Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

Checked some online accounts, and the following amounts of principal have been paid:
US mortgage: $288
UK mortgage 1: $124
UK mortgage 2: $26
UK mortgage 3: $28
Credit card: $273
= $739

So that's $1945 down, $580 to go for December. I think I have at least $750 in minimum payments hitting later in the month, so we should make the goal, no problem. :-)

I paid off the credit card that I used to reserve hotel rooms for our trip to England in May. The remaining balance was $1148. So for my December goal, that's $1206 down, $1319 to go.

My December goal is same as the last two months, to pay off at least $2525 in principal by the end of the month.

To that end, I just checked another credit card and that payment posted. $58 in principal, so that's only $2467 left to go for December!

This is another new credit card bill, the card I used to pay for my England plane tickets. It has 0% APR until May 2008, so I'm going to pay the minimum on that one till I get closer to that deadline. Then I'm going to pay quickly before it builds much interest.

It has been painful to put these expenses on credit, even though I planned for this back in July when I first started this debt repayment regimen. I'm going to work very hard to make sure that this, and NT's education, are the only things in the future I don't buy with my own money (barring a new house when we eventually move).

Hooray! My early credit card payment posted: $23 to principal. So I paid off $2545, $20 over my goal, in November.

This was on a credit card that I used to reserve my England hotel rooms for our trip in May. It does not have a pretty interest rate, so I'm going to pay off the remaining balance on payday (Friday). This means I should absolutely slaughter my December goal! :-)

Small payment posted to an NT credit card; $8 in principal.

$2522 down, only $3 to go! I've sent a credit card payment early so I'll be sure to make my monthly goal. Should hit later in the week.

NT's pensions: 7,250 pounds ($14,500)
10,725 pounds ($21,450)
NT's 401(k): $175
AS's 403(b): $2,152
CJ's 401(k): $25,248
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $185,000
Total Assets: $508,525

Total Debt: $447,589

Current Estimated Net Worth: $60,936

10/16 estimate: $58,328
Change in net worth: +$2,608

Note: House value estimates are conservative, and retirement totals don't include amounts currently unvested.

OK, it's been awhile since I checked balances and some automatic and extra payments have posted:

NT CCs: $181, $7 and $272 of principal
CJ personal loan: $410 of principal
AS student loan: $51 of principal
And I've done the math 3 times and concluded I messed up last time: total debt is $8 lower than I thought.

So $929 more paid. For the November Ad Hoc goal, that's $2514 down, $11 to go!

Clearly I will have to pay extra on something and make the goal, since I'm so close. :-)

It's been a yo-yo weekend of news for my family, financially.

First, we found out AS's wisdom teeth will only cost us $225. We had put aside $400 for that. So yay! Into the Xmas fund, which will hit its goal much sooner now.

Then, we found out we may owe 560 pounds to the British government for taxes. Ouch! That's like $1,200 at the current exchange rate. That will be due 1/31 if we can't find a way around it.

But the roller coaster climbed back upwards again when we found out NT got a Thanksgiving bonus (who ever heard of that??) of $1000.

So when all's said and done, we're down about $25 for the weekend. :-)

On the plus side, the two pay-ins are immediate, while the bill is two months away. Allows us to fulfill immediate needs and wants more easily, with more time to plan and save for the upcoming payment.

Looks like we'll be able to hit all our money goals for Christmas, the CSA farm share, birthdays and England--NT just got news of a $5,000 raise, effective immediately!

This gives us just enough elbow room to make our financial goals for November and December, even assuming NT doesn't get an Xmas bonus. We're not counting on it; if that does come, we'll use part of it to add to all our winter wardrobes (we're all running a little low on clothes) and the other part will go toward birthdays and the trip to England.

Looking ahead, the raise, coupled with my adjustment of benefits starting Jan. 1, should make England and a new dishwasher attainable goals that don't interfere with my aggressive debt repayment plan.

Oh, it feels good when money falls into our laps! Especially now that we spend wisely and deliberately, because we know it won't be squandered away on nothing.

Well, let's see how I've done since late October, when I posted this list of future expensive purchases:

1. Halloween party. Done! Party was a success, and once I got back my deposit for the keg, I was able to finish saving for:

2. CSA. I already had almost $450 in upcoming surplus, so the keg refund brought me to the $500 I need. Once I get paid Nov. 15, I'll send the check off, guaranteeing fresh local produce every week next year!

3. Xmas! At last count we only had $37 in the gift fund, when we would like $600. Well, we've started putting our exercise incentive money into an envelope as soon as we get it, and then transferring into the Christmas fund. Also, we're each getting a $25 gift credit cards for various reaons, so as we each receive ours, I put $20 that I would take out for spending money into the Xmas fund instead. Any extra money I get goes into this until it's fully funded. So far: $145 in the bank, $15 in the envelope and a $10 survey payment I'll add in today. $170!

4. Birthdays! Nothing saved in this yet, but I'll start on it as soon as Xmas is over

5. A new dishwasher! Well, I have $35 in the home improvement fund, but we may end up getting paint first and sprucing up the bedroom, so I may not have anything saved toward this. That's all right, the old one will do for a while longer.

6. England! I've booked everything, and as predicted, the airfare, hotel and rental car (plus insurance and gas) will just about wipe out the $5000 I'd planned to spend (with maybe $300 left for food and fun). I'd started a vacation fund for our next vacation, but it looks like we'll need it for England, so after Xmas and birthdays, this is my main priority. So far we have $75 in there. I don't have a set goal for how much to accumulate at this point, but I think we'll need at least $500 more to not be struggling to pay for all our meals; it's a 10-day trip, there are three of us, and the dollar is mighty weak against the pound these days!

Still a long way to go, but it's nice to see we've made progress on some of these goals.

Paid off GBP77, or about $154, in principal.

$1585 down, $940 to go!

One card I paid extra on this month, I may not get balance confirmation till next month. I wonder if that's going to make me a little under goal? Ordinarily that would spur me to pay extra somewhere else somehow, but Xmas is coming like a freight train, so extra money has to get saved for that!

Oh well, if I show up as falling short, I'll know next month will be that much more impressive when the payment does hit.

Paid $292 of principal on my credit card. So for my November goal, I've paid $1431 down, with $1094 to go.

Small payment toward my November goal: $287 of principal on my mortgage. That's $1139 down, $1386 to go.

Is anyone else on the blog participating in National Novel Writing Month?

If you haven't heard of it, it's an online challenge to write a novel (at least 50,000 words) between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30. It doesn't have to be good or polished, and you don't have to be a creative writer to try. It's free to join, there's no prize save your own satisfaction, and there's no shame in not making it! I tried in '05 and got several thousand words written before losing steam. Then last year, I was going to do it but I had too many other obligations at the time to even get started.

This year I'm determined to give it a more serious go, like I did in '05, so I took the day off! Right now I'm still procrastinating while I try to think of a good enough idea to stay interested in all month.

If you're interested, you can check out the Web site: nanowrimo.org. It's a really cute organization.

Finally got NT's overdraft account down to zero. Hooray! Another one for the Old Debt Graveyard page.

I also tried to send an extra payment to one of his credit cards, but I'm going to wait to make sure it went through; the process was a little vague and I'm not sure if the payment will post or get sent back to the account.

So for now, I'll just count the overdraft payoff: about US$852. So in my November goal, that's $852 down, $1673 to go.

Lots of big future expensive purchases are coming to my mind this week, making it seem like I need to save huge mountains of money all at once. But one thing at a time...

1. Halloween party. This should be covered, with $300 in the bank, a little bit of spending money still floating around in our wallets, and a $25 American Express gift card. We just need booze, a few more food items and possibly a couple last-minute costume enhancements. Really hoping we come in under budget so we can use some of the money for something else!

2. CSA. Our community-supported farm is offering subscriptions for next year at this year's price if we sign up early. $500 instead of $600 is an amazing deal, except I wasn't really prepared to pay for it until next year! Well, I've got an upcoming budget surplus of $450 that I was going to put into general short-term savings, so that plus any leftovers from Halloween, plus a couple more eBay sales, and we should be able to do that in a couple weeks. My first online-survey paycheck ($10) should be coming, so I'll put that toward the CSA if I need to. If not, it'll go toward my next big thing...

3. Xmas! We three buy each other presents from a communal supply of money, plus we'll probably buy gifts at least for our long-distance friends in England, maybe for a couple friends here. Luckily my and AS's families don't expect presents, so we're off the hook there. We've only got $37 in the gift fund right now, so any extra we get should go in there. As soon as it's spent for Xmas, we'll have to start building it up again for...

4. Birthdays! All three of us have birthdays in early to mid March, so that gives us two scant months to save up for those festivities. Meanwhile I want to somehow save enough money for some home improvements, including...

5. A new dishwasher! This is one thing I'm hoping lasts awhile longer, but at the same time am dying to replace. It's never done a very good job; we have to rinse pretty thoroughly beforehand or else silt from the cleaning collects on the glasses and hardens there, requiring a rinse after. Plus there's something wrong with the door, so if we don't latch it, it falls down (giving me a pretty nasty bruise the first time when I wasn't expecting it). We cook almost every meal at home, so we'd love a dishwasher that required less rinsing; seems like we spend half our free time doing dishes.

So if we get all that sorted out, we still have to think about...

6. England! We're planning on going in May, for NT's sister's wedding as well as to see as much of the friends he left behind as we possibly can. When I started my debt tracking, I automatically added an imaginary $5000 to our debt balance, because I figured that would cover whatever we had to charge to get to England. Well, turns out that total will only work if we're really, really tightfisted there. Airfare alone is going to run us about $2700, hotels about $1300, and a rental car plus insurance plus gas, about $600. Leaving about $400 to cover food and drinks for 3 adults for 9 days. Wishful thinking! So it's either crowd into someone's house for some nights or save up more money. We'll have to see.

There are some bits of money we're not going to count on because they're not definite amounts. NT should get some kind of Xmas bonus. We should all get IRS refunds but there are too many variables this year to predict how much. NT and I should be able to shift around our benefits at open enrollment to maybe add a hundred or two a month in income. Beyond that, it may just be a matter of stashing some of our spending money/exercise reward money each month, being stingy on the day-to-day stuff so we can make all these big purchases as painless as possible. One thing we won't do: go on the credit cards any more than the $5K I've already planned.

NT's pensions: 7,250 pounds ($14,500)
10,725 pounds ($21,450)
NT's 401(k): $60
AS's 403(b): $1,788
CJ's 401(k): $25,633
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $185,000
Total Assets: $508,431

Total Debt: $450,103

Current Estimated Net Worth: $58,328

9/18 estimate: $54,903
Change in net worth: +$3,425

Note: House value estimates are conservative, and retirement totals don't include amounts currently unvested.

Yay, I made my October goal! My personal loan payment hit today and $399 went toward principal, so I paid off $2544 this month, exceeding my goal of $2525.

My November goal begins immediately: Pay off $2525 in principal by Nov. 30.

...for us bloggers with money-foolish relatives.

What do you say when they ask you for money? How do you tell if they really "need it" or if they only need it in the sense that they have no intention of pinching pennies and depriving themselves like you do? How do you pose that question to someone who has never really tried to economize and has always been in financial trouble?

Aagh...

AS student loan payment finally processed (I sent it in on the 2nd, but the company takes a long time to post updated numbers online). $53 went to principal, so that's $2145 down, $380 to go on our October goal.

A payment came in from an eBay sale and I was able to put all $100 toward short-term (I call it "fun-money") savings, since we won't need it to hit our debt-repayment goal for the month. I put $25 into various savings goals and $75 into our Halloween party fund. We want to kind of go all-out for our party, but only up to the point we can pay for it; nothing will go on credit cards.

Speaking of Halloween, we've just started Week 3 of our 4-week workout plan, and we're so pleased with the results so far, we're already pledging to continue our five-day-a-week regimen to Thanksgiving. Just like with debt reduction, it helps to think in short, manageable goals rather than the overwhelming big picture! But here's hoping we form a habit that lasts awhile.

My family has gone on a health kick together. The galvanizing moment is so silly I can hardly admit it: My friend suggested for Halloween that I go as Britney Spears on the VMAs. I thought it was hilarious, but then realized that as much as people sniped about her being out of shape, she was still in WAY better shape than me. At the same time, I found a 28-day tone-up plan in a recent issue of SELF magazine. So I began the next week, and NT and AS have joined in whole-heartedly. We do cardio Monday, Tuesday and Saturday, and weights on Wednesday and Sunday. We've cut down a little on food, but decided not to do the calorie-counting thing because it took forever (and it was really hard to get our intake down to 1600 per day).

I can already see the difference in all our physiques after only a week and a half! It's so encouraging! I've also been logging my workouts on the self.com Web site, which helps me see how many minutes of exercise I've accumulated, and stay inspired.

Though the costume idea was the spark that got us started, we've also been watching makeover shows like How Clean Is Your House, Tim Gunn's Guide to Style and You Are What You Eat. We've got a handle on the housecleaning, and we recently pared our wardrobes down to only what fits and looks pretty good on us, and I'm fairly sure the shows affected that. So it's no wonder that we've focused on food and exercise as well, because of that third show.

And, since I've implemented the $5-per-workout reward program into our budget, sticking to the program means $75 more spending money between us per week--about 50% more than what we each normally get!

$293 to principal, so we're now at $2092 down with $433 to go for the month. I know we'll pay off at least $450 more this month just with minimum automatic payments, so we should just hit our goal!

It's been a good couple of weeks for little money-saving and money-making maneuvers:

- Recently we got a notice our laptop's warranty was expiring soon, so we brought it in to the store for our last free tuneup to fix a couple minor problems. Probably saved a couple hundred dollars.

- The scanner seemed to be giving the Target cashier a little trouble yesterday, so I checked the receipt as we were leaving, to discover we'd been charged a third time for a $10 item we'd only bought two of! Walked back and got it corrected. Saved $12.

- Put two electronics items we don't use very much on eBay. One was a gift and one we bought a long time ago. Made about $250 total; money should be coming shortly. We also have a third item we may just list on our condo's bulletin board. It's a TiVo box we bought used for $40 before we decided to go with Comcast DVR; we hope to sell it for a tiny profit.

- Brought our change jar in and had it deposited straight into checking. $28.

- Saw a handful of change, all silver, in the street and stopped to pick it up. People were staring like it was soo gauche. The more fools they! About $.60.

- Realized last night we only use about a tenth of the minutes we pay for each month, because we've gotten so good about not using the phone during peak times. Just switched to the next plan down. Savings: $10/month.

- Called two credit cards that I'd overpaid off with a balance transfer a few months ago. They kept dragging their feet on sending me the balance, probably because they thought it was an insignificant amount. Called again and harassed them both until they sent me checks. Total: about $23.

Had two scratched DVDs in a row from Netflix, so got NT to call and request a discount with his nice British accent. They're giving us half off our next month's bill! Savings of about $5.

And some freebies: Signed up for a free seminar by a traveling faculty member from my alma mater, and for a free first-aid kit from an offer in the mail. Most "freebies" you have to pay shipping for, so I never take advantage of them, but not this one.

I think the slight scare of AS's paycheck going down by about $220 a month motivated us more to look around for ways to save. Now we feel comfortable that we can weather the rest of the year, put a little away for savings, and pay for our upcoming Halloween party no problem!

I love the first of the month! I used to dread bills coming due, but now I can't wait to pay them.

Another UK credit card payment posted; GBP140, or about $280, went to principal. So that's now $1799 down, $726 to go in October!

Paid $286 in principal.

October goal progress: $1519 down, $1006 to go!

I've been so busy I haven't been able to check NT's UK accounts and see what's going on there, so a number of debts have gone down a little due to automatic payments and the big wire transfer I did in September. Here's what I paid off:
Overdraft: $951
NT CC 3: $13
NT mortgage 1: $122
NT mortgage 2: $26
NT mortgage 3: $27
NT CC 1: $94
----
TOTAL: $1,233

$1,233 down, $1,292 to go. Half my October goal down in what feels like one fell swoop!

Got two bits of bad financial news this week. Nothing too crushing, but:

1. I put $1000 extra into NT's account (besides what I put in to cover bills), expecting it to go toward cutting his overdraft in half. Instead, his rental income check came in 250 British pounds ($500) lighter because of a twice-a-year association fee. So half of my $1000 is merely going to cover minimum payments on bills, setting me back on my goal of having that overdraft paid off by early October.

2. AS's paycheck is going down by about $112 per pay period, or $224 per month. (Taxes due to getting so much free tuition this year.) This is much bigger, as it will pretty much wipe out any wiggle room in our budget. But I'm looking at ways to alleviate that, at least temporarily. One bit of good news is we get a "freebie" check in November, since she gets paid biweekly and we get two more paychecks than I account for. I hadn't prespent the freebie in my mind, so that will go toward keeping us on track.

More later, probably, when I get my head around it a little more!

I keep all my financial information in my e-mail account. I wanted a way that I could balance my numbers at work or at home, whenever I got time or felt like it. So I started e-mails that I never intended to send, and I keep them in my Drafts folder. When I have new information, I go in and change them and then resave the draft.

It's a good system; there have been a few cases where there was a saving glitch and I lost one of the e-mails, but it's not like I can't recreate the information; it's just a pain.

Since I discovered this "pages" setting in my blog, I'm thinking I could keep my information here (or maybe keep it in both places, so I have a backup).

Another advantage, besides having it saved, is that this blog has become a nice, convenient way to communicate with my family about our finances. They read it periodically and so they have an idea where we are without my having to schedule family meetings about it.

They've really taken to the idea of our new budgeted life; they're always regaling our nonthrifty friends with tales of our latest budgetary exploits. :-)

Last night we tried to figure out our net worth. All our assets are retirement funds and real estate, so we can only estimate, as those things go up and down (and half are in British pounds).

But it wasn't terrible. Here's what we came up with (not counting nonvested amounts, and very conservative house valuations):
NT's pensions: 7,250 pounds ($14,500)
10,725 pounds ($21,450)
AS's 403(b): $1,400
CJ's 401(k): $25,200
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $185,000
Total Assets: $507,550

Total Debt: $452,647

Estimated Net Worth: $54,903

Not too much divided between three of us, but considering I estimated our value to be in the $40s only a couple months ago, it sounds really good to me! And by virtue of paying off over $2500 of debt a month, and contributing a few hundred to our retirement plans a month, that number will go up quickly.

It's nice to write something that's actually positive about our finances, not just me being optimistic and keeping my chin up! :-)

Maybe I'll make this a regular blog feature, every month or so.

Maybe it's planning for our Halloween party that's gotten me feeling silly and spooooky, but I've decided to start a new page on my blog to record my debts as I kill them off, one by one. I'm only counting the ones since I started the blog, and I'll record the balance they had when I first got on here.

I only have one on there so far, but I hope to have a second one shortly after Halloween!