Dmontngrey's Personal Finance Blog

Today is the annual Stamp out Hunger drive put on by the post office. You are supposed to put non-perishable food out by your mailbox and your letter carrier will pick it up for donation to a local food pantry.

I live in a condo with around 40 condos (it was built in two phases and I'm not sure how many are in the 2nd phase). For the second year in row, we're the only condo to put food out by the mailboxes!! This really bothers me. I know the economy is tough right now and affecting a lot of people, but isn't that enough to drive you to dig through your cupboards and find a can of soup or veggies that you could donate to someone more needy?

I never feel I do enough to help hungry people and that bothers me. I think this would be a charity I would most like to donate to and I should make a bigger effort to do so on a regular basis. I'm a frugal shopper and LOVE the challenge of finding a good deal. It's such a thrill for me. Maybe I should turn this thrill into something really beneficial. I need to find out where my local food bank is though!!

I think I'm fortunate. I have a roof over my head and I can pay my bills and buy food. Yeah, I have credit card debt that I'm slowly plugging away at and savings I'm slowly trying to build. It just kills me to know there are people nearby that really honestly can't even afford food.

Well, my mom hit a milestone today and the bank took the final $22.00 payment on her overdraft balance. When I took over her finances in November, it didn't seem like this would EVER get paid off. YAY!

We had a little chat yesterday about where her money is going and how she doesn't check in with me anymore after meeting her gentleman friend! I am happy for her about this change in her life as it has been around 20 years since my parents split up. My mom never dated at all! But... now I feel like I have an irresponsible teenager that I'm in charge of! I think I'm realizing that the direct approach is working better with her. Now instead of asking her opinion of things, I tell her how things will be done. I really wanted her to have more control over her money than this, but that just does NOT work.

She got her $600 stimulus payment on April 28th - one of the first to go out! I had her pay the $339.00 she owed to the fuel company and I "took" $200.00 and put it in savings. She still owes me $350.00 and if she can keep her spending down, I can get this paid back to me by the middle of June. I lent it to her the end of February. I'm now sending $100 every two weeks to her savings acct (starting 05/16) and I don't want to touch that. She will need to pay her property taxes soon plus save for heat next year. She NEEDS to learn I am not bailing her out next year!!! It was really tough taking over in the middle of winter heating season. She HAS to plan now. I just don't want her gentleman friend to bail her out ever....

Got a letter in the mail with a $15 GC to Circuit City that I could have activated if I signed up for Chase Fraud Detector. Just called to activate that and I'll call again in a few weeks to cancel. Nothing but a little time spent on my part. Just sent DH out the door to Circuit City to FINALLY pick up the 2nd nunchuk we need for the Wii. I've been a bit disappointed at how expensive this thing has been just to make it 2 player friendly! We got a good deal on the 2nd Wiimote and we've just been waiting for a good deal for the nunchuk. $15 free to use towards it is perfect! I'll pick up the balance out of my allowance.

We went to Shaws this morning to take advantage of the great deal they have on General Mills products this week. 10 items for $20 minus $10 coupon on $20 worth of products. Got 8 boxes of cereal and 2 boxes of granola bars. Stacked this deal with 5 $1 off 2 coupons and got these items all for a total of $5. Hmmm... I just realized the $1 off coupons might have only been meant for the cereal, but the machine accepted it anyways. We originally were going to buy 10 boxes of cereal, but changed our mind last minute for the granola bars. Absolutely everything on our list was on sale! We're not having a problem at all with rising food prices. Just being a bit more creative!

Got $15 this week cashing in points from one survey site. Also got a $5 pinecone check. I was going to use this towards the nunchuk until we got the Circuit City GC.

It's been a miserable dreary weather weekend, but we still managed to hit some indoor charity yard sales yesterday. DH bought a "new" office chair for $5. It's leather (pleather?) and actually adjusts up and down. His old one didn't. I was excited to find two Wilton candy molds in the shape of little bugs! I get excited over silly stuff like this even though I have no use for chocolate bugs. Might be fun to leave in the kitchen at work!! Well, a coworker and I will have a good laugh over chocolate bugs at the very least. Not sure what I paid for these as we bought a box full of stuff for $8. Included a Philips Senseo coffee maker for my MIL, 2 porcelain angels for my MIL, a cute planter for me and a cute planter for my mom. We felt we got great deals and it all benefited the boy scouts.

Went to a church yard sale a little later and bought a vintage tupperware storage container - I love these! Spent 50 cents but we came out ahead as they handed us religious literature on the way in that had $1 in it. Also had a 1 million dollar bill that will be a fun gift to give someone. Might also be fun to frame our "first million"!

Unfortunately money goes out as easily as it comes in. My next task is to pay a parking ticket DH got in Boston when he went out last friday. Sure hope he enjoyed the evening!! He was hiding it from me but I found it in his car when I was looking for something. I just shrugged my shoulders cuz it's not my problem anymore. $40 gone so fast from his allowance! This is great - I'm not angry at all!

Got my car back yesterday - it runs and the A/C works! They said $850 and $850 it was. Actually, I got the work order back with a note and cash clipped to it. The note said: "sorry, I slipped a finger and charged you $852. here is the $2" Couldn't help but laugh over that! I really like this shop.

It was good to drive my car this morning! Curiously, my check engine light is gone. Not sure what that had to do with my A/C as it's throwing a fuel emissions code. I fully expect it to be back on by Sunday. There's nothing wrong with my car in this respect. The computer is just slightly confused.
Oh, my floor mat was also upside down - spiky side up. Can't figure out how you screw that up!

Glad not to have to carpool anymore. It wasn't so bad overall, but there are some "issues" at home and we both need some space. Four days of carpooling don't help that. It also doesn't help to feel trapped at home with no car. Although my only option if I want to get out of the house is to go shopping! That wont help either!

I requested some info to be mailed to me regarding a local support group that I feel might help me right now. I'm really nervous about that (not so great socially, though I'm not shy) but took the first step. Guess I wont think about it til the info arrives.
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In other news, my mother got paid today and now I have to convince her to hold back on spending for the next 2 weeks. She's still not seeing the whole picture and doesn't understand how spending now impacts things months from now. She still owes the fuel company $339 for her last fill up and owes me $350 for the one before that! Last time I asked her when she was going to pay me back she told me to stop crying about it. I think she was joking, but I couldn't really tell. Right now it's looking like she can pay me back in AUGUST if she cuts back her spending. Maybe sooner with her stimulus payment, but I fully expect whining about it. She only got $600 and that doesn't even cover these two debts. At the moment, it's sitting in her old checking account that isn't as easily accessible.

Well, I think I should go enjoy the rest of my lunch break!

When I get car problems, I get them good! I get so many of them that I send my car into the shop having already diagnosed the problem myself... lol... I play dumb when I send it there, but they always come back with the expected response.

This time it's my AC. Turned it on last week and it wasn't cold. That can't be good! I drive a 1998 VW Jetta and VWs shouldn't have AC problems. They are designed so the AC kicks in when you turn on the defrost - all year long. You never have an issue with it blowing warm air, but sure enough it was. This brought me back to the question whether to fix something so "trivial" or get a new car. I'm just not ready to get a new car though!

Well flash foward to Saturday and out running errands. We get in the car and it makes a horrible WHOOSH!! noise. Lasts for a few seconds and stops. Uh oh. Did it again on the next couple of start ups and a couple more times randomly. Ok, though, the car runs ok besides that occasional noise. It was determined I could take it to work today and we'd try to get it in the shop this week. Nope. Got almost to the interstate and the car started running rough, idling around 300. Back home and off to the shop it went.

Would you believe something is shorting out in my AC compressor and dragging the whole car down? $850 and I'll get the car back Weds or Thurs. Have no choice but to fix the AC - or the whole car wont run! What a fluke! The shop was able to duplicate the problem if they turned on the AC or the defrost. It was happening for me with no air running though. No work-around here, even temporarily.

Time to start putting some thought into my next vehicle I guess. Not going to rush this. Just needs to be a smaller, 4 door, 5 speed car. My VW is still getting 32 mpg!!

So, I know I've been horrible at this blogging thing. I have so much to say, but I don't know how to get it OUT of my head. I read the blogs daily and every day I tell myself "I'll just jump right in and do it!" But I don't. I don't have any frugal minded people in my life (hubby is learning!!!) so no one understands me. So today I really am going to just "jump right in" and type up a blog almost as if I had never stopped.

I'm very much involved in my mother's finances now and have her on a budget. We're not quite to the point where she always listens to me though. This is very much a work in progress and things are much improved over what they used to be!

I checked my email earlier only to find an email from my aunt sent from my mom's email. My aunt moved away recently and is home visiting relatives for a week. My mom is at work so my aunt is helping her finish some sewing projects she does for extra $$. I guess my mom had left notes explaining all the things that don't work on her 30+ year old sewing machine. HUH? She's never mentioned to me that her sewing machine isn't working right! My mother is trying so hard to take in these jobs for the extra money she could really use. Plus she loves to sew! How is she supposed to do this if her sewing machine isn't function properly?

What kills me is that she bought me a brand new sewing machine for Christmas. She was so proud of buying this for me! I already had an older sewing machine that works fine. I don't even sew!

So I have two choices here: 1) Try to give my mom back the one she just gave me or 2) Chip in with my aunt to buy her a new sewing machine. I don't even know anything about sewing machines. What brands are good? What features do you look for? I wouldn't even know where to begin.
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We are going out with my husband's coworkers after work tonight. I don't plan on spending much. We might actually run to BK for a cheap meal and just have a couple drinks with the coworkers. I just don't like spending money on things like this!!

In response to DebtKid's dumbest purchase, I really had to think about this one since I generally am happy with my purchases.

My dumbest purchase would have to be the 72 gallon pond kit I purchased at an insane price a little over a year ago. This pond kit looks so cute and was only less than $40 SHIPPED! WOW!! These things normally retail for closer to $150.00!!! What a STEAL!! I wanted a pond more than anything - I just love aquariums inside and little ponds outside. How great!

BUT... I live in a condo... I don't have a place to put this thing, so it just sits in the box collecting dust.

I wanted it so badly, can't use it, and could have used that money for something else.

Can anyone here advise me on a furnace maintenance plan for my mother's furnace? She has a gas furnace that was just installed in the last year or two. Her fuel company added the charge for the plan on her bill (she's mad about that) and I'm not sure if this is something we should get for her. I know nothing about this stuff and I'm hoping someone here might!! Is this a good deal and is it recommended to have something like this in place? Any insight welcome!

It includes:
- periodic burner tuneup, system inspection, and cleaning of the heating system as needed.
- adjustments are made as needed, to ensure your maxium econonomy and environmental protection.
- tuneups are performed during normal business hrs M - F.
- all parts will be replaced as necessary at the previling rates.
- 24 hr emergency burner service is provided at no labor charge.
- $18 monthly $180 yrly

I just sent her $150 to help towards the property taxes and this is very much an unexpected expense. At least going forward I should have a better understanding of what's going on at her house.

Thank you!

Went over my mom's budget again since she got paid friday. She's in "OK" shape I would say. I did have to send her $150.00 towards the $325.00 property taxes. No choice here as there was a $40 late fee plus high interest rate if it was late. She would like to start putting money into a separate account for the property taxes, but she's just not at that point yet. She doesn't know that I already started an account and there is 50.09 (yay interest!) accumlated so far. No harm done for me at this point since I can always dump that money back into my main account if she manages to find the money before the next payment is due this summer. Well, after all is said and done, she has just over 20.00 to get by until 12/14. Gonna be tough with Christmas coming and her known spending habits. She did buy some groceries and gas up her car. She was conscious of staying below the $80.00 I had budgeted between the two expenses. Keeping my fingers crossed here! If she can make it, and also not run out of fuel to heat the house, then she can make a payment to the heating company for another delivery next check. We're just not sure when she will run out.

We went to Mystic Aquarium yesterday using some free passes I received this summer. I don't think I would pay full price to get in there, but well worth it for free! It just cost us the gas to get there plus $4.12 we spent at BK for lunch. My husband was like a little kid around the penguins!! I could have stared at the fish, especially the cichlid display, for hours. I'm a cichlid junkie and he has quite the soft spot for penguins. They are quite cute!



The aquarium gave me a good chance to try out my new camera. It takes GREAT videos! Pics are ok, but it's really tough to take pictures of fish in tanks. I've mastered it at home, but I think people would have looked at me funny if I had been laying on the floor to take pics. That's really the only way I've found it to work.

In other finacial news, we're really looking forward to the new year so we can "renegotiate" our allowances. Neither of us feels it's enough to do what we want to do. There will be more wiggle room next year since we'll be saving so much on our health insurance premiums.

Hmmmm.... I also got my boss to agree to pay me for my days I was unable to use this year! I also have to work on Dec. 22 and 29 (office closed the 24th and 31st) since I can't afford to lose Monday and Tuesday of my weeks. To make up for this, boss will pay me for hours worked (I'm salaried so this is extra) plus one day pay plus one extra day off next year. Not a bad deal since I'll only have to work maybe half a day. Sure beats coming in those Mondays. Too bad DH has to work on the 24th - until 6 pm.
And we have a party to be at 2 hours away! He'll never make it. I'll already be up in NH and he'll be commuting from there.

Enough from me for now!!

Hello. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We spent a long weekend in Indiana with my inlaws. Got to meet our new nephew who turned a month old the day we arrived. The trip went ok I guess. Our expenses were probably as good as they could be. Where else can we have free room and board with two dogs and all it costs us is gas money to get there? We did spend a little money out at a bar Friday night, but that's what allowance money is for.
But... whenever we are there we eat out EVERY meal. My stomach is not happy about that. I'm not used to eating out so much and my poor tummy can't handle it! At least we don't have to pay for the meals.
We exchanged Christmas gifts with them since we would all be together. I still don't think they've caught on how little money we spend on them!! We pick up gifts throughout the year when we find things at really cheap prices. Of course my inlaws hadn't even bought our gifts yet! I got mine and DH is still working on figuring out what he wants. I didn't get to choose, but I'm happy with their selection. I got two gifts: a set of vintage pyrex casserole dishes and a brand new Olympus 8.0 megapixel digital camera. Can ya guess which one meant more to me? Really, the camera is great... but picking up those vintage pyrex dishes was just much more thoughtful.
So.... the camera is great BUT I'm still running a dinosaur here with windows 98. 98 is becoming more and more obsolete and of course my new camera needs at least 2000 professional! So I'm in the process of setting up a dual boot system on this computer. Is it going smoothly? No. At least I got the usb working, but I still can't get the sound to work. I am typing this from the 2000 drive, so it's working for the most part. I still have yet to install my camera. Isn't that what I was supposed to be doing right now?? I'm curious to see what the pictures look like once I download them.

In other news: I'm kicking myself for the boneheaded thing I did. I'm also REALLY pissed off with Citibank. They changed the interface on their webpage recently and it's not very user friendly. I missed payments last week on two cards that had balance transfers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When I log into my account, my first card shows all the details. The rest of the cards just showed the current balance, so I thought that meant no payment was due since it didn't say one was due. I realize now that I actually had to click on something to show all the details. I don't understand why they show for one but I can't get them to permanently show for the others. I tried calling to talk to someone but of course their system was down. I sent an email to customer service explaining the problem and I do have it in writing that I will not get any late fees. I'm certain that I WILL get hit with interest charges now though. I'm in the process of transferring the balance elsewhere. I have no choice and I know how this game is played. I just have NEVER EVER EVER (and I can not stress that enough) missed a payment for any reason. I'm so unbelieveably anal about this stuff that I drive everyone I know crazy. I can't go back to paper invoices because I just would not read them. I have a system in place that works very well for me and I do place some blame on Citibank with the changes they made.

On that note, I think I will try and install my new camera now as a distraction.

Wow, I've been so busy all week and I can hardly figure out where the time went! I wont be around much next week either, due to the holidays.

Last night we had a VERY nice (and inexpensive!) evening out. We just signed a new deal with a vendor at work. As a thank you, our sales rep gave my boss and I 5 corporate suite tickets to the Celtics game. My boss brought his wife and I brought DH plus one of DH's friends. It was a private suite with tons of good food and drinks. It was slightly work related, but not too bad. Mostly a social thing. We all had a really great time and it only cost $25 for parking and tolls: $13 from us and $12 from DH's friend. Not bad! It was a good game too. The Celtics won by only one point.

I was supposed to be cleaning today, but all I managed to do was wash 3 loads of laundry and go over the finances. Not much to report on there. The $1900 car repair bill was a downer, but we'll bounce back in the long run.

Still need to:
- clean two turtle tanks
- catch up with neighbor who will be pet sitting
- bake cookies, cupcakes, and make candies
- vac and other general cleaning
- pack for Thanksgiving

Just a day and a half of work next week, then a few much deserved days off!

Gave away a pair of DH's rollerblades on Freecycle today. He HAD to have them, wore them once, then decided he liked his old ones better. A woman was looking for a pair for her son for Christmas and these happened to be the right size. I LOVE the giving aspect of Freecycle!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

Ok, so I just went over my mom's finances. I only asked about 100 questions and gave her a migraine! Too bad. She claims she has no money and I can't see where the problem is!

Her checks vary and her last 4 checks ranged from 550.00 to 640.00 every two weeks. Her monthly bills are as follows:
340.00 Rent
75.00 Phone/Internet
40.00 Car insurance
50.00 Owed on overdraft for next 6 months
75.00 Electric

I found out that her bank is charging 5.00 per month for the acct and 1.00 per month for the debit card. Huh? Their current fee schedule does not have those fees! She will be calling the bank to discuss this with them.

So what's left over to pay? food, gas for the car, heat, then work on a few "small" debts she has. There seems to be quite a bit of wiggle room for her to account for a rise in heating costs for the winter.

So, where has the money been going? I'm actually feeling optimistic about her situation. It does not seem as bad as she seems to think it is.

Ah, I just discovered an error in my spreadsheet. The next month will be the toughest but it will get better after that.

I kindly reminded my husband that we are supposed to leave for Thanksgiving (1000 mile drive) on the 20th and NEITHER car is currently up to the drive. My car needs the suspension replaced and he was having trouble with the transmission. We opted to wait a little longer on my suspension since we are sure we can find an affordable option given the time to order parts. So off to a transmission shop his car went yesterday. By the end of the day we had a $2400 estimate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, keep in mind this is a 2003 bottom of the line NEON. kbb.com estimates it at $2900 value. Too bad he still currently owes WAY more than that on the loan. He was upside down on his last car (that was about to die) and got a good deal on this one. Good enough that we were hoping it would get him out of this mess.

Well he told the guy we couldn't afford it and to just put the car back together. The guy countered with a cheaper clutch they found, knocked two hours off the labor, and applied a $100 coupon. Total now due = $1900. This really isn't TOO bad considering the transmission rebuild plus the clutch replacement. I'm still aggravated that this car is such a piece of junk. Apparently the transmission issues are quite common according to neons.org.

This is just a huge blow right now. I was thinking something wasn't right since things were starting to look up for us lately. The next phase of my salary adjustment is effective 12/01/07. By switching health insurance plans next year we'll save $2000 in premium costs for the year, and possibly more in out of pocket costs. I was finally feeling like we were starting to make progress on debt payments. I even was going to send double his car payment this week!!

As bad as it seems, my husband is really starting to see how things like this impact the household finances. He's in a very sorry state of mind right now, but unfortunately he needs these type of learning experiences. We can pay for the repair, it will just delay my plan to pay off one credit card. Yes I'm aware things aren't as bad as they could be.

Well after being windy beyond belief and quite cold yesterday, today is gorgeous! DH is out doing oil changes on both cars, replacing the dead bulbs on mine, etc. I figured it was a great day to cut down the garden. Now, I love morning glories, but they were mutants this year! This picture shows what they looked like before they grew completely up through the shutters and into the air conditioner (THAT was fun to clean up). I hacked down this monstrosity, and boy did my husband laugh when I walked around the corner carrying this and said "remind me next year that I don't like morning glories anymore!" They sure were beautiful in their prime though.



I did have a brief online chat with my mother this morning about finances. She informed me that she could come up with the money for the property taxes, and still pay her other bills! She would just need a little gas money. Ok, so what about food and heat. She replied that she can't afford food and heat. *SIGH* She's at church now and I'm sending her a list of the info I need: What bills and how much and when they're due, what outstanding debts she has, and when and how much her next paycheck is. She is paid every two weeks. We need to have a discussion on priorities! Food and heat are last on her list??

Thank you Noel! Boy is it breezy right now. My desk sits next to the window in the bedroom and I was freezing! I actually had to take a break from the finance stuff (my usual Saturday task) to put plastic over that window. New windows would be great, but we plan on selling this place in a couple of years. I found a 3 window kit in the closet downstairs and I couldn't remember paying 5.99 for it at the store on the price tag. Ha! I didn't! We bought it at a yard sale early in the summer for 25 cents. YAY! This doesn't seem as nice as the plastic I had last year, but I think it will do. Hey, I'm not freezing anymore.

Well the appointment at the dealership this morning didn't go as I expected. Their "thorough bumper to bumper inspection" barely amounted to a basic safety inspection. I'm glad they noticed I have two side marker bulbs and both license plate bulbs out. We'll take care of that tomorrow. They didn't inspect anything I expected them to though. They did say I need new front strut mounts. Good to know since we were going to do the struts and shocks soon anyways. The biggest concern was that he said I'd need the rear brakes done in 3-4000 miles. I was a little aggravated by that, but then when I got out to the car and read the paperwork - it said the rear cylinders were both leaking and the fluid needs to be flushed. Uh... go back and read my entries from Apr 2006 to see why this concerns me. WHY should I be replacing these AGAIN a year and a half later? People wonder why I'm so paranoid that my brakes will fail. Turns out, I apparently have a reason to be paranoid.

I did find it funny that they "noticed" I am late on an oil change by looking at the sticker on the windshield. Did they check the oil? Also, they didn't seem concerned that my check engine light is on? Oh, and they didn't notice that my windshield wipers are secured on by twist ties? I laughed about that one.

I tried to talk to my husband about mom's property taxes. It's hard to have a conversation with him though. He has ADD and is so easily distracted when it comes to stuff like this. I wish it was as easy as having my mom put aside $10 a week for this expense. At the moment, she doesn't "have" $10 a week. I'm not sure she'd even have it if she'd stop spending on useless things. So, as of this week I now have a new ING account title "Mom's Property Taxes" funded with $10. Guess I'll start preparing so I'm not caught off guard with this again in 6 months. I'll also plan on having to come up with most, if not all, the bill for Dec. I really would like to talk to DH about this, but he just doesn't understand what it's like to watch a parent struggle.

Well I need to get back to the finances. Got some work to do still!

I knew going into today that it was going to be a LONG day at work - I just had no idea how long! We were working very hard today to get 438 open enrollment packets assembled, stuffed, and mailed out. We're changing insurance plans, so we had a lot of paperwork to send. At some point during the day, we found out the town was locked down!! Now keep in mind, I work in a small affluent town where "nothing bad ever happens". After several conflicting reports, by the end of the day we found out there were TWO separate incidents. An elderly man was murdered and his daughter-in-law severly beaten by a man working on the house. Just a couple miles down the road, an armed robber held up the new pizza place and the whole center of town was roped off. They did catch both guys, but the whole town was on edge all afternoon. Two completely random insane incidents.

I did not leave the office until after 5:30, which is very unusual for me! A few hours later and I still feel brain dead. This is the kind of evening where I would have given anything to go out to eat, just for a break. I was good though and ate food around the house!! I'm usually quite good about tightening the purse strings when I know my car may need some unknown work. We're taking it to the dealership tomorrow for a "free" winter car care clinic. It's a professional multi-point inspection where they perform a thorough bumper to bumper examination of your car. I ignored the email at first, but then it hit me how stupid it would be to pass this up! My car rolled over 154,000 miles this week and I'm getting to the point where I need to decide if it's worth fixing or dumping. I'd like to keep it if possible, but that depends on what might be wrong with it. What better way to find out than have the dealership go over it with a fine tooth comb - for free! They also are offering a 10% discount if you perform any of the suggested work between 11/05 and 12/31. I'm not going into this blindly since my check engine light has been on for over 3 years and my suspension is shot. It's what else MIGHT be wrong that concerns me. We'll see what tomorrow holds! I'm looking at this as an opportunity to find out about a major potential problem BEFORE it requires another call to AAA.

My mom informed me last night that her property tax bill is due Dec. 03 and it's $325. This is up $45 from the June bill! I sort of blame myself for not paying attention to the due dates of past bills and preparing my mom ahead of time for this. She does not have the money to pay the bill - yet again! Granted she doesn't make much money, but I still can't figure out what's she's doing with the money she makes. Spending it on crap she doesn't need to be buying! I "helped" her a year and a half ago and took care of her past taxes and her car loan by doing a balance transfer onto one of my credit cards. Yes, I learned my lesson. It seemed like a foolproof plan at the time and she did make $800.00 in payments to me between May and October 2006. It has been over a year since I've seen a payment on this debt. Her debt is still sitting at 0%, but this is a large chunk of the credit card debt that's hurting me right now.

I recently restructured my finances and I don't know what to tell my mother. Yes, I CAN help her out with the property tax bill, but that will mean less to pay towards debt for me. I don't want to help, but the guilt eats at me. That's an issue I know I have to deal with on my own. I'm doing ok with dealing with finances when it comes to my husband, but I'm still having issues with my mother. I just don't understand how she says she has no money, but is constantly buying things for other people. I re-read an OLD post of mine about my mother's finances and I still agree with something I wrote. My mother's way of dealing with bills is just to ignore them and hope they'll disappear. I need to find a way to teach her how to deal with them like adults are supposed to!

It has been a VERY long time since I have posted a blog here. I think I am finally ready to give this another shot. I've been lurking around for the past couple of months, reading and commenting on other blogs. I've just had a mental block when it comes to writing my own blogs - no clue why!

Well, I guess I'll just jump back in and start with a couple of things that have been going on lately. DH and I both got decent raises a couple of months ago, so we decided to give an allowance a second shot. We had tried that once before and it failed horribly. An allowance was just very necessary at this point in our lives! (I'll touch on that more later)

His raise was 3.5% and mine was 4% PLUS a salary adjustment spread out over the next 4 quarters. This gave me approximately 3% more, for a total of 7% increase Sept. 1st. I'll get that same dollar amount that the ~3% represented again on 12/01, 03/01, and 06/01. I was ecstatic about how much this could go towards paying down debt!!!

Then.... DH annouced that it's his lifelong dream to become a race car driver. Go ahead and laugh, I'm not kidding! Yes, 31 years old and crying about wanting to be a race car driver when we were supposed to be talking about starting a family and buying a house. And what about me and what I want? I want to fund a Roth IRA!

So, this is where the allowance comes in. It's not huge - only $20 a week - but he can spend it on anything he wants to! I have the same allowance and the same rules apply. Well, you can imagine I have over $100 in my account and he has just a few dollars as far as I know. We set up a separate account that HE is reponsible for and I don't meddle in at all. I never expected the effects this would have on ME though. If he wants to spend his money on beer or sports cards - I don't care!!! I used to get stressed out that he was "wasting" his money on this stuff, but it's not my problem anymore. Do you know how much of a weight was taken off of me with this?

My spending has decreased as well. Now I look at something I would have bought without thinking twice and I say "Wait a minute - I don't really want to spend my money on that!" I have a habit of always doing for others and not doing things for ME, but I need to change that a bit. I'll admit, my first $20 got tucked in my mom's purse while she wasn't looking. It's a slow process changing the way I think, but I'm making progress!

I guess that's enough for now - not bad just jumping back in here!

My brother wrote this in his blog this morning. I felt it was worth passing along. He is stationed somewhere in Afghanistan.


TGIF!
Thank God it’s Friday!

Or it was Friday? I get so lost over here that I lose track of the days. I did not know it was Friday until I looked down at the clock to see what time it was. It is ok because the days of the week do not matter much to me.

I hope you all have big plans for the weekend. If not, go out and have some fun! Enjoy your freedom! Remember that not every one in this world is free so take advantage of what you have but DO NOT take advantage of people. Get together with the people you love and do something special for no reason at all.

I want to hear stories come Monday of all the things you did this weekend. Remind me why I am over here fighting for your freedom.

Every body needs to take some time to enjoy life.

Be safe and have a wonderful weekend!

So I stepped up payments a bit and paid off the student loan my mom took out for me! My mom defaulted on this loan a few years ago. I took over and rehabbed it back to a positive status. Paying $100 per month would have had this paid off next February. I stepped it up to $200, then $250, then just made one final payment for $500 and change. I just got a shocked email from my mother. She gets email notifications of payments and didn't expect such a large payment. I'm not sure she really knew how much was left to pay on the loan. I explained to her that it made more sense to pay less on one of my 0% balance transfers this month and more on the student loan. The money I would have spent on the student loan next month will now go towards my balance transfer. Doing things this way saves me interest.

It feels good to pay something off!

Well, after putting ourselves on an "allowance" nearly a month ago, I am happy to say I am seeing some progress. I am thrilled most about DH taking some interest in the finances! He seems to care more about where his money goes and it setting goals for himself. He is also trying to come up with creative ways to bring more money in for his allowance. I have heard him on a couple occasions looking at the spreadsheet and saying "That's all I have left?" This is opening up his eyes quite a bit to how fast he was allowing money to disappear.

As for me: well I didn't realize I spent as much as I do. Good to know as far as I'm concerned. I never have been a big spender, but I'm even more conscious now about spending money on things I don't need. I also feel much more relaxed about DH spending money now, and that's a really good outcome from this as far as I'm concerned. He went out with his coworkers for a couple drinks one night. Well a "couple drinks" plus tip came up to $41.49 plus $10.00 he tossed in for a wedding gift. I don't care!! I feel like some financial pressure has been taken off of me. He is now responsible for staying within certain limits. I'm starting to feel free.

I think it will still take some time before I see a significant savings in spending, but I am thrilled with the progress so far.

Well, I finally got to the point where I feel we have to try something different with our finances. I had always wanted to set up a a weekly allowance system, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work. I just went through the last 7 weeks of receipts and categorized everything according to the type of purchase. The point was to see how much we had been spending on "wants" over that time. YIKES! I'm guilty too, but nowhere near as bad as DH. This will certainly be a challenge, but it looks like we could cut back on spending quite a bit. The only way to make this work is for each of us to have the same amount of fun money per week. Use it, bank it, whatever. So... starting immediately DH and I will each get $20 per week to spend on whatever we want. For me, this will mean I have $15 per week to play with. I currently have $5 per week direct deposited to another bank account and I think I will claim that money as part of my fun money. (Hey why not? It's earning a nice interest rate! FUN!) I think this will work as I don't normally spend too much on "wants". It's DH who is going to have to majorly cut back. I think this will be good for him though.

This is a start towards us cutting expenses. I want to track my progress through my blog and eventually I want to see this work towards a reduction of debt. Wont know until I try!

Well, I feel like I found a billing loophole on my car/home insurance. Like many insurance plans, you can pay up front and avoid the $3 per month service charge. I am not at the point where I can pay in full, but I was able to get ahead of the payments. The last time they billed me was in March. It currently shows my next payment is due at the end of June. I have been paying a decent size flat amount each month, much more than the amount due. I just made my usual monthly payment, so it seems this will just push my next "due date" to the end of July. By paying this way it appears I am still able to pay monthly and I am avoiding the $3 monthly charge!! AND... the policy will be paid off 3 months early.

My mom had to have my brother's cat Bo put down today. A few months ago, a tumor showed up on Bo's front leg at the joint. Bo was 14 years old and amputation was not a good choice for her. It got to the point where Bo could no longer take care of herself, so my mom took her back for a second opinion. This wasn't going to get any better. This vet said it was cancer caused by a rabies shot she had in 2002. It happens in 1 out of 8000 cats according to him. This scares the hell out of me!!!

My mom is bawling her eyes out right now for having to do this. My brother is in Afghanistan!! He doesn't know yet. My mom has been emailing him letting him know Bo was not well. He wouldn't write back to her. I think he didn't want to deal with it.

This put my mom out $179. $100 of that was for cremation and to get the ashes back. She had no choice since she feels she has to return Bo to my brother at some point.

Well, day five without my car - Thurs, Fri, Tues, Thurs, Fri. I'm going nuts here. I HOPE to have an answer today. The owner of the shop was calling in a favor from a buddy and they were supposed to work on my car at 10 last night! I have no idea what the financial outcome will be here. You know they are putting in HOURS on my car. I know they wont charge me for that though. Not sure what's fair here. Guess I'll see what they say. This sure is a baffling problem with the brakes. One I hope never happens to anyone else. Wish my car could just be cut and dry like everyone elses. Nope, I had to buy the possessed one. I think mechanics hate me.

Well, I guess I'll find out in the morning if I really have brakes now. I probably do. They ended up replacing the master cylinder. No kidding - that really should have been their first guess. Granted they DID fix something on Friday, just not the whole problem. On the bright side, they gave me a break on the labor charges for the inconvenience. So, another $250 and most of the hydraulics in the braking system are replaced. It seems to me the master cylinder should have lasted more than 2 or 3 years. I don't know anyone who has ever had one replaced in a car. Twice for me in this car! They did say it was quite rusted, so that's really got me wondering about the shop that replaced it the first time. I stopped going there quite a while ago.

So...$400 on brakes and without my car for 3 days. I will certainly go ballistic if DH even thinks about buying one more useless thing for his car. He wants an air intake setup - a different one than the one he has! All I want is a mechanic who's not too chicken to fix a coolant leak. Oh, and brakes too! Those are nice.

Did anyone see this story yesterday?
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/04/17/paper.clip.to.ho...

I never thought to put some of the stuff around the house on craigslist to barter!! What a NEAT idea! So we started yesterday by offering a brand new in box Weber charcoal grill that DH won in a raffle. We don't need it, but it retails for $80 - $100. It's interesting to see what people might offer for it.

Now I'm looking around to see if there's anything else I can trade. This could be fun!

Got almost to work and put the brake pedal in - right down to the floor! I'm so glad I spent $150 on Friday for them to fix this. I called DH since I didn't have the number to the shop. Good thing - they would have gotten an earful. I'm hoping it was just a fluke and for some reason the new part was faulty. Although after that happened with the starter last summer, I'm not sure I want that to be the case. (Yes, my new starter burned out a day later - 30 miles from home.) It's possible the shop did fix something, just not the right thing!

It's a strange problem and seems to show up after the car has been driven a while - 20-30 miles. At least that's how it was on Wednesday and today. Since that was the case, I knew I'd be ok heading home. The brakes gave out again less than a mile from home. Boy is it fun not knowing if you'll have brakes or not when you put the pedal in. Something I think we take for granted...Thankfully I drive a 5 speed so downshifting and the emergency brake are my friends if need be. Back to the shop it goes tonight, so let's hope this doesn't cost too much more money.

I'm home sick today - no fun! The swelling in my mouth seems to have gone down a little bit, but it's still quite swollen and uncomfortable. And I get to do this again in two weeks if this heals ok. Glad the next one is on a Friday so I'll have the weekend to recover. I'm not sure why this wiped me out so much. Just walking the dog took all my energy.

Well my car is fixed. A rear wheel bearing (

I have to post my baby too! This is Moose and she is 6 1/2 years old. My best friend! She most recently is the inspiration of the domain www.moozcat.com. I'm not sure what DH has in store for the website, but it wont be dedicated completely to Moose. Right now she does grace the homepage. At least for the next few minutes...