Debt... a dirty little four letter word?

Is it just me, or do you feel like debt is a dirty little four letter word? I am so embarrassed by our debt that it haunts me. I fear that anyone I know will ever come across this blog and figure our that it's me writing it. Sure, I tried to be courageous and actually put my first name out there, but there are no pics of me, no other mention of where we live besides the name of a city with over a million people in it! I like to think that even Sherlock Holmes may find this case a little tough to crack :)

My own family doesn't have any idea that we are in debt. I think my mother would have a heart attack and feel as though she was a failure somehow. See, my parents didn't instill the best savings values in us kids. Sure my dad would make the occasional joke, "You act as though that money is burning a hole in your pocket!" because I'd love to go to the mall to buy something as soon as I received money for babysitting or as a birthday gift. It seemed as though I couldn't spend it fast enough! I don't blame my parents though or anyone else for that matter. We made the choices that we did to get in this situation. That's it. Done deal. It's still kinda embarrassing though.

When I try to get to the bottom of why it bothers me so much, I guess it's the sense of failure that I feel. I'm intelligent, well educated and should really know how to manage my money better, but somehow I let myself get into this mess. As proud as I am that I've decided to dig myself out of it, I am much more disappointed that I fell into it to begin with.

In my world, debt is a word that is whispered if ever mentioned at all. The big bad secret in my family was that my dad somehow got in over $40K in debt without my mother even knowing about it. He would charge things the family needed or wanted and never really explained how it got paid for and my mom blindly followed him thinking all was well, til one day she discovered he was hiding this massive about of debt from her. Understandably, she was livid! She considered leaving him, she considered kicking him out but then somehow she considered the life they shared together and got it... they shared this debt. He may have been the one swiping the card, but honestly, it was both of them that shared in what the debt resulted in... a nice home and clothes, jewelry, a pool. Should he have been dishonest? No. But she was strong enough to decide to stand by him and work it out. They ended up taking out a second mortgage and made it work. For that, I applaud them.

Just a few weeks ago, my mom thanked me for helping my niece out with her college tuition and said she wished she was in a different financial situation so that they would be able to help out more but unfortunately my dad is out of work and they are in a tough place. I told her I understood. I started to share that things weren't so easy for us either. My husband's hours had been cut and with our new car payment, high rent and tuition, things were tight. She questioned whether I had any savings left (from my previous divorce settlement) and I said that I didn't. I was out of work for a year and that savings was exhausted. She was taken aback by that and the tone of the call changed. I decided I had shared enough for that day and I put the lid back on sharing our debt situation. One step at a time... if at all.

Question : Do you feel as though debt is a dirty little four letter word? Have you shared your situation with your family? How is debt thought of / discussed in your circle?

My Weekly Money Check-Up!

Hi all! It's been a busy few days with the hubby's birthday and all. I'm finally able to get back on here. I also lost my cell phone this weekend, so that was a bummer. Luckily, I still have my work phone that I can use, but I try to keep those things separate so it looks like I'll end up needing a replacement phone. I may not need to spend any money on it though because when my parents were out here last year they had a couple of old phones they left behind when I put them on our family plan. I'm going to see what condition they are in and try to get one of those activated on my plan (if possible) so I won't have to shell out for a new one!

Here's my Weekly Money Check-Up, courtesy of My Pretty Pennies blog:

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on tuition for my niece. She updated me today that she's going to apply to be an RA (Resident Advisor) at school. I did that job while going to school and it really helps pay for college. I hope that it works out for her so that 1) this bill gets lowered or goes away completely and 2) she gets an opportunity to get more involved on campus. Thus far she hasn't taken a very active role and I think this may help her come out of her shell a bit.

2. Today I feel nervous towards money. I really look forward to the day when I don't feel much of anything towards money. It used to be that way for me before I got into debt, I just paid the bills and didn't have to work or think much about money. Now that my husband makes less and we've run up the credit cards so high, I find myself constantly thinking or worrying about money. Ugh. It's draining.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free/inexpensive thing I did last week that made me happy was sat on our porch with my husband and enjoyed the sunset. Although we live in Southern California, it had been chilly until recently and I had been putting off cleaning our porch up a bit so we could enjoy sitting outside together. I finally did it this past week and I'm happy I did. We got to sit out at our table and enjoy the sunset while a few hot air balloons went by in the distance. It was great!

4. I will consider this week a success if I get an idea of what's going to happen with my merit increase / salary adjustment. I'm so looking forward to finding this out. I've done a salary analysis and I'm pretty low in the range. I've shared this information with management and I'm hoping that they will agree. Although the increase won't be effective for another month or so, I'd love to get an idea this week if it's even going to happen...

5. Right now I am reading Too Fat to Fish, by Artie Lange. I've been reading this book for wayyyy too long. I just need to finish it so I can move onto something I enjoy more.

Have a great week!

An Update and My Weekly Money Check-Up

Hi all! It's good to be back. I was sick with a stomach bug for a bit and work has been crazy busy (which is a good thing!), so this is the first time I've been on here in a week and I've missed you guys!

Just an update on things... I am happy to share that we did NOT overdraw our account last week. That was one of my concerns since our checking account balance was really low and they put a silly old hold on my husband's payroll check. I was pleasantly surprised when I logged into our account and saw that it was positive! Hopefully, the days of seeing it in the red are IN THE PAST!

In regard to our recent fender bender, the other insurance company has claimed responsibility, so things are going fairly smooth and I won't have to worry about the deductible ($1000) on our insurance! We took the car in for 3 estimates, one was referred to us by Honda, one was a preferred vendor of the insurance company and the 3rd was the body shop next to my husband's job. The first two came out fairly similar, $1395 and $1418. The last one came in just under $1200. We are now waiting for the check to come in and then we have a decision to make. We're unsure of how we're going to proceed though. Part of us wants to get it fixed (at the lowest cost possible) and then put the extra towards debt repayment. Another part thinks that we should just take the car to the preferred vendor and give them the whole check, having peace of mind that it will be fixed properly and quickly. My husband threw out another option last night which is to just keep the small dent and chipped paint and send the whole amount into the credit card. Hmmmm, this one is interesting! I would feel a little bad not fixing our car up properly given that it's fairly new and we don't know if not repairing it will cause future rust or worse damage. We still have some time to decide what to do, but I'm open to your suggestions :)

As usual here's My Weekly Money Check-Up, courtesy of My Pretty Pennies blog.

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on our rent. We're still looking for something closer to work that costs less, so maybe someday this amount will go down.

2. Today I feel okay towards money. I know there are going to be up's and down's. Today I'm feeling at peace about the process.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free/inexpensive thing I did last week that made me happy was started a new series on Netflix with my hubby. We just started watching Friday Night Lights together. I love getting a new disc in the mail and knowing we'll be all snuggled up on the couch watching it together!

4. I will consider this week a success if I don't go overboard on my hubby's birthday. We are thinking of taking it easy and just having a nice long weekend together, but you never know what may happen!

5. My favorite way to relax is getting a massage! Absolutely. Hands down, this is my favorite way to relax. Although it is costly, so my back up inexpensive way is to take a hot bath or go in the jacuzzi. We're fortunate enough that our complex has a jacuzzi on site and there's nothing like hopping in there after a long day at work, with a nice glass of wine. The hot water melts my stress away! (For now the hot water and wine are both on hold though while we try to conceive.)

Weekly Money Check-Up

Here's my Weekly Money Check-Up, courtesy of My Pretty Pennies :) Hope your week is off to a good start!

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on my credit card payment. Same old, same old.

2. Today I feel a little nervous towards money. Our checking account is dangerously low and I'm feeling nervous because of it. (See #4 below)

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free/inexpensive thing I did last week that made me happy was rented a movie for free through Red Box. I LOVE movies! I was unaware but during the holidays they had a promotion that if you rented 3 movies within a certain time frame, you'd get a code sent to you for a free movie. I got the code last week and rented a movie with it. Unfortunately, my car accident happened on the day I was returning said movie. Hopefully, this "free movie rental" won't end up costing me in the end! We'll see :)

4. I will consider this week a success if I don't overdraw our checking account! We deposited my husband's check last Friday after work, not realizing that they hold part of the funds until the "next business day"... well, due to weekend and the holiday in the US on Monday, today is finally the next business day and it doesn't appear as though the funds have actually cleared our account yet, which means we could get overdrawn if things don't work out right. I like zero based budgeting, but it's times like these that are a little scary. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to see if everything will go through okay or if we'll get slapped with a $35 fee for overdrawing the account. Ugh, time will tell.

5. My signature outfit is jeans and a black shirt! Hands down. If you see me on a Friday, there's a 99% chance that's what I'm wearing. It's our "dress down day" here at work and I take full advantage. I love my jeans and there's nothing more slimmer on me than a black top. I look forward to being able to wear this outfit each week!

Minor Car Accident

So, our new car had it's first accident. It happened on the way home on Thursday night. We stopped at our local gas station to return a free movie we got from the Red Box. (I was pretty happy that we got a free rental, by the way! But not to get off track...) While driving out of the parking lot, a lady backed into our car. We were going really slow, so no one was hurt and the damage is minor. It's just a bummer that we have to go through all the paperwork now with insurance and stuff.

I've never had to file a claim before, so I was uncertain of the process. It turns out that I have a $1,000 deductible (Note to self... this is why an emergency savings account is a NECESSITY!). My insurance agency recommended just going through the other company if possible, that way they can pick up the whole expense and I won't have to have my company get involved. So that's where things stand now. I spent Friday on the phone filing the claim and giving an official statement and today we're getting an estimate of repairs on the car. Hopefully I'll hear back from the other insurance company today to see if they accept responsibility (which they should) and we'll go from there!

Yippee! The new electricity bill arrived!

We did it! We got our electricity bill down almost $100 this month! Sweet :) If you've been reading along, you may recall that our bill went from about $57 to $181 because we used our heat on a couple of cold days we had. It only took me one quick phone call to the electric company to hear that our heat costs over $4 PER HOUR to run, for me to decide that we could easily layer up and control this unnecessary expense! So, that's what we did. We layered up (including hats and scarfs on some days) and it paid off! After my obsessive checking yesterday, our bill came in this morning... it's down to to $88! I'm so proud of us and excited that it's more in line with what we have budgeted. Phew! I can relax a bit. It's still a little higher than I'd like but that's probably from all of our Christmas lights, which I won't budge on. I just think little white lights are so pretty. We've since taken the lights down though so next month will probably be even lower. I can't wait!

Pay Day!

I can't wait until Pay Day! Honestly, I just got paid last Friday but I anxiously await the next deposit. Not because I want to buy anything, but because I want to make more payments on our debt. Most people who aren't like us would probably laugh at that statement, but I'm sure you know what I mean. I'm so anxious to make progress and see our numbers go down, that I can't wait to make the next payment.

I actually spent most of the morning going online to each of our bills to see if they had cut the monthly statements yet! While most people probably dread having to open the next bill that comes in, I want to see if our numbers went down and if there is any wiggle room to send more money into the credit cards. This is especially true for our electricity bill (which skyrocketed last month due to us turning the heat on). I'm hoping for that to decrease significantly this month so I can maybe throw another $20 at our debt. But alas, the statement hasn't been cut yet, so the waiting game continues. All this talk about Pay Day is making me hungry for a candy bar! Luckily (or unluckily for my waistline) my company has a "candy drawer" that I can help myself to, so I won't have to actually spend any money and can still have a treat or two :) Score! That'll take my mind off of these bills for a while.