August Debt Payments

August wasn't a big debt payoff month, but we did a little, and every little bit counts (right?).

Stupid Stupid Stupid Timeshare Loan : $425

Hilary Scholarship Payback: $156.23

Sallie Mae Student Loan: $160

Total Debt Payments: $741.23

Total Paid: $15259.41 + $741.23 = $16000.64 (yes the 64 cents counts)

Total Debt Remaining: $163490 - $741 = $162,749

Once the mobile home sells, we will see an encouraging decrease in debt & monthly obligations.

Praying for September to be a better month :)

Looking back at July

Total Spending in July: $6461.83

Where did it all go? Good question!

Biggest spending was on education ($1400 towards student loans!), home, tithe, food, utilities, and auto.

The food spending was down about $200 from June - going in the right direction. So far, August is going to be about the same spending as July so we haven't cut any more but the goal for September is to get under $700.

June - $911.66 vs. July - $779.70

Some bills are higher than normal because we are still paying for things back in Auburn. $185 for lot rent goes in the home category. $144 for power in Auburn. We also had to pay a $200 deposit for power here at our new home so that was a one time extra expense.

We spent more on gas than expected. The goal is less than $200 and we spend $239 in July.

We paid $107 towards a deductible for Hilary's doctor bills due to pregnancy. The rest of these bills will be covered under our health savings account through my employer.

So that was our big spending. I'll give an August spending update once it is over.

Overall, this was a net-positive month. Income was greater than spending. This is the key to financial success - spend less than you earn. This is also the key to weight loss. Burn more calories than you eat. Just in case anyone didn't know those pearls of wisdom, now you do.

Grace and peace to you all,

Thomas

A few changes to the plan...

I've been busy, so I apologize to my readers for a delay in posting. There have been a few changes to our short term plans - all for the good of our family.

As you know - my wife is a nurse and she got a great job here in Jackson, MS. Our plan was for her to work weekends (Friday/Sat night) part time to supplement our income until the baby comes (we are due for our 2nd daughter in late Nov). Working weekend nights has it's advantages - higher pay, more relaxed work atmosphere, and no need for childcare because Charlotte gets to be with me. I won't say how much Hilary makes - because it is a lot. It is about 2-3 times more than a regular nurse because she is in the float pool (a nurse that goes to any unit in the hospital as needed).

I say all that above because our original plan was for her to work every weekend. But several things have come up.

Hilary's pregnancy just hasn't been easy. She struggles with various things that just make it difficult to work - even if just twice a week. Plus, we have had several large life changes in the past few months:

• Graduation
• 2 new jobs
• New pregnancy
• Move to new town
• New home
• New church

These are stressful and tiresome events - so we've decided to focus on the family over the next few months. For Hilary's physical, emotional, and spiritual health we've decided to cut back for the time being. This has been difficult for me personally because one of my greatest "needs" is to pay off my student loans. But, as scripture says, we are to love our wives as Christ loves the church; denying ourselves (our needs) and looking to the needs of our wife first. As important as it is to pay off the debt - it is even more important to look after the wellbeing of my family and ensure that it is secure and stable emotionally and physically, not just financially. If we extend the loan payments by several years - yet our marriage and family are strong - then what's wrong with that? Spiritual leadership in a family is not easy - but it is essential. Financial issues are probably the #1 cause of marital and family problems. I am committed to keeping priorities straight - and never putting my debt before the needs of my family.

Hilary's job is very flexible - so they've allowed her to be on the schedule for as little as 2 time a month (once every other week). This keeps her employed and in good standing so that after maternity leave is over she will have a job to go back too. Also, like I said, she gets paid well so even those 2 nights really help out.

That being said, we do have some significant challenges ahead of us.

1. Our mobile home back in Auburn hasn't sold yet. The mortgage payment is due again for $350/month. I also have to pay lot rent ($185/month), power ($144/month), insurance ($25/month), Lawn care ($25/month). Oh and remember that stupid tax I wrote about earlier - the timeshare? Well - the loan for that is also about to be due again -$425/month - which I am planning to pay off once the mobile home sells. So - because this place hasn't sold yet - we have about $1200/month in expenses tied up.
2. Hilary was on scholarship at her old hospital - they paid for her school and she had to commit to a certain time at the hospital (about 2.5 years). She almost worked it all off but because she was sick with this pregnancy and we moved she owes about $1560 back to that hospital. This is payable over the next 24 months.
3. My student loans are in their grace period right now (some for 6 months - some for 9). The grace periods start to expire in January and March of 2011 and payments will have to be made. The minimum payments will add to about $1450/month. I can get some of the federal loan payments lower probably and have an extension on my grace period if the lenders will allow due to financial hardship. It depends on if they will consider not selling my mobile home financial hardship.

So, in a nutshell if we can sell the mobile home - life will be easier and less stressful. Once Hilary's maternity leave ends (around March 1) we will be able to have her income again which is flexible. She can work as little or as much as she wants. We will have 2 children though so it won't be easy.

One small thing we are going to do to help is cancel some charity sponsorship that we've been doing. For the past 2-3 years, we've sponsored children through both World Vision and Compassion International. We have been so glad to do it - and I'd hate to back out - but the financial security of my own family may be in jeopardy. This is only $68/month but that will help in the long run. We will still continue to tithe to our church though, something that is very important to us.

We also are continually trying to tackle our eating budget habits. The more we can squeeze out of this the better. I don't think we'll have a choice but to finally go to the cash envelope system for our food budget.

All that said, my job is going very well. We are looking forward to the arrival of our 2nd daughter in November. We have found a great church and are getting involved and meeting people there.

Please, please continue to pray for us - the biggest issue being the sale of our mobile home. Since it is a student only park, sales in the off season are very unlikely. Worst case scenario has us holding it until spring semester, maybe even next summer. I can only lower the price so much.

Thanks for reading:) Until next time,

Thomas

Exciting Surprises

We've had a few exciting financial surprises lately. The last week has been tight financially - I've been spending as much as I can on debt leaving us very little to live off of. It is a challenge to our fiscal discipline but going alright so far. We've been eating a lot of yummy dinners at home to save money eating out.

Here are the surprises:

$100 Energy Star Rebate Check from when we bought our washer/dryer in June.

$71 Delivery Rebate from Sears for the Washer/Dryer. This is a Sears gift card, so we need to spend this wisely at Sears.

I found out that my employer is pushing a big wellness program. There are 5 Pillars of the program:

1. Know your numbers
2. Be Tobacco-Free
3. Eat Healthy
4. Get Fit
5. Manage Stress

For the 1st and 2nd pillar, they are offering incentives. For know your numbers, if you get your numbers (blood pressure, cholesterol, body weight, and BMI and then enter those into the Health Risk appraisal online, then you get a $25 Healthy Incentive credit towards you monthly medical plan contribution for each employee and eligible spouse!

For being tobacco free, you and your spouse get an additional $25 credit if you can certify that you are tobacco free.

That adds up to $100/month savings on our monthly insurance contribution! That is $1200 saved!

Another exciting benefit at work is a Health Care Reimbursement account (FSA). This kind of account is risky, because if you don't use what you save, you loose it. However, it is tax free savings to be used for any health costs (deductibles, copay, vision, dental, prescriptions, etc.). Since we have a lot of costs coming up for my wife's pregnancy, we decided to try a $1000 for the account. They sent us a preloaded benefits card with $1000 and my check is automatically deducted each time to pay for it. I found out on an online calculator that this will save us about $275/yr in taxes!

Finally, as I was sorting through old paperwork I found a check from Hilary's old employer. It was her last paycheck and for some reason they send a hard copy instead of direct deposit. I had forgotten to cash it and it was for $72!

So, this week God has blessed us with $1728 in additional fund that will trickle in over the next 12 months.

We are praising God and so thankful for His provision; and for this great job and benefits.

Hopefully we can use these "snowflakes", as Dave Ramsey calls them, wisely towards expenses and debt payments.

Thanking the Visitors

I'd like to thank all the visitors to my blog. It is such an encouragement to even know that people stumble on and read for a few minutes. I hope you enjoy your peek into our lives. I'm a very transparent person, so that will show in my blog entries.


I'm excited to see that I've had over 2000 visitors now, and it is fun to watch where people are from using FeedJit and Statcounter.


The map below shows the location of recent visitors to the blog.
Thank you for following and God bless you!

Pay Day means Bill Day

We both got paid today. That means I get to pay bills and plan the rest of the month.

Here are the bills I've paid today and pending payments:

• Tithe to Church: $810
• Alabama Power: $162
• Windsor Lake Apartment: 146.98
• My credit card balance: $104.37
• Student Loan (Auburn Perkins): $100
• Student Loan (Sallie Mae): $190
• Student Loan (Direct Loan): $130
• Student Loan (Citibank): $1000
• Hilary's Credit Card: $400
• Babysitter: $25

That adds up to: $3068.35 in pending payments.

This leaves us about $300 to last until next payday, July 29th & July 30th.

My strategy is to pay the big bills first, and force us to live off the remainder.

We had a few unexpected expenses come up this week:

• Hilary's computer broke, so she bought a new one on credit: $500
• Hilary's scholarship contract at the hospital in Auburn wasn't worked off completely so we owe $1562.23, to be paid within the next 24 months. I will break this into 6 payments of $260.37. This happened because she quit early from being sick, and because we moved. Had she worked there up until the end of July the contract would have been fulfilled.

Due to the last two expenses, I consider that our debt has increased. Hilary spent money on 18 month pictures for Charlotte, the new computer, and groceries were put on her credit card for a balance of $882.63. I will add that, plus the new $105 from my credit card, plus the hospital scholarship payback to our overall debt on the Thermometer.

• Debt: $2,489.23 + $161,000 = $163,489.23

• Paid Off: $13,735.04 + $1,524.37 = $15,259.41

• Debt Remaining: $-148,229.82

I am doing this so that I can keep a tally of all the debt we accumulate & payoff.

I'm looking forward to the end of the month so that I can make some more debt payments!

June by the Numbers

Every month, I'd like to give a snapshot of our spending. June wasn't a great month, but I like to think I have some good excuses.

To provide background, I just graduated on May 14th. My wife was out of work for several months because of sickness during pregnancy. With me only working part time, our finances were surviving but not thriving.

I started my new job June 1st but didn't get a paycheck until June 15th. Hilary stared her job in mid June and didn't get paid until early July.

We had some large expenses:

• Mobile Home Repair: $2700
• Student Loan Payment: $216
• June Lot Rent: $180 (at old house)
• Power Bill: $162 (at old house)
• Childcare: $250 (during Hilary's orientation)
• New Cable/Internet + Setup fee: $137
• New desk and desktop computer for Thomas: $140
• Used Golf Clubs: $135 (my Father's day gift to myself)
• Mobile Home Loan Payment on Interest: $151
• New Battery for Hilary's Car: $102
• New work clothes for Thomas: $150
• Several other things...

A graphical summary from Mint.com:

As you can see, June was a bad month for food. I clump a lot of things into the "Restaurants" category. It covers any time we eat out, buy a soda, grab a snack, or do anything related to food that wasn't grocery shopping. This has to be controlled. My goal for food budget, overall, is $425/month. We need to shrink the Restaurant category down by about $400.

We won't meet this for July because our current spending so far is $450 and we are only half way into the month. So far, we have spent $290 in restaurant and $160 in grocery. This is a wake up call, and I'm glad I checked into this. It will help me to be more aware as I finish out July. At this rate, my goal is to be under $625 for food this month. That means for the 17 days left in the month, we have $10.25 a day to spend on food. That will feed a village in Africa but I'm lucky if that covers my lunch at Subway.

Simplicity....self control...patience...stewardship...

These are the traits I need to develop this month as I pursue financial responsibility.

Stay tuned to see how we finish out this month!

Grace to you all,

Thomas