BEing Lianne's Personal Finance Blog

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?

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...

Wow, it has been an expensive day - and I don't even know how bad yet! I just got back from my first of two crown lenghthening surgeries I have to have. For those of you who don't know what that is: it's dental related, painful, and uncomfortable! I suppose that's all the details anyone might want. The good news is that I DO go to Tufts Dental School so this "only" cost me $350.00. Insurance will pick up half of that and I have my FSA as well. Too bad I didn't account for these two surgeries in my FSA for the year. Oh well, I think I'm only off by $250 or so.

If I wasn't stressed enough about going to the appointment today, my brakes just added to it. I've been telling everyone that I don't have brakes. Not entirely true, but if they don't work 100% of the time, do they really work? They acted up a couple times on the way home last night - put in the pedal and get NOTHING. Do you think they could have acted up when we went out to run errands and DH was driving? No. Things really went downhill on the way to work today, so I got a ride to the T to head into Boston. DH picked me up at the T station after my appointment and we went to get my car. Do you think it could have acted up in the 30 miles he drove it home? Thankfully yes - when he went to turn into the mechanic's yard. Turns out I didn't imagine it after all. Now how to convince the mechanic...

Guess I'll find out tomorrow what the damages are. Brakes are rather important though!

Wow, for once I finally feel like money went the other way! We returned several items to stores tonight, and got our money back. I had spent $26 on a suit I decided not to wear. It was a great deal, but just did not look right on me. Back it went! DH spent $30 on Madden 2006, but hadn't had time to open it yet. Good thing since I found out today a friend's son was looking to sell his. Worked out a deal where DH trades a $15 itunes card (he got for free) for the game! The itunes card will mean more to the kid than the game did. Back went the game! We also returned some other unused items for a total of $11. Walked out of the store after spending just $10. I got some body wash and DH got some shoe inserts - both on clearance. Got a couple other things as well. Only $1 was spent on a "want".

I've noticed we're watching more lately on what are wants and what are needs. DH did have something on ebay that he "had to have". The total came to $8.49, but I found a paypal coupon online that brought it down to $5.04. Not bad!! We do need to work quite a bit harder on controlling the spending around here. DH is just barely showing just a little interest in where the money goes. If I mention money, he instantly goes deaf. I can't force him to get interested, but it seems he might be coming around on his own.

Ok, I'm finally going to step in and put my mother on a budget - and teach her to use it too! She's been trying on her own, but she's not looking at things right and it's not working for her. I went to visit her last weekend and started asking her all sorts of financial questions. I was HORRIFIED to find that 1) she is paying 20% interest on her car loan for the next 15 months and 2) she hasn't paid her property taxes since 2001 ! As of her February statement, she had a balance of $548.00 @ 12% and $1561.16 @ 18%. *SIGH* I had no idea this was going on and I know my brother must not have known about it either. Before he left home, he was making decent money and could have paid this off. My mother's way of thinking about bills is: if you ignore it, it will go away, right?

Well I'm still working on some numbers. I know what her definite bills are each month: rent, car insurance, electric, phone/internet, prescriptions, bank overdraft payments (balance of $387.00). Other household expenses include groceries, gas, church donations. I left out the car and property taxes because I'm working on a plan for a low interest rate to get these paid off. Ideally, I'd like to see this paid off in 2 years. Once I have a clearer picture of what's going on, that may have to stretch out to 2 1/2 years - at the most! I'm very happy about this plan, and I think she will be too.

She seems to be on board with this plan. Everything I have asked her to do so far she has done. She decided that she didn't need to make automatic payroll deductions for savings bonds. I showed her the cost comparison with her prescriptions - she can save just under 1/3 per month if she does the mail order pharmacy. I had her call Verizon and switch from the 29.95 to the 14.95 per month dsl plan. If my suspicions are correct, she wont even notice a speed difference.

Making progress!!

I got a letter in the mail the other day from Citibank saying my loan will be tranferred to them from CFS/Suntech. I am thrilled!!! You have no idea what a headache CFS/Suntech has been to work with. This is my very large student loan consolidation - approximately $30000.

Well I got an email this morning from Citibank saying my statement was ready. My payment and interest rate are now LOWER! I orginally had an 8.25% rate that dropped at some point to 7.25% for on time payments. With Citibank, I will get an extra .25% deduction for having the payments debited from my checking account. This is how I already was set up to begin with. My payments will be $22 lower each month. Now I just need to make arrangements to put that difference back on the loan - and pay it off sooner!

One of the things that depresses me the most is when people around me are so down on their luck. I am lucky that I have everything I NEED, quite a few WANTS, and a little extra to work on the debt I have. My mother called me friday to tell me she had a migraine. She got paid (every two weeks), paid the rent and electric, and had nothing left to live on for the next two weeks. She needs food! I HATE THAT! She works so hard and just does NOT have enough to get by with. She has rent, car payment, utilities, medication. She doesn't even make enough to cover these expenses. She is in the process of applying for prescription coverage assitance with the various pharmaceutical companies. That will help. Eventually my brother will be able to send her more money. He sent her $600 a couple months ago. That brought her current and got a little extra with the gas company. My brother just deployed to Afghanistan less than a week ago. Once money starts to build up in his bank accounts, he wont have any expenses and can send her money. I did immediately put a check in the mail Friday. I guess she didn't get it yet since she didn't say anything about it. It will probably arrive tomorrow. I didn't tell her it was on the way.

Then last night on the way to the grocery store, DH tells me how a neighbor asked him if we had any spare canned cat food or tuna. She needed food for her cat and couldn't afford to buy any. She's a single mom laid off from her job just this week. She also just found out she needs the brakes replaced on her car - rotors are shot. My spoiled brat doesn't eat canned food, but DH told her to go knock and see if I had some tuna. He doesn't know if she knocked or not, I was upstairs and couldn't hear the door. He didn't put two and two together and realize we were AT the store! I bought 12 cans of food for $3 and he put it on her front step. It's not there this morning, so I hope she found it.

This is just how I was raised - to help others when they need it. I certainly can't sit in my warm home, watching tv, browsing the internet, eating my food - when my mother can't afford food and a friend has hit hard times.

Well, I think we're finally going to jump on the VOIP bandwagon! I like what SunRocket has to offer. $199 for the full year, unlimted calling, plus many more features that I don't currently have. My biggest concern is that I am not sure if they can port my current number over. Verizon allows you to port a number that's on a dsl line, but SunRocket implies on their website that they can't do this. I did send them an email to ask for clarification, so we'll see what they say. DH and I talked about this and decided that keeping the number will NOT hold us back from making the switch. We will just have to let go and move on. It's only a number. This switch would save us over $20 a month on phone costs. Combine that with the $10 a month I can save by combining our cell plans into a family plan (same number of minutes, less money). That's great!!

I just wish VOIP was available at my mother's house. I put myself on the availablity list to get notified if service arrives there.

Thank goodness my brother had the common sense to save his final pay stub! He ships off to Afghanistan tomorrow and I've been bugging him for his final W2 I'm missing. He called them and they did have my address on file, but for some reason decided to send it to his old address in AZ. He called there - not there. I have all of his stuff here so I went through it. There was only one pay stub in his suitcase - the one that matters.

This should be a challenge. He worked for one month in NH. He worked a couple months in AZ. Then he joined the army, but he put down my address (in MA) as his address. The army took out MA state taxes, but he has never lived or worked in this state. I'm not sure how he should file. At least now I have all the info to get started. I'll work out the details later.

His address has since been changed to mom's house in NH. No state taxes there.

Anyone here Freecycle? I'm finding that to be a rather interesting experience. In a lot of ways, it depresses me. I hate it when several people respond and I have to choose who gets something! Most of the things I have offered so far have been things of need, mostly clothes. A few days ago I responded to an ad from a girl asking if anyone had some full size sheets - they didn't have ANY. We were fortunate enough to get a new bed last summer, and didn't need most of our full size sheets anymore. She just stopped by to get them a few minutes ago. Wow, I don't think I've ever met anyone so quiet and softspoken!! She seemed really grateful to have the sheets. That made me sad!! Guess I have always taken my sheets for granted. I have the ones I need! I feel good I was able to help someone out, but boy is it depressing to know someone needed something so basic.

Yesterday I offered up my husband's "old" jacket. It's a fake leather jacket and he bought it after Christmas 2004 for $11. It was a steal! He's so sensitive and any little thing out of place irritates him. The collar started bothering him, so he bought an almost identical (this time real leather) jacket for $25 on clearance. Two people responded, so how do I choose? I finally just went with my gut and picked the one that seemed right to me. If the guy doesn't show up to get it, I'll just offer it to the other person who wanted it. That reminds me I have an extra winter jacket I don't need anymore. I'm sure someone out there needs it!

On a happier Freecycle note: I posted a wanted ad for a 2 drawer filing cabinet for my mother. Wow, someone offered me one today! I go pick it up tomorrow night. Can't wait to see what a light blue filing cabinet looks like. I think my mom will be thrilled! I can't wait to tell her. Now I just need to plan a trip to drop it off. She's 150 miles north - in NH. This is great since we don't have to buy one. One person's trash certainly is another person's treasure.

Here are my current debt concerns:

$7500 on a CC - this contains debt that would have been paid off until we were forced to move and decided to buy our condo. Part of it is the remainder of my car loan that I transferred to 0%. I do have the money to pay off this portion, but I don't want to move it from high interest savings if I can float longer. Currently floating at 0% until July.

$1200 on a CC - this contains car repairs and dental work. I have to prepay my dental work, then get reimbursed by insurance and my flexible spending account. I DO go to a dental school and pay 1/3 the cost (for better service in my opinion) of a conventional dentist. Currently floating at 0% until August.

$33000 in consolidated student loans - I am not sure when these will be paid off since I can't login to my account at the moment. These are not my only student loans! I currently pay over $600 per month in student loans ($300 for this one alone). This is my biggest budget killer! We make "decent" money, but I don't know anyone who pays this much each month on student loans.

$4800 student loan @ 10.5% - I currently pay $75.00 per month. This amount will increase each year and has an expected payoff of 9/1/12. I haven't quite figured out how to better deal with this loan yet.

Debts I feel I have under control:

$1335 for a loan my mom took out for my education. $100 per month w/interest currently at 5.1%. This will be paid off by Feb. 2007 - maybe sooner! My mother can't afford to pay this loan, so I'll pay it off.

$5900 for my husband's student loans I transferred to a 4.99% rate. I continue to pay $155 per month and will have this paid off 4 years and at least SEVEN THOUSAND dollars sooner than the original loan. Original loan was 14.25% variable!!


We do have a mortgage that I don't feel is a problem at the moment. We use a cash back credit card for all purchases and pay this in full each month.

My current priorities are the first two credit cards I mentioned, followed by getting rid of my mother's loan. I don't have a plan set in stone for either of these yet!