He's living here rent free and we feed him. He's a HUGE help with the Bee and will do any household chore asked of him so I'm not really complaining there but we can't make his car payment or his phone bill. No can do. Not in the situation we're in. In the span of a week, two credit cards lowered our credit limit one for the second time. We're baby steps away from them shutting us off completely.
The only ups of this down week were the fact that Billy canceled a game reservation he had at Game Stop (that he made by trading in old games) and they gave him straight up cash. They weren't supposed to do that but thank God they did. We got $47 that bought dog food, cat food, formula, a little gas for ye' olde SUV and it mailed birthday presents for 2 nephews. Presents that I got for free at Walgreens ^_^! Woot! And the other up... is a pending up really. Billy got a letter from his dad's former employer informing us that he had a long lost retirement plan and pension sitting there. Nobody has a clue how much it's worth (probably far less that it was before now) but we might (and it's a big MIGHT) get a little bit of money that way. I'm not holding my breath but it could happen.
So pretty much it's just been freak out after freak out this week. Hopefully April will prove to be a fiscally happy month. Fingers... crossed... XXXX. Yah.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Where We Are
This little family is so far in debt it's not even funny. Granted, I did make the decision to be a stay-at-home mom in our absolute WORST financial state EVER (personally and nationally). This decision is, of course, not as crazy as it sounds. The Bee will be our only biological baby for reasons outside our control and to miss my only chance at this would be a sin in of itself. Nevertheless, the joy that little girl puts in our life seems to be overshadowed sometimes by those flashing numbers above our heads: $23,021.12 in credit card debt! $3500 and counting in medical bills! A mortgage we can barely pay because of our other debt! Student loans racking up!
The student loans make an easy and dreadable deadline for CREDIT CARD PAYOFF. We have until mid-2011 to pay it all off so we can afford to start paying on the loans. BLAH! Ya know, before I had a medical emergency without health insurance (a sin punishable by death in a lot of cases) we never had a lick of debt. At all. Ah, but one surgery and a week in the hospital later there we were. I got fired and we signed the papers on our mortgage. Then I got pregnant. Yup, swipe here swipe there, pay that bill off with another swipe, figure we'll pay it off later swipe swipe swipe and here we sit in a big fat hole. Then it became worse and worse as I went through postpartum depression and well, we just kept buying STUFF. When the money would run out, we'd fill in the gaps with credit cards. I don't even want to think about how many grocery trips and diapers I'm paying off now. Stuff that's been eaten, thrown away and it's still not paid for. Not to mention furniture that's falling apart and trips that are mere memories in a scrapbook - not paid for. Not the trip OR the scrapbook.
But! So far in 2009, except for 2 occasions where I left my debit card in my back pocket after buying gas (a bad habit of mine) and one occasion where I could only get the sale if I used my card, we haven't used a credit card for anything. The 2 "oops" moments were paid for out of the account immediately and the sale charge was only 69 cents and was for six items of clothing one of which I returned making my purchases totally free!
My moment came in January during Oprah's Best Life week. (sidenote* stay-at-home moms are pretty much drawn to Oprah for no apparent reason. It just is...) The show came on on a Thursday and I recorded it and watched it over the weekend. (Our DVR is free thanks to some programming mistakes that DirecTV made and I made Billy sit on the phone with customer service until they compenstated us fully ^_^) Anyway, Suze Orman was on and she asked the viewers to make a pledge to not spend for a day, not use credit cards for a week, and not eat out for a month. Well, I started on a Sunday and it took nothing not to spend that day. Then we stopped using credit cards. And then we never starting using them again. Now here it is, the end of March and we've made leaps in paying off our debt. Granted we've had quite a bit of extra income. We sold a car, Billy got his cost of living grant from school (which I should probably flip over to paying off his loan but there's more pressing debts at hand), and we got our first tax refund as parents. Now, we get to see how well we can do it on Billy's income alone.
My goal is to get under $20000 in debt by 25. That gives me four months to pay off just over $3000. I'm crossing my fingers that I qualify for unemployment so we can put aside a little emergency cash, get Hubby's car fixed, and throw the rest at debt. The only for sure lump of cash I know is coming is the "extra" paycheck in May. I have to talk with Billy about if he wants to charge any rent to Kevin who is currently our Roomie. We're not charging him anything now as he doesn't have a job and he helped us like crazy when we first got out on our own. He's a huge help around the house and it doesn't seem to be costing us too much more for him to be living here. But if Billy is OK with charging him a little, we can have that too. Also, I want to have a garage sale and all of that will go to debt. So we'll see.
The student loans make an easy and dreadable deadline for CREDIT CARD PAYOFF. We have until mid-2011 to pay it all off so we can afford to start paying on the loans. BLAH! Ya know, before I had a medical emergency without health insurance (a sin punishable by death in a lot of cases) we never had a lick of debt. At all. Ah, but one surgery and a week in the hospital later there we were. I got fired and we signed the papers on our mortgage. Then I got pregnant. Yup, swipe here swipe there, pay that bill off with another swipe, figure we'll pay it off later swipe swipe swipe and here we sit in a big fat hole. Then it became worse and worse as I went through postpartum depression and well, we just kept buying STUFF. When the money would run out, we'd fill in the gaps with credit cards. I don't even want to think about how many grocery trips and diapers I'm paying off now. Stuff that's been eaten, thrown away and it's still not paid for. Not to mention furniture that's falling apart and trips that are mere memories in a scrapbook - not paid for. Not the trip OR the scrapbook.
But! So far in 2009, except for 2 occasions where I left my debit card in my back pocket after buying gas (a bad habit of mine) and one occasion where I could only get the sale if I used my card, we haven't used a credit card for anything. The 2 "oops" moments were paid for out of the account immediately and the sale charge was only 69 cents and was for six items of clothing one of which I returned making my purchases totally free!
My moment came in January during Oprah's Best Life week. (sidenote* stay-at-home moms are pretty much drawn to Oprah for no apparent reason. It just is...) The show came on on a Thursday and I recorded it and watched it over the weekend. (Our DVR is free thanks to some programming mistakes that DirecTV made and I made Billy sit on the phone with customer service until they compenstated us fully ^_^) Anyway, Suze Orman was on and she asked the viewers to make a pledge to not spend for a day, not use credit cards for a week, and not eat out for a month. Well, I started on a Sunday and it took nothing not to spend that day. Then we stopped using credit cards. And then we never starting using them again. Now here it is, the end of March and we've made leaps in paying off our debt. Granted we've had quite a bit of extra income. We sold a car, Billy got his cost of living grant from school (which I should probably flip over to paying off his loan but there's more pressing debts at hand), and we got our first tax refund as parents. Now, we get to see how well we can do it on Billy's income alone.
My goal is to get under $20000 in debt by 25. That gives me four months to pay off just over $3000. I'm crossing my fingers that I qualify for unemployment so we can put aside a little emergency cash, get Hubby's car fixed, and throw the rest at debt. The only for sure lump of cash I know is coming is the "extra" paycheck in May. I have to talk with Billy about if he wants to charge any rent to Kevin who is currently our Roomie. We're not charging him anything now as he doesn't have a job and he helped us like crazy when we first got out on our own. He's a huge help around the house and it doesn't seem to be costing us too much more for him to be living here. But if Billy is OK with charging him a little, we can have that too. Also, I want to have a garage sale and all of that will go to debt. So we'll see.
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