“I wonder if I ask for a raise, will I receive one…?”

I wrote that line in a blog post just 9 days ago.

I also speak often how I need my income to increase to help with paying off debt.

Today, I walked into my boss’ office to discuss one thing, and ended discussing some administrative issues we are encountering with the staff. I was kind of put off yesterday by the fact there were ten of us in the office, and barely anyone had work to do. The front office ladies were working on some mundane busy work, but that’s only 3 of them. The 7 of us who were left had nothing to do, and in any other job I had worked at, that either meant find work to do or go home (which I did yesterday), something that is not practiced in this office but should be to try to instill some work ethic. After I suggested that we start sending people home on quiet days such as yesterday and maybe it will make the scheduling ladies a bit more cognizant of how they are scheduling, my boss agrees and tosses in that she had meant to do it this pay period, but I’m way overdue for a raise and that she was going to retroactively date it to July 1st (so I’ll get an additional check in a week or two).

WHAT THE FLIPPER?!?

I was stunned. I had been hearing since last Christmas how no one has had a raise in ages. I suspect a person or two probably had gotten one, and the ones who hadn’t weren’t working hard to prove their worth. But, since so many hadn’t been given raises (one woman has been there four years and has never received a raise…), I just assumed that I would be in that majority. I started to fume recently that all I do is work my ass off, take on more and more responsibility without blinking an eye and get nothing in return. I created a new, married name email address Sunday, busted open Word Monday night to create a new resume and started scoping out jobs I wanted to apply to (one really caught my eye, I may apply *just to see* if they might have a nibble of interest in me) after an especially angering day last Friday. So, when she made this declaration today, all I could do was mumble my appreciation and thank yous since I truly wasn’t expecting it and was starting to pave the road to get out of there. The latter is still possible, but the sense of urgency has decreased (mainly because I feel guilty leaving someone after they give me a raise and feel a sense of obligation to do right by them).

I don’t know how large the raise is- I am an hourly employee and my boss works in dollars, so I’m confident it’s at least a $1/hour raise, but naturally I’m hoping it’s better than that. It’s better than nothing though, so I’ll take it! And it’s at least another $100 per month to paying off my debt!

$1639.23

That is the amount to be capitalized to my student loan.

Ugh, right? Now I’ll have even more interest accrue once it’s capitalized at the end of the month.

And, despite a post I made earlier this year, that monthly payment reversion on my ICR to over $500 a month was temporary. I had thought they had accessed my tax return and upped the price automatically, but it turns out I needed to submit my return, some paperwork and basically re-up my ICR for another year. Starting next month, my monthly payment is approximately $292 a month. But, this does not cover the amount of interest calculated monthly.

I have a couple of decisions to make here though. If I just pay around $300 a month, that will free up another $225 a month to put towards the credit cards. And once those are paid off, I can re-evaluate how much month I want to pay toward my student loan monthly. OR, once the interest is capitalized, I can re-figure how much interest my student loan accrues monthly, pay above that amount so that I can start making a dent into that principle and make sure I have no more letters like that telling me I have even more money to pay. If I were to go with option one, I would be done paying off the credit cards by November if I take into account teaching dance again in September. If I go option two, I’m looking at probably paying off the credit cards in January. Option one would also allow some leeway at Christmas time and once the new year starts, I could start more aggressively paying my student loan. Option two, the more aggressive payments would be held off for another month or two.

I don’t have much audience participation on my blog, but I would love to know your thoughts on what you would do. Are you like me and go for the immediate gratification of paying off the credit cards as quickly as possible, or start trying to kill the principle on the student loan now and go for the longer credit card pay off?

Ask and You Shall Receive!

This post is going to look at two different perspectives on this phrase in the world of personal finance.

Got My Deposit Back!

After waiting for over a month to get my deposit back, I finally emailed the coordinator at my venue asking if I was going to receive it back. She emailed me back a couple hours later stating that she had requested it be returned to me the day after my wedding, so theoretically I should have received it before I got home from my honeymoon (as I thought I would). She sent the person in charge of cutting checks an email asking what had happened- that person was out for surgery for a month and the volunteer who was in charge of handling checks didn’t do what they were supposed to do! So, the very next day a check was in my mailbox. I’ve decided to fully commit it to CC1 immediately and kill that debt by next month (I haven’t canceled my health insurance yet, so I don’t have the wiggle room for the $775 per month yet, plus I owe husband some cash for adding me on to his car insurance).

I asked where my rightfully owed money was, and I got it! I wonder if I ask for a raise, will I receive one…?

And on the seventh day, God said “LET THERE BE CUTE SHOES.” (Or something like that)

I have an unhealthy obsession with shoes. Whenever I see a cute pair of shoes, I go through a deep internal struggle about the cost and the need for the shoes. I did an excellent job in 2012 of only buying shoes when I absolutely needed to, but this year has been a different story. I bought two pairs of shoes this past week (buy one pair, get one pair free, how could I possibly pass that up?!?), and my husband bought me a third pair. This is on top of other pairs I bought earlier this year…

Good ol’ husband, he loves to make me happy. He loves to make me happy with shoes.  I often don’t have to do much more than ask then he will buy whatever it is I want for me as long as he perceives it to be reasonably priced (i.e. I saw a beautiful $14,000 dollar ring a few weeks ago, there is no way he will ever buy that for me unless we win the lottery). On our honeymoon, he bought me a very expensive somethin’ that I was admiring, with merely the excuse that we were on our honeymoon.

This mentality he has, while fun at times, can be stressful. Eventually we are going to start a family, the belts are going to get tighter and I don’t think he’ll know what to do! I mentioned in a comment to a reader who was interested in seeing how we will combine and manage our finances together, but him and I don’t talk money often. It is definitely a source of stress between us, with him being slightly better at it than me but him more frequently buying things that I don’t think are necessary to happiness, but in his mind they are. He could probably save thousands a year by cutting back on some of his discretionary expenses. Eventually I want him to be on board for killing the mortgage as fast as possible (after I kill the student loan), but I worry he won’t like what it will entail.

Once I get my credit cards in order and am a strongly contributing member in the household, I will ask him to start making sacrifices for the good of us and our future family. We will see how it goes, hopefully another ask and receive that I will receive…

July Check-In

As life returns to normal, I can finally start to catch up on the important things, like asking my audience to help keep me accountable with my finances. After interest was added, here is what my accounts are looking like:

Credit Card One: $1518.96

Credit Card Two: $4850.52

Student Loan, Outstanding Balance (as of 7/1/13, it increases daily!): $74,714.46

Let’s say I give myself 6 months to pay off my credit cards. Thanks to the calculator on my banks website, I was able to figure exactly how much I would need to pay on each to pay them off.

CC1: $260.90/month

CC2: $862.52/month

TOTAL: $1123.42

With the $775 I know I can definitely put toward the credit cards, that leaves a little bit of a gap to close, a $348.42 gap to be exact. Once I’m back to teaching dance again in the fall, that will help close the gap. But, I still have July and August to account for and I have no extra income those months (my summer classes had zero enrollment, so naturally they were canceled). I just posted items from my wedding for sale, so hopefully bargain brides will want what I’m trying to sell! I have some more things from my wedding to post, I just need to check the integrity of the items first.

I also have yet to receive my deposit back, and if I get that back it will completely close the gap for July, August and then some. I’m debating if I want to take it, apply it all to CC1, pay off the rest and just do above the minimum payment on CC2 for July [assuming that I do get the deposit back]. The good ol’ psychological trick of paying off one debt to keep motivated on the others. I’m leaning toward that route just because I like it so much- it really does help to motivate me.

Just so you all know, I’m always open to ideas (beyond what I’ve already put out there). If you have some phenomenal, legal and legit method of making extra cash, I’m all ears! I do like the easy way out admittedly, so the simpler the better!

The Benefits of Marriage

A couple of updates first:

• I have not gotten my deposit back yet. I’m going to wait until next week and if I don’t receive a check by then or learn when I’m getting my check, I’m going to contact the coordinator to find out what is going on. She had originally told me it goes out within two weeks.
• Spoke with my ace in the hole. I have just a few more months to deal with it, so I need to get a move on.

And, on with the show.

While it takes some work, there are definite financial benefits to marriage. Primarily, insurance. Like I discussed previously, I’m going to take his health insurance and drop mine, saving around $200 a month. I’ll reinvest some of it into my 401(k), but mainly it’ll be in my paychecks.

The other insurance, car insurance, was a little more labor intensive. We had to call our insurance companies, give them our new spouse’s driver and car information to get the quote then make sure we were doing even comparisons between our policies. When all was said and done, yet again if I’m added to my husband’s car insurance, I’ll be saving around $40 a month ($480 per year). That’s more money I can put into my debt! Is it a lot? No. But as I seem to be saying a lot lately “something is better than nothing…”

The next round of possible benefits has yet to be seen- taxes. BUT, because I’m on ICR with my student loan, it may not be a benefit but rather a drawback [if we file jointly]. We’ll see what happens next year with that.

Other updates:

Still haven’t gotten around to putting stuff up for sale (really shouldn’t be much of a shock, I’m so lazy when it comes to that stuff). No summer job. I have done some research on a possible new career path- I would have to invest around $500 to take courses to get certified to go into this career, but that’s small change compared to the return I’ll probably see, around a $10-$20K increase in income and if I so choose, I could do it part-time. I may get more hours in the fall with dance, but it all depends on my new boss there.

With the possibility of selling the house in the next few months, I don’t want to get too crazy with planning beyond what is immediately doable as I don’t know where we will be come fall. I still like the idea of the Etsy shop, but I don’t want to get something going only to put it on hold since it involves the storage of supplies and I need to reduce clutter in this house before we sell. I have enough ideas to pursue at this time, especially selling the crap I already have, before pursuing that hobby as a possible means of income.

I’ll get back to doing monthly updates next week, time to return to accountability!

I’m Ba-ack!

It’s all over! (minus receiving the photos and getting my name changed)

The flowers, the dresses, shoes, food, cake, all done! And we are back from our honeymoon as well. Life is bliss! Of course, the financial aftermath of all of that is not.

Currently, the credit cards are down to $1500 (CC1) and $4700 (CC2) respectively, and that is before interest is added for the month. Also haven’t received that security deposit back yet, but I’m hoping that I receive it before the end of the month so that I can pay more of the $4700 balance off before interest is added. I’ll only save a few cents off the interest, but you know the saying “a penny saved is a penny earned!”

The next couple of weeks will be tight financially though- we were on our honeymoon a little longer than expected (canceled flight) and I lost about 2 days of paid work since I didn’t have enough PTO to cover all the days I was out. I also barely taught dance this month since it was the end of the year, so I definitely did not and will not make my normal second paycheck amount. Also didn’t get a summer job…

BUT, because of tying the knot, once I get my certified marriage license, I can be added to my husband’s health insurance and ditch mine, saving over $200 a month. I’m going to defer some of that over, though, to my 401(k). The rest will be used for that debt since it will, for now, replace some of the dance income I will not be making this summer.

The general breakdown will run like this:

• After tax income: approx. $1800
• Amount to cover general expenses: $500
• Amount paid to student loan: $525
• That leaves for the credit cards: $775

If I get that deposit back, I’m going to use $700 to pay down CC2. That’ll leave around $5500 to pay off. According to my calculations, it will take 7-8 months to pay off my credit card debt at that rate. Clearly, that just won’t work, that’s WAY too long to be paying off the credit cards. My ideal payoff time would be in three to four months, but how to earn extra income?

1. Try to find other benefits of being married (i.e. car insurance reduction)
2. Finding a better paying part-time job
3. Selling stuff from the wedding (I wouldn’t make too much off of this, but something is better than nothing)
4. Selling stuff from around the house that I haven’t had a chance to post yet
5. Opening an etsy shop and sell bridal veils (I made my own, it’s an easy project, I can do it at competitive rates and still make a decent profit)

I don’t know how much extra income these would all generate, but I need around $3200 in additional income between now and the next three to four months. I’ll continue to brainstorm and number crunch over the next couple of weeks, and I hope to have a solidified plan to share with you all by July.

 

Off we go!

Radio Silence

As I approached my wedding day (I’m no longer a Miss, I’m now a Mrs.!), doing anything extracurricular, like this blog, fell to the wayside. So, I apologize for my radio silence, I hope you all have been having a good month too!

In general, obviously the month has been great personally and spiritually, however, financially, not so much. All those little things that come up before a wedding truly can bite you in the ass, to the tune of over a thousand dollars. And while I tried my best to make cash payments when I could, it wasn’t frequent that I had that ability, so my credit card debt is back up by a lot to the point where I should tell you all how much so that you can do some shaming on me (but I’m chicken and I’m not going to tell)…

I’m not done yet, I still have a honeymoon to go on. I hope to keep costs down, though my husband is allowing a couple of extravagant purchases (maybe/probably on his dime??). When I get back though, it’s off to the races and get this ish back in line. I should be able to kill a solid 1K when I get back because of security deposits (please let me receive my security deposits back!) and some more expected cash gifts. Once I do an immediate debt-kill, it’s time to re-assess the good ol’ increasing revenue portion of things. We’re talking job hunting, selling things, etc. I just found a calculator on my credit card website that will help me figure out how much I would need to pay to kill the debt in a certain number of months (I’m aiming for three, but it will probably be twice that length of time if we’re being realistic). I also still have that ace-in-the-hole, once I get back and settled, maybe, just maybe I will FINALLY deal with it and get something out of it.

That’s a lot of stuff. As Dori would say, just keep swimming!

PAID IN FULL

Those are some beautiful words…

And I just verified that my cosmetic loan has indeed been paid in full.

HOORAY!

Now on to those credit cards (again…)

Maybe, JUST Maybe…

I’ve been boring lately, ranting about my not so great financial situation. Not so great things have been happening in other parts of my life, mainly at work, but those bad things at work have been good on my pocket a bit. Due to a flood that shut down my office, we now are operating out of another suite until everything is repaired (stress level is high!). The first week it was going on, I ended up doing several hours of overtime to help get things in order. It wasn’t a ton of money, but still, it added extra padding to my paycheck. On the flip side, my cat was diagnosed with arthritis and taking her to the vet to be given that diagnosis cost a pretty penny. Always something…

Last week, I was super stressed about finances and how I was going to pay a deposit for the wedding. I was looking at my student loan payments and noticed something odd. I didn’t need to make my next payment until May 28 and when I asked about it, they said that it was correct, and if I turned off my override, I wouldn’t have to make a payment on my account this month. When I was checking my deposit from work on Friday, I was checking other activity on my account. My cosmetic loan payment was withdrawn, and I realized I had a lot of extra cash. I just did some quick math and this is what I figured out:

If I don’t pay my student loan payment this month (I know, the thought makes me want to puke, but once I get my deposit back it’ll go straight to the student loan), I can pay my bills, the deposit AND PAY OFF MY COSMETIC LOAN.

I’m still in shock. My math may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it’s right. I’ll have to be really tight for a few weeks, but that would be good for me in the long run anyway to re-invigorate myself for this financial battle. With my complete lack of control in recent months, this would be a good exercise and will help me get back to fighting the credit card debt next. I’ll save around $15-$20 in interest in the process, and of course, saving money is the goal here.

Otherwise, I haven’t made any life altering decisions to increase my income or have done anything drastic to earn extra cash. I’m trying eBay and not being so successful this round. I didn’t get that modeling gig. I haven’t heard if a dance studio near me will use me for a few weeks this summer. I need to look around again and see if there are any opportunities for the summer time that would be lucrative (and worth giving up my summer evenings/weekends). Also still need to call my ace in the hole, and hopefully that will be a good quick fix to a few things that ail me once that’s all squared away.

The battle rages on…

Karma?

Is that you karma? Knocking at my financial door?

Yes, yes, I think it is! Don’t like my spending habits lately? Well, you know, those shoes were so cute! And that top is great for work! And we both know I prefer to wear dresses on the weekends in the summer…

Oh, wait? The cat may need orthopaedic surgery? Fiance may not receive the usual annual bonus amount? Oh, I guess I shouldn’t have bought all that stuff…

Ever feel like karma is trying to send you a financial message? That those little goodies you bought yourself may have felt great in the moment, but then all of a sudden some financial burden hits you, potentially crippling the thin financial foothold you have?

Well, yesterday and today were examples of karma coming to get me after those moments of weakness. Bought some shoes a couple of weeks ago, convinced myself they were my birthday present. Went to a girlfriend’s house yesterday and bought a top and dress (having convinced myself using the above mentioned reasons). Then I took my cat to the vet later that afternoon- she may need surgery to alleviate pressure off a joint.Then I get home from work today (keep in mind, we have a major chunk of our wedding expenses coming up, I’ve saved for some of it, my fiance none) and my fiance learned he may not get the normal generous bonus he’s received in years past. At this point, any bonus is better than none, but I don’t think it will cover costs like we had hoped it would.

I did take the time to photograph and post some stuff on ebay the other day, was already working on being super cheap with purchasing centerpieces for the wedding, waited until after Easter to buy baskets since they were on sale, etc. So, in an effort to convince myself I’m doing something right, I’m sitting here begging my audience to cut me some slack when I deserve none. I deserve the hand karma is doling out. I’ve continued to let stress rule me and I’ve given in to those financial indulgences that got me into trouble in the first place.

I have looked into teaching more dance classes, but it’s hard when you have very limited availability and they need someone NOW. I am tapped out on ideas otherwise. I toyed around with the idea of trying to convince my old boss to hire me full-time at her new practice, work her early hours, then work part-time for my current job in the afternoons..it would be too much of a hassle and my old boss probably can’t afford me currently. I’m trying to think of summer employment opportunities that may work for me, but I’m running a blank. Still need to call my ace-in-the-hole and ask a question, and I continue to bank on that coming through, and soon but I need to make that phone call!

So, really, nothing has changed. My inability to handle stress properly and say NO to certain things continues to be my financial downfall. Now that April cosmetic loan payoff is still probably out of the question, again. Forget the CC1 and CC2 balances (since I had to use CC1 for the vet visit yesterday).

HELP! I’M DROWNING! Does anyone have a lifesaver?? Ideas?? ANYTHING?!?!?!?