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Archive for March, 2011

I got to talk to Dave Ramsey today!!

March 22nd, 2011 at 04:36 am

Well....I have been struggling back and forth with a financial question and I thought I would try to see if I could get in touch with Dave Ramsey on his radio show and I DID! I don't know why but I was so shocked when they answered my call and began to ask my question, name and location, etc. So I thought maybe they would do some kind of "question validation" to see if my question was worth putting on the air...and I guess it was b/c she said she was putting me on hold and would tell me when I was up next. My heart IMMEDIATELY went into crazy mode and I got SO nervous without even uttering one word to the guy. I was on hold for about 10 mins and my mind was racing about how I should best frame my question to him and how much detail I should share, etc. I had a pretty good idea of what he would recommend but I kinda wanted that validation anyway so the idea would LEAVE my head. My question is about cashflowing college tuition for my daughter this fall. Because I'm in the middle of my debt snowball and I still have some debt to pay off, an idea popped into my head to have her set up a student loan so we could defer the payments and then pay it all off after everything else. The thought process is to put that "cashflow tuition" money towards the debt instead of pulling it out of my snowball. But I couldn't fully rationalize it either way b/c I would be paying it off either way...just at different timeframes. Dave's recommendation was to go with my current plan and cashflow the tuition NOW so I don't run into issues later. I agree with this advise and will follow it...but it is tempting to put the extra $11,000 each year towards the SNOWBALL! Hopefully you are able to follow my explanation.

Anyway, I know he can be a little harsh sometimes on how people have gone into debt and WHAT was bought....I was scared to death he was going to ask me what kind of debt I had left. And with it primarily being car debt, I was so worried he was going to SCOLD ME and point out the fact that I would be the WORST MOTHER ALIVE if I 'borrowed' money to pay for my kid's education so I could have my stupid cars. I can honestly say "had I known then (when I got the cars) what I know now" I would never have purchased new cars. BUT we do have them, we are not interested in selling, getting a loan for the payoff difference AND then buying new "used" cars. We can make our payments today comfortably so the plan is to keep them, pay them off and not buy new again. For some reason I was terrified of explaining that plan to Dave...

Hope you are all having a great week - mine is off to a good start :-)

March Madness....and my scared kitties!

March 21st, 2011 at 04:15 am

I love sports - primarily basketball and softball. This week has been great catching all of the games and seeing the upsets! My kitties however, I'm sure are thinking I've lost my mind. I get very animated during the games and I tend to yell at my TV on a regular basis. I also do this during the olympics. I don't do this on purpose and half the time I don't even realize I'm doing it but for some reason I cannot sit quietly and cheer for my team. So this week my kitties have been staying outside during the evenings and then when the coast is clear (aka TV turns off) they come back inside to konk out on the foot of my bed. Sorry little fellers :-)

My husband and kids are used to it by now. They don't really say anything about it anymore however I do get "the look" every now and then that says I've gone too far or I need to just shut up b/c my team is failing miserably.

Anyway, ready to get this week started so it can be over. I am also hoping for a busy week at work so it flies by quickly! I'm taking off on Friday to go on a scrapbook retreat for the weekend. I always have a great time getting away but I will be missing a MISSION CRITICAL ball game on Friday night. My 2 oldest daughters are in the middle of their high school softball season and we play our district rival that night. I had no idea of the schedule at the time I made the reservation, it was done late last year. O-well, probably best I don't go anyway b/c I get sooo nervous when we play this team.

Hope you all have a great week, good night!

Garage Sale = Success!

March 20th, 2011 at 04:23 am

Day 2 of the garage sale turned out to be very successfull! Overall made about $350 and got rid of a lot of stuff I did not need or want to keep around the house anymore....which is usually why people have garage sales LOL. What I found interesting is that I was not really wanting to spend it! My habits are changing (Angels are singing hallelua in the background)...we knew we were going to buy new wood trim to finish a project we've been working on but other than, I was not really interested is getting more 'stuff' so I'm kinda proud of myself!! MY HUSBAND...now he is a little different story. He was like, "should we get this..., do we need that...., are we going to replace that thing...." My comment back was no, no and no.

So there YOU go, nothing too exciting but I am happy to get my garage sale done, make some extra cash, get all of the trim work hung and caulked...I will paint tomorrow and hopefully put the final NAIL in this project coffin.

Other good news is that BUTLER UNIVERSITY pulled off another BIG WIN to make it to the SWEET 16! Yeahhh Bulldogs!! Amazing win, seriously...came down to the last 1.9 second. CRAZINESSS....but happy with the colossal win!

KINDA looking forward to getting back on the regular schedule with spring break coming to an end....but I will miss sleeping in a little later since I didn't have to shuffle kids to school in the morning. O-well, we're moving on...can't make progress unless you are moving on!

take care friends ;-)

Yippy Skippy!

March 19th, 2011 at 05:55 am

We had a garage sale today and got lucky with beautiful weather! We didn't think we had much of anything anyone would be interested in -- the typical "junk" collection. Turns out people wanted about $100 of our stuff! I was pleasantly suprised and am encouraged to open it again tomorrow morning for a few hours. We even had someone ask us about our swing set which my daughter never uses anymore. It is one of those nice wooden swingsets we got at Sams a few years ago. The lady asked me if I would consider selling it and I said SURE! However I didn't know how much to charge LOL! So she is coming back tomorrow with her husband to look at it since he is the one who will be taking it down & putting it back up. I'm thinking maybe $300 but I don't know if that is too much or not...? I guess I'll find out in the morning. She was a nice lady and bought an old patio table set we've had lurking in our backyard for years now. I'm just glad to see that thing going bye-bye. If they take the swing set, that is a double YIPPY SKIPPY for me b/c I'll get the $300 extra bucks and no more weed eating around that swing set anymore! The money or effort wouldn't matter if my daughter still wanted and used the thing but she doesn't and we asked her what she thought about selling it and she said she didn't care....so I guess we will if they want to pay $300 or even $250 for it.

Anyway - happy trails pardner...this chickie is going to bed now :-)

hello $1950.00

March 18th, 2011 at 02:48 am

I hit a major milestone (for me anyway) this past week by paying off my last credit card. I started in January with a student loan, an orthodontist note, a bank of america credit card and a southwest chase credit card -- all totally around $20K. I started my TOTAL MONEY MAKEOVER in January and let me tell you, I have been GAZELLE intense! I am super happy to report that I sent the last payment to the southwest chase card yesterday and I'm anxiously awaiting the balance to hit $0 so I can close down that card. Total debt paid off since January is $20,114.00

Now I'm moving on to tackle the car notes and much later on, our mortgage (according to Dave Ramsey's baby step plan). Now that the other debt is gone, I'll have an additional $1950 each month to put towards getting cars knocked out quickly!!

Having a garage sale this weekend so I'm hoping to make a little extra cash. We have a few lingering projects to do around the house and I haven't wanted to take money out of the budget to do it b/c I was so intent on getting that $20K gone by April. I'm glad I didn't get distracted b/c I was able to knock it out a full month early! Hoping to get maybe $200 or so....but I won't be heart broken if I don't. When I have garage sales, my main goal is to get rid of stuff rather than make money. Sooooo....wish me luck!

BoA Credit Card BITES THE DUST!

March 8th, 2011 at 05:02 am

Earlier today I paid off the last $500 of my BoA credit card. It was a little bit of a stressful situation b/c I accidentially doubled paid a truck payment and I wasn't sure if I was going to get my double payment money back so I could make this final payment!

If the balance is $0 tomorrow (for some reason it takes BoA a while to apply the payment...?), I'm going to call and close the card out...never to be opened again. And since I paid it off before the end of the cycle this month, I won't be paying anymore interest!

I'm glad it is gone - of the 2 credit cards I have, this one had the highest balance so I was anxious to get it paid off quickly once I decided to get out of debt and stay out of debt. Balance in January was $11,118.00. With the help of a $6000 tax return, I was able to attack it very quickly and get it gone forever.

That leaves me with the other credit card with a balance of $3500. My current plan is to pay $1750 on March 15th and then another $1750 on April 1st!

As previously mentioned, my husband and I were planning to put our house on the market...however we keep wavering back and forth so I don't know if we will be moving or not. I hate not knowing for sure although I know this is not a decision we should rush into. I'm just that way - once I get something in my head, I have to 'address' it in some way sooner rather than later...not let it remain unresolved and open ended for long periods of time. I'm hoping we will come to a mutual decision within 1-2 weeks and we can stick to the decision...whatever it may be. Fortunately the question isn't around 'can we afford the house' -- we can, it is actually a very affordable payment for us (total $1600 with taxes, 1st & 2nd note and insurance). The question is around whether we want to sell & make some money to pay off cars (the remaining debt after April 1st) and then begin saving about $4500 a month to pay CASH for our next house once we move in about 3 years.

I don't want to regre whatever decision we make...? Any suggestions out to on determining if you should sell or not?