Happy May Day. It is the first day of the rest of my life...

The first day of the rest of my life. Funny. Isn't every day the first day of the rest of our lives?

Rent is paid. That feels good. Next week I will put money in my savings and pay on the cell phone bill and budget the following weeks check. My checks are typically around the same amount every week. I need to get my envelopes set up this weekend so I can cash the check and put the required amount into each envelope so I can deposit it into the bank when the bill is due.

I must admit I am not so sure this envelope system will work for me. I am leary about having money just hanging around the house instead of in the bank. Not to mention I will know the cash is there and that it would be so easy to just grab a 10.00 to go do this or that or get this or that. Granted I have my debit card which can be used just as easily but I prefer to spend cash. I hate using credit cards. I have 2 small ones (about 300.00 each for the limit) that I am trying to pay off as quickly as I possibly can.

I had gone credit card free for over a year. If I didn't have the cash - I didn't buy whatever it was I wanted. Unless I was able to get it at work. Buying things through work is a big bad habit for me. I work for a consumer electronics store. I can get all my TV's, Blu-ray's, etc at COST. Needless to say - my house is pretty well decked out with the newest and greatest. I like to get new items so I can take them home and test drive them if you will. Hard to sell these things if you don't have one. Having these things has allowed me to know the features inside and out and be able to tell customers how to access them and utilize them to their advantage. Playing with them in the store is not the same as having them in your house.

Pretty piss poor excuses I know. I admit I like to shop. I am a bit of a compulsive shopper. I will be the first to tell anyone that. It does help me to sell the products better and provide after the sale service help though.

I have 2 last things that I want to buy for my apt. 2 small 5000 btu air conditioners. We live on the third floor of a 6 unit apartment building. It gets HOT in there. Stifling hot. So I see those as a necessity. I tried fans during a rare hot weather spell in early April. Yeah - didn't work so well.

Once those 2 things are bought (one for each bedroom - I already have a 8000btu for the kitchen and livingroom areas) I will need nothing for my apartment. NOTHING. We have a TV in the livingroom, my bedroom, and a nice small one in my daughters bedroom. I have the Blu-ray players in the livingroom and my bedroom and a basic older dvd/vcr in my daughters room. We have the desktop and laptop computers, the WII video game etc. We do not need anything else. And once the Air Conditioners are purchased there won't be any "home" purchases needed or bought. I don't have any room for anything else.

The a/c's I am getting are on clearance through our distributor for around 67.00 each. I don't have to pay for them all upfront. I get to do payroll deductions (not the best thing probably as I know I wouldn't have 75% of the stuff I have if I wasn't able to do this) for the payment of the products. That helps but kind of reminds me of the rent to own scams. ONLY so many payments of this amount every week (for 54 weeks of course!). I try to do minimum payments of 50.00 per week out of my check so I don't have payment terms like the RTO scams but there are weeks when I have to lower the payment. And there are weeks when I increase.

I will be glad when everything is paid off and I have that extra money in MY hand instead of the companies. I love the place I work at but I deserve that money more right now. I need it I should say.

I am going today to find out the value of the rings I brought to the consignment store. If they can offer me enough for them I will sell them to them outright so I can put the money into my ING savings account. I have just over 100.00 in there now and need 900.00 more to completely fund my emergency savings fund. Then the debt snowball starts. I am very excited for that baby step to happen. I can not wait to say I am DEBT FREE. It will feel so good to know I don't owe anyone any money anymore. There will be the normal monthly expenses (rent, utilities etc) but no more student loan, no more payments for stuff at work, no more medical bills past due, etc.

I live for that day. My goal is to have that done in a year and a half. Sooner if I can swing it. Then when that is done, the savings get kicked into over drive (6 months worth of monthly living expenses if not more) then I can save for a newer car and eventually - another house. I wouldn't mind have a double wide trailer again. I loved the one I had. Never should have sold it but life happens.

This time - I will be prepared for life.

ok - a basic breakdown

This first part is all monthly items. The last section will be debt which will be a total sum, not the monthly amount paid

Income (including child support - which so far has been consistent but that could change any day)
$3521.00
Payroll taxes
$394.68
Health insurance/disability insurance, etc
$441.26
Rent
$825.00
Renters Insurance
$12.33
Utilities (phone, internet, cable etc)
$400.00
Food (does not include eating out)
$200.00
Eating out (we typically go to Price Chopper for their 10.00 meal deals on Wednesdays)
$40.00
Transportation (gas, registration, etc)
$271.00
Personal (school lunches, gifts, hair care, blow money, etc)
$226.00
Recreation (for fun stuff and saving for vacation)
$80.00
Clothing (I usually just buy as needed - now we are budgeting for it)
$50.00 (for my daughter and I - doesn't mean we will spend that much each month if any at all. Just planning ahead for when the need arises
Savings
$200.00
Charity (here I am breaking Dave's rule of giving 10% of your total gross income. I feel that if I have to do this program to survive that I shouldn't give so much to start with. I should use it to pay down the debt I have then when the debt is gone I can and will increase the amount I donate. Call me cheap if you want but I want these bills gone.)
$20.00

Debt owed (here is my student loan, credit cards, medical, and other misc past due bills I need to get rid of)
$12000.00 (rounded up)

So there it is. That is what I make and what I owe. I am sure that I have missed some bills that belong in the debt category (past due bills etc) so that figure may change a bit as I get more mail in and clean the bookcases out.

I have gotten so much accomplished today

I have all my bills separated and categorized. I have medical bills separated to ones that are in my name and in my ex husbands name. While I listed his on my budget breakdown I do not plan on paying them.

I created a sheet for each bill - even my monthly bills except for rent.
At the top I listed the company I owe the money to along with the address and whether I pay them online or by check. I then added the total balance due (including any past due amounts). If I have made any payments since the beginning of April I took that into account and added that to the paper also.

I managed to toss another couple handfuls of duplicate bills also. I now have a pile about 3" thick if that.

I also filed the bills into an accordian file holder with the debtor account sheet in front of the bills I have for that debtor.

My rent is due this week as is the kids insurance payment. Once I get those covered and paid I can start the envelope system. I have heard it works and Dave Ramsay uses it. It sounds like a good idea to me so I will try it out. I think if I have separate envelopes with the money needed for it for that particular bill in there it will be harder to spend as I know I will have to just put it back in there later and cut myself short on a different bill. Something I want to avoid.

I will be very glad when I am caught up and current with my regular monthly bills. That will make the debt snowball go that much quicker as I won't have to play catch up. I am behind on 3 bills: Cable, Phone/Internet, and Electric. Cable will be caught up in the next 2 weeks as will the phone bill. The electric bill will take a bit longer but will be done by mid-may. YAY

I also need to pay the cellphone bill next week. I hate this playing catchup crap. I really do. I hate knowing I have to pay this RIGHT NOW because I couldn't/didn't pay it when I should have.

I also took the engagement ring from my ex and brought it along with the wedding band and a couple other rings I inherited down to a local consigment shop to have them appraised for what they think I could get for them. If it is reasonable I will consign them with the shop and put whatever money I get towards my emergency fund. That way I won't have to take my regular paycheck money to add to that and I can just focus on the debt snowball. Keeping my fingers crossed it will be a reasonable and fair amount.

I also had some great news today. I had a set of rings stolen by my neighbor about 8 yrs ago. He pawned them and the pawn shop lost the rings!! For 8 YEARS! So the pawn shop called the police today to see about filing charges. I figured the statute of limitations had run out (I was correct) by now. The police office that showed up is a good family friend and when he saw that the pawn shop had had them for 8 YEARS and that they had lost them and dropped the ball he told the owner - just give her her rings back and write it off since you were the reason it has taken so long to get this settled.

SO I GOT MY RINGS BACK!! I wanted to save them for my daughter but I am now thinking it may be a good idea to sell these as well so I can get out of debt. I am not sure yet. I haven't made up my mind on this one. Hard decision.

For the next two weeks I do not plan on doing any major grocery shopping. My daughter and I are going to use up as much as we can from what we have on hand. There will be trips for milk and fresh veggies and the like but no meat buying etc as I have a freezer full of food. That will help with the cost of groceries.

I need to take an inventory of what we have and plan some meals around that so I am not tempted to go out and just buy dinner for lack of planning.

I am hoping that by next Tuesday I will have all bills and income into understandable excel spreadsheets that I can post here.

Almost there!

I have sorted through a boat load of bills, tossed the ones for the ex husband that are his bills, tossed duplicates, and am very pleased with myself.

Tomorrow I will be categorizing them and entering them into the budget.

I had a pile about 12" thick that I sorted through and have gotten it down to about 4" thick. Some of that is insurance paperwork (health insurance and the new car/renters insurance policies). 

I feel very good about what I have accomplished tonight. I feel that being organized is key to being ready to be debt free. If you know what you have and what you owe, when certain bills are due, what is being paid through EFT, what you pay via check, money order etc it is much easier to keep track of exactly how much you need to pay off to become debt free.

I am seriously considering selling the diamond ring my ex gave me to start my emergency fund. It is a very nice ring and I am torn about selling it, saving it for one of my girls *not his*, or taking the diamond and having it made into a new piece of jewelry for me.

I am leaning towards selling it just because I want to get my baby emergency fund going. The ring doesn't really hold any special memories for me or sentimental value so I think selling it would be the best bet.  Yes, I think so. The wedding band will also be sold with the diamond. No sense in keeping one but not the other.

This will be a big boost to the emergency fund without having to touch my regular monthly income. Not a bad deal really.

I also have a sapphire/diamond ring that he bought me that I will not be selling. That ring I love. Funny how that ring means more to me than the diamond engagement ring. I often thought that the sapphire/diamond ring should have been my engagement ring instead of the diamond.

I also have some small appliances I have that I have never used or only used once or twice that I know I won't ever use again that I could list on Craigslist or our local buy/sell group online to help get the baby emergency fund started. I have a ton of books also but I know I won't get much for them and I would really like to keep somethings I enjoy. I do plan on trading the books in at the local used book store when I am done reading them. You get so much in store credit for each good used book that you trade in. Then you can turn around and buy other books with that store credit. A good way to "recycle" my old books when I am done reading them and either my daughter or I can get "new" books to read. It could be a never ending cycle.

We do spend a lot of time at the library too but I prefer to know I don't have to return the book in so many days. If I get busy or change my mind about reading it right away I won't get penalized for not returning it when I should etc.

Once that is at the $1000.00 level I can then start the debt snowball. I have 2 credit cards that are still being paid on that I hope to keep until they are paid off then I will cancel them. I know it will hurt my credit to close them but I do that I won't have the temptation to use them, even though I only have a $300.00 limit on both of them.

I also went to http://www.annualfreecreditreport.com/ and printed out a copy of my credit report from all three credit reporting agencies.

Tomorrow I will be going through them with a fine tooth comb and seeing what I can dispute if anything and what I need to take care of right away and what can wait for awhile. I do know that I have a few things that will be removed from my reports this year starting in June (they have hit the 7 yr mark and will be removed even though I never paid them). Having those off the credit report should help to raise my score but I don't know by how much and I would like to pay them off but I don't know if that means that they stay on the credit report for another 7 yrs or if they still disappear. I also don't know if I wait till they disappear if they can show up again on it suddenly and if they do will they still show as negative?

These are all things I want to find answers on and have to do some research to find out the answers. I am not saying to not ever pay your bills (even though I am guilty for doing just this right now) and I want to pay these bills I just don't want to end up screwing myself again in the long run.

I will see what answers I can find tomorrow. Right now it is almost 11:30pm and I know if I don't get to bed and sleep soon I won't be any good to anyone tomorrow.

I got it started

I finally woke up enough to get the bills together. I still have some work to do regarding sorting them and coming with a total figure.

Past due bills will be around 8,000.00 I think. Then my student loan of just over $8,000.00. Medical bills total around 1000.00.

I feel sick. Literally feel sick to my stomach over this. I feel so overwhelmed right now. I am beginning to doubt myself and doubt that I can accomplish this.

But I also know that I can. It will take some major changes in my lifestyle and a lot of determination (and anger) to get it done but I can and will get it done.

Once I finish the final total of the bills I can then sit down and figure out what bills are priorities (Current monthly bills and the like), get my baby emergency fund started (1000.00), and then start snowballing my debt. I am hoping that within a year and a half to two years I will be completely debt free.

I own my car outright so there are no car payments to worry about, car insurance is relatively inexpensive but I am going to ask about raising my deductible to see if that will lower the cost even more, renters insurance is almost laughably cheap (12.50 a month) but a necessity as one never knows what will happen right?

My 12 yr old is going to scream like a banshee when she finds out I am cutting cable to the bare basics (thank God for Netflix!). I figure with summer coming and her going to camp for 1 week and hopefully spending a lot of time outdoors she won't miss the TV all that much. If that is the case when it turns cold again I won't need to up the package at all.

Food isn't much of a problem now that I am divorced. When I was married I was spending over $200.00 a WEEK on food. My ex ate. A lot. Way too much. But that is then and this is now. We spend maybe $150.00 - $200.00 per month if that. I buy in bulk as much as I can and then don't need to shop for that item for at least 2-3 weeks. The only thing that is really expensive for us is milk. We are both lactose intolerant on different levels. I can only handle soy milk (at almost 3.00 per HALF gallon) while she can tolerate lactose free regular milk (At almost 6.00 per GALLON). We have to buy the lactose free ice cream. coconut milk ice cream for me on the rare occasion I can justify spending over 4.00 for a small pint of it. So that is our biggest expenditure.

We were going to the laundromat to do our laundry since our apt doesn't have room for a regular sized washer. I was spending upwards of $25.00 per WEEK to do laundry. I bought a small portable washer for $240.00 (my cost at work - I am lucky that way there) and pay $25.00 more per month for rent instead. We do still wash blankets/comforters at the laundromat as the 10lb portable will not fit king sized blankets in it. We try to do this every other week instead of every week now. So we are finding big savings there also. We hang the laundry on racks around the apt to dry them. Saves on money for drying clothes and gets much needed moisture in the apt too.

I also think that when my 1 yr contract is up with Fairpoint I will discontinue my landline and just keep the internet. That will save about 30.00 per month there as well. We have cell phones (if my kid could find hers sigh) so that should be sufficient I think. Not sure though. I am kind of torn on that one.

And Panera Bread. I am going to have to say goodbye to them or at the very least cut back on going there 5-6 days a week. That will save almost 10.00 a day. Quite a bit when you add it up and even more if I bring 12 yr old with me. I will really miss Panera. Love their Chai Tea Latte's with Soy milk and spices.

I must say that I do love that Dave Ramsay's plan builds in "blow" money. I think that is a very important part of the success of the people who follow his plan. Yes it is a harsh plan but when you build in "blow" money it does allow for special things (like PANERA!) so you don't feel totally deprived.

Hopefully tomorrow I will post the rest of my bill amounts etc and get to post a breakdown of the "plan".

Right now - it is time to get back to work. Lunch break is almost over.

Very overwhelmed

I am going through my bills and not liking what I see. I am so angry that I have let things get to where they are.

And I am so overwhelmed I am not quite sure where to start right now. I have a stack of bills to finish sorting through and organizing and all I want to do is lay down and sleep. Mainly so I can avoid doing what I don't really want to do.

I know that once I get started it won't be so bad. It is the getting started part that gets to me.

Does anyone else feel that way about things you don't really want to do but know you have to do?