I have figured out that I started my life out as a spender. That much is obvious I guess, you don't get into over ten thousand dollars worth of debt TWICE because you don't like to spend money. My boyfriend is a spender. He is of the mindset that we work hard and we "deserve" it.
And for a while we spent every single dime we made. We didn't really save anything besides what my employer took out for my 401k. (which by the way i make the maximum contribution for the match thank you very much) and we were okay. It was okay when we were in our early/mid twenties to have our mattress on the floor and all of our furniture was mismatched and our plates and we looked like broke ass college students. We were having fun, we ate out all the time, we had the new dvd releases every tuesday, we took turns going out with our friends and so on and so forth.
I can't exactly put my finger on when everything changed. As I inch closer to 30 and C's 30th birthday is in 2 months...I look around our house and I long for matching plates. They don't have to be pottery barn (oh i wish...) target would do. But i would love to have enough plates that match to feed people. I want my mattress off the floor, i would love matching furniture. i want a tv that doesn't have weird color things happening to the screen. i want to be able to buy art to put on the wall, and have a savings account with money in it.
and its hard. i've turned into a saver and C is still a spender. so we argue over money. we love to eat out on the weekends. so now i loathe the weekends. we wake up and he wants to go to brunch at cracker barrel and end up spending about 40 dollars and then sushi for dinner which is another 60. and its hard to break the habit because we've always done it. he whines about how sandwhiches are "boring" and pouts and complains and a lot of times i give in because its easier than fighting. so before we know it we've spend 150-200 dollars on food in one weekend.
i need to stop letting him guilt me into these things and he needs to stop acting like a child. so that is goal number one.
1. spend no more than 40 dollars per weekend on eating out.
i'll let you know how it goes.....
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Money, Money, Money
Sorry I didn't blog yesterday to anyone who reads me. I was too depressed. After paying the bills C and I have 50 dollars to last two weeks. I've got enough food to scrape some meals together for the next week and an American Express giftcard for 50 dollars if I need to go to the grocery store. That 50 dollars has to include gas and food and any incedentals. Ugh... I don't know how this happens I really don't. After taxes and deductions C and I make right at 3800-4000 dollars a month. We only have one car (his got repo'd....really long story).
It just seems like its always one thing after the other. As soon as you get some money something happens, I got sick which entails a dr's appt and prescriptions which while I have health insurance and pretty good insurance at that still cost me 75 dollars. Then two days later I had a flat tire and the nail was in the side wall so I had to buy a 100 dollar tire. And I'm thankful that I had the money at the time to do it, I really am I just wish that I could save something.
I went over our budget this weekend and am thouroughly disgusted with ourselves. There is a grand total of 350-400 dollars that we lost! Like we're the american government or something. After deducting all of our bills from what we bring home there was money on paper that wasn't in the bank accounts. We spend all of our money on eating out and i never realized it. I know that makes me sound stupid but its true. I went back over my purchase records and realized that just ME spent 65 dollars on take out and dining out in one weekend. Not to mention what C must have spend going out and eating out.
From this second on we're on a mission. I do not want to be this broke. We aren't poor by any means but we are definitely one paycheck away from disaster. The interesting part is going to be trying to get C on the same page as I am. He doesn't see the situation as dire as I do. But I want to be able to buy furniture for our house, and not do it on credit. I'm tired of our mattress being on the floor! I would love to be able to go on family vacations and have a cushion in the bank in case I saw something I wanted to buy.
I'll let you guys know how my "come to Jesus" talk goes. And tomorrow I'll blog about what kinds of money people C and I are.
It just seems like its always one thing after the other. As soon as you get some money something happens, I got sick which entails a dr's appt and prescriptions which while I have health insurance and pretty good insurance at that still cost me 75 dollars. Then two days later I had a flat tire and the nail was in the side wall so I had to buy a 100 dollar tire. And I'm thankful that I had the money at the time to do it, I really am I just wish that I could save something.
I went over our budget this weekend and am thouroughly disgusted with ourselves. There is a grand total of 350-400 dollars that we lost! Like we're the american government or something. After deducting all of our bills from what we bring home there was money on paper that wasn't in the bank accounts. We spend all of our money on eating out and i never realized it. I know that makes me sound stupid but its true. I went back over my purchase records and realized that just ME spent 65 dollars on take out and dining out in one weekend. Not to mention what C must have spend going out and eating out.
From this second on we're on a mission. I do not want to be this broke. We aren't poor by any means but we are definitely one paycheck away from disaster. The interesting part is going to be trying to get C on the same page as I am. He doesn't see the situation as dire as I do. But I want to be able to buy furniture for our house, and not do it on credit. I'm tired of our mattress being on the floor! I would love to be able to go on family vacations and have a cushion in the bank in case I saw something I wanted to buy.
I'll let you guys know how my "come to Jesus" talk goes. And tomorrow I'll blog about what kinds of money people C and I are.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Separate but (not) Equal Checking
My boyfriend and I have been together 6 and a half years. We share a mortgage together, we have a son together, we are actually engaged and plan on getting married when we can afford it. But the one thing we don't share is our checking accounts. As bad as I am with money, he's worse. In fact he only has a savings account and that's it, the bank TOOK AWAY his checking acct.
We have this strange way of sharing the bills; I write the checks and he pays me back. But its never prompt and I have to harass him. I am listed as an authorized user on his savings account but he's not listed on mine. As of today he owes me at least 1000 dollars. Three hundred from a previous pay period and 700 for his part of the mortgage and daycare bill. The problem is that he gets paid on this weird commision thing. His first paycheck is usually $799. His second paycheck is usually about $1100 give or take a couple of hundred. As of right this second my mortgage (which is due on the first) is not paid and is technically not late until tomorrow. I have to call it in today. My checking account has $930.00 in it after direct deposit. My Savings has $41 in it and my growth money market savings has $342.00 in it. I try not to touch my growth money market savings its my puny emergency fund.
The bills I have to pay are my mortgage, the daycare which is 210 this pay period and my dmp of $367. C's savings account has $815 in it. I am taking $700 today, I've never actually gone to his account and done that. He's not going to be happy at all but I don't care. I'm tired of having to play catch up. He takes sooooooo long to give me the money he owes me its ridiculous. And I NEED the money to pay the bills; otherwise they won't get paid.
We have got to figure out a way to bank without making the other feel as if they constantly owe money. Right now I hate when we go out to eat because subconciously I keep track of how many times I've paid vs. how many times he's paid. Its easier for me to pay bc I have the debit card, he has to go to the atm to get cash. And he always tells me that "he'll pay me back". ......and then I feel like a heel reminding him about that 40 bucks that he said he'd give me.
I think this weekend I'm going to go and open us up a joint checking and divert a portion of each of our direct deposits into it. I like having MY money but sometimes I really hate having separate accounts.
Right now we are paycheck to paycheck in our lives and we shouldn't be that way. Even with my dmp our debt to income ration isn't that bad. I think its like 27%. I am going to seriously evaluate our budget and post it all on monday. Then we can see where all of the money goes. I think I'm going to be sick just thinking about it.
Sorry for the rambling, incoherent post.
We have this strange way of sharing the bills; I write the checks and he pays me back. But its never prompt and I have to harass him. I am listed as an authorized user on his savings account but he's not listed on mine. As of today he owes me at least 1000 dollars. Three hundred from a previous pay period and 700 for his part of the mortgage and daycare bill. The problem is that he gets paid on this weird commision thing. His first paycheck is usually $799. His second paycheck is usually about $1100 give or take a couple of hundred. As of right this second my mortgage (which is due on the first) is not paid and is technically not late until tomorrow. I have to call it in today. My checking account has $930.00 in it after direct deposit. My Savings has $41 in it and my growth money market savings has $342.00 in it. I try not to touch my growth money market savings its my puny emergency fund.
The bills I have to pay are my mortgage, the daycare which is 210 this pay period and my dmp of $367. C's savings account has $815 in it. I am taking $700 today, I've never actually gone to his account and done that. He's not going to be happy at all but I don't care. I'm tired of having to play catch up. He takes sooooooo long to give me the money he owes me its ridiculous. And I NEED the money to pay the bills; otherwise they won't get paid.
We have got to figure out a way to bank without making the other feel as if they constantly owe money. Right now I hate when we go out to eat because subconciously I keep track of how many times I've paid vs. how many times he's paid. Its easier for me to pay bc I have the debit card, he has to go to the atm to get cash. And he always tells me that "he'll pay me back". ......and then I feel like a heel reminding him about that 40 bucks that he said he'd give me.
I think this weekend I'm going to go and open us up a joint checking and divert a portion of each of our direct deposits into it. I like having MY money but sometimes I really hate having separate accounts.
Right now we are paycheck to paycheck in our lives and we shouldn't be that way. Even with my dmp our debt to income ration isn't that bad. I think its like 27%. I am going to seriously evaluate our budget and post it all on monday. Then we can see where all of the money goes. I think I'm going to be sick just thinking about it.
Sorry for the rambling, incoherent post.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
My Inaugural Post
Hey All!! I'm starting this blog as a personal homage to my favorite blog English Major Money. In April she decided to stop blogging so I'm starting my own. I seriously doubt anyone will read this but perhaps it will help me be accountable to someone so I actually follow through with the things I try to do.
I'm a horrible speller and have horrible grammar. Let's just get that out of the way, and I'm not too good with capitalization either so you'll tend to see that slip as the blog goes on.
But let's get started. I'm a 26 year old college graduate trying to get some kind of financial security and build up that nest egg. It seems that I'm constantly surrounded by people who make less than I do but are able to DO more than I can because they manage their money better. So, here I am trying to fix that. Yay me!
I am very fortunate and have zero college debt (love you mom and dad!) I have a mortgage of $946.48 a month, a car payment of $287.10 a month (which is paid off in January!!!!) daycare for my 4 year old son costs $420 a month and I have a debt management plan of $367.00 a month. Those are all of my fixed costs that cannot and will not change no matter how I change my lifestyle. And yes you read that right, a debt management plan. As in I racked up so much credit card debt that I had to call up a credit counselor and have them set up a dmp. The creditors were calling so what's a girl to do??? I research them through the national foundation for credit counseling and have been really pleased with the services I'm getting. Its a payment I can (mostly) afford and its helping to build my credit back up.
The dmp was set for 4 years in having everything paid off. I've been doing it for 2 now. I'm down to $7000 left. I'm hoping to use the money I'll be saving from my car payment to pay down my debt faster. But we'll get into that story later.
Credit card debt sucks. I hate it. And I know that I actually don't have that much debt compared to the average person, but I don't like it. I hate credit cards....I obviously can't have them. This would be because this is the second time in my 26 years that I have racked up over $10000 in debt. The FIRST time I did it, my dad paid it off for me. I really learned my lesson on that one didn't I? The second time I did it, I finally took responsibility for myself. Well at least I'm trying to.
So anyways, so starts the trials and tribulations of being a biology major in the real world, and trying to find a way to have enough money to pay the bills, travel, save, and just have fun. I hope you enjoy it
I'm a horrible speller and have horrible grammar. Let's just get that out of the way, and I'm not too good with capitalization either so you'll tend to see that slip as the blog goes on.
But let's get started. I'm a 26 year old college graduate trying to get some kind of financial security and build up that nest egg. It seems that I'm constantly surrounded by people who make less than I do but are able to DO more than I can because they manage their money better. So, here I am trying to fix that. Yay me!
I am very fortunate and have zero college debt (love you mom and dad!) I have a mortgage of $946.48 a month, a car payment of $287.10 a month (which is paid off in January!!!!) daycare for my 4 year old son costs $420 a month and I have a debt management plan of $367.00 a month. Those are all of my fixed costs that cannot and will not change no matter how I change my lifestyle. And yes you read that right, a debt management plan. As in I racked up so much credit card debt that I had to call up a credit counselor and have them set up a dmp. The creditors were calling so what's a girl to do??? I research them through the national foundation for credit counseling and have been really pleased with the services I'm getting. Its a payment I can (mostly) afford and its helping to build my credit back up.
The dmp was set for 4 years in having everything paid off. I've been doing it for 2 now. I'm down to $7000 left. I'm hoping to use the money I'll be saving from my car payment to pay down my debt faster. But we'll get into that story later.
Credit card debt sucks. I hate it. And I know that I actually don't have that much debt compared to the average person, but I don't like it. I hate credit cards....I obviously can't have them. This would be because this is the second time in my 26 years that I have racked up over $10000 in debt. The FIRST time I did it, my dad paid it off for me. I really learned my lesson on that one didn't I? The second time I did it, I finally took responsibility for myself. Well at least I'm trying to.
So anyways, so starts the trials and tribulations of being a biology major in the real world, and trying to find a way to have enough money to pay the bills, travel, save, and just have fun. I hope you enjoy it
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