The Nest

Things are looking up again

Posted Friday, June 27, 2008 4:06 PM

DH just got his review, and he scored in the top tier for a merit increase. His union also came to an agreement with the City to extend the last contract for the period 7/01/07-6/30/08. The City will be giving the union employees a 4% COL increase retroactive back to 7/1/07. He should have a check for the lump sum by the next pay period.

Between both increases, he will now take home an additional $550 a month. Also, once the expired contract is renewed, he will get another 4% increase, retroactive to 7/1/08. I say retroactive because thecity and the union can't get their act together and it will probably be another year before the new agreement is signed.

 This is definitely going to make things a little easier, and help us get rid of the debt faster. Now if only *my* contract would be settled, I could have more reason to celebrate.....

And another blow....

Posted Tuesday, June 10, 2008 6:49 PM

Record breaking heat, 95 to 100 degrees for the last 4 days. I go to turn on my air conditioner on Sunday, and nothing happened. It is completely fried.

Good news: It's not central AC, so it won't cost me $$$$ to repair.

Bad news: It's a 29,000 btu wall unit, and WILL cost me over $500 to replace. Not to mention the fact that it weighs over 150 pounds and will be a b*tch to get out of the wall.

Bah!

Well, that sucked big time.

Posted Wednesday, June 04, 2008 12:00 PM

Well, I suppose with all of the ups, there has to be a few downs. This past month has sucked money-wise.

All three dogs wound up sick or injured, and the vet bills totaled $1,300. Why? Why all at once? And why did it have to be totally odd things that cost a ton of money? A simple cut with stitches? No, that would be too easy/cheap to fix. Sidney had a massive sepsis infection (no idea what caused it), Lola got stung by a bee and had a serious reaction to it, and of course it happened on a Sunday when the regular vet was closed. The e-vet charges $200 just to walk in the door. The @sshole neighbor’s dog ran across my property line, managed to break her head through my fence, and got into an ugly fight with Angus. Yay! Back to the vet again!

I started a new trimester at school, and all of the required textbooks totaled just over $600. Can someone tell me why one friggin textbooks costs $180? How do they get away with that? I even bought it through half.com, so imagine what it would have cost me from the school’s bookstore.

Along with the books, I now have to drive and extra 360 miles a week to school (class Fri-Sun, 60 miles each way). That’s an extra tank of gas per week, and gas prices suck!! Our commuter car (which is also the car I take to school) gets awesome gas milage, but we have gone over the $500 that is budgeted for gas for two months now. I remember making that budget and having DH tell me that $500 was ridiculous, we would never spend that much. I wish he had been right.

My dental insurance blows. They denied both my implant, and the crown that goes over it. They cover crowns on original teeth, but not over implants. $3,000 later, I’m ready to boycott all dentists because I just can't afford this anymore. Speaking of which, I finally talked to an attorney about suing the dentist that screwed up my mouth to begin with. Apparently, I waited a bit too long. Statute of limitations has expired, so I lost any chance of regaining any of the 25k I have now spent to fix my mouth. Ugh.

Now let's add insult to injury; the municipality I work for has not reached contract agreements with the union. The last contract expired June 30^th last year, and negotiations are at a standstill. What does that mean? No raises last year for both me and DH. Most likely, there will be no raises this year, unless they can get their sh*t together in the next few weeks. There is some good news though, when they finally reach an agreement, our raises will be retroactive, so we will get the pay we were denied since last July. Ok, that’s wonderful, but it doesn’t help me right now.

I also graduated to a permanent appointment (I was provisional for the last year), and I now have to contribute 5% of my pay to the retirement plan. It is not optional. I’m all for saving for retirement, but I just can’t afford to lose any money from my pay right now.

So, there it is. We have still managed to keep our heads above water, but just barely. The bills are all paid, but only slightly more than the minimums. I am hoping that this month will be a little better. It has to be, right?

Ebates $10 Referral Offer!

Posted Tuesday, April 15, 2008 9:08 PM

The referral bonuses are usually only $5, so take advantage now!

If you don't know what ebates is, you are missing out. If you do any shopping at all online, you need to click on this link and sign up for an ebates account.

http://www.ebates.com/referral/0508bonusosu.htm?referrerid=CsbV6q55c1FtrGl0DR8xmw%3D%3D  

If they ask for your referral's email address, it's Heatheri725 @ optonline.net (no spaces). Don't C&P my email address, it screws up the link.

When you sign up, you are eligible for the $10 referral bonus, which will be added to your account after you place your first order. You also get varying percentages back from each store you shop at through the ebates website (all of the stores and their rebate % can be found on the drop down menu on the ebates main page). The rebates/ebates are added to your account a few days after you place your order. Ebates releases payments by check 4 times a year. You would be surprised at how fast that money adds up. I order everything online, even my dogs' food. The last check I got was for over $300.

Once you have made your first purchase, you will also be eligible for "Tell a Friend" bonuses. You and your friends will get money back for each of them that signs up through your referral.

Happy Shopping!

What I could have bought.....

Posted Thursday, March 20, 2008 3:42 PM

When I sit back and look at the amount we paid off so far, I can’t help but think of where that money could have gone if we didn’t have any debt. These are some of the things we could have done with $31,000 (I might have to do a new list every time we reach a milestone, this one really reinforced our current spending habits):

~We could have paid cash for a new car.

~ We could have finished our basement, added a bar and a game room, and finished the laundry room with LG front loaders.

~ We could have built a new deck and patio area with composite and bluestone. Not to mention bought a new grill and outdoor seating set.

~ We could have hired a mason and landscaper to build a front walkway (who the hell builds a house without a path to the front door?) and plant trees, bushes and flowers.

~We could have put in an in-ground swimming pool. Not that we want one, but that’s not the point.

~ We could have renovated our kitchen, which we are dying to do. New Floors, cabinets, granite counter tops, new sink and plumbing fixtures.

~ We could have renovated all of the bathrooms in the house.

~ We could have redecorated the guest room (paint, carpets and furniture) and started redecorating the other spare bedroom to turn it into a baby’s room.

~ We could have resided the house.

~ We could have put up new vinyl fencing around the entire backyard and also leveled and re-seeded the lawn in the backyard.

~We could have replaced all of the windows and doors in the house and added another set of doors in the basement.

~ We could have completely overhauled our entertainment system.

~ We could have funded our vacations for the next tens years, or taken that one amazing trip to Turtle Island, Fiji.

~ We could have thrown the entire amount into our retirement account.

~ I could have paid cash for school instead of taking out more student loans.

<sigh> Oh well. This is one more reason to stick to the budget and payoff plan. When the debt is gone, I can prioritize this list, and start working on the things we really need/want to do.

UPDATE! FIRST ZERO BALANCE!

Posted Friday, March 07, 2008 11:40 AM

Wow, it feels really good to say that! In September, we consolidated all of our bills between two low interest credit cards and a home equity line of credit. The card we just paid off started at $19,695.00, and it’s now paid in full! We were really aggressive with that one because the 1.9% APR on balance transfers was set to expire at the end of April, at which time it would have gone back up to 19%. We have still been paying down the other bills as well, and since June 30^th, we have paid off just over $31,000!

It hasn’t been fun, but we’ve managed. We had a few slip ups, but I think that’s normal. DH doesn’t like keeping cash in the house, so we made the horrible mistake of going back to the credit cards instead of the cash/envelope system. We both thought we were doing really good until the end of the month statement came and we were $1500 over budget. WTF? Guess what? Straight back to the envelopes we went.

I’ve had days where I looked into my closet and practically threw a fit because I wanted to go buy new clothes. I ranted and raved for a few minutes, and when it was all out of my system, I reminded myself that a baby is more important than a pair of pants, and there will be no baby until the debt is gone. Thank god I saved the stash of the gift cards I got for Christmas. Those came in really handy when I actually needed to buy a few things. I still have a few left that I’ve tucked away for now.

The winter is especially hard, thank god it’s almost over. You can’t spend too much time out in the cold. We take the dogs to the dog park every weekend for a few hours each day, but what to do with the rest of the time? You get bored with staying in the house. You think, maybe I’ll go see a movie? Then you do the math $20 for two tickets. Do we really want to see it that bad? How about the museums? Roughly the same price for the movie tickets, plus the cost of the train tickets into the City ($15 per person round trip). No, scratch that. The dinosaur bones will still be there when we are debt free. I got it! We’ll do some home projects! Hmmm, wait a second. The paint costs more than the movie tickets, not to mention we need new brushes, roller covers and tape. How about walking around the mall? We’ll leave all of the credit cards and cash home and it won’t cost us anything? But then you realize exactly what you are missing out on buying and it puts you in a foul mood. Never mind. The only things you can do is clean, watch tv, and clean again. Anyone want to come and eat off of my kitchen floors? I guarantee you they are cleaner than the plates in most restaurants.

Ah, yes. Restaurants. We have gone out to dinner a few times, but we try to really limit it. Complete deprivation with fun is like complete deprivation with a diet. You have to allow yourself cheat days here and there or you wind up going on a god-awful binge. So, we agreed to a nice dinner out once a month. The rest of the time, we cook at home. It’s really funny how being in debt pay-off mode can change your eating habits when you do go out. Before, we’d order what we wanted; drinks, appetizers, main courses, desserts. We’d wind up either throwing away what we didn’t eat, or bringing it home to sit in the refrigerator for days. Now when we go out, we skip the appetizers and dessert and cut back on the drinks we order. We still get a great meal out, but aren’t throwing food (and money) down the drain.

As frustrating as it’s been, the one thing we haven’t done is fight about money. We know where we are, where we want to be, and what we need to do to get there. There are still days when it seems impossible, but, back in June I didn’t think we’d ever pay off $31,000 in nine months. We are just going to keep chipping away at the balances and watch the overall numbers get lower each month. I’m still confident that we will have this all paid off by Fall of 2010. Of course, sooner would be nice, but we’ll keep taking it one step at a time and see how it goes.

 

 

 

 

Funny Horoscope- Budget Related

Posted Friday, February 22, 2008 11:22 AM

I don't usually waste my time with these things, but it's a boring day at work. I signed on to MSN and read my horoscope, and this is what it said:

"Much to your surprise, your finances seem to be slowly falling into place. This is good news, although it does not mean that you should go back to your old ways of shopping and (not) tracking your costs. Now that you have gotten everything under control, don't give up! You've gotten used to life with a tighter belt, and there is still a lot you can learn about how to trim the fat. Keep going, and you will be very proud of what you can save in just a few months."

It seems pretty much right on, especially since we are very close to a zero balance on one of the credit cards. We got our tax refund today and were able to make a huge payment on the balance of the card. It should only take us another month or two to pay the rest of that one off completely. I can't wait!