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Archive for May, 2008

Some great news!

May 29th, 2008 at 01:40 am

Like everyone else, my money is not stretching as far these days. My gas budget has doubled and my grocery bill is up at least 20%. Since all of my money is accounted for every month, this extra money has to come from somewhere and unfortunately, it is cutting into my savings.

Since I find that unacceptable and my efforts at cost-cutting are not making the grade, I have no option but to increase income. Soooooo....


I GOT ANOTHER JOB!!!!!!!!! It's for a 30% increase in pay which translates into an additional 15K per year. With my degree and years of experience I should be making about 10K more than that even but there's no point on dwelling on that. I hate that I didn't do this earlier and I am feeling some real anxiety about giving notice at my current job but I have to consider my retirement and my kids' college which is coming up at the speed of light.


However, I am thrilled and excited and so relieved. I hope this works out and I am looking forward to increasing my savings and retirement and killing off my remaining debt quickly. Yahooooo!!!!!

The husband's charging again

May 29th, 2008 at 01:29 am

A little background: my hubby and I keep our finances separate. Naturally both of our names are on the mortgage and we split what is needed for the house 50%. Having said that, we are married and what happens to him affects me and vice versa. Back in October I think it was, I found out he was in $42,000 of credit card debt. A significant portion of this was due to late fees and finance charges. I offered to help him figure out a plan to pay this debt down and he accepted. For the record, after bills my husband has about $2000 a month left to buy gas, groceries and play with. That's after he contributes a measly 8% to his 401K. And he plows through all of that and still has to use a credit card? Now you can see why I am really, really annoyed.

Now as for his repayment plan, it involved me moving his credit cards to cards with 0% rates and drastically stepping up the payoff. He was making minimum payments of course. I still left him with about $800 of money to buy gas and groceries etc. Then I left him alone because he was getting real stiff and tense when I would ask him if he's paid xyz bill and if made any extra money so he could apply it to the credit cards. Since I am not interested in being his mother/watchdog/nag I let it go and stopped looking over his shoulder and trusted him to pay it off according to the plan I put into place. And what do I find out? The idiot has charged about $500 worth of stuff on one of the cards that the balance was transferred away.


He cannot be trusted. Our finances are separate but what he does could affect me and the kids future prosperity and the truth is that with this guy, I will never prosper. If I don't stay on his case, he'll charge himself into bankruptcy within a year. He has already asked me to sign giving him permission to take a loan from his 401K so he can pay the cards off(I refused).

$2000 a month invested at 8% annual interest is how much in 10 years? And we have to give it to the credit card people. Sheesh...


Any suggestions on how to rein this guy in? We've been married for 18 years but this worries me. Tremendously. I hate being put in the position of uptight bitch but what else to do?

Does your mother know about that?

May 8th, 2008 at 11:24 pm

We just got a graduation invitation from one of my husband's cousins. Tucked inside the invite....I kid you not.....was a list of suggested graduation gifts. Included on this very long list was a laptop, boombox, digital camera, HDTV, blow dryer, CASH 3x and several other items. I am speechless. My husband and I have decided to reward this tackiness with nothing. I thought the invitation was an invitation to the ceremony and the gifts were optional. This child is the daughter of my husband's aunt and she generally tends to be very soft-spoken, dignified and reserved. I can't imagine her sanctioning this insanity. I wonder if she knows about it?

Trying something new this month

May 2nd, 2008 at 10:11 pm

Well last month was a financial disaster-okay disaster is too strong a word but I am not pleased. We are all affected by the gas costs (mine have doubled and I used mass transit to get to work) but the increase in grocery prices has caught me off guard. Also the kids were on spring break for a week last month and I guess I was in denial or something because I didn't plan for it very well. Anyway I thought that this month I would give myself a daily allowance for groceries and sundries instead of using the monthly amount. It's the same amount but I divided it by 30. I'm hoping that by knowing how much I have to spend for the day, I will be more hesitant to spend. How's it working? Well I am currently $15 in the hole, lol! But seriously I believe that this will even out over the next few days. I am using a table/calendar to keep track.



One thing that I have noticed is that I am not as careful with my money when I don't feel well or if I haven't slept very well. Ditto for my diet and exercise. I think one of the things I am going to make a serious effort to do over the next few weeks is to go to bed earlier and stay asleep. I don't know how well this will work out as I am an evening person.