Debt Update

Our last debt total wasn’t as good as I had hoped, but we did keep our debt going in the right direction. Last month, we paid off 2.8% of our total debt. I’m hoping we did better this month because at that pace we would be in debt for 35 more months. However, as long as our debt totals continue to go down, I’m counting it as a win. We are going in the right direction and not adding any debt each month.

The debt we owe our children has continued to (ever so slowly) decrease. We borrowed almost $1500 from each child and have paid back $1200 to each of them, which means we are 80% of the way through paying them back! Although once we have fully paid them back, we will continue to deposit $50 into their bank accounts, I will be so happy when I can no longer consider them a debt! Our car loan has continued to decrease as well. We have a 0% loan so it’s nice to see the payment actually affect the bottom line; to that end, I don’t really focus on paying extra towards our car payment because it’s at 0% interest. I know that goes against what Dave Ramsey teaches, but I can’t see paying more interest on my credit card balance just to get an interest free loan paid off quicker.

Although we are not paying off our debt as fast as I would like, I am happy to say that for the fourth month in a row, our overall debt decreased! (I am so happy to get to be writing that instead of having to say again that our debt went up!) We are not making giant leaps and bounds in our debt repayment, but slow and steady wins the race.

Here are our current debt totals:

            $18,953.69       Credit Card at 16.24% interest

            $300                 The Girl

            $300                 The Boy

            $5130.00          Car Loan at 0% interest

          

Our total debt stands at: $24,683.69. YIKES! I can hardly wrap my head around that number. I absolutely HATED seeing a 2 as the first number on our credit card and I’m so happy that our credit card debt is back under $20,000 and at least our credit card debt only has a 1 in the front! In the grand scheme of things, the actual amount of debt is not that much less but psychologically there is a huge difference! I’m hoping for a much bigger decrease next month!

Plus side: our debt decreased! We paid off over $1300 of debt in actual dollars, which amounted to about 5% of our total debt. We continue to make progress on both our car loan and the loan to The Kids and the fact that we haven’t borrowed any more money from The Kids is a plus. A bonus is that our total debt fell into the 24K-something range. Any little win is a win!

Down side: we didn’t pay off as much as I would have liked because Christmas is expensive. We had an entire extra paycheck during this budget period which did help our totals, but if it wasn’t for Christmas, it would have been more. Of course I also hate that several hundreds of dollars went towards interest on our credit instead of towards the principal.

Looking forward to: getting our credit card debt below $18000 and hitting my goal of under $18000 by 12/31/18. Making continued progress on our car loan and decreasing our overall debt from 24K-something to 23K-something. I’m also looking ahead to after Christmas when I really get back to a cash only budget! I’m also happy that with my next debt update, our car loan will have fallen by another thousands place from the 5Ks to the 4Ks. This is through no action on our own but just from steadily plugging away. Every little bit helps and any forward progress is good progress.

Obviously all my financial goals for the year have been thrown out the window. This is the last month of the year and I’m nowhere near where I wanted to be. However, I can’t change the past, all I can do is improve my future. Since our credit card debt is still so high, my goal for the end of 2018 is to be under $18000 in credit card debt. My other debts will continue to decrease at their slow and steady pace, but I am going to payoff $2000 more in credit card debt by the end of the year.

Clearly, I’m not in an ideal situation. But if I have to get out of debt one baby step at a time, I can do that.

WOW! My debt update posts are consistently my longest posts. This was another one.  If you stayed around until the end, thank you! If you got bored and moved on, I totally understand.

Look out goal #1: below $18000 in credit card debt by 12/31/18… I’m coming for you!

Once we conquer this goal, I will really share our goals for 2019 and how or why I plan to focus on them.

Right now, I am dying to get our overall debt down below $20,000.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Just like for everyone else, this is the busiest time of year for us. We are cleaning, cooking, baking, and toing and froing with the best of them! But we don’t want to lose sight of our goals.

Our goal is still to be under $18000 in credit card debt by the end of the year. It looks like we should make it. Just barely…

As for everyone, Christmas is an expensive time of year! We buy gifts, extra food, host parties, and spend money on experiences we have together. And all of that makes paying down debt hard. We are going in the right direction by decreasing our debt, but not at the pace we would like. I just try to remember that as long as our debt is going down, we are making progress.

Looking at our credit card statement, after interest, we should have paid off about $1000 this month. With paying for Christmas, that’s actually pretty good. We also have paid back $100 to our kids, and $345 towards our car payment. We will be close to $1500 in actual debt paid off, but I’ll have more exact numbers when I do our debt update.

As always, I’m sad it wasn’t more, but Christmas is an expensive time of year that I did not properly plan for. Next year should be different. I have already included a “Christmas” line item in my budget. I have allotted $200 per month, so come Christmas time we should be all set.

This past weekend, we hosted a Christmas party open house. The Husband just said to me we could save a lot of money by not having our Christmas party, and he’s right. But I so look forward to getting to see friends and family that we don’t see often enough that it is money well spent. And hopefully, next year we will be nearly out of debt and will cash flow the whole thing!

As our to-do-list grows in the coming month, I will probably neglect the blog. I’m sure I will do a debt update, but I can’t guarantee I will do much else in the next 4 – 5 weeks. So, if I don’t “see” you again, have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year. And though your season is undoubtedly busy, take time to slow down and enjoy the people around you and remember the reason we celebrate Christmas.

Christmas is Expensive!

Just like it is for everyone else, December is a very expensive month for us. Entertainment, charity, gifts, traditions, and parties are expensive.

We like to have fun; and there’s no better time like the holidays to enjoy yourself! This year, we took the kids to see a local production of “A Christmas Carol”. Although it was a local production, it was very well done!

Although we are in debt, we try very hard to give to charity, especially during the holidays. We don’t tithe as regularly as we should, so we try to give a lot during the Christmas season. We focus on giving to local charities. We take The Kids to our mall where they pull ornaments from the giving tree and they pick out and buy gifts. We also did the same thing at church this past week. We all picked a “need” off the angel tree and then we will shop for it. Our church packed boxes for Samaritan’s Purse and we all packed and delivered a box for that. Lastly, we are adopting a family this year through another small local charity. We are taking a child shopping and he gets to spend $20 per member of his family on Christmas gifts for them. This is the first time we have done this and though we are in debt we know we are better off than so many people and feel that it’s worth it so donate to this charity. It will slow our debt progress by a little but more importantly it will help someone and show our children how important it is to help and support charities when you can.

I went way over my gift budget. Quite honestly I don’t even know how much I went over because I just spent and didn’t keep track. That is one of my goals for next year: to keep track of my spending and see how much I actually spend and where. That goes right along with my goal of budgeting for Christmas next year. I have a huge family and we buy for every member of our family. Most people don’t understand, but that’s how we do it. I also have a few friends that I buy for and of course stocking stuffers and small gifts for people at work.

Another big expense we have at Christmastime is the Christmas party we host every year. We supply all the food and I give out a small favor. The food probably runs us between $600 – 700. Again, I’ve never really kept track. But next year I plan to log how much everything costs so that I can make a realistic budget and savings goal for the following year. I also always provide a small favor, usually something that is semi-hand made. I’ve given out homemade potpourri, bath salts, bottles of wine, cheese spreaders, soaps with handmade cards, and many things like that. After all is said and done, I usually only spend about $2 – 3 per favor, but the cost does vary. This year, I bought candles at the Dollar Tree and “painted” Christmas trees on them with brush-tip Sharpie markers. I also ordered small match boxes and tied them to each candle with a festive ribbon. I also give the same small gift to my co-workers. This year, after costs, the favor averaged $1.70 each and that includes having to buy the pens. (My friend was getting rid of a ton of ribbon and I told her I would take it. She had lots of holiday/Christmas ribbon so I didn’t even have to buy the ribbon to tie the matches on!) I’m very pleased with how this year’s favor turned out and how inexpensive they ended up being and I have the pens to use on future crafts!

Family traditions are very important to me. And we have a lot of them, many of which revolve around Christmas. We go the Charles Dickens Christmas Fair, we spend one day in San Francisco, we build gingerbread houses, and so many more that I can’t even think of right now. All of these things cost money. And in my opinion it is money well spent. Anything that lets us spend time together as a family and make memories is priceless!

The list of things that cost money during the holidays could go on and on so I’m going to stop right here. This was just a rambling post of why it is so hard to make progress towards our debt in December. I don’t want to sound too much like a Debbie Downer because we have made progress towards our debt, but as always not as much as I would have liked. Coming up in a week or so I will do a full debt update and I’ll be able to see exactly where we are: how much debt we have and how much debt we paid off. But until then, wish us progress!

Opt Out Option

I got the official okay that I can opt out of my healthcare for the remainder of the healthcare year. For my union, our healthcare year runs from October 1 to September 30.

Starting in January and with my January 30 paycheck, I will not have to pay for health insurance for the rest of the year. Until I actually receive that paycheck, I have no idea what that will do to my monthly take-home pay. I’m hoping that it will increase it by a good chunk!

I am still paying for my dental, vision, and life insurance to the tune of $229 a month, but I am no longer paying for health insurance. We are insured through The Husband’s work for our health benefits.

As everyone knows, health insurance is so confusing. If I’m reading everything correctly, I think I will only save about $100 a month, which doesn’t seem right, but that’s how the numbers look. Just like with my retro check, it’s a waiting game to see what my check will really look like. No matter what the outcome is, the extra difference will be sent towards our credit card debt. Our goal is to be out of credit card debt by the end of next year, so December 2019, and this is one more step to help us get there.

Our union has never been able to opt out of healthcare before which I have always hated. Between The Husband and me, we are double covered and his is way cheaper for the same coverage. I’m super excited that I get to opt out; even if only for a year. I will have to reapply next September and hope that I am one of the lucky 20% that is able to opt out of coverage.

Because we are covered by The Husband’s employer, I have always felt like having to pay for healthcare through my district is extortion! At least I have a small reprieve in having to pay for it! And hopefully the difference in my paycheck will be noticeable and help speed up our debt free date!!!

Outstanding Monies

Well, it is that time of year again. The time when we have outstanding money because of Christmas.

My dad owes us money for my mom’s stocking. (Years ago I took over buying my mom’s stocking and my dad pays for it. I but stuff all year and then add it up in December and he gives me cash.) I am not yet done with her stocking, nor have I totaled up how much I’ve spent, but usually I spend in the neighborhood of $300 - $400.

My brother-in-law owes us money for my sister’s stocking. (Last year her stocking was a little sparse and after years of joking with me to help him with her stocking, he actually asked me to this year.) I don’t know how much money he owes me, but I think it is approaching $100 and counting. I will continue to buy stuff as I find things that are perfect for my sister and will fit in her stocking. At this point, smaller is better as I have a few “bigger” items that will fit in her stocking.

My sister owes us almost $100 for tickets we bought for her for the Charles Dickens Christmas Fair which takes place in San Francisco every year. She was unable to print the tickets so I did it for her.

Lastly, my mom owes me almost $200 for different things I have purchased for her. I spend a lot of time with my mom so sometimes I owe her money and sometimes she owes me money. The closer it gets to Christmas, the more often she owes me money.

Currently we have about $700 worth of money outstanding to us. Most of it will be paid in a timely manner. (My mom usually doesn’t pay us back until several months after Christmas.) As I receive the money, I will send most of it towards our credit card debt. The money my sister gives us for the tickets, however, will be what we use to pay for the rest of our day there. It will pay for our food and any spending we do there (not including gifts). As I receive the money, I will send it as extra payments to our credit card.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

I pray that you are healthy and happy and spending time exactly where you want to be this Thanksgiving.

Today I am thankful for so much: my wonderful husband, my beautiful kiddles, my extended family, a roof over my head, jobs we enjoy, and a roof over our head. I am abundantly blessed and I hope you are too!

Finally

Today is the day I get my retro check! I finally get to find out how much it is going to be for!

I've known about this check for a couple of months and I knew the percentage of my paycheck that it was going to be, but that didn't translate well into dollars in my head.

The plan for this money was to pay for Christmas. (About half of which I already bought, so I "owe" myself some money.) I was hoping the amount into my account would be about $750. And the closer it got, to "payday" the more anxious I have been getting.

I logged-in to my bank account online this morning and was so excited to see a deposit from my district in the amount of $1383.80!!! Woohoo! That's nearly double what I was expecting!

It actually will be enough to pay for everything we were hoping it would cover: Christmas gifts, food for our Christmas party, and our day at the Charles Dickens Christmas Fair. Depending on how much we spend on gifts, it might even be enough to cover, or at least contribute to, tickets to a family Christmas play!

I'm so excited! Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would receive almost $1400! Truth be told, I was afraid that my guess of $750 was high and that I wouldn't even get that much! This money really feels like a blessing as we head deeper into the holiday season. I'm so excited to have a way to pay for all our upcoming expenses and traditions. If we are being completely honest here, I wish the money had come weeks ago, but I am certainly not going to look a gift horse in the mouth!

I'm so excited! In a lot of ways, and for a lot of the people on my list, I have felt like I was at a stand still; now I can really start to make a dent in my Christmas shopping and start to cross things and people off of my list!