Sunday, May 30, 2010

Support system thoughts

Saw this article (http://amysfinerthings.com/finer-things-friday-support-system) and wanted to write my own version...

I have been feeling overwhelmed lately. Murphy is parked on my doorstep and wants to come in. I am pushing back as hard as I can and having little success...

Here is what is happening:

My son may need surgery for tubes in his ears
My daughter's father has decided he will no longer pay for college
We are having a baby in Oct
I need to have thyroid surgery. I need to work with the doctor will try and get it done before my insurance changes in Jan.

All of it is mostly manageable but right now I am feeling quite stressed about issues. In addition there are promised layoffs at my husband's office and we will find out if he is on the list today. Of course there are rumors of additional cuts in the future so there are no guarantees that we would be safe. More stress...

When I see it all laid out here on the computer I have a lot going on.
I guess its about how you spend your time but I am grateful for the people who are supporting me...

Family
My mom has been a rock and even though there is a lot of stuff going on for her she is still coming to see the new baby, and to nurse me through the surgery in Dec.

Co-workers
surprisingly this is changing for me. I used to have good support here it is changing with this pregnancy. I am leaving as soon as my daughter graduates college.

Faith - I have not found a good church in this area. Its too bad really because I do have a strong faith in God. My husband is a no go guy so I tend not to go either, mostly out of laziness.

Looking into a lawyer made me realize how important it is to get to know people in the area and take suggestions from those around you.

Looking into surgery for my son I got a lot of interesting feed back on face book. People love to comment and give input. It did make me realize though the scale of the number of ear infections is wayyyyyyyyyy above the norm and I need to make it different. I do not want him to loose his hearing.

So there we are. I am grateful by brother after one year of unemployment has a job currently. I am grateful my dad is keeping the chaos low. I am grateful my mom will support me the best that she can. I am grateful I will be out of debt some day. I am grateful that I do have a family that I love as crazy as they are, they are mine.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Mad money monday

Life has been busy and I have not felt inspired by others to blog. Although I have a bunch of notepad documents that I might one day go back and post... We'll see.

Picking up from my last post. I have not had the heart to change my side bar. I have had a bunch of financial setbacks last year and this so perhaps I got a bit dis heartened because we have extended the time It will take for my debt to be gone. last month the debt stood at 26713.65 It was a tough winter and fall. And predictions for may have the debt increades by $200.00 Thay was due to some traveling requested by my mom. And you dont say no to my mom. So travel we did.

There is some good news. $200 is did not put me back at $39804. I start with a fresh sheet of paper each month and I believe there is light at the end of the tunnel. Someday I will be out of debt. I am here and I did not give up the ghost. I truely believe that persistance pays.

My raise has ben spent and spent and spent. It has been a blessing but spent... I have set up an automatic payment from checking to my savings account to transfer 100.00 every month to get savings back to $2000.00 It has dropped to ~1400. Some days I have to pay things out of savings so I do not increase the debt. and the emergency fund is where the money comes from. By transfering the cash into savings every two weeks the emergency fund will be replenished by the end of theyear and I can stay on track with debt pay down.

There has been one other piece of good news... I am going to have baby #3 so I will be increasing my expenses. I am doing everything I can to get as much paid down before the arrival date. but 20 year olds seem to have other ideas in mind.

One pregnancy challenge I seem to be having is keeping my mind focused which is causing me to spend too much time on facebook and not enough time on programming or work.

Monday, May 03, 2010

Wet and windy get focused day

Hard for me to realize that I have not posted since Jan. I thought it had only been a few weeks. Silly traveler....




So Instead of back tracking and trying to catch you all up I will just do a brief where have I been and then quickly move forward.





The fall was super bad for expenses. I pulled myself up by my boot straps and re focused in Feb and said no more silliness. So far Feb, March and april have been more on track and I have managed to get my debt payoff to 33% in number terms for you geeks....





I started this journey at $39804.12. Currently I have $26,713.65 in Credit card debt. I have paid off in 2 years $13,090.47 WEEEEEE I have paid off $13,090.47 in debt. I do not wish to be there ever again!





My goals have been to pay off the total of the debt in 3 years. based on the fact it took 2 years to come 1/3 of the way it looks like it will be more like 6 before I am truely free. Thats okay. Not fun but okay. As long as I get ther eventually.





There have been set backs... Health care additional costs and college expenses for my daughter.


There has also been good news. I got a small raise. Even though the place where I work has put a freeze on all raises They examined my salary and found (NOT to my surprise) that I was paid too low below market and this was un equitable. So they gave me a bump to make it more of a market rate. In truth I think I could leave this employeer and make a move to almost double my salary and that is my plan in two years... But I will blog more on the hows of that some other time.



In June of 2009 I had 23864 in debt so I am still not quite back to where I was a year ago.

I left off here... I will post this and continue more in another blog