Archive results for “November 2006f 2006”
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This week, the Carnival of Debt Reduction is at the home of the founder of the carnival, Mighty Bargain Hunter.
There’s 16 articles for your reading pleasure. One article that I enjoyed was by Simple Dollar, The Ten-Second Rule.
Enjoy!
Here’s something that’s been on my mind lately…
At this time last year, we were making less than $1,500/month. Even though our credit cards came out to help purchase groceries and gas, overall we did spend less than we do now that we are making more money.
Some of the spending is due to things that we can now afford and we should try to have to protect our finances for the future, like health insurance. Now I am thinking about getting more life insurance (to make sure that the surviving spouse can live debt-free) as well as getting disability insurance. Last year, we knew we couldn’t afford any of that, so it wasn’t even a thought in our minds.
The other spending is just because we have a little more money now so we can “live life a little” as I guess you would call it. My husband sneaks in Sara Lee bread instead of the store brand even though it costs twice as much, and I don’t complain. We buy fresh fruits more often now and buy more non-ground beef meats. Our thermostat has inched closer to 67 degrees this winter (last winter it was set around 64 degrees). Just little things that I’ve noticed that we have done.
I’ve always heard that when you make more money you spend more money and I can see that happening with us. I think the key here is for us to not go overboard and always spend less than we earn. Spending less than we earn is going to be key to having money to pay off debt and save for retirement once the debt is gone.
When we got home from shopping, my son got the mail from the mailbox and I saw the familiar logo of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan on a white envelope. That’s who we are getting our health insurance from.
My first thought was “Oh no” because they really processed our application quickly. They said it would take 4 to 6 weeks and it hasn’t been that long yet. It’s only been about two weeks since I mailed in the application.
Since Blue Cross/Blue Shield doesn’t really reject people, I wasn’t worried about it being a decline letter. I knew it was a bill. I opened the bill when we got in the house and my eyes scanned it so fast looking for the “Due Date.”
January 7, 2007
YES! I was so happy that I almost did a little dance. They were not utilizing auto pay for the first payment and I have until the new year to pay it! That is excellent news because we have a few more paychecks before the due date to have the money ready for it and we will not be as squeezed for cash.
While I tried not to worry about it too much, it was still a relief to now know when that bill was due. Sometimes, the unknown really bothers me since I am very much a planner type of person.
There was a little bit of bad news with the bill, though. The cost of the insurance per month was higher than what ehealthinsurance.com quoted me. Instead of around $330/month it is a little over $350/month. With looking at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan’s website…the price did go up since earlier this month. After my husband and I turn 30 early next year, we are looking at $400/month to cover the both of us.
I’m not going to focus on the negative which is the escalating costs of healthcare. I am going to focus on the positive that we will be able to pay this bill and when the time comes we will be able to pay future bills. As of December 1st, we now have health insurance after being without it since 2001. We now will have some peace of mind knowing that we will not be destroyed financially if something health-related should happen to one of us.
Next step is to finalize life insurance and look into disability insurance. Which, by the way, makingourway did a nice post on disability insurance not too long ago if you are interested.
I’ve mentioned a few times that we do still use our credit cards. I have a designated card to use for online purchases and we used one during our recent trip. The “rule” is that we can only charge what we can turn around and pay immediately. So far, that has been going great and we’ve been sticking to it.
Today, we decided to go shopping with my son so he could make his list for Santa. It turns out that today was a one-day sale at the one store and they had some nice deals still available. I took a notebook with me and wrote down what my son wanted as well as the price. Since I had an idea on the price for a few things from looking on the internet, it was just a matter of checking out the prices among the local stores.
A few things that he picked out I knew I wouldn’t be able to find somewhere else at a lower price. One thing was on clearance for 50% off and it was the last one available. The other thing was 30% off for the one-day sale.
My husband took our son over to a different section of the store and I grabbed up the two items. Along the way I see that there is a coupon for $3.00 off any toy when you purchase two packs of batteries. What a good deal! I couldn’t pass that up, so the batteries were stacked on top of the other goodies. The total amount was now at $70 (OUCH).
My order was rung up and I took my credit card out of my wallet. I knew I couldn’t turn around and pay that card immediately. I have my home repair to pay for next week and I didn’t know when my health insurance would be due. I had to save our money until I knew more. I could probably pay it off before any finance charges were accessed, but there was a little shadow of doubt looming above on that.
I felt horrible swiping it since I was breaking the rules I had established for myself. As I hit the “Ok” button for the amount…there was no going back.
Until…the card was denied!
Perhaps a little bit of fate intervened right then and there because the card I had in my wallet was an expired card! I didn’t put the new card in my wallet.
I felt my whole face turn red probably out of embarassment of having my card decline and for trying to break my rule. I told the cashier that I have another card that I can run (my debit).
And with that…I was forced to pay with CASH for the purchase.
I could have put the items away, but they were things that were going on his list to Santa and they were at great prices. I was nervous to use the money in our checking account, but part of me wanted to do it just to teach myself a lesson! And that lesson is NOT to use the credit cards unless we have the money to turn around and pay the card immediately.
When we got home, there was some great news in the mail. More on that in a little bit…
I came down with a horrible headache yesterday, so I didn’t get around to posting this yesterday. I rarely, if ever, have posts ready ahead of time so sorry with the delay with Friday’s highlight. Thank goodness the headache went away with a little bit of sleep.
My mom emailed me the site that I am going to highlight today. I’ve spent some time checking it out and there’s a lot of great information there on how to stretch your dollars.
For many people, Black Friday means REBATES. Here’s a printable form to help you keep track of that money!
I found the printable form over at ThriftyFun.com. Make sure you have some time available, because there are many awesome tips over there to check out.
There’s even directions on how to make terra cotta lighthouses that look so cute!
Thanks Mom for pointing out ThrifyFun.com to me 
It was rumored that our local Ace Hardware was going to offer a snowblower for Black Friday for $250. That’s not a bad price at all. We’ve been wanting to get one ever since we moved to this snowy area (250+ inches of snow/winter). But, we never splurged to get this nice back-saving tool.
What it boils down to this year is that we do not have any cash and we probably won’t until near mid-December. Sort of a bummer, but it must be for a reason. I’m very glad I haven’t been tempted to put purchases on the credit card, since I have plenty of available credit at the moment. That is an improvement over previous years and something positive to focus on.
I did look around at other Black Friday flyers, but nothing really interested me. There were a few deals on LCD TV’s that made me look twice, but I am pretty picky when it comes to getting a TV. Probably most of those deals are on sub-par models. If we do buy one (and I’ve been managing the urge quite well lately), I want it to be one that we will be really happy with.
So, today will be a fairly quiet day for us and we’ll probably spend the day moving things in the areas where our home repair will be made. I’m getting more excited for our repair as each day passes
This year we had high hopes for a smoke-free Thanksgiving. Things were going well. The turkey was cooking fine and the fixings were getting ready to be cooked next. Then, it happened.
The turkey was done, so I took it out of the oven. My wrist gave a little and I spilled turkey juice all over the oven.
We were sooooooo close!!!
Smoke quickly filled the kitchen, and as we have done many times before we placed a fan in the window to suck the smoke out of the house. I have to chuckle about this because we thought this holiday would be different. It is the first turkey we’ve cooked with our new stove that we bought in March. We did have one minor victory…the smoke detector didn’t go off this year LOL
After dinner, we took a nice nap and gave the oven some time to cool off. Upon awaking, I cleaned out the oven the best I could and right now our apple pie is cooking. I still smell the smell of something burning, instead of the smell of a sweet apple pie cooking. But that’s okay. Thanksgiving isn’t just about the food.
There are many things that I am thankful for. Our family, our pets, our home, our jobs, our health. And, of course I am thankful for you…my readers. You all have done so much to help keep me going with the debt reduction. I simply cannot thank you enough for all of the support.
I think our pie is just about done, so I better go and enjoy some pie. I hope everyone is having a nice Thanksgiving.
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About This Site
My Debt
- Original Debt: $97,293.06
- Paid: $1,927.89
- Remaining: $95,365.17
- Emergency Fund: $1100
- Broken Down
- Line of Credit 2: $0.00
- Line of Credit 1: $0.00
- Credit Card 1: $0.00
- Credit Card 2: $245.00
- Credit Card 3: $405.00
- Credit Card 6: $1,785.00
- Credit Card 7: $2,381.17
- Consolidation Loan: $11,000.00
- Credit Card 10: $14,519.00
- Auto Loan 1: $16,093.00
- Credit Card 11: $23,873.00
- Auto Loan 2: $25,064.00
Finance Blogging Buddies
- Beachgirl’s Budget Blog
- Becoming and Staying Debt Free
- Boston Gals Open Wallet
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- Debt Kid
- Debt Reduction 101
- Dual Income No Kids
- Everybody Loves Your Money
- Financial Hack
- Free Money Finance
- From the Brink of Bankruptcy
- Generation X Finance
- GRACEful Retirement
- Grad Money Matters
- It’s Your Money
- Josephsangl.com
- Kick Debt’s Butt
- Lazy Man and Money
- Low Income Life
- Make Love Not Debt
- Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge
- Mighty Bargain Hunter
- Money, Matter and More Musings
- My 1st Million at 33
- No Credit Needed
- One Million and Beyond
- Personal Finance Advice
- pfblogs.org
