Finance Fridays: Jealousy Edition
My children are running amok. Yes amok.
I let them skip their nap because I want them to go to bed sometime between now and 8pm (CST) – normally I’m a little more lax on the bedtime but not tonight.
Randy isn’t home. He’s out celebrating with his department from work at Dave & Busters. Possibly the coolest arcade for both adults and kids ever created – I mean, it has a bar. So you can get all liquored up and play video games.
But I’m here. With toddlers. That I haven’t had a break from all day. They’re lucky they’re cute, that’s all I’m saying.
Ok, end of the jealousy of my husband and on to my plans to take over the world.
On to the finance updates.
The Budget
The December budget is done. I’m getting better about making the budget in advance instead of on the last day of the month. Doing the budget right before the last electronic payment of the month comes out (car insurance) means I have accurate numbers, a good idea of if we’ve met the budget for last month, and if there is any money left over.
This month, there will be a little over $200 left over. We’re going to just leave that hanging out in the regular bank account so it can continue to be the savings that can be accessed in a pinch instead of putting it into the “takes three business days to access” savings.
The Debt
By the end of December our debt will look like this:
- Mortgage
- Two student loans
- Government debt for unemployment
- Bill collector debt
We were all prepared to have a payment come out of our account automatically for that bill collector debt from the company that wouldn’t call us back.
It didn’t.
So we are going to let sleeping dogs lie and ignore it until they call us again or contact us in order to set up another payment arrangement. We certainly won’t be giving them electronic access to our bank account again. Until then, it will just sit out there and we will focus on the savings account.
We can’t do anything with the student loans, including paying more on them than the payment currently scheduled, because they’re in rehabilitation until Feb. and April of 2009…so those are in a holding pattern.
I’m not messing with the government debt until I’ve saved it up in one lump sum and can pay it off with one check – better not to ruffle the feathers of the government and just let them keep taking my state tax refunds until that time.
Getting Another Car
We need another car. If the kids are going to school, if they are going to be in any activities, if I’m going to take them to the park or to grandmother’s house…it is a necessity.
The “new” car will be a beater that Randy drives to work. Emphasis on cheap, paid in full, with good gas mileage. We plan to go to the loacl auto auction.
Reducing the Bills
We’re setting up a landline and reducing the number of minutes on the cell phone plan. That will save us $100 or more a month on phone charges. We have serious telecom issues in this house. Finding the right balance to usage to price ratio has been tough.
We may also look into putting our homeowner’s insurance and car insurance with one company. If our credit didn’t look like a crime scene and Randy could stop getting into an accident every three years we would have done it already. We check once a year to see if we can do better, but I ran a homeowner quote today and before the credit check it was over $200 more annually than the rate we pay right now, and that was with the discount to have both policies with the same company. Yuk.
Savings
In addition to the $200/mo. that automatically goes into an ING Direct account, I’m looking at possibly setting up a separate $200/mo. automatic savings deposit into an eTrade savings account. The %3.30 percent I’m seeing on the teevee is appealing. I’ll have to research if that’s a “for real rate” or a teaser rate, but it’s not a bad plan to keep the money in a couple different places.
So it seems the overall theme for 2009 is going to be Saving. Saving as much as possible as fast as possible to create a real nest-egg for just-in-case type circumstances.
If we can swing sending the kids to preschool plus saving $400/mo. I’ll feel amazing about where we’re at financially.
Income
Randy will be (hopefully) getting a raise along with his January review. That’s all I can say about that. I have my business plan and will begin doing the research to put that into action next week. In addition to what I do now I’d like to take on one additional client during the first quarter of 2009 and see how it works out.
I want to be very cautious not to go overboard and burn myself out. Not if I want to work with corporations. I’d rather have less work and deliver consistent high-quality. That’s how a referral-based business is born.
We Shall See
With all the budgeting and whatnot, there is always a chance for plans to go awry and things to work out differently than one would hope. So…while my estimates and plans are not best case scenario, they also aren’t worst case scenario…and that means a lot can change from month to month.
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