Busy August

on Monday, August 24, 2009

We are having a busy August. It started with S's birthday on the 9th and continues to become more and more busy. I have let myself become overwhelmed at work because of lack of focus on my actual job so last week I had to play catch up. It seems like every weekend we are going some place and doing something. We try to go to the beach at least once a week. This past weekend we went to the scottish games. We've visited my parents twice and they live three hours away. Tomorrow I'm having some major dental work done and then Wednesday we are on the road again going to my father's house which is nine hours from our house. Today is the first day of the college semester so things are just going to become more busy for S as he starts his final semester. Hopefully, after this vacation things will calm down a bit and I'll begin to post more often again.

-M

S's Birthday

on Tuesday, August 11, 2009

This past week was a spendy week for us. We went out to dinner and then for drinks on Saturday for S's birthday. We are trying to cut back a bit on extras but for us we always celebrate birthdays. We had a great time and don't regret the money we spent, even if it was $100 on food.

-M

State of the Finances

on Wednesday, August 5, 2009

I'm a little late in updating this month but we were out of town this past weekend. July was not a good month and the way August is going it won't be either. We had some major bills to pay off in July (car insurance, college tuition, etc.). We are not expecting any bills such as those this month but have some travel planned as well as a S's birthday. We are going to try to do the best we can to save as much as possible on those things but we'll see what happens. We saved for them but now are second guessing using our savings for traveling instead of paying off more of the credit card. This is something I'm struggling with as I know we should go, have fun and visit family but want the debt gone as quickly as possible. We shall see how the month pans out.

Savings:
E-fund: We are down to next to nothing due to S's still being unemployed and needing to pay his car insurance and college tuition for the next semester. While it was nice to have the savings and not have to use the credit card it still hurt dearly to see the account plummet to $158.

Travel fund: No changes

Retirement: No changes

O's Savings: No changes

Debt:
S's Credit Card: We paid off a little bit this month bringing us down to $1520. We will continue to pay off little by little but our focus now is rebuilding the e-fund.

M's Student Loan: Down to $15,125. We are making slightly extra payments to pay it down a little quicker. We rounded up to the closest hundred which means we are paying an extra $16 each month.

S's Student Loan: We received his interest notice in the mail recently. It said pay such amount or tack it on to your loan. We tacked it on to the loan as we drained our e-fund and had no place to get the extra cash. His loan went up to $20,750 or just about $1,500. This is certainly not something we like but was necessary at the time.

Net Worth:
With S being out of work as I've said already, our net worth continues to fall. This just goes to show that I can not carry our family on my income and am looking at alternatives as well as encouraging S to find a job as quickly as possible. July was the worst month as far as net worth but we did not go into extra consumer debt. We spent more money for S to finish college. Our net worth is -27,040 and falling.