It only took 2 weeks, but...

I finally finished the online defensive driving course! It was a little anticlimactic when I took the final exam. I thought it was going to be hard, but even after a week of not even seeing the material my score was 90%. It probably helps that I'm a cop. And have a brilliant mind! I can't wait to see what kind of $ I'm going to start saving on insurance. Lord knows I need a break these days.

I've decided a good round # to build up the EF to would be $3,000. Then I might begin to relax a little. S started his new job today; that really should be a significant amount of extra funds. Of course, it's gonna be tight here for about 3 weeks until he gets his 1st paycheck. But the money from the skin care classes I teach should start to roll in slowly. I've already decided that 1/2 is going to savings and the other 1/2 is going to CC bills. Initially I'd wanted 100% to go to savings, but I am obsessed with getting the CC totals down to 4 digits again, even if only temporarily.

Yet Another CC

So I applied for and got yet another CC, this one a Disney Visa with the Little Mermaid on it. Of course they want to give me more CC's, I charge and pay a lot of $ on the ones I've got already! Everybody wants a piece of me! So as much as I hated to do it, I got another one b/c the 0% interest rates are going to be expiring soon on 2 of my 4 CC's and we've got lots more legal bills to come. So if I have to use CC's to finance this court battle, then at least I can do as much as possible on 0% interest for a year.

S and I had a long conversation today about our financial future. I am still trying to get him on the same page as I, philosophically speaking. For example, last night we drove through Taco Cabinet, and instead of getting the $4.99 nachos, he got the $3.99 nachos. Then he wanted a Coke. I pointed out that we had Coke at home (which I buy at the grocery store so he won't waste money on ripoff vending machines) and he said he liked TC's ice and that he was already saving $1 by not ordering the other nachos! I retorted, as long as we're saving $1, let's save $2!!! We argued for a minute but of course, I won. I had to remind him today that both of us are sacrificing and we need to continue sacrificing until our debt is paid off.

BTW, I did another spreadsheet to see when that might be. According to my calculations and best estimate, provided we get custody of the baby and the whore starts paying us $350/month child support here very soon, we should have our CC's/custody battle paid off totally by Jan. 2009, possibly even Dec. 2008. I reminded S that will happen ONLY if we continue to sacrifice and live the lifestyle we are living currently: no extravaganzes, no vacations, clipping coupons, etc.

Probable upswing on the money front

So S says he is starting this new job in 2 Mondays. This right after he got a raise at his current job! But he says this allowed him to negotiate a match, so he will definitely be making more $ no matter what. I am so happy about this but I am also so tired of this S-job saga I am too exhausted to really feel very happy. If that makes any sense.

He's been working real hard lately, and his check yesterday was about $300 more than we thought it would be, even with missing all this work due to court. Plus I made an extra $100 this week from the 2 skin care classes at the public Library. I want to keep the CC bills as low as possible and keep chipping away at them--we don't use them at all anymore except for legal bills. But I am also scared of our EF not being enough, so I think I'll split 1/2 of all extra $ into CC's and the EF.

Exhibit 1: Why I won't be selling plasma again

No matter how desperate I get. I'd rather take 10 years to pay off the CC's than go through that again.

10% off your auto insurance

I'm currently taking an online defensive driving course in the attempt to save 10% on my auto insurance. It's sloooooowww going and the website will not let you do anything else, like try to surf anywhere while you're waiting for the page to finish at its own pace. Also, it keeps testing you to verify that you are who you say you are! My expectation is that I'll be done sometime next week. But even though the class is $40 it should save me a couple of hundred dollars over the next couple of years! Worth it!

Even I have my standards

So I went shopping at Ross last night to look for new leather pumps for work. Man, that place is chaotic! I did find a cute skirt for work and a great t-shirt for the baby (it reads "Daddy's Girl" over and over) at good prices, but when I got to the shoe section, holy moly. There was no way in hell I was about to spend a shitload of my precious time going through that mess. See, places like Ross and Marshalls are frequented by people looking for a deal, like poor people and frugal penny-pinchers like myself. In order to find these deals they dig and dig and mess the whole system up. Keeping clothes and shoes in size order or even correct section is a joke and losing battle there. So I took one glance at the FUBAR shoe section and said, "I'm outta here" and went to JC Penney, where I found my shoes in a peaceful and non-chaotic setting.

Then I went next door to Target to get necessary household items with my $25 gift card. I spent $24.92. This is the 2nd time this has happened to me with a Target gift card, where I am left with literally cents left on it! You better believe I'm gonna use that 8 cents next time, too!

The magazine buyer guy got me down to $30 for both magazines. He says he'll meet me tonight to make the buy. It's still a good deal for both me and him.

Finally, I have decided to go sell plasma. I found a place not too terribly far from the house and they're open on Saturday. I'll make $30 which is good money, in my book! I hope to go a couple of times a month, but we'll see.

$1 off? You bet!

After an hour debating with myself whether or not to take the car out to lunch today b/c it's good for my mental health although bad for the pocketbook, I finally decided to do the responsible thing and just walk across the street to the hospital for lunch, even though I'm getting tired of the food over there. I was rewarded by being asked to do a cafeteria survey and get $1 off my lunch! Good decision on my part!

I'm only gonna make an extra $500 this summer with the skin care classes I teach at the public library. I guess that's ok even though one summer I made over $700. It will ALL go into the savings, or EF, account. None of it will go towards paying extra on the CC's b/c I've got those at a low interest rate for now and with S being so iffy about his next job these days, I surely don't want to starve.

Money strategizing

There's going to be a lot of it going on in the next few weeks due to S starting a new job this Thursday--and he says he still hasn't decided if he's going into new car sales or used car sales. He says he may not get his first paycheck for a month. The good news is I've done a few things to give us a cushion so we don't starve to death or have to touch the EF, which I do NOT want to do, especially after having to cut into it a little for S's dental work last week.

• One of our friends gave me a $20 bill for the baby at her b-day party on Sunday. You think she's getting it? Ha! She already got $10 from my mom and aunt/cousin and that's plenty for her. Especially when you consider all the $ we're already spending on her in terms of the court case. Sorry to be so blunt but I need that $20 more than she does right now. It'll go to buy groceries for the household, which includes her.
• I got a guy interested in buying those 2 gun magazines for $40. That'll be more $ for household expenses. I managed to get the posting re-posted on craigslist by being a little more vague on the title.
• I got a $25 Target card from one of my rewards credit cards. Will come in very handy right now for household items.

The bad news is I do have to go buy a new pair of shoes which I'll do tomorrow while S is at the Weird Al Yankovic concert (free ticket from his friend, who's also going). Ross, here I come! I hope they have good quality leather shoes there. Plus S has to get some pants altered for starting his new job. No more jeans for him, it'll be slacks and ties now.

I actually am starting to consider selling plasma. I did it once in college. I don't mind the experience at all, I just don't want to be around a bunch of seedy types.

Damn, I need new shoes AND tires

I have broken 2 pairs of shoes in one week. 1 pair was just an inexpensive pair of sandals that I'm sure I got from Payless years ago since that is where I buy all my sandals. The other pair was a pair of black, velvet flats that I've had for YEARS. I will wait to replace the sandals--after all, I've got plenty of other Payless sandals to wear--but I do need to buy another pair of leather black pumps for work. I gotta do it soon b/c I want to wear them to court next week, too.

Today S is supposed to be buying me 2 new tires. NTB wanted to sell me some for $125 and S says he got Discount Tires to beat their price, at $100 and change. This is a bad time for us to be buying tires, but I suppose I do need them.

I can't believe that S and I spend all of our FSA funds already and it's only mid-year. S just had more maladies that needed to be treated than I thought! Next year I will definitely max out that FSA account so we can get even more of a tax break.

I'm just glad gas prices are down a tiny bit. As much as I'm getting tired of walking to the hospital to get lunch these days, I'd rather do that than fire up the car and waste gas driving somewhere nearby. It would be better if I could brown-bag it more often but since I'm so exhausted these days and am having such a hard time waking up in the a.m. I just can't deal with making lunch. I always eat dinner home if I have lunch out anyway so it evens out for me.

Craigslist is getting on my nerves

They keep pulling off my gun stuff I'm trying to sell. I'm trying to sell 2 magazines for $40 and that's not even on their list of prohibited items and they still pulled it! Jerks. I'm going to repost it on Monday.

I did, however, make $30 selling my old Cingular cell phone last night. Thank goodness, b/c we need all kinds of extra $ right now so that $30 came just in the nick of time. It will pay for the baby's b-day cake for her party tomorrow at least with change left over.

In other news, I'm a little excited to see that I started a good thread on the msn.money message board. I wanted to know where other people in their 30's are when it comes to retirement. I just bluntly asked, how old are you, how much you got saved so far, and how much do you put towards retirement per year? Most of the responses depressed me in the sense that I'm much further behind than other 30-ish yo's. (Of course, I doubt any of them are librarians making librarian salaries.) I was way ahead of a couple of folks though. We all agreed we are all probably in the minority as far as saving. I know several of my friends have almost no retirement and no savings, and seem to only be concerned with buying clothes, cars, toys, etc. Looks like I'm definitely going to have to up my retirement contribution again here in Sept. for sure! I'm at 7% now, and I'm going to bite the bullet and stick it up to 10%. Although it sounds scary, it's for my own good! And it's less for the taxman to take, too!