February 28, 2008

Great news and bad news in this update.

The good news is that I have done my taxes and my tax return will be$3589.66. My original estimate was $2600 (which is reflected on my original chart). I have decided to leave the original chart up so that I can see whether I am doing better or worse that my original plan. I added the tax refund to March because I figured it will take a couple weeks before it will processed. I have also been able to make good progress on the Leon's card. I have only $200 left to pay on it!

Boy, I love seeing how much my debt will drop next month. It feels so good.

Now for the bad news. Talk about a string of bad luck. This problem started when I decided to get my finances in order. One of my first steps was to shop around for cheaper car insurance. I found a company which was more than $50 a month cheaper, so I switched my insurance over to them. First, I got my insurance documents in the mail only to find that the insurance was MORE expensive than my last place. I immediately called the broker who discovered he had sent my application to the wrong company. After I RE-filled out new papers and had another payment taken off the credit card, it was straightened up. The broker arranged to cancel with the wrong insurance company with no cancellation fees. The wrong insurance company credited the credit card and I thought everything was fine. Then, yesterday morning, we were on our way to work and stopped to grab coffee. While the car was parked in the parking lot, some guy tried to pull into the spot beside me, slid on the ice and slammed my back bumper. My first claim ever and it's with an insurance company that I signed with less than a week ago. SO, I get the claim reported and taken care of this morning. After work, I stopped at the bank to pay my phone bill and to my surprise, the wrong insurance company (that I had cancelled with) had taken a payment out of my account! This, in turn, has caused my car payment to bounce. I am SO fed up!

Tomorrow I have to call Chrysler Financial to find out how to pay the bounced payment. I will also see if I can get them to send me some sort of statement of NSF fees. I have already gotten a statement of NSF fees from the bank so that I can add them all together and demand that the (wrong) insurance company repay the amount they took out, the amount of the bank NSF fees, and the amount of the Chrysler Financial NSF fees.

I also have to get an estimate of the bumper repair.

I also have to get the ex to pay on the Orthodontist payments he owes.

Sometimes it seems like the world works against you, but all in all, things really are going OK. I just look at the good stuff and deal with the bad stuff as quickly as I can.

February 27, 2008

Today I made another $200 payment on the Leons card. Only $200 to go.

I also got some more good news regarding my tax return. The amount of interest paid last year was a lot more than I had (conservatively) estimated. I ran the numbers again and I'm guessing I will get more than $3500 on my tax return. Tomorrow I will go out and buy a copy of QuickTax and do my tax return so that I can adjust my chart.

No luck with getting the payment for the braces, but I have been able to pick up some extra overtime at work. That will cover the extra cost.

Stay tuned everyone. I promise to update that chart soon.

February 5, 2008

Well, I only made a payment of $200 toward Leons, which still puts me ahead of my chart but it's not the extra payment I wanted to make. My ex hasn't come through with his payments on the braces but I am hoping to get in touch with him tonight and see what will happen. I'm going to wait until I see before I update my debt chart, just in case I can make another payment this month.

On the other side of my life, my boyfriend is getting his finances in order as well. He also fell into debt after his divorce and is carrying some of that debt at a high interest rate. He is working out a low interest loan with his bank to transfer the higher interest debt. That part is easy for him. Although he carries debt, he has good credit because he has a decent salary and has never missed a payment on his loans or cards. He will take longer than me to pay off though because of his higher debt load. We've decided not to accelerate payments on his debt because his extra money is spent on his kids. Child support and children's activities are more important than paying off debts faster.

SO my plan is to follow my debt repayment schedule and accelerate it if I can. Once I am completely paid off, we will do this same process for what's left on his debt. Once those are all cleared up (estimate 3 years), we look into buying a house. It seems as I am creating goals, there are more goals within those goals.

Ultimate goal is to buy a house. Within that goal are the goals of paying off the debts. Within those goals are more goals of each individual debt. I suppose it makes it a lot easier to stay motivated when you can have this checklist of benchmarks along the way. It also makes it exciting to measure your progress with items you can actually see!