Broken

I am about to make a "make it or break it" decision. It could work out. Or it could go horribly wrong...
Right now we've upped our debt by:
$795 on parental "payday loan"
$150 on car expenses
$930.13 on Hubby's commute expenses
$200 micellaneous
=$2025.13 Total

Am I proud of this? No. Was it necessary? Yes.
I'm thinking I'm about to up it some more.

We are $1001 behind on being completely current on bills. Don't get me wrong, they always get paid. We suffer in other areas to make sure of this. I toss and turn at night thinking of it. Anyway, I have a whole system of setting portions aside for quarterly bills and splitting expenses of monthly bills across both paychecks. It's always worked for me and it's mildly complicated to look at... but anyway. We're $401 behind on setting money aside. The most worrying is $188 of that is for health insurance- one of our top expenses. The other $600 is half of our mortgage that I've been two weeks behind on for several months and end up paying $3-$6 in late fees on monthly.
My idea is to take bills that I can put on a credit card and doing so. Just to catch up. Is it really catching up if I have to pay for it later plus interest? Nope. But I don't know what else to do. I'm slightly freaking out.

So much for the extra $75...

After getting all excited about the possibility of an extra $75 per paycheck I realized that we still had to sign up for insurance and a 401k... I am being really bad and only contributing 2% to the 401k even though Billy's company will do a 25% match up to 6%. *sigh* I made a silent pact with myself to up the contribuitions in one year. Nevertheless I can still see Suze Orman in my head going "ARE YOU CRAZY?!? That's FREE money!!!" Alas, we cannot afford $225 to come out each month. This way the insurance and 401k will take up the extra $75 and we'll just be normal. Damn. I just can't constitute skipping these things all together and getting screwed later but luckily we're still young yet... ARGH this sucks.

Not Making Anything Any Better ;_;

I have gone crazy bananas in the last week or so with....... credit cards. I am so horribly ashamed of myself. I have put $135 worth of purchases on a credit card in the last week. What a disgusting step backward. This can be broken down into: $54 on two outfits at Old Navy, $50 in groceries, $20 on a haircut, and $11 on dinner out. Really I just reached a point of being so angry that we have NO spending money, NO wiggle room. Try as we might, we just can't make ends meet.
The good news of the last two weeks is that Billy got a sizeable raise. YAY! The bad news is that since the last three months of paychecks have included a "signing bonus" his paychecks will basically be the same. So really if he didn't get his fat raise (Thank you thank you Lord) we'd be officially drowning. Actually, I just did a paycheck calulator and his checks could possibly be $75 more each week than we have been getting. Oh I hope it's right! An extra $75 could help tremendously.
Things I have done right this last pay period were getting back on track with frugal hacking at stores. Walgreens had a higher OOP since I haven't done it in a looooong time but I got about $13 worth of stuff for $7 plus $6 in Register Rewards so not too bad. I frugal hacked Target for the first time since it's so far away. It paid off but HOOBOY was it a hassle. I went through two checkers and two managers to make it go but I got out of there with $15-$20 worth of stuff for $4. It would've been less but Billy came along and bought PopTarts. At least they were on sale. I also have $13 pending in survey money.
So really, I haven't fallen off the wagon completely but I'm not proud of myself in any way. I gotta keep this attitude of entitlement under control. NO, I'm not entitled to whatever I want. I need to pay for the mistakes I've already made.

I Suck With Money

There was this time I used to think I was good with money. We did have two incomes at the time but they actually added up to less than just Billy makes now. So that wasn't it - no, we had very little in the way of expenses and also very little in the way of having a frickin' clue. Oh and we didn't have credit cards. Then when we did, we paid them in full every month. But that didn't mean I was good with money.
When we saved money, it was for big fat vacations or big fat purchases. Not for emergencies.

Financial Confessions:

1. When I was 22, I cashed in my 401k to go to Disneyland. >_<


2. The money we had in savings that we actually did use for an emergency was originally earmarked for a pre-planned trip to Disney World. We still went on the trip with $0 in savings and proceeded to pay for everything by credit card. It still hasn't been paid off and that was two years ago. >_<


3. The money I set aside to pay for the birth of Baby Bee got raided so we could send SIL 2 of 4 and her gaggle to a state far far away. While this was wonderful for our mental health, I still felt slighted... so we spent the rest on a Babymoon to Hawaii. >_<

I. Am. Dumb.

So Sick of Firsts

My dinner is turning sour in my stomach as we speak.
We hit another financial first today (yesterday actually but I just found out). To add to the growing list of 2009 horrors... our first maxed out credit card complete with a spill right over to over the limit plus the fee. With Billy's commute we've been unlucky enough to have to put the gas on a credit card that was already pretty full. Well, we've reached the end of that. Now I have to figure out how to scrape up enough to cover the minimum payment plus bring the balance low enough so that when the interest is posted next month, we're not over the limit again. This will be at least $120 total. The extra $30 above the minimum payment just may have to come out of our fledgling emergency fund. ;_;
I know we're making (sloooooooooooow) progress. I know we won't have to float commuting expenses once Billy starts making commission. But I really feel like we're drowning. It's like our heads are being shoved underwater until we're about to pass out and then we're allowed one deep breath before being shoved under again. It makes you wonder... is it really worth the fight?
Also another first... I'm consciously skipping my annual doctor visit. We just cannot afford it. How sick is that? I haven't missed an annual exam EVER. And I've been being all responsible like since I was almost 17. Good lord.

A Little Speck of Light

I just made a spreadsheet to see how a medical bill snowball would play out AND...
IF everything goes well and...
IF no other new bills show their ugly faces...
ALL MEDICAL BILLS WILL BE PAID BY DECEMBER!!! Woot!

This is contigent upon me finding a way to pay the peditrician in full and Bee's ER visit from March getting approved for financial aid at 100%. So yeah. Those are big contigencies. >_< At the very least, I will meet one goal by paying off Bee's birth and nursery stay by the time she is 18 months. Sick sick stupid healthcare in America. *sigh* This also gives me a glimmer of hope that there really will be an end to debt repayment someday. Soon-ish. Before I'm 30 for sure. Skittley doo.