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Home > Progress on the December debt goal (finally) and money babbles

Progress on the December debt goal (finally) and money babbles

December 15th, 2009 at 03:30 pm

It's been ages since there was any movement on this! One of AS's student loans hit, and $87 went to principal. $2791 down, $109 to go in December. I have two student loans and a credit card whose payments usually hit right around the end of the month, so as long as one or two of them go through before the 31st I'm good.

In other money news, AS got her first paycheck! Lower than I predicted by using one of those online paycheck calculators, but a bit more than unemployment. I teased her this morning that she's only making $1.50 more per hour working than she was sitting at home all day, but it's something she loves, so who cares? Besides she'll probably get a raise in July (well-timed since that's about when the baby will enter daycare).

NT received some kind of incentive check from one of his UK retirement accounts for agreeing to some kind of change in their policy. I don't understand British legalese and no one else in my house has any interest in legalese period, so we don't really get it. But 231 pounds we'll take! We're probably going to mail it to NT's mom to deposit into his UK account, since the stamp will cost less than the currency exchange fee our US bank would hit us with if we tried depositing it here.

Still haven't heard from NT's job about their open enrollment period; I REALLY hope it comes before the first of the year, so we can decide on the best route before paying a hefty premium to have him on my plan. (I went ahead and signed him onto mine but I have a feeling it will be financially better to have him sign up for his own plan and get dropped from mine; however we won't know that until his job unveils their new plan. Grr!) I also don't know anything about the premiums on AS's new health care, which will go into effect the first of the year (this month she's still on the private healthcare we got for her while she was unemployed), nor about her 403(b) options. I decided if the 403(b) doesn't kick in January, I'll just have her put another $120 into the IRA we set up for her, and keep doing that until her real retirement starts. It's a traditional IRA so we'll get a tax break on the money we put in it, so it's the same effect as having retirement taken pretax out of her paycheck except the benefit comes later.

In other news, baby expenses have hit $1,373.85 so far this year. I don't think that's too bad, and hopefully I picked a better healthcare option for 2010 that will result in less out-of-pocket; I didn't really understand the difference between high-deductible and high-premium (and still don't fully trust that I get it) but I think I have a better idea now.

Oops, time for my morning meeting!

7 Responses to “Progress on the December debt goal (finally) and money babbles”

  1. fern Says:
    1260893045

    Your deductible is the amount you must pay first before insurance picks up the tab for the rest of the year. It's usually $250 or $500 for a single or family.

    The premium is the monthly amount you pay, regardless.

    If you don't think you're going to have a lot of medical expenses for the coming year, you'd probably pick the high deductible and enjoy a lower monthly premium.

  2. zetta Says:
    1260894892

    Between having the baby and all the newborn visits, she can probably count on paying the full deductible next year!

  3. frugaltexan Says:
    1260896763

    That's a nice extra bit from England. Smile

  4. ceejay74 Says:
    1260897385

    Thanks guys; what confused me about healthcare is I got some bum information one year when a hospital visit cost more than my deductible. When I called BlueCross, I thought the rep told me it was because I had 2 different procedures and the deductible applied to each one; therefore the out-of-pocket maximum was the only number that mattered and not the deductible.

    What I found out much later is that the insurance co. covers 90% after the deductible is exhausted, not 100%, so that's probably why the visit cost slightly more than the deductible amount. So chance of hitting OOP max is slim in most scenarios. Unfortunately I discovered that AFTER deciding to go w/ high-deductible plan last year, reasoning that premiums were lower and OOP max about the same as the high-premium option. It was an expensive mistake caused by an ignorant and/or inarticulate BlueCross rep.

  5. Joan.of.the.Arch Says:
    1260900754

    If you haven't already discovered it, there is a fairly well known, friendly .UK savings forum where you could get help with any questions like those retirement legalese ones. Mneysavingexpert.com

  6. Joan.of.the.Arch Says:
    1260900809

    Moneysavingexpert.com Oops, left out an "O".

  7. ceejay74 Says:
    1260912059

    Thanks Joan! I just checked to see if they had any info about the taxability in UK of Roth IRAs--one of my nagging unresolved questions about preparing for retirement there--and didn't find anything, but I'll definitely keep the site in mind, because I have questions all the time about British finances.

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