Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

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!

OK, on to the next step in my Ad Hoc Plan. Now that NT's full-time job kicked in, I wanted to make our repayment a little more aggressive, though the bulk of this new money will go toward spending money and saving up for travel, home improvement, etc. $2500 seemed like a good goal, and $2525 was catchy, so I decided to make that our new monthly goal.

I updated our overall goal, and realized that means I'm aiming to pay off almost $20K by the end of March, before our trip! Sounds crazy until I realize that in August and September, we paid $5,008, more than a quarter of that.

If we were able to keep at this pace, we'd be able to pay off all our debt, including our mortgages, in 15 years. (That means if I manage to snowball payments once I start eliminating debts, it could be faster than that.) Another exciting thought: We could be free of consumer/credit debt in less than three years. I've had credit card debts since I was about 24, so that would be an amazing feeling.

It's all about positive visualization!

As I've probably mentioned, I find the UK side of our finances confusing. :-) So I just figured out how to check another credit card balance online, and turns out a payment had posted since the last time I got the balance in the mail. Its balance was 141 pounds (about $282) lower than last time, so that means we've reached our monthly goal!

Goal: pay off $2185
Results: Paid off $2427!

I can only check one of NT's UK credit cards online; the others I have to wait for the print statements to come. Annoying! I've gotten so spoiled by online access.

Anyway, the one I can check posted a small reduction in principal--3 pounds, or about 6 bucks. That brings us a tiny step closer to making our goal: $2145 down, $40 to go.

Today my personal loan payment posted. I managed to put a few extra hundred toward it, so I paid off $760 in principal! So $2139 down, only $46 to go in September. Hopefully I'll manage that somehow, but even if I don't, I got closer to my goal than expected.

I love doing taxes and will help out any friend as long as theirs aren't too complicated. This year I did taxes for a friend who has several different kinds of investments--that was different! Most of the ones I do are fairly straightforward, but I do love a challenge. The Tax Code is like a choose-your-own-adventure book in my geeky world.

But the other night I had to do British taxes! NT has never really had to do taxes; in the UK, the government will figure them out for you in most cases. But since he still has his flat in England and rents it out, that portion had to be figured out. I have the best financial head in the household, so it was my job.

At least we didn't have to calculate the tax, just send them figures related to the rental property. But still, it was so crazy to do, after being so comfortable with the IRS's way of wording things and organizing forms.

Turns out there was a loss of about 600 pounds ($1200) for the year ended April 4, 2007, due to maintenance that had to be done in order to rent the flat. I think that's good news, though; can't imagine the UK government will be able to tax us since we had no income, and we can carry that loss over to future years, so hopefully we won't have to pay any British taxes until we're in a better place to do so.

I'm also hoping that having no UK income will simplify my and NT's 2007 U.S. taxes. I ended up doing Married Filing Separately for 2006, since he had UK income and no U.S. income. I missed out on a little bit of deductions as a result, but I was afraid of all the extra forms that would come with reporting his international income!

I still may end up hiring someone this year just to make sure I'm not missing any important legal requirements. Sad since I'm H&R Block-certified, but I didn't get into learning anything very complicated when I worked for them.

AS's student loan payment posted today, paying off $55 in principal instead of the expected $48. Hooray! So that's $1,379 paid, $806 to go on my September challenge.

I sold 2 books on half.com and cleared $45, and we should be able to sell an unused TiVo box, which we got for $40, for $75. So I'm putting an extra $120 toward my personal loan payment going out on Friday. That will get me much closer to hitting my goal, even if I don't quite make it. I'll have to watch closely and make sure they put the extra toward principal, as this will be the first time I pay extra on this new loan.

Paid $296 toward principal. So $1324 down, $861 to go on my September goal.

It's frustrating having such large amounts of debt, because no matter how much I'm able to throw at it, it always feels like a drop in the bucket. These monthly goals really help me feel like I'm accomplishing something so I don't lose focus.

Another short-term thing that helps is tackling some smaller, high-interest debt. The low-hanging fruit, so to speak. I got rid of my own reserve line balance on my checking account first; now my sights are set on NT's overdraft balance on his UK account. I think I'll be able to pay more than half of it off in October and knock the rest out in early November. Then he's got a small credit card balance that I think I'll be able to pay off in December. So I'm hoping I'll be able to say I've paid off two more debts by the end of the year.

That'd make 2007 quite memorable, since I also paid off my student loan in May and my reserve line just recently. Four debts gone in one year would be exhilerating!

My mortgage payment and NT's UK mortgage payments posted, so I've finally chipped away some more of my September challenge. I estimate we paid off $436 in principal total. So that's $1028 paid, $1157 to go.

I think we'll fall a little short this month, but we'll come pretty close.

Well, it's not nearly that exciting; it's our own money. NT's job finally got straightened out, so we have a little more money in play than we did before. Some of it will be going to a more aggressive debt-repayment plan (which I will launch in October, after I get some other things straightened out). And some will be going toward a bigger cable package and DVR, which we've been dying to get. Some will go into a short-term savings account, where we'll save up money for various things like travel and home improvement. But there will still be some money left over. (This may change next year when some student loans come due and our ARM goes up, but not for awhile.)

So, since everyone in my family has been looking for motivation to work out, I've started an exercise incentive plan. There is now a reward of $5 extra spending money every time one of us works out for half an hour. If we don't work out enough to earn all the money I'm setting aside, it will go toward debt principal or into savings, wherever I need it.

To make it even more fun, I took out the first batch of workout money in $2 bills and the new dollar coins! They're really neat-looking. I had to special-order them from the bank because they didn't have any there.

So far it's working! We went for an hour-long brisk walk together around town on Sunday, "earning" $10 each, and each of us managed another half hour of exercise on Monday, so we each get another $5.

I could be putting this toward debt, but if I can get us healthier, that's just as big an investment in our future.

Still getting the hang of tracking the balances of all of NT's UK credit cards and mortgages. One of them, I'd written down an old balance and it was actually more. But, a couple others have gone down, to the tune of about 73 pounds and some change, or about US$147. I think. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Soooo, $592 down, $1593 to go for September. I know it looks like I'm way ahead, but it's still doubtful that I'll make my September goal. I'll keep trying, though!

Darn, I had thought they took my wire transfer fee out of my transfer amount, but they actually charged it separately. That means, looking at the exchange rate, it's more what I feared it was. I thought I saw a stronger exchange rate listed on the news last night, but maybe it didn't come in time to affect my transfer, or maybe the banks use a different one.

The good news is, my debt calculations were right. The downside is I have to deal with an extra $50 out of my own checking account.

Oh well, onward and upward. :-)

I finally figured out how to make wire transfers into NT's UK checking account, so now I can not only throw money in there to cover his regular bills, I can work on paying down his overdraft balance (now that mine is paid off). So yesterday I wired enough money to cover his August and September bills, plus a some extra to whittle down his overdraft debt. Thanks to a surge in the US dollar against the British pound, it ended up being more pounds than I'd hoped for! According to my calculations, I estimate I paid down about US$445 worth of his overdraft, so that's what I'm counting toward my September challenge.

I'll have to pay extra on one of my other bills in order to make the challenge, but luckily I have a month and a half to figure that out. I'm just happy I was able to pay some extra, and that the exchange rate worked in my favor!

So, $445 down, $1740 to go on my September goal.

My personal loan hit; $404 went to principal. Not as much as I thought, since my first payment last month paid off $475, but it's still a pretty good chunk.

On the upside, I've now reached and surpassed my August goal of paying off at least $2185 in principal. I paid a total of $2581! Overshot by $396.

I'm not sure if I'll see any more debt pay-down this month, so I'm going to go ahead and post my results on my sidebar. If I manage any more, I'll put it toward my September goal.

A student loan payment and a credit card payment both hit today: $48 went toward principal on the student loan and $307 of principal on the credit card, for a total of $355 today.

Soo, $2177 down, $8 to go on my August goal. I have a payment on my personal loan going out today, so I should reach my goal in a day or two.

Because I paid so aggressively this month, I may have trouble hitting my September goal, but I'm working on conserving money in other areas so I don't fall short!

Well, for the first time since I got serious, anyway. :-)

I'm having trouble figuring out how to transfer money to pay down NT's overdraft debt in the UK (plus put in the extra money he needs to make his automatic payments), but it'll be OK for about another month. I'll have to figure out my drop-dead deadline for getting some money over there, but meantime, I've got this money sitting here and it's driving me nuts not putting it toward something.

So I used most of what I currently have to pay off my own reserve line balance! This will eliminate future monthly payments and interest accrual, and the worst consequence will be that I overshoot my August goal and fall short on September's, but it will even out to the same amount in the challenge, so that doesn't bother me.

So...$672 toward principal bringing me to $1822 down, $363 to go for August. I'll easily surpass that just with my remaining minimum payments this month.

This is nice. I needed a little boost!