Free Credit Report Time!

It's that time of year again! Time to get your free credit report online. If you recall, I started doing this back in April and I planned to check it every 4 months at the free website:

https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

Last time I checked our reports with Experian and this time I plan to go with Equifax. You could also use TransUnion. Here's hoping all looks good! I'll keep you posted if I discover anything out of the ordinary.

Taxes... AGAIN!

Something told me that I should do a check up as to where I am with my tax withholdings at this point. I decided to look at the total taxes withheld on my W-2 from 2010, compared to where I would be if I continued to withhold what I currently am, through the end of 2011. Oh oh, I smell trouble! From the looks of it, I would be very close to what I withheld last year. We all know where that got me (read here if you don't)... owing $7K+ in taxes.

I know how it happened. In an effort to get the taxes paid off quickly this year, I had basically nothing taken out for 5 paychecks. I thought claiming Married, Zero for the remainder of this year may balance things out but from the looks of it, it won't. Unfortunately we don't have much for deductions really since we don't own a house or have children we can claim.

I refuse to be stuck in the same situation I was last year, where I had to scramble to get the money to pay the tax man. I don't want to do that again. I won't do that again.

This leaves me with no choice but to adjust my withholdings now. I'm going to have an additional $360 withheld each pay period. There are 10 more paychecks left this year, so that will be an additional $3600 going towards taxes. I'm not even sure that this will be enough but it's all I'm willing to do right now. Anything more will impact our debt repayment schedule more than I'm willing to do.

Hopefully this will be a wash, but if not, at least I'll owe less. Just when you thought it was safe to let your guard down. Better I discover it now than when it's too late to remedy.

My Weekly Money Check-Up 8/8/11

Happy Monday! Here's my Weekly Money Check-Up, courtesy of My Pretty Pennies.

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on a payment to our credit card. I'm loving seeing the balance go down! I can't wait to get the official statement later this week.

2. Today I am thankful for distance. There's been a lot of stuff going on back home with my family and right now I'm glad to live so far away. Distance is helping me cope right now.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was finished reading another book from the library. Yayyyy for free library books :)

4. I will consider this week a success if I don't need to put gas in the car. If we don't travel much, we can get by with only one tank of gas for the work week. We started with a full tank this morning, so I'm hoping it will last until payday on Friday. Fingers crossed!

5. This time last year was right before I got engaged, got a new car, got serious about my finances and started this blog. A lot has changed in the last year!

Balance Transfer

I'm happy to share that our new credit card arrived last night and I called right away to activate it and initiate a balance transfer. The credit limit is $3K and the transaction fee is 3% so I was able to transfer $2,910 to the new card. I'm so excited! They said it will take a few days to go through. As long as the transfer hits CC #2 before the due date on the 24th, I'll be one happy lady!

Hope you all have a good weekend :) Take a moment to stop and smell the roses.

Another offer from Discover!

So, last week I received the offer from Discover to take out a personal loan. After applying and getting approved, I decided the high interest rate wasn't worth it. Well, now they've followed up with a new offer...

If I charge only $3K per month for August through December, they'll give me a $500 cash back bonus!

Oh boy. NO THANKS! Seriously? Put $15K on my card so I can get $500? That's almost equal to 2 months of what you've been charging me in interest. How about you look back over my statements and see that I've already put $15K on your damn card and give me the "bonus" anyway?

I'm taking a little bit of pride in thinking they are starting to see me paying down my balance so they're trying to do anything they can to get me to charge stuff so they can earn more interest. Well, it ain't gonna happen. So take that Discover!

Our Vacation Decision!

October will mark our one year wedding anniversary for the hubby and I. We have been on the fence for several months as to whether or not we should take a vacation when we are in debt. We posed the question to the readers previously and got mixed reviews. After a long walk on the beach on Sunday, we made our decision.

We will not be going on vacation this year.

We jointly agreed that being out of debt as fast as we can is more important to us, than taking an anniversary trip this year. So, the $2K we planned on putting towards our vacation will now be going right towards our debt! This should allow us to have our CC#1 paid off at the beginning of December, instead of the end. Then we can start throwing every last penny at CC#2.

As much as I'd absolutely love a week away at an all-inclusive resort on the beach, it's just not the right time for it. We'll be able to celebrate our anniversary and being out of debt, next year!

There's a saying when you are trying to lose weight...

"Thin feels better than that tastes"

Well, I think we should have one for people trying to get out of debt...

"Debt free feels better than having or doing that feels"

I'm brainstorming here, I'm open to suggestions :)

So, instead, we'll plan a special day close to home for the two of us and look at some of our honeymoon photos (that's one above), recalling how much fun we had and daydream some more until we can actually plan another trip in the future. It won't be that long!

My Weekly Money Check-Up 8/1/11

Here's My Weekly Money Check-Up, courtesy of My Pretty Pennies.

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on groceries (and that wasn't even too bad! We came in $20 under budget so we used it on an oil change.)

2. Today I am thankful for a new month beginning (just means we're that much closer to being debt-free!) and not having to contribute to my niece's college tuition - this is helping us throw a bunch more at our debt.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was cut my nails! I know it sounds weird, but spending a few moments on grooming myself makes me happy. Many times I put it off but when I finally get to do it, it makes me happy.

4. I will consider this week a success if I do as well at sticking to the budget during the week as we did this weekend. We stayed on target and did great. I'm hoping we can have a bunch of "no-spend" days this week to keep the success going!

5. I dream about... Since this could be taken two different ways, I decided to answer both ways: At night, strange, wild adventures that rarely reflect common everyday events in my life. During the day I dream about being debt free and living a more carefree life and somehow figuring out how to spend more lazy days on the beach with my hubby! Ahhhh, that's the real dream for me.

Have a good week everyone :)