Some Success

The last post wrote about paying off $30,000 in student loans. In just a few short months we are down to $20,000. Unfortunately, things have had to go tighter because I don’t know if I wll be laid off this year or not. Right now everything is going into savings until we know if my job is secure. Then we talked about it and with the tools from bankrate.com, we have realized that paying off the car loan would be a better idea for the time being. Yes, it pushes back our savings a bit but it is the best for our financial success. Yes, I want to move more then you can imagine, but being financial stable is much more important to me.

Along with these changes, we are putting money away for those things that we know will come up. The best way for me is to add another savings account to our bak. Just works best for me. It is sort of like doing an envelope style.

Now, if only we could figure out a way to get iphones!

Challenge ~ Pay off $30,000 in Student Loans

The title is the challenge, now the question is, can we do it? Realistically it is 13 months from now if bankrate.com is right on the debt pay down calculator. (I love this calculator). My major driving force is that the largest sum loan is 6.375% interest. I no longer want to be paying over $100 a month in interest to this company. Some of the reasons why I think we can do this are: we were already snowballing debt; we have a FSA for the kids’ daycare and have put that straight towards the loans; and summer has brought extra money because we don’t pay (as much) for daycare and my husband teaches summer school. We do plan to put all of our taxes towards the debt and my birthday present next year will be to pay off the highest percentage loan.

Do you think we can do it?

Goal Lost

I have figured out one of my biggest down falls. When I feel like I have money, it starts to burn a hole in my pocket and that is just what it did. We got a new stroller and redid parts of the garage. On top of it, my car got totaled. Thank goodness we had put lots of money down on it so things are going to work out but it is more out of savings. This really made me realize that we do not have a good down payment for my husband if something was to happen to his car. So, no sink now until $15,000. Gotta just focus on that and hopefully get it as a present for Christmas. We are also having to put off our $2000 payment to student loans that we were planning on this summer. Hopefully we can figure out a way to still do it.

One more thing, this is all happening while we are changing banks so we have a little here and a little there and not quite sure of the whole picture yet. It just stinks.

Thank goodness the Forget the Jones’ project is coming back June 15.

Savings Goals

I just transferred some money over because I got the FSA daycare money and realized that we are not that far from our first savings goal. I have an estimate of how much will go in this month and that will leave about $250 left to reach our goal. Not bad in just a few months. Now we need to keep going with this momentum.

How much debt is a lot?

How much debt is a lot?  This was brought up at mommysavers.com and it is a really good question.  It is so different for everyone.  My answer was:

For me it is any debt. We are down to $46,493.15 on student loans and the idea of that suffocates me. Even with lower interest (3.5% to 6.375%), it is still owed and I want it gone. For some reason, my car debt ($15,859.98) doesn’t bother me though. I just don’t get it. The interest rate is 1.9%. Maybe it is because my parents always had car debt but never cc or student loan debt.

I find it really interesting that that is my answer.  The other interesting thing for the student loan debt is that we have gotten rid of $3000 since talking to Suze Orman.  Hopefully we can keep it going like this.  Plus we are putting more in savings.  Not as much as I was hoping but we have done a decent amount.  We are probably going to hit our sink goal in the next two months.

Changes

I feel change coming.  I am tired.  Tired of clutter.  Tired of debt.  Tired of excess.  It is time to declutter.  Time to get rid of debt (which we have been working on).  Time to make a change.  All of these changes are to chaange things for the long term.  If we declutter now, we will have more space.  When we are ready to sale our house, which is about 5 years away, we will have it looking well and hopefully not need a storage until.  Plus, we could use the garage for the kids to play in on rainy days.  Just got to keep going little by little.

Fred Meyer Clothing Sale

I did pretty well today for Carlie. 9 clothing items for $20.  Who can’t love 70% off the lowest price.  They usually are little high but with 70% off not bad at all.  I looked through all of the clothes from the last two weeks.  Peter is all set for next fall.  Carlie will still need some but we need to see where we are with her on her size.  We still need to figure out what she needs this summer.  Hopefully we can cover it with birthday presents in 6 weeks.

Redeemed

I decided to go check out the Gymboree (not the outlet) sale on Monday with Peter in tow.  We had other things to get done at the mall.  When we entered, there were bins everywhere.  I was amazed.  All of them were $5.99 and below minus 20% minus my 20% off coupon.  I returned a dress and shirt that is not going to be the right season for Carlie and I had a little bit of money from another return.  I walked away with 9 times: 2 shirts for Peter, 3 pairs of shorts for Peter, a onsie for Carlie, a scotty dog shirt and leggings, and an adorable dress for Carlie.  All of this for $32 which left money on my gift card.  I am amazed.  This trip definitely redeemed my trip to the outlet that I am going to return most of it.  Yes, it is almost all for next fall but that works for us.

BTW, I was denied by Suze Orman today for my dream camera.  I knew that I would be.  It was funny that I had to wait 20 minutes to be on the air for less then 30 seconds.  I did studder though because she really comes at you fast.

Change of Debt Repayment

This morning I spent a while at bankrate.com.  I messed with their debt eliminator.  It told me that it will take 43 monthsto pay off our $46K debt.  We were going to pay off our bank  loan and then the smallest student loan so that both were paid off.  We have now reconsidered and we are going to pay off the bank loan and really focus on that one at first.  We get no tax deduction for it so that makes a lot of sense.  We are then going to focus on the highest interest loan and happens to be the largest loan being $29K.  Unfortunately, it will be 2012 before the loan is gone but the others will quickly follow.  Who would of known that those little student loans would be the bain of my financial existence?

Failure

I feel like a failure.  Yesterday we got our tax return so I decided that I could go shopping for the kids for next winter.  Of course I was hitting the clearance racks for the President’s Day sales.  I did pretty well at Carters.  A onsie, one piece outfit, and Halloween shirt for next year for $10.  Carter’s I did even better with a couple shirts for each kiddo, a pair of pants, and a dress for Carlie for a little over $20.  The best deal was the dress that cost us $.01!  Where I went wrong was Gymboree outlet.  I bought the dress that I wanted for Carlie’s birthday pictures.  It was on sale for $11.99!  The problem is that I don’t know what size for 6 weeks from now.  So I got the 18 month and that was the color that I wanted.  The 24 month was not but I got it just in case I can’t decide on anything else.  Plus they both rang up wrong and I caught the first one and the sales lady told me the second one was right.  No, it was $3 more.  My true issue was that I picked up a shirt for $9 and a one piece outfit for $15.  I got good deals on a shirt for Peter, a onsie for Carlie, and a shirt for Carlie.  The real issue is that it was all $68 after taxes.  That just made me feel so guilty.  I have already decided that the expensive shirt and one piece outfit are going back.  One of the dresses is going back and if is the 18 month one, I will be making sure they fix the other’s price.  That will make my total $24 plus tax.  I hate feeling guilty after shopping.