This last little amount before we begin to tackle the auto loan is like a thorn in my side. I know it is there and there is no easy way to get rid of it at this point. We don’t have any more big items to sell and all the small things that we have now, no one really wants. Movies, music, etc. Now it seems it is going to be patience to go the distance. Looking at our budget we have an extra few hundred now to put towards the debt which will allow us to knock out the remaining $3,500 over about 10 months. 10 months is a long time compare to the recent progress we have made, but if we stay the course it will be gone by February 2010.

After it is wiped out we will have $10,000 in an auto loan. If everything remains the same and we roll that extra few hundred dollars into the car payment and include the minimum payment we pay now on the credit card, that will be over $600 a month to pay every month on the loan. We could then have the van paid off by February 2011. Thinking about that as I type would be amazing. A loan we took out for 5.5 years being paid off in less than 2.5 years. Putting this in perspective like this brings back the motivation to up the intensity.

Sunday was my second time working back at my old local pizza shop as a delivery driver. As opposed to last time. I had an enormous plus and that was I did not have to take care of the dumpster out back. I am so glad I didn’t have to do this. I pulled up and there was the giant green monster of a garbage bin, you know the one made of solid steel, just overflowing with rotting leftover food, wet cardboard boxes, giant plastic gallons full of old grease, and empty plastic drink cups from the pub and a bar connected to the same building. The owner of pizza shop also owns the pub and bar. I expected to walk and be told to start out back and beginning picking up, but not this week. This week there was a delivery waiting, calling my name to drive a couple blocks down to a senior citizen apartment building to deliver two toasty bagels with cream cheese, it was ten in the morning with a $1.00 tip.

Not a bad way to start the day and it gave way for such promise in the day. With such a start things were looking up. I spent the next couple of hours prepping food for the week, waiting and hoping for a delivery. I grated cheese, prepped dough, did the dishes, made cardboard boxes and swept before the next delivery. All of those tasks should have intermingled with delivering pizza, stromboli’s, calzones, subs and salads, but alas they did not. All this work was finished within the first couple hours of being there with nothing else to do. By now it was about 1pm with four more hours to go. I had seven more deliveries during the rest of my shift before my final delivery for the day and I am not sure why this always happens, but it is the worst. Not because of the customer, but of my own stupidity. I got lost, lost in a town(the city calls it a city) of maybe 20,000 people. It should be illegal for a street to be separated by a manufacturing building with no indication of such spilt on a map.

As a result of the split I needed to call the customer to get directions and I must have sounded like a bumbling idiot with my “where? What street? No, I don’t know, oh okay, I know where that is.” It took me fifteen minutes to deliver that pizza and it literally was two miles from the pizza shop. The customer was extremely forgiving for my idiocy and was quite generous with the tip. They tipped me $4 and change, my largest tip of the day.

Total miles driven during Sunday’s odyssey: 28.4 miles.

Total amount of tips: $17.84. That averages just under $2.00 tip per delivery. Which is great, but if it wasn’t for the $4.xx tip on the last run the tips would have averaged $1.50. I didn’t get stiffed at all this week.

Is my seven hours of time worth it? It was hard not to focus on just the tip amount and to keep in mind that I do get an hourly wage on top of it. So, every Sunday I work I make about $60. Multiply that by generally four Sundays a month and that is another $240 towards the plasectomy.

That is what $300 a month? Let’s see, $3,500 divided by $300 is 12 months before that remaining balance would be paid off. For me that is not fast enough, I want it gone by the end of summer. This gives me about 5 months to get it done, $700 a month. At this point I am not really sure how I am going to increase my income by $400 a month. Right now I only work one night a week at the pizza shop and I am willing to pick up more shifts, but there are none available. Which means I need to either pick up a third job for the evenings, work overtime, or beg for more time at the pizza shop. Yikes so much work.

Leading up to our tax return we were shorting payments to our utility companies, paying late on car insurance, making bare minimum payments to the credit cards to avoid late fees or losing the promotional interest rate, and to top it off we were using credit cards to pay for household items, gas, and quick runs to the store. It wasn’t pretty looking back, however it seemed so much easier. I know it was easier because it wasn’t frustrating, we were not living by cash only. There were never any cash withdrawals from our account, just a quick swipe of the credit card or debit card. I always mentally knew how much money we had in the account (I checked it each day) and that didn’t matter, I had the credit card that was my backup. “Oh, my tanks on empty better fill up….What is that honey? We need diapers? Sure I will stop and pick some up….I don’t feel like cooking, let’s go out!”

It is not like that anymore. I don’t carry a credit card, carry cash only when needed, utilize the envelope system and I cringe at the thought of swiping my debit card. Thankfully when one of us is weak, the other is strong. There are times when we have begged each other to go out to eat and one of us would say NO! No is not something we have said to one another in a long time, our kids hear it every day and now so do we. It is good for the plasectomy and keeps us on track.

“Nasty as it may be, the practice of cutting credit lines below the balance is legal — at least, for now, says Chi Chi Wu………Federal Reserve rules requiring lenders to give cardholders 45 days notice before reducing a credit line to the point that it would trigger penalties won’t go into effect until July 2010.”

“Paul Pensabene of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., received a statement from HSBC on Dec. 8 that said he had a $359.99 balance and remaining available credit of $8,640. But when he went online to pay the bill several days later, his online account showed that same balance put him over his newly-reduced credit line of $300. And that didn’t include the $35 over-limit fee.”

Poor Paul, a forced and unexpected plasectomy is never a good thing unless you have the money to cover it. Thank goodness his balance was low enough that he could pay it in full and close the account.

American Express, Visa, Mastercard, and Discover truly do live by Chase’s tag line “Freedom to do what you want.” Do you remember that commercial? Airplanes, money, merchandise all dancing around as rewards, makes me sick.

The raw emotion of concern, happiness, sadness, and confusion is beyond me. I shouldn’t have been emotionally attached to this card, but I was. So much so I memorized the number, expiration date and the three digit code from the back. I can even remember the first day of applying for the card, being approved, and subsequently its arrival in our mailbox. My wife and I were so excited and we swore we would never rack up the insane amount of credit card debt again.

It was 2003 or 2004 and we were accustomed to getting the Sunday paper to peruse the ads for great “deals.” Wouldn’t you know it, there in that Sunday paper, was a 20% off coupon. 20% off almost anything in store plus new, never before been swiped plastic, equaled pure bliss. With that fresh piece of plastic in hand we strolled down to the local Bed Bath & Beyond or was it Linens n Things? I think it was the former, but I can’t be sure. We were on a mission. We had and still have a dog who sheds his fur as if it is his primary function in life and to not be man’s best friend. He is a long haired black retriever who lived on a white carpet. If you had stopped by at any point during the week you would think that by viewing our carpet we enjoyed the zebra pattern. Our vacuum could not keep up with the hair, it was a cheap $50 model that filled bags and went through belts once a month. I think we spent the same amount on replacements as we did on the cost of the vacuum the first year. Surely this wouldn’t do and Dyson had just come out with their new “Animal” version which I think cost $600 at the time.

The price of the vacuum combined with the 20% off coupon gave us a steal of a deal. We saved over $100 and swiped that card as any new happy go lucky credit card owner could. It has been about 5 years now and I think in a round about way are still paying for this vacuum that now needs to serviced. The attachment hose that runs up the back of vacuum is shredding at the top and although it still sucks up from the bottom, attachments are useless now. I believe it can be replaced with a new $30 replacement hose. It has served us well and managed give us our white carpet back.

Today we paid off a Discover card and two small balance Chase cards. This leaves us with one more Chase credit card before we can tackle Sallie Mae and kick her butt to the curb. The other tax return will come from the state and I have no idea when that will show up. We filed the state return on Feb 5th and from what I understand that it can take 4 to 6 weeks to receive the refund by mail, I requested direct deposit and it is supposed to arrive faster. How much faster? I don’t know and the state does not identify how much faster. That refund will supply the money to our emergency fund. It will feel great to know that we have a backup up plan as right now we are merely crossing our fingers and hoping that Murphy stays far, far away.

I have detailed in the past about finding a second job and still nothing. I am now confirmed as a backup driver if someone calls in and that is the best offer I have received. I’ll keep my fingers crossed on getting a call from the numerous pizza shops I have applied at.

On the brightside based on TaxAct.com’s e-file status says we should receive our federal refund on February 20th, however Where’s My Refund states we should receive it on February 24th. The idea was to separate the entire refund into a baby emergency fund of $1,000 and the rest would be applied to wiping out a handful of credit cards. Given the amount of time between pay cycles I think we may need to pull just a small amount from the refund to apply to other miscellaneous things that need to be taken care of. I need that second job and I am thankful for my first job.

What struck me as odd was the number at the bottom of the statement. The balance on this card is only $825.63 and will be paid off within days once I receive our tax refund, but the APR on this card is atrocious all of a sudden, 36%. I have never missed a payment on the card, always paid on time, just the minimums though. Could this be the reason? I admit that when I receive notices from the credit card companies that I rarely read them. I quickly glance through the tiny print trying to find anything significant and maybe this was listed in there and I overlooked it. I wouldn’t be surprised; my eyes strain to read through it all.

All in all if I had to continue to pay at this rate I would be calling and complaining. Look for another card with a better teaser rate. I view this as highway robbery and just another reason to never use a credit card again.

]]> http://www.myplasectomy.com/2009/02/13/when-did-this-happen-are-they-insane/feed/ 4 http://www.myplasectomy.com/2009/02/09/budget-leaks-plug-up-those-holes-before-you-drown/ http://www.myplasectomy.com/2009/02/09/budget-leaks-plug-up-those-holes-before-you-drown/#comments Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:40:52 +0000 MrPlasectomy http://www.myplasectomy.com/?p=136 Are your bills getting out of hand? I would like to say ours were, but we are still fine tuning. I guess that is what happens when there are continuous improvements with a plan for our money. We are not overly lavish, do not drink the $5 lattes, have multiple subscriptions to various services, or even vending machine snack breaks. With recent economic woes it’s ever important now to get a handle on where the money is going and plug the leaks to increase the efficiency of the plasectomy.

Let me share with you things that we found and other ideas to stop the leaking from your wallet.

1. Scale the cable service back or get rid of it entirely.
Did that free promotion of HBO end? How much does your bill run? $80, $100, or $150 a month? Watch for those promotions on TV where you could combine your services. Give your local provider a call and threaten to cancel. You would be amazed at how quick they will offer to lower your rates to keep you as a customer. We recently did this and brought our internet service down from $44.95 a month to $29.95 a month for a year.

2. Cell Phone
Take a look at your monthly minute usage, text messaging, and premium services. Are you paying for insurance at $5 or $6 month on a phone that is 2 years old? Have an old phone sitting in a drawer? Use that if something were to happen to your current phone. Reduce your minute plan if you are not using all the minutes an instant savings of $20. Check to see if you have an employer discount. You could save as much as 22% of your service.
• Verizon Wireless – Dial #646 to check your minutes. Click here to check for employer discounts.
• AT&T – Dial #646 to check your minutes. Click here to check for employer discounts.
• Sprint – Click here to check for employer discounts.

3. Sell Your Storage Unit
Do you have a bunch of stuff? Does your stuff charge you rent? Have you visited your stuff recently? Your stuff doesn’t miss you and you will not miss it. Sell it! Apply your cash to your plasectomy. Two great avenues to get rid of your stuff is to sell it on eBay and Craigslist. For those items that are rare I would personally choose to sell on eBay as you have a global customer base. Craigslist is fantastic for local selling saving you on shipping and it’s free to post. We just sold several small kitchen appliances generating over $100 from Craigslist

4. Gym Membership
Bally’s Total Fitness, Gold’s Gym, 24 Hour Fitness are you a member to one of these chains? What does it run you? A few hundred a year? Have you tried your local YMCA/YWCA? What about running in your local neighborhood? It is still technically winter, but spring is right around the corner and it’s free.

5. Cut Your Electricity Usage
Are you using compact fluorescent bulbs in all lights in your home? Do you know how much electricity is being used by your computer, tv, dvd player, etc? If not, I would highly recommend purchasing a Kill A Watt meter to determine how much your idle electronics are costing you. By using this tool I have my computer that I was leaving on 24/7 was costing me $12-14 a month. That is over $150 a year.

Are you doing anything to stop the budget leaks in your home? Will the money you save by stopping these leaks be applied to your plasectomy or appropriated somewhere else?