by Hope
Georgia’s governor, for right or wrong, decided to begin reopening the state this weekend. According to Facebook, opinions on this step are very mixed. And I understand that, balancing the public health with people’s livelihoods, that is not a position I would want to be in. There are just too many conflicting “experts” on what this virus will do.
I told the kids this week that we would not be making any changes to our routines at this time. We are going to continue to play it safe and see what happens.
But I have decided to resume putting money toward debt again. Thankfully, I am back to full time income again after a month of bare bones. We have not had to dip into our emergency fund at all.
The Plan for Now at Least
But just like we are not going to rush into resuming our “normal” life, I don’t want to rush. So I’ve got to find a balance to continue saving and begin paying towards debt again. The first thing I am going to do is get us back to living on last month’s income. That was lost with a bare bones income month.
Then I am going to continue to focus on my student loan debt. (Princess and the car are still up in the air in regards to her dad’s offer.) I don’t have any particular goals at this point, but just taking it a day at a time.
I recognize how blessed I am to have begun picking up work again and do not take it for granted.
On the twin note, Sea Cadet has officially begun work through a temp agency…he’s working at a factory screening the workers for any symptoms before they are allowed in. It’s not his dream job, but it is in the medical field and will do until he gets through his Fire 1 certification and can continue to pursue other possibilities.
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
I think you need to stay in storm mode longer. Aren’t your loans federal and therefore automatically deferred for 6 months? If anything, pretend you’re paying your loans and direct the money to a secondary savings account that you can’t touch. Your income is not guaranteed. You didn’t fare well through the last few rough patches because you had no savings and inconsistent business. If you pay money to your student loans and then a few months later can’t pay your bills you’re no better than where you started.
I think Angie is right. You can direct it over to an account and then if it looks like things are staying ok you can make a large principal payment before the deferral ends. Just make sure nothing is adding on to any debt (interest payment etc).
These posts continue to be confusing and fairly unhelpful to understanding your finances or giving you advice. Your last “budget snapshot” where you laid out goals had you spending upwards of the budget where you had a roughly $3800 outlay. Your bare bones budget was\is roughy 1/4 of your Q1 $6000 monthly costs laid out in January 29th post and still caused you to blow through “last month’s income” in not quite 2 months? Using 1/4 of your budget should mean you still have almost half a buffer. Where are you on your EF? Last time you were almost at $10,000 and had budgeted $416 and some change to monthly allotment. Did you ever get to $10,000? Are you basing your EF and buffer off a “regular” budget or ” bare bones”(which might explain some discrepancy in numbers) ? How are you doing at funding Princess senior year (which did not appear in bare bones budget I saw)? At this point to keep some consistency for her I would prioritize her schooling over the car or your school loans even(and by schooling I mean tuition not extras). Your last debt update was quite awhile ago. Have you managed to knock back your student loan below $30,000 or is it climbing? Your car loan has evolved. Have you continued to pay the balance down so that when and if you sell it you can at the very least break even?
I think we all could benefit from a debt update and a budget that includes your savings totals.
Her budget and debt “updates” have always been a sweeping-under-the-rug approach. We never get clear answers or numbers.
The budget items laid out in my last post were certainly not my full budget, they were the items I took into consideration when I thought through the right course of action with the twins. I wouldn’t consider my lifestyle and etc. choices. I simply took the “living expenses” which they would encounter as adults if they moved out on their own.
It was not meant to replace my own budget but to explain the reasoning behind the “rent” I am charging them.
As for my EF, I have stated multiple times that I have not had to touch it…it is over the $10K threshold and holding steady but not growing much these days.
That’s what I thought when people were saying 1\3 of your budget for the twins $500 contribution. I looked back to see if you actually had a budget since the 29 January post where you had $6000 in expenses listed and could not find one. So my next question becomes what was\is your “bare bones” budget and what does it include? What does your monthly income look like? Where are you on paying your debt? It’s been months since your last debt update. While it’s nice that you detail your trips to Chicago or how you have decorated your patio, this is a financial blog called blogging away debt. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect you to provide debt updates or expect you to provide something that resembles the budget you have been using since you have stated that you entered storm mode as a bare bones budget. The fact that in your last post you got hit repeatedly (not by me by the way since it you go back you’ll notice I literally asked someone where they got the idea you had a $1500 a month budget.) is literally because you keep giving people incomplete data and then act surprised and offended when they infer things from your “snapshots.” Do you not realize it you want accurate advice you need to provide complete data not “snapshots.”
Our Bay Area county health directors in California have extended our shelter in place til the end of May. My husband was so upset because of the economy. I’m hoping they did it so they can plan a systematic reopening. They have been smart about this so far. We are still hoarding cash and I think will until we are starting to see some semblance of our new normal.
I have followed you off and on for awhile. While on the surface, the intent of this blog seems to be to show accountability and documented progress of reducing and eventually eliminating debt, I find that it’s mostly fiscally irresponsible adults who just want a space to justify their poor behavior in return for head pats. You seem to be no more financially secure today than you were a few years ago. Which is unfortunate and you are certainly not the only one who struggles with making sound financial choices. I’m sorry for your hardship. I’m sorry that you will unlikely never overcome your position and will probably always be in debt and struggle with finances. I mean that genuinely. I grew up I’m a household where money was a major source of stress. The problem was that my mom was a narcissist and felt the need to offload her financial worries and burdens onto me at a young age. It was mentally and emotionally damaging. Now I am an adult with a daughter of my own. Thankfully, I am financially stable and debt free but there are still times when I have to make financial decisions and budget expenses. It is important for me (and my husband) that we don’t involve our child in these concerns. They are not her burden. She needs to understand how to manage money but not for me to profit from. Your constant excuses and justifications for why you are charging your kids is disappointing because you say it’s an exercise to teach them to manage finances but you have yet to learn to manage finances yourself. Please make an effort to separate being a mother from being a banker.