Done spamming/catching up posts

Ok, I think I have successfully put all the cards out there.

When I left home this weekend, I grabbed 2 trashbags' worth of paperwork and misc. unopened bills. My mother is a pack rat and doesn't dispose of things, not even bills/empty envelopes that have been dealt with. Another bad habit of my mother is to write "important" stuff all over the place. Including on empty envelopes, post it notes, napkins, or bills. Then she will freak out, and I mean, severely freak out if you toss or misplace any of them. So yes, I am expecting a huge fight once she returns (she's on a 2-6 week trip back home doing I dont know what). If the darn stuff she writes is important, get a freaking notebook! But I digress.

I managed to sort the trash-bag of bills into 4 rather huge piles:
-Trash (dumped this morning)
-Trash that needs to be shredded due to personal/sensitive info (bagged, not sure what to do with it. I want to light it on fire, but unsure if that'd be considered arson)
-Bills (debts and bills alike)
-Misc stuff I am not sure what they are, or they have stuff written

I also found out some good news and some very bad news.

Good news: There were only 8 creditors, with super high interest (22.15-26.99%), but with a total balance of only $6,800. I calculated I can ditch that amount in about 18 months. Not bad. Not bad at all. Those are the ones that I know of, by the way. Or the ones I found through the trashbag of papers. If that's good, I'm sure you're wondering what's bad. Total in minimum payments is $390 a month, which is a heck of a lot less than I expected. So it should be easy to make snowball payments on this, right? Wrong.

Bad news: As I have always known... the actual bill budget (includes only utilities/rent/credit cards) is about $800 higher than the household income. So I am $800 short per month. Or they are.

Why? Because they live in a house too big for one income to support. My mother doesn't work, and my dad receives a moderate pay which he has to work crazy overtime hours to make ends sort of meet. He's the only income in that house (besides me, but I am not counting my contribution or the bills I take care of as part of the equation, and consider them my bills vs household's). And when he gets a check, he hands it over to my mother, who I've discovered over the years, has a horrible, painfully horrible sense of financial management.

There are 5 family members living in that house. Nobody under 18. Am I the only one seeing something wrong with this picture?
Dad- Main provider, doesnt have any savings, doesn't want to touch finances. Hands checks to mother to mismanage
Mother- Main waste/r destroys budget does nothing
BrotherR- Has/had a full time job, didn't pay car insurance, bought a new car and wasn't paying for anything else. Uses most of the household resources without putting anything in a penny. Is rude, obnoxious and constantly yells at my parents. Can we say, abusive?
BrotherG- Goes to school (pretty bad grades) and works semi part time, buys expensive snacks, doesnt pay for phone as agreed, which was only $50
SisterP- Goes to school full time. Only decent one. Doesnt work, but keeps grades high up.

Too many internal problems in all of this... And this isnt the first time I've tried to fix it. But before, I never had a goal to achieve. Now I do, and I wont let them ruin it. It will be a live-or-die situation. We'll see how this whole thing goes. Tomorrow I will post Oct's goals/update bars/plan to fix spreadsheet with an as-planned plan and as-happened plan.

Building a new budget

Not for me, of course. But it makes my blood boil just to think about some things concerning that house. I thought I'd enjoy some degree of financial freedom after I moved out (freedom not in the sense of being able to spend how I wanted when I wanted or doing what I wanted, but of being able to SAVE and NOT have to throw all of my money into a dark abyss). But I was wrong. It has been 10 months since I left, and looking back... EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH! I have had to pay something EXTRA to that house.

And that is extra on top of the extra $100 I pay to cover for my phone and car insurance portion, and on top of the $400 I pay/paid for car insurance/car loan payments. And the random $25-50 extra on food I spend down there. I don't mean food for myself; when I go down there, I have to buy food for the household, and that isnt cheap... This 'extra extra' is not small by any means. I didnt track it from day one, because I thought I could get away with NOT tracking it as it would be small disturbances here and there. But they werent. We're talking of:

Nov: Left (initial moving expenses for food and extra stuff, but I consider that on me)
Jan: Didn't start recording expenses until Jan, $100 for electric bill
Feb: Can't remember/not recorded, so $0
Mar: $300 'loan' that was never paid back. Not sure what it was used for.
Apr: $120 cable/internet
May: $200 for electric bill
Jun: $80 dad's cell
Jul: $160 extra for late fees, reinstatement of car insurance due to brother not paying for it
Aug: $195 dad's cellphone, $70 tires for another car
Sept: $225 house phone, $416 collection amount for cancelled insurance, $25 to complete tow fee
Coming in Oct: $300-$400 in catch up work.

Wow. I really have NO idea where I come up with all this money to pay all these extra things... Actually, I sort of do. If I didnt have to pay all of these extra charges, I'd have pretty darn close to $1900 that could've been half of my CC1 bill... wow. This is serious. The more I look into it, the worst it looks.

Hope for A...

Cure. Well, that's the motto for the Breast Cancer Awareness Month here at work. But I hope for a lot of things...

I hope...
- that I can get sufficient funds to move
- that my friends' life becomes easier, hence making mine easier
- that I can find... actually, I dont know.

But yeah. Bought about $12 yesterday, in TP and hot pink cardboard. Gotta love the face of the cashiers. What, can't a guy buy hot pink cardboard around here? Didnt help I was wearing a pink shirt.

I bought some pink and white cardboard, but I may have to exchange the white for pink if I'm allowed to, otherwise, I'll just buy more pink. It was only like $.89 to $.99 ea. Did nothing with the bills, surprise surprise. Unless I can finish cutting up all the letters tonight, I might not get to the bills tonight either.

Ideally, I need to figure out specifically how many debtors there are for the household budget. In case I failed to explain this, during the weekend, I picked up a black trashbag and filled it up with all the bill/bill look-like paperwork. It filled up a big black trash bag. Yes. My mother is a packrat. But I set on a mission not only to sort these things out, but to get rid of this mess.

My best guess is that there’s about 5~7 utilities, and over 10 consumer debt. I had a notebook with all that written down… somewhere. I don’t think I have said notebook anymore. However, I should develop a rather generic budget schedule. With goals. Saving goals. Not just pay pay pay… because that becomes mighty boring. Though I guess, the first order of business is to create an EF of $1,000… ha! I cannot see that as being anywhere near possible. I’ll definitely have to get a savings account for my dad or something. Which is impossible to keep hidden OR to keep him from using it for less than emergency-level situations, unless I get one and link it to him… somehow. Like Paypal, maybe? My problem with keeping money in Paypal is that… well, there’s no benefits. Not that my interest is a lot of benefit, but I have fast access to the money from my bank account vs waiting a few days for Paypal to release/move funds. I really don’t want to be responsible for another EF. Heck, I can barely take care of mine. But we’ll see. I don’t want to talk about that right now.

I am also looking at reducing one of our bills, namely, my father’s cell phone bill (in MY name!!). Meh, I say. Meh it all.

You can stop now, world!

Oh wow.

Ok, so I decide to get home. My car stops in the middle of a very busy interception and I have to come to a complete stop, turn it off and turn it back on. I am sure I gave the lady behind me the scare of her life, but she didnt bump into me. Good thing, eh? Just keep reading.

So, I am driving along, and end up at the grocery store midway between house-work and parent's house, because little goody ol' me wants to buy dad some bread and maybe some chicken to cook tonight. I mean, I hadn't spent anything on me besides the grocery money, and I bought no junk. So I am there, and I call my dad and ask him some question. I forget what it was, something about what else to buy, but I honestly forgot, mainly because he told me that he got pulled over (the car was unregistered, untagged) and he got a ticket for it. Oh. And the car was getting towed. Good grief! So I am in town and go pick him up. We pay the $225 tow, look at the $70 ticket, and head on down. With my extremely loud muffler problem. So we get home, pay the tow, sit down and try to cook. It's rainy and rather crummy, my brother picks up his baby and leaves us with his super hyper dog. Lovely.

To finish off this little car towing ordeal... it's not just the $225 tow + $70 ticket, but $85 inspection that should've happened a while ago, plus $100-150 tag. Either the tag, or a provisional tag, which is looking like the better option. So all in all, Friday's count is up by $500.

Another note on that car that got towed is that it didnt have insurance... so my dad asks me to add it to the insurance. Lo and behold... we dont have coverage! Why not? Because that $%!@#^$!@+ younger brother of mine didnt pay it. I leave him to pay for it for two months, and he not only doesn't pay it, but leaves it to cancel out. Oh yes. I am ticked. He shows no remorse WHATSOEVER. It barely bothers him that all other 5 of us had been driving different distances, for a full month, without insurance. That piece of $@!#$^. So the tow, the ticket, and the future court case for that ticket all are his fault, partially.

But ok. I actually snapped at my dad and called it a night... at 8pm. Without dinner we had tried to cook up. Then I woke up several times during the night for falling asleep too early, but that was ok too.

Saturday, I had to work at 3. I was mentally drained and so very tired. I confirmed what I already knew; we had no car insurance. And I had to pay $416 on collection on charges from the other insurance on Friday, so... bye bye savings! I did the payment before I did the transfer, and was almost charged overdraft fees. Luckily, I called and got a very nice girl, and she fixed it up for me. Savings account: $0. Checking: $80 left. I still had to put gas in.

But you know, I woke up at about 5am. Threw an internal fit, cleaned up a counter with a bit of rage, then set up on a journey to do... nothing but whine to my half brother. To clear the record, we're not related. He's my brother from another mother, and thankfully so. So he helped me really cooldown and we ended up just talking about nothing important. He made me laugh. It was nice. By that time, it was already noon. I don't think I did anything important, or anything I remember, anyway. I did look at different car insurance quotes, of course.

Then came work. And work is timeless bliss. I even caught myself at some point thinking about how there was no time. I wasnt sure if this was after or even before this whole ordeal with the car. I was in a separate place in time where quite honestly, it didnt matter. I was working (and getting quite a beating out of it), but it had nothing to do with any of my problems.

Anyway, work came to pass, and I headed home a bit after midnight. Soberingly tired. Went to sleep not much after. Then woke up Sunday closer to noon. What? I told you I was tired. I don't think we did anything significant on Sunday. I looked at more insurance quotes, then... I can't remember. We did nothing. Nothing worthwhile. Not even food. Oh wait, we did make food. Some fried rice with spam. It was ok.

Then at about 10pm at night, I decide I really dont want to be going up and down with no insurance, so I bit the bullet and signed us up for some. They allowed us to complete the quote online, I called (or had them call me) and within seconds, my questions were answered. In three different occasions. Besides, it is a 6 month commitment, and the price is right, so I don't care. Especially since we'll have to be paying it by ourselves, but worry not. That $!%@^# will be paying heck or getting the heck out.

But yes, that was my weekend. Um, happy Monday?

Week thus far

Add some funds... $32 in gas for dad because he lost his wallet (it was in his other car), $25 in groceries yesterday. Got free lunch today (which could've been $8), so that was awesome. Future expenses...

Well, $20 or so for car stuff, and not sure what else I'd be missing. $25 I gave for some fundraising stuff at work for one of the coworker's kid's sports team. So out of my $150 budget, I've used roughly $100, I think. The rest will go to gas... Ugh. Oh, and about $26 in gifts for a friend (well, 'gifts' were stuff he needed and allowed me to buy. And I was more than happy to oblige). So I'm about $25 left for gas? What the heck. Heh. Yeah right. I need to put gas either today or on my way in on Sunday, and that will be $50.

*facepalm*!

Ouch. Well, Murphy stroke again. Or I left him the door unlocked, one of the two. However, I did manage to say 'no' to a few things... like filling up my dad's gas tank (add in $80) or 'loan' money to my mother ($100-300?). However, I did pay the phone bill, or at least the past due amount of $225. That came right out of my would-be EF fund, so meh. I have intentions of moving next check's SH amount over to EF to compensate... oh, and I'm not getting the $200 back. Surprise?

More chatter about the future

Ok, so what else was I going to say... oh yes. Extracted from yesterday's post, the whole 'L2only' time.

See, L2 is... a bit large. Standing tall at about $9,000, it'd take me over 70 payments to complete at minimum-payment-only rates. My original plan is to not include it in the snowball when its time come. Why? Because I want to build up savings, and time isn't on my side against this big boy.

Here are some scenarios for it: (All other debt will be paid by month 24)
1) Pay it at min payment rates, save all that money, takes 71 months from now (note: Once I'm moved in and established and get a new job, I will start to snowball it like crazy--but I don't know when that would be, so I can plan it correctly)
2) Pay it in snowball fashion, takes 34mo, no savings
3) Pay it half and half savings to snowball, takes 40mo

I know you're scratching your head wondering why wouldnt I just go with snowball or half a snowball. But here's the thing. There are 2 things that NEED to happen:

1) I need to build up enough savings to move mid 2015. That's non negotiable. I want to have at least 6 months worth of expenses ready.
2) I need a new car (new to me), and plan on making a good/decent down payment + pay it off early.

I might need a car a heck of a lot sooner, which would wreak havoc to my plans. But it is a plan. And if all works as planned, I want to have enough money to put a down payment in a car by mid 2014, all the while saving for my move.

A bit... between a rock and a hard place on this issue, so I am sure I will revisit it again later. But, that's my prize. And that's what I need to keep my eyes on.

Another concept I wanted to introduce was to put my spreadsheets online. At least one of them with the payoffs, so you can better understand (if you care to do so) what I mean with the months and what not.

"Extra money"

Saw this in another blog:

"What to do with extra money?" As in, what if you received X amount of money TODAY? It's good to make a list, or just think about it, right? Let's find out.

What if I had an extra $500?
-Refill EF, then rest to Murphy fund (goal for Murphy: $500)

What if I had an extra $1,000?
-Safe EF, full Murphy, rest to CC1. Draws "Loan2 only" time (time when I will only make min payments to Loan2 so I can start saving for my big move) to -2 months.

What if I had an extra $2,500?
-EF/Murphy taken care of, halved CC1! "L2only" -6 months

What if I had an extra $5,000?
-EF/Murphy/CC1 done! Hell-o double/extra Car Loan payments. This draws L2only 9 months closer. Wow!

What if I had an extra $7,500?
-EF/Murphy/CC1, out of my way! Car Loan, say your prayers with your 5 months left to live! I'm looking at you, CC2 and Student Loan 1! Better start hiding! This puts us at... wait for it... wait for it... L2only -12 months. That's right. That cuts down a whole year.

What if I had an extra $10,000 or more?
Just for the kicks... $10k means... CC1? Oh, so gone. Car loan? A month left to live. L2only -15 months. That means I could be debt free in 9 months vs. 24. Holy flipping wow. Heh.

But this is beyond "Loan2 only" dates. I would half all of the upcoming money towards saving and Loan2. Which would make Loan2 fully payable in... 3.1 years/34mo vs 6.25 years/75mo (if I only did min payments, not that I will or would!) So it essentially cuts it in half, and I'd be debt free well before move in date. Furthermore, if I DO half the savings into this L2, I'd still come $7,500 ahead, when move in date comes... but check this out. If I make the min payments on L2 and save save save... well, I am $14,750 ahead! Math's a bit off, but pretty close to that.

Ah, phew. How nice would that be? Well, that was a very fun exercise, wasnt it!

And another few visits

Got some more visits from our old friend Murphy. How quickly did we become acquaintances! The first visit was a $200 payment for father's telephone which had been cut off. He gave me $100, so the other $100 will be drawn from next week's send-home fund... or is it the two weeks from next one?

Second was $200 to help with rent. Very last minute, and it is playing within $7 of over-drafting my account. Wonderful, eh? Luckily (luckily?!) I paid for the phone from my credit card and made a check from my checking account for the rent. I SHOULD get the $200 back, but trust me, I wouldn't hold my breath to it. I am yet to get money back from my parents.

Oh, yeah. And this morning while driving my car, new problems surfaced. It wasnt quite enough that Saturday night it stalled itself to stopping after I got out of work (luckily, it was after work so it was about 2am and there was nobody around), but it didnt accelerate this morning, and now it's making heck of a lot of noise every time I try to accelerate it. Which in short means... I'll probably have to replace it. ASAP. Replace the car, that is, and I totally do not want to do that. I can't afford to. But I might have to.

The only good thing about this weekend was that I worked 10.75 hours. Woot! So that's about $100 back. I am also working next week, albeit less hours (like 6) because I have a birthday party to attend to. Bleh, I swear... don't want to go to it, but sort of have to. Not by choice, trust me. A first nephew's first birthday is not something you can miss without serious repercussions.

All in all!
- $196 Murphy charge to phone
- $200 Murphy charge to parent's rent
- $20 (anticipated... I need to go grocery shopping)

I think I need to start saving for a new car...

Post-weekend counts and Murphy

Well, the weekend actually did not go as poorly as I expected. I went into downtown DC to help my half brother move his stuff to an apartment, and of course, had to take him out for a meal and what not. He's not a blood sibling, but a brother from another mother, thankfully so. Charges for this past week were:

- $25 in snacks I didn't need/use for the trip
- $3 ice cream at the zoo
- $30 gas for car after trip
- $2.50 toll
- $3 for misc. food purchase for home
- $30 lunch before the zoo (I paid for lunch, he paid for dinner)
- $5 for metro tickets

So that's $90.50 out of my $150 budget, meaning I have $60 left... that's not bad at all. Except that I should go grocery shopping next week.

EF remains at $60 (have to move $25+ leftovers at the end of next week), and then I will do my best to properly allocate the extra paycheck into EF...

Anyway, I wanted to talk about something. Or someone, depending how you want to put it. His name is Murphy. I've seen him a lot in the blogosphere, and I keep wondering, who the heck is Murphy? I thought/knew it had something to do with the whole Murphy's law, but I needed someone to explain it. So I researched it, and that's exactly what it is. "Anything that can go wrong WILL go wrong." So Murphy usually comes in, chats and sits with you for some time. Aaaand he messes stuff up.

You know, it's nice to put a face on misery. And a name. A name totally helps. So now I know that the car breaking down before the vacation (AND not being able to fix it before the vacation) was all Murphy's work. And the time I had to pay for the insurance twice because my brother didn't pay it. And the time I had to pay the car twice because it wasn't getting paid. These events also happened just around my vacation time, but thankfully, I had some leeway and pulled through, even if it meant my EF went to $20 from $1200. And the trip wasn't even to blame. Peachy, eh?

So yeah. Murphy comes too often. He likes to wreak havoc. The reason I wanted my EF to be 1.5k vs 1k is for the Murphy fund, because I just can't get rid of Murphy, and Murphy isn't always bad... sometimes he's just bringing bread or food to my parent's house. Or buying me ice cream. Things I shouldn't do, but aren't bad. Then again, they can be like, $500 worth in car repairs. Or an extra $500-600 I am paying because someone else didn't...

So here's to another gorgeous week! I haven't spent anything yet, but you can count on me buying food next week, mainly because I'll be out of food. And cheese. I'm starting to stabilize a bit more, which is good. Murphy, go play in traffic!

Welcome to September!

I wanted to point out something that I thought would be a good idea... paying into the CC1 what I was going to be using from Debit. That would've, in theory, made it a lot easier to put in snowflakes, right? I mean, if I was putting at least $150 (budget) in the card, and only using $120, the snowflakes would've automatically gone to the card ($30). For some reason, I didn't quite see that working. I will continue to try it, mainly because I have a goal... I am at 18k stupid points (about $1 for 1pt) from my card. If I get to 25k, I can get $250, which is a 1k to $1. If I were to trade it at 18k, it would be more like 1k to $.60. And I really don't want to do that... it's a loss of 40%! I know that spending $25,000 on a card for $250 back makes much less than sense, but spending $15,000 to get $90 sounds even worse. Worry not, I will probably close the card when the time comes, or keep it for credit scores, never carrying a balance ever again.

I think I must feel somewhat lucky of the debt that I have. Not because I have it, but because it is relatively low compared to other people's I've seen... I can do this! I just need to control things that are outside of my control. Easy, no?