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Jul 8, 2015    |       78 comments

The Next Step

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Well, one week of being consumer debt free in the books. And now I am ready to move on to my next goal. However, it’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride over here due to things beyond my control. So I still don’t have a solid plan for this yet, but wanted to let you know what I’m thinking and get your feedback.

You might recall that I have a debt in my name that I do not pay…my ex-husband does. (This is spelled out in our divorce papers as well.) I got a lot of grief over this last fall, so let’s not re-hash that. This is just how it is and it works for us. The monthly payment is $246 per month which he pays me and then I pay the lien holder. This makes it comfortable for me, but does not work well when trying to finance say a house as they want to see that he has paid the loan directly for at least 12 months. So, I want to get rid of this debt.

My plan was that he would continue paying his regular payment and I would put my extra payments towards it, tracking those of course, until it’s paid off and then he could just continue to pay me. Make sense? So I was all set on this course of action, until he called and said he wanted to sell the vehicle, yada, yada. Ok, great! Let’s do that.

Then a couple more weeks passed and he called to say, “hey, I’m moving to another state within the next 30 days.”

Then a week after that, he called to say “hey, I’m going to need to keep my truck to drive to my new state.”

Ok, see where I was referring to the roller coaster ride? So I am now back to my original plan, with a small caveat. If he is taking the car out of state (a 23 hour drive from me,) but it’s titled, insured, etc by me, well it gets a bit complicated. So I’ve got on my to do list to call my insurance company and check on the nuances of this situation. But now I’m especially confident that paying off this debt is the best next step.

Thoughts?

Just to make sure you have all the information…my only other debt are student loans with a balance right around $30K. Ok, now go, what are your thoughts on this next step.

Oh, one more thing…timeline for this…end of this calendar year for payoff, with me loosening up on my budget just a bit.

Ok, now go…

Jul 7, 2015    |       16 comments

Disney Trip and a Not Frugal Weekend

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Happy Tuesday!

Today marks 2 days until we leave for Florida. We have cemented our plans to be as frugal as possible for the drive down. We grabbed a large cooler from GF’s mom , which we are going to fill with pasta salad, fruit salad, sandwiches and drinks. GF has been couponing like crazy the past couple weeks to stock up on all kinds of snacks- chips, pretzels, granola bars, etc. It’s only a 16 hour day, but we may have enough to last a week if we needed to, lol, which will be great to restock our pantry once we’re home. Thanks to Den for commenting on a post a couple weeks ago, we’re going to make a big batch of chili for dinner tomorrow and freeze the remainder for when we get home so we won’t have to worry about lunch and dinner for a day or so.

And here’s the thing about once we get to Disney, I don’t want to be frugal. We may be doing what we can to save money on the way down and when we come back home, but I don’t want to be counting pennies once I’m there. I’m not saying I’ll be throwing my money away and going way over budget either, just that I want to enjoy my vacation- I didn’t take this month off for nothing. What do you guys think?

Our house is finally all clean (after a pretty hectic week and a half) and due to GF couponing skills, we have a really stock of cleaning products, so the only items we needed to buy to accomplish this task was carpet cleaner solution and more Swiffer cleaning solution, coming in at a total of about $20.

Last Wednesday was the first paycheck I’ve ever received (after college) where I didn’t either have a bill due for some type of debt, or felt an obligation to pay down some debt. And it felt awesome. After I accounted for paying our utilities, gas, side grocery money, and my nephew’s ESA fund contribution, it felt like I had more money that I knew what to do with. That feeling didn’t last long, as I knew I wanted to buy myself some new clothes, sunglasses and sneakers. I had this planned since I revealed that I was going to take a month off from debt payments in May. I’m very, very happy that I spent as much as I did (over $550) as 1) The newest summer clothes I own are over 3 years old 2) it felt good to spend money on myself. I may have went a little aboard, but I tend to take pretty good care of my clothing, sneakers and accessories so that they last awhile. And I know I’m no bargain shopper as the clothes I tend to gravitate to are never on sale. How do you budget and shop for clothing?

With vacation starting on Thursday and going for a week and some days, I won’t have a post next week. So I hope everyone has a great couple of weeks, and I will update everyone once I get back.

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