A revamp is needed.

I’m anxious to get paid on Thursday.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but I did a bit of research into my tax withholding and realized I hadn’t changed anything since I started working at my current employer – SIX YEARS AGO. That might not seem like a lot, but in the last six years I’ve gotten married and had a child which makes a big difference. My work was able to predict my new net income and I’ll be bringing home about 14% more than I usually do. Plus, my additional insurance policies provided by Aflac have finally ended their policy term so that’s even more back in our pocket. Last week I changed the tax withholding which means this Thursday’s paycheck will be the first one with my new net income established. Once I have that figure I’m going to completely revamp our budget, and I’m hoping to see a great improvement on our time line.

It’s not that I want to move out all ready, it’s just been a bit of a downer when I think about the fact that after two years of scrimping and saving we’ll be at square one in regards to our ability to purchase a home. While I don’t anticipate the market growing to bubble-proportions as it was in 2005, Paul and I can’t afford much as it is if we’re going with the Dave Ramsey plan (20% down on a 15 year fixed loan) so every little bit helps whether it be affordable housing or favorable interest rates – preferably both of them. But let’s face it, 20% of a $150K home (which is a LOT of money, but in Southern California you’re lucky to get two bathrooms) is $30K and at a rate of $1K a month (what I’m estimating we’ll be able to save each month, after rent on an apartment or house and other expenses) it’ll take us 2.5 years to save up enough. That means we wont be ready to buy for another 4.5 years. Considering the market has already begun to climb, I can only imagine what we’re missing out on by waiting that long.

With all that said, I really want to follow the Dave Ramsey plan because I know that his ideas are rooted in financial security. Sure, I can say we’re going to pay extra payments each year that would equate to a 15 year payoff,  but statistics show that most people do not hold to that plan.I don’t know why I’m worrying about this now. It’s not going to be for QUITE some time and so much can change between now and then. At this time in our lives, we’re just going to work on getting out of debt and secure in our finances, then we’ll worry about a house.

Scratch that, 19 months.

Last night I got to thinking about the budgeting I did over the week and I realized that I shouldn’t just “estimate” our debt amount when we begin to pay it off – I needed to be specific. So I went online and found a amortization excel file that helped me realize, based on when I could start making extra payments and how much they would be, when my true pay off dates would be.

I cut five months off of our schedule – which is saying A LOT because those five months I was budgeting thousands to one account alone. Its amazing how much I over estimated what we’d owe. Now we’re on track for being in our own place again in March 2012. Hopefully our income levels don’t change too much in a negative way (by August of 2012 I’ll have received another 2 raises – God willing), because I’d really like to be able to buy a home in 2013.

24 months.

In my free time over the last few days I’ve been recreating what the Budget Sketch website does, but in an spreadsheet. It’s taken me a few days, but I’ve budgeted out as far as August 2012. It’ll take us that long to A) pay off our debt B) complete our emergency fund and C) move into a rented home/apt. Its a bit daunting to realize that it’ll take us a year to break even and another year to secure our hard work with an emergency fund. Haven’t budgeted it out yet, but it’ll take us another 12-14 months to get a down payment ready for a house (even while renting ourselves). By then Evy will be a year away from kindergarten! My how the time flies when you’re planning your future.

Of course, this will all change if… Paul gets the job he interviewed for last week! We’re both really excited about it, but trying not to be too excited because so often before it hasn’t worked out. If he does get the job, I have no idea how it’ll speed up our TMMO* because we’ll have to pay for full time childcare rather than 3 days a week and we wont be able to carpool anymore. But, he’ll be making about 1.5 times more money than he currently does so I’m sure it’ll still speed it up. They said they’d let him know if he got the job by the end of this week so we’ll see!

Even without a new job, as long as he doesn’t lose his current job we’ll survive.

*Total Money Makeover

So far, so good.

I know it’s only Thursday, but I just want to say that we’re doing well on our budget and I’m proud of us so far Five days in nothing to have a parade over, but it’s also nothing to scoff at. We haven’t eaten out once (even though we have money in our budget), and what little money we have spent has been within a budget category and for a good reason (diapers and a bit of groceries), and we are only using one car so that’s helping as well. Its not so hard, this whole acting-responsible thing

Last night, I made dinner again! Nothing special, some prepacked dry tortellini and broccoli, but its better than nothing. Tonight, chicken & pasta. Slowly but surely I’m getting a bit more confident with my abilities at a stove. The other night I browned ground turkey. I’d never done that before, as silly as that sound. Most of what we’re eating recently is pasta, because it’s cheap and makes a lot of servings so I can keep some aside for Evy’s lunches. I’m finding that protein (the animal kind) is very expensive! I always thought that Hamburger Helper was cheap – but once you buy the meat to go in it you’ve got a $10 meal! Sure it makes four servings – but its still more expensive than I thought, everyone always made it seem like it was as cheap as ramen.

We’re both getting paid today, so we’re going to drop off rent and do our weekly grocery shopping – then tomorrow I pay bills. It’ll be the first time in awhile that I wont be nervous about our ability to pay them because I’m on top of what is coming in and what is going out. Whoohoo!

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I need to find a belt in order to tighten it.

I really have to reevaluate our finances, and it’s stressing me out a bit. Ever since I went onto maternity leave (taking one day a week off without pay) my paychecks have been reduced by about 25%. This is going to continue until I start working full time which wont be until the end of this year. At first, I didn’t think it was that bad but now I’m seeing the numbers effecting us and I’m getting a bit worried. We had to pay rent from our savings this month – and usually when we do that it’s simply because of the date that rent is due in comparison to when we’re paid – but this month that wasn’t the case. Worse is that I don’t really see us being able to replace that money any time soon.

I’m not really sure what to do. I know the BEST answer for us is to create a budget and stick to it – but that has never been successful. I find it hard to categorize our spending because we shop at one location for many things. Good example: Super Target. We shop there all the time for house hold items, entertainment, food, baby stuff – we buy nearly everything there instead of making multiple trips. The only solution I can think of in order to categorize it and budget everything like that properly is to separate the items as we buy them or at the register and have multiple transactions. The other thing that’s hard to budget for is gas. With prices going up again – sure I can budget one thing but it’ll cost another. And it’s not like we can stop driving – we don’t do much recreational driving it’s all working commute.

My sister’s friend lent her a book called Total Money Makeover. We were flipping through it and it made me realize that for as much money as Paul & I bring in every month, we’re not being very responsible with it. We shouldn’t be living paycheck to paycheck. Sure, we’ve got a lot of bills to pay – but we also take the easy way out on a lot of things and the easy way is often expensive. I wish I could sit down with someone and figure this all out

No need to comment. I know that we’re in this position because of our own actions and there’s really no easy way out.

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Took the plunge.

Well, I did it. I practically cleared out our second checking account in order to make a substantial payment on our credit card who’s APR jumped 15% in January. I didn’t want to do it – but I had to. The idea of paying that much money – just in interest – was killing me. It worries me to touch one of our two nest eggs, but what good is money in the bank if I owe twice as much somewhere else? This isn’t like an investment – this is just needless & expensive debt.

It isn’t our main checking account, so I’m trying to keep that in mind. Money is being directly deposited into that account with every one of my paychecks in order to make direct-debit payments to a personal loan (having direct deposit and direct debit guaranteed me a lower interest rate on the loan). I purposely have been putting more than I needed to each time so that it would accumulate and I could make extra payments on the loan and get it paid off quicker. However, a year later and we haven’t made one unscheduled payment. At least twice we’ve dipped into that account because of financial needs and while I regret it – I realize that having it there when we needed it is better than not having it there at all.

Making the payment has cut our balance in half – so even though I wanted to make an even bigger payment by using money from our savings account – I think I’ll forgo that for now. We’re already making large payments each month and putting next to nothing on during the month so soon it’ll start to show I’m sure. Plus I don’t know if we’ll need that money once Evy’s born. I’m going to continue a reduced schedule once I return to work – so our income wont be back to normal for awhile and considering I have no idea how a baby is going to impact us financially – I don’t want to burn any bridges.

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Come back when you have some money!!!

There are a few bills that have been up in the air lately, and I'm glad to say that I've finally gotten them taken care of.

One was our car insurance – we are covered for a 12 month period but only pay for 9 months so for the last three months we've been blissfully keeping that extra money in our account. However, the honeymoon is over and we have to start a new 12 month period and I hadn't gotten the renewal notice and I knew that it expired on the 22nd of this month. Yet I kept slacking on getting it taken care of and finally called yesterday. Our payment date has changed – which I'm not sure is going to be a good thing or a bad thing. Previously it was on the first of every month but now it's on the 22nd – which is pretty much when the car payment & all utilities is due as well. But the first of month marks mobile phone, rent & credit cards so I guess it all evens out.

The other was our Verizon internet/cable. Despite their warning that our first bill might be high, after all the discounts we actually still had a credit resulting from the multiple savings offered! So it wasn't until the bill this month that we had a balance to pay. Earlier this month I went to the online account center for Verizon and tried – multiple times – to register and pay my bill. I kept meaning to call them, because no matter which number I entered they said I had it wrong. They gave me a ton of numbers too. One was our "home phone number" even though we don't have phone service, one was our account number, and one was the last five digits of our account number (even though it really wasn't). So I finally called them last night, and let me just tell you what an ordeal THAT was.

First, the home phone number they gave me wasn't recognized – so at last I just said I didn't have one. Then I wade through all their automated menus (voice activated ones are annoying! They always seem to pick up on my breathing and then repeatedly say they didn't get my last response!) and get to their billing department. The guy there tells me I have to call the FiOS department (how does that make any sense) and transfers me to a number that for some odd reason has business hours! I just want to pay my frakn' bill – why does the fact that I don't have phone service through them make such a big deal?!

Second, I call back again and move through their millon menus again to just use their automated billing system, but then I find out that I have to pay a fee and I don't think THAT is fair. I mean it's not my fault that none of the numbers they gave me to reference my account work – so then I hang up. But then I decide that I should just pay the fee and then call back the FiOS people and have them refund it because the information they gave me was incorrect. So I call back A THIRD TIME and go through ALL the menus and get to the automated payment center and start entering in my information and low-and-behold, they can't find my account and can't help me. Big surprise.

So, I have to call back AGAIN and this time I just try to get to customer service and not necessarily a cable, internet, phone or billing rep. All I wanted to do was explain that I have my bill in front of me and none of the numbers on it seem to be valid in any of their systems. However, they don't have just a customer service option (I can sort of understand, people are lazy and don't want to go through the proper channels. But I generally had a problem trying to go through the proper channels!!!) and somehow I'm told I'll be transfered to the next customer service rep and then there's silence on the line. Its still connected though, so I wait a good five minutes before hanging up.

I have to call back again – this is count number five – and I go through billing again. This time I get to someone who explains that she can't help me because I don't have phone service, and she wants to send me to the FiOS people again. I calmly explain that they have business hours and I just want to pay my bill and she says she's putting me through to the automated system. I tell her that I've already gone through the automated system and she explains that there is a FiOS automated system and a home phone automated system. My big question is WHY?! So I take that number down and call it and it seems like it's going to work until it asks me for an invoice number.

I don't have an invoice number! So I'm searching frantically on my bill for this invoice number and the whole time the automated system is saying, "I don't recognize that number…I don't recognize that number" and at last it simply says "Call back when you have your invoice number" and disconnects the call! THAT BITCH! To top it off, I'm really emotional due to the pregnancy and I start to cry a bit because I can't seem to get anywhere and all I want to do is pay my bill.

With my cheeks still wet, I'm flipping over the two page bill and see something called a Verizon Online Account number – I hadn't seen this number before (and its COMPLETELY different from the other four numbers they gave me) so I go online and try to sign up using that number. Blessedly it works! I register successfully and start moving through the process of paying my bill. I click submit with all my credit card information and I'm waiting patiently and suddenly it says it's time out. URGH! Can nothing go right?! I'm hesitant to try and pay it again because I don't want to pay it TWICE because then I'll be forced to go through their damn phone system again to try and get a refund! But I do it anyhow and luckily it went through and emailed me instantly to let me know it was accepted so I figure if I didn't get an email with the first then the first didn't go through.

So, six phone calls and two web visit later – I've paid the damn bill. As I said – WHAT AN ORDEAL! Let's just hope I never have to call them again.

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Tricksy Hobbit.

I was slacking on paying bills this month and panicked upon the realization of it early this morning. Luckily, I realized it just in time and was not late on my credit card payments. I really need to set some reminders up on my phone or something…

Anyhow – part of my bill paying is thoroughly reviewing our checking account. Today I found a charge from Parenting Magazine and I was confused. I was getting a lot of renewal notices from them, but since I didn't want to renew and I don't remember giving them any of my banking information I thought they were just "hey, if you liked the trial buy a year's subscription!" sort of thing and ignored them. Well apparently ignoring them was not how to deal with them and they charged me anyhow. That sucks, because I'm not a big magazine reader anyhow – I get bored with "personal accounts" and I feel it's just one advertisement after another.

Normally I'd just let it slide because it was my fault for not taking care of it properly. However I called them up because like I said, I don't remember giving them any of my banking information and I was a bit worried. It ends up that when Motherhood was hocking everything under the sun to me, they were also hocking Parenting Magazine. I thought I was agreeing to trials – what I was really agreeing to was giving Parenting Magazine my banking information that they could use if I didn't cancel my subscription at the end of the trials.

Lesson learned. Thankfully, the people at Parenting were really nice and understanding of my misunderstanding and they not only canceled the subscription but also agreed to refund me my money. They really didn't have to, I told them it was okay as long as I was not asked to renew again, but they still did.

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I’m watching you. Oh yes, Oh yes.

I feel like my financial relationships are on the rocks lately.

First, I’ve been having a lot of issues with the bank we use for our checking account (as I’m sure I’ve explained, we have two different banks for our checking & our savings in the hopes that we don’t transfer as much money from savings into checking) and I’m sick of it.

• They say everything is for “security purposes” and yet this is the same bank that allowed our debit cards (yes, BOTH of them) to be hacked and used repeatedly – even a month AFTER the card numbers had been supposedly canceled/closed.
• Paul can’t get a replacement debit card over the phone (3rd time we’ve ordered one – the other two never showed) because he can’t answer the security questions (um, how is he supposed to know when the account was opened? We wouldn’t even meet for another three years after I opened the account!).
• I can’t order him a new debit card even thought it’s a joint account – how does that make any sense? I thought that joint meant that either party could administer for the account?
• He can’t order one from the bank (because without answering the security questions over the phone, you have to go into a branch) without a special “representative” helping because he’s been told our account is “special” and that rep apparently doesn’t work normal business hours.
• I can’t change my PIN number on my debit card without having to know the original one the bank made for me (this is a bit of my fault – I should have gotten it changed when I got it three months ago but I never use it as a debit card so I kept forgetting) which is just RIDICULOUS because when I’m right there in the bank with all the proper identification it shouldn’t matter! So now I have to wait 5-7 days for a new PIN to be issued and then I have to go BACK into the bank and change it.

I’m just sick and tired of calling and going into the branch and not being able to be helped unless I wait 5-7 business days for something to be mailed to me or done on their side and THEN having to follow up with calls and visits. That is not the kind of bank I want to belong to – that is inconvenient to the extreme. In short, we’re leaving this bank as soon as we can fit in the juggling act that will ensue with our automatic deposits & payments – so probably after the holidays and we’ve moved.

Second, probably as a response to the financial crisis the whole country is facing, our cable company has decided to stop giving us the discounts we had in place (verbal agreements made after our introductory offer ended) and so our bill went up nearly 25%. They didn’t notify us that they were going to stop giving us the discount, our bill just came in this month for the shocking amount. I told Paul that I refuse to pay over a hundred dollars just for cable and internet so we’re trying to work something out with our provider. If we can’t work something out then the cable TV is going out the window. We’re in a bit of a limbo right now, because we’ll be moving soon and I don’t want to sign a contract with another provider and then move and have any issues.

Third, I have a Discover card and recently they called me and ran off this long “informational” monologue about their Payment Protection Plan and that I’d be receiving information in the mail about it soon. I was listening to the caller, and yet I didn’t realize that they’d be sending me this information and I then had to decline it or else I’d be automatically signed up. So when checking my bill this morning, as I always do periodically throughout the month, I see this charge for the damn Payment Protection Plan. I used to have these plans in place on all my credit cards, but after realizing how much I was spending on the plan when I could be putting that towards my balance, I decided to cancel them all. Our credit cards have pretty low limits (compared to the insane limits to some people’s cards) and I just don’t ever see us in a situation where we can’t pay the minimums. Perhaps that’s just jinxing the situation, but seriously. I have other plans in place that will protect us financially if either Paul or I get hurt or lose our jobs. I don’t need backups for the backups.

Its just annoying that all of our finances are requiring CONSTANT supervisor right now or else someone tries to pull the wool over our eyes. This is why I hate automatic payments – unless it’s a flat fee no matter what (like loan payments) – and it’s why I refuse to do them when it comes to most things. If I wasn’t forced to do with our cable home phone, I wouldn’t as that keeps going up pennies and nickles thanks to fee & tax hikes too. Then, by the time you realize that something is wrong, it’s already taken from your account and you’re fighting to get your own money back. No thank you.

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