Depressed about money but still fighting the good fight

Our legal bills and costs continue to devour us. However, I did make some extra spending cash this weekend by selling 3 boxes of .45 ammo for $25. I managed to get 3 inquiries before craigslist pulled my posting (who knew ammo was a prohibited sale item?) and this one guy came and picked it up on Saturday, which was awesome. I also found white drapes for the house (we got in trouble with the HOA for our blue drapes, which have been up for almost a year) from this lady found on craigslist, and she sold me 5 white drapes for an incredible $8!!! Awesome!!!

The baby's b-day is tomorrow and her party at Chuck E. Cheese is on Sunday. S and I need to go get her a few presents. Target was his suggestion and I said ok, but that we can only afford to get her like 3-4 things and that is it. I do need to find her a cute little wallet though, b/c I told her that once she turned 5 we were going to give her an allowance. I want to teach her about money and I don't want to hear anymore "I want, I want." From now on my response will be, "Oh, you do, huh? Where's your money? Better start saving!!!" She'll get $5 every 2 weeks, or $10/month. $1 will go to the church, $3 will go to savings, and she'll have $6 to spend. I think that's more than fair. I might even up it to $4/savings, $5/spend.

Can't believe our electric bill :-)

But I am definitely not complaining here, I am praising it! $33 and change!!! Not freakin' bad, and very fortunately timely due to S's $400 dental bill today. His so-called mother also sent $100 to him, so I did not have to transfer as much as I thought I'd have to from the EF. Thank the Lord. And we didn't spend too much extra $ this holiday weekend either. Just a couple of meals out and gas expenses and some provisions for the beach, which we can use at our pool all summer too. Hey, they were from Dollar General, so there.

I am going to continue unplugging appliances while we're gone during the day and doing laundry at late hours of the night. It works!

Got paid today--all spent

I think I might have to cut back on the CC payments next month, to my great disappointment. The strategy always has been to totally ignore the monthly minimum payments and put every spare dime over on them so that we can pay as we go as much as is humanly possible on this custody battle. But with S starting a new job next Thursday I'm worried that we'll go 3 weeks w/out getting his 1st paycheck, as that is usually how it works when you start a new job. So that we don't starve to death (b/c I already am having to tap into the EF in order to pay for his $400+ dental bill he's going to have next week and REFUSE to tap into it anymore!!!) I'm going to pay just a little bit over the CC minimums, instead of hundreds of dollars over like I've been doing. Psychologically, I can't do just the minimums b/c I have a huge mental block about doing that that will make me feel like the biggest loser in the world.

At least I can feel good about keeping the legal bills on only 2 CC's now. I have 4 that I could potentially use but it's so much easier just to keep track of 2 CC's.

Good news re: S's credit score

I got a disturbing email yesterday saying that a certain building was broken into and some computers were stolen that contained our ID info on them, so to watch out. I pulled my credit report again, which I had already done about a month ago. While I was there I figured I'd pull S's too and see what his score is. Good news for him! His score seems to be going up due to some good accounts he has. The good accounts are b/c of me. I put him on my CC's even before we got married to help him out and it seems to be working. He's still got a ways to go until his score is in the "good" rating, but it definitely could be a lot worse!

Not that I wish to put a lot of weight into credit scores b/c I worship at the altar of Dave Ramsey, who has a zero FICO score b/c he has no debt yet is a millionaire. But we're a ways from being in Dave Ramsey land so until then we have to play this bullshit credit score game.

Buying rims sucks

S apparently needs new rims on his car b/c the stock ones one there are "bad" and he's gotten 2 mystery flat tires in the past few months. I posted the issue to the msn money boards and got a variety of opinions. S and I even discussed selling his car, Charlie Murphy. But in the end, I think what we'll do is just bite the bullet (there's a lot of biting of bullets going on in my life these days!) and hopefully he can get these rims at Discount Tire for $99 each, or $400. That is really going to cut into our EF though.

I decided to implement an automatic savings system recently of $20 automatically deposited into my savings account every Friday. We'll see how it goes and if I like it. I'm hoping I won't even notice and by the end of the year I'll have another $560 or more in the EF.

These gas prices suck

Unfortunately, there's not too much I can do about my driving habits. I've considered taking the bus to work but I can barely wake up in time to drag my ass in by 9:30 anyway, plus the bus is $2.00 r/t and I'll have more laundry to do due to the sweaty clothes I'll have waiting in the sun. One concession I have made is that I'm walking across the street to the hospital to get lunch more often instead of getting in my car and doing nearby drive-through. Which is what I did today, and was rewarded by running into little brother outside, so we had lunch together.

Oil changes

I finally got my oil changed today, at over 1,000 miles over. I can't help it man, I drove 700 miles in one weekend last month! I wish there was more I could do to help alleviate these rising gas prices but unfortunately I do a hell of a lot of driving in order to pick up the baby, go to Job #2, take my mom to the Dr., etc. But I digress, as I am wont to do!

I decided to splurge and go to Jiffy Lube, as I found a $5.00 off coupon on their website. I hadn't been there in 23,000 miles (they told me today) b/c I've been going to the grimy corner convenience store/grease monkey mechanics that charge $16.95 for oil changes. But I thought me and my car could use a little splurge, plus JL fills your fluids, checks tire pressure, washes the windows and vacuums, which corner grease monkey does not do. Still, the final price was $27.99. Ouch! Is JL really worth it? I guess... but only every 23,000 miles.

The latest goings-on in my money brain

My new fave magazine is Money. I began reading it yesterday in a clinic waiting room, and now have a stack here with me at Job #2. I like it b/c it's written in real user-friendly language, although it also seems to be kind of on a low level--maybe that's b/c since Personal Finance and Money Management has become my hobby/obsession I've learned so much in the past year it's hard for me to find new ideas or get exciting new revelations.

One personal revelation I made in the past couple of days is that I do need to open up yet another savings account, in addition to the 2 I already have. When I opened up a 2nd checking account back in December they asked me if I wanted to open a savings account with them and I declined, saying I didn't want to have too many accounts to keep track of. Well, now I think it's best that I open a 3rd savings account. Here's what the plan is:

1. Account #1 is the EF at my primary bank. I've done what Dave Ramsey suggests and have $1000 over there (actually it's currently $1056) to be left alone, no matter what! (Well, except an emergency, duh.)
2. Account #2 is at the credit union. This is strictly for property taxes and I deposit a faithful amount over there every single month, no matter what! I over-deposit just a little bit due to property appraisal increases, which did happen to us this year.
3. So Account #3 would be for the following: since 4 out of 5 responses on the msn money boards told me that to renew our home warranty would be a ripoff and that I should self-insure instead, I would put funds in this account for home repair/maintenance issues. I'm thinking an amount around $500-600 would be good to start with. I've also been thinking we need to put some funds away for "fun" items, like gifts, b-days, vacations, etc. and this would be a good place to hide that stuff too.

See, so Accounts #1 and #2 are sacred, to never be touched. It's time I got an easily-accessible Account #3 for misc. necessary and short-term stuff.

I also need to start putting a regular amount each month (I can do $50, would rather do $100) into S's savings account at the credit union which I opened for him after we got married just so he'd be a member too. I think he's got all of $40 over there! Like I said, it's for membership purposes only! This would be the fund for when we need to buy him a "new" car sometime in the near future. But yeah, we do need to start getting on that now.

All these accounts are just what I need to keep the various EF's and misc. funds separate. I just feel it's too dangerous (for me) to have one big extra fund that holds all the savings. I like categories and classifications; after all, I am a librarian. Every dollar its place and purpose!

Home Warranty: To Renew or Not?

So we got our Home Warranty renewal in the mail. When we bought the house almost a year ago, it was a gift from the seller. So now we are looking at the prices for 1st time. The renewal fee, for one year, is $425. Plus, every time we use the warranty service, which has been 3 times so far in the past year, we still have to pay a service fee of $60 each time.

S and I discussed it, and we're leaning towards NOT renewing the home warranty. I figure I can put that $425 into savings, and if anything breaks down--washer, dryer, fridge, etc.--we can just buy a used one off of craigslist.

Now that I'm registered on msn money boards, I might pose the question there. They're an opinionated group but I have learned from their own experiences!

Asked another question, got validated

I suspected I'm doing the absolute best I can, but I posted my situation on the msn boards. (My sitch: possibly as much as $25K in CC debt due to nasty custody battle; working 2 jobs; finished Dave Ramsey's Baby Step 1 but will be stuck for years on Baby Step 2 and need to get to Step 3.) I got a couple of responses that said to keep doing what I'm doing. Also, I was validated in my suspicion that as much as I love Dave, I just cannot follow his plan 100%. The comment was that the important thing was that I have a plan, and not just financially flounder around aimlessly. And I do have a plan! It may only be MY made-up, customized plan, but so far it's the best I can do.

I'm just concerned that DH will need another car here in the next year or 2. I would love for his $2500 1994 Mitsubishi to last several more years, but we've already spent at least another $1500 on repairs since we got the car last summer. His next car I'd like for him to move up into the $4000-4500 range, which means I need to start saving now, even while paying down the CC bills. Dave does not advocate this, but then again, he also advocates suspending your 401K contributions until you get out of debt, which horrifies me! I follow David Bach in that area, and pay my damn self first! Like I've said before, you cannot beat the concept of compound interest. It's about the best, most reliable deal out there!!!

Ask a question, get an answer

I finally, at long last, registered on msn. so I could ask a question on the msn money boards that I read so faithfully. And I got some good answers immediately! Don't bother looking for me over there, BTW, I made up an email and username that is totally unidentifiable with me, even if you know me well (it has to do with my grandfather's middle name!). Anyway, the question was: if I have several 0% CC's, and I refuse to pay a $175 cancellation fee with Cingular, can the totally non-related CC's penalize me and cancel the 0% APR for jacking Cingular around? The answer: Yes! Yikes. I guess I better pay Cingular's unfair extortion fee.

DH was frustrated at work today and needs to see a dentist soon. I told him we better get him an appt. before he quits so he can use his health insurance. He said he was thinking of just quitting this week and starting at Toyota next week. I told him he can't do that, that we need his salary for the next 4 days. He realized that yes, we do, although he wasn't happy about hearing it. Hey, I'm just the messenger I had to remind him! I also frequently have to remind him, hey you think I want to be working 2 jobs???

Ways I Got Ahead This Week

1. Sold a Mary Kay lipstick to a coworker; that paid for my meal last night at the Hard Rock!
2. Won a $50 gift card to Outback Steakhouse, yum.
3. Won an H&R Block tax USB which came in the mail, yay!
4. Got free lunch today at a meeting.

Not bad for a week. Now if S can just get his job situation fixed--and he applied for several jobs yesterday as well as me applying for 2 online for him--then we'll be doing a whole lot better. Becuase I think our lawyer's going to need another $1500 from us this month. God, the credit card bill lines on my Excel spreadsheet are depressing. Just when I get us paid down to 4 digits, or under the $10,000 mark, another legal fee comes up, putting us back into 5 digits. It's like climbing a damn hill of sand! :-(