99k by 2011

Antsy? Ansy? Antsey?

I don’t know what the proper way to spell it is, but I have got ants in my pants, because it’s the end of the month and I’m eagerly awaiting statements to post so I can finalize February’s numbers for my spreadsheet.

The car loan and home equity loan is done, as well as credit card #3, but I’m still waiting for cards #1 and #2.

In looking over our debt spreadsheet this past weekend, I wasn’t too happy with the numbers. We had a total amount of ~$910 going to the credit card debt for February, well below what I wanted.

We originally wanted to throw $1000 at the credit cards, along with any dependent care reimbursements we got from our flexible spending account. That should be $1385, total. So as you can imagine, I wasn’t happy with $910.

Of course, some things have changed, like the $800 brake bill that popped up, and the fact taht we may have a hefty tax bill come april, but still - we were only $90 away from the $1000, and it’s not my fault the reimbursements are slower than molasses.

So I talked it over with the husband, and he agreed that we could pull $90 out of our “buffer” category to at least get it to $1000.

I hadn’t yet made the payment, and so imagine my glee when waiting for me in our mailbox, was a $192 reimbursement check. So after I deposited that (I love USAA’s Depost@Home feature SO MUCH!), I went ahead and send in a payment, and rounded everything up a bit as well.

So we won’t be making the $1385 number, but we at least made our $1000 +$192.

Yay.

So I budgeted money for both my husband and I to get our oil changed this month. My husband took his in on Monday (president’s day) and blew the budgeted amount because he got synthetic. That man and his car! I’m just kididng, I KNOW he always gets synthetic, and I approve the use of synthetic instead of fossil fuels, so why didn’t I budget for that? Blah.

So, I still needed an oil change, and my brake light has been flashing on and off for the last month or so, so in the back of my head, I knew that when I took it in, it was going to be more than just the cost of oil & lube. We dropped it off to be looked at today and sure enough, when I got the call this morning, it was not good news. The front brakes were pitted and worn down through the pads into the …. um… whatchamacallits, and it also needed new calipers. The rear brakes weren’t so bad, but needed new pads, and the brake fluid was dirty and gross and they recommended a full flush. On top of that, he told me that the clutch was really worn out, but this I already knew and have been socking money into a “new clutch” category (that’ll cost around $1k). I confirmed what I already kind of knew, which is it won’t hurt the car to drive it until the clutch totally gives out - which I don’t WANT to do, but I want to hold out as long as I can. It’s already getting pretty loose in the shifting - how does a worn out clutch drive? You shift, put on the gas, and the engine revs up without “catching” the gear and giving any forward momentum. I have to accelerate pretty slowly.

SOOOOO… the damage is about $800. In the back of my head, I knew that there would probably be some brake work, but I was hopping it would be around $300-400. So, bummer.

However, my husband summed it up perfectly.

“You know, if we hadn’t started a budget, I would really be freaking out about this.”

Amen and hallelujah! I’m going to have to raid a few categories to cover this, and I may have to dip into the buffer (I hope not!!), but this is way better than just having to charge it.

A big battle between relieved that we have funds to cover this, and frustration that this will probably put off a big debt payment even longer.

The good news - my husband had his yearly review and it was good, raise amount and bonus amount will be finalized and given to him next week, with all changes effective in first march paycheck.

Well, it’s official. I’m worried about a possible tax bill. I think it might be as much as 5k, but I really am not sure. I used Jesse’s tax spreadsheet that comes as a “bonus” with YNAB Pro, and I know that it is more of a guideline then anything else, and I did notice there’s nowhere to enter in one’s child care expenses, so that might help things along to lessen a possible bill, but as it is, it’s better to be well prepared for the worst then count on it not being bad.

So, that changes things with the upcoming bonus my husband will be receiving in March. We are going still going to take 1k and blow it (wheee!) But the rest, we will be sticking in savings until we know what’s up with the taxes.

I was also planning on trying to start putting a paycheck each month from “supplemental” to “primary” (part of the YNAB functionality to get you living on last month’s income,) but have changed my mind in that regard as well. Instead, I will just sock money away into a “buffer” category, which is kind of the same thing, but with the benefit of me being able to see the balance in that category and know that it’s there for possible tax bill use as well. If we do have a bill, we’ll probably fund one our IRAs to lessen it’s affect as well, even though that will mean even more money out of pocket. I would rather have more money out of pocket (as long as we have it) and give less to the government, you know what I mean?!

So basically, the plan is to wait and see. We are going to go to a CPA this year also. I think our finances are getting complicated enough to warrant the professional help and save us the headache of slogging through turbo tax. Of course, I still need to get all the info he will need, so there will still be some slogging and math to do. (day care costs minus the cost of kindergarten minus theFSA costs, etc.).

So.. I guess I’m going to be opening a high interest savings account in preparation of stashing bonus money away. I will be sad not to see a huge chunk knocked out of the debt on my spreadsheet.. but hopefully it is just delayed.

I have made a (google docs) spreadsheet which kind of “counts down” the progress I’ve made (err, WILL be making) on our debt. This one above is just for our credit card debt. You can see that I gave a few columns for each credit card, 1 column for the payments, another column for the running balance kind of like a register, and then added a third column to show the actual interest for past months. For months that have already been completed, I put those numbers in bold.

I’ve already found that my method of calculating the interest in the running balance column leaves something to be desired, but it wasn’t too far off, so I am not worrying about it. (I did the calculation like this: (Previous Balance - payment) * 1.012 = new month’s end balance. Then, when the month actually is over and the statement comes, I fill in with the actual new balance and actual finance charge.

(I am WAY far off calculating the interest on our home ec loan, but as it calculates the balance a little HIGHER than it actually is at the end of the month, I feel pretty good putting in the groovy lower number each month, so that’s ok too. Amortization, how you boggle me…)

I find myself checking this spreadsheet out all the time, making little tweaks here and there. Initially we decided that we could throw $1000/ month toward debt, so I populated the spreadsheet with that in mind. The “total paid” column just calculates what the total payments were for the month, which helps me out in the figgerin’. I can glance at it and see if the total monthly figure is what it should be or if i put in too many 0s or something.

Then I got to thinking that we should be getting a FSA dependent care reimbursement each month to the tune of $421 a month. This is kind of “outside” money, as it doesn’t come in from paychecks, so I decided we could throw all that at the debt too, thus our monthly total payment will be $1421.

And the tweaking continues! My husband gets paid every two weeks which results in 26 paychecks a year instead of 24. Realizing that, I decided that the months that he gets 3 paychecks instead of 2, we would just stick that “extra” paycheck toward the debt - thus you can see that for May and Oct the total payments include an extra $1700.

Then I also realized that because there are 26 paychecks for him and he’s doing the FSA plan through his work, the original $421 FSA number is wrong, it’s actually $385 with 2 months (may and oct) being 577. I decided we can try to cough up the extra $36 each month anyway.

I have a master spreadsheet that includes not only the credit cards but the car loan and the home equity loan as well, and what with all my tweaking and fiddling and trying to think up ways to “find” some money, my spreadsheet says that we could be COMPLETELY out of this mess by JULY 2010 — a good 5 months earlier than my original December 2010 estimate/goal.

Now, I know that things can happen, and is actually likely TO happen… But I am feeling pretty good about the original goal of debt-free by 2011 - especially with a 5 month cushion!

I heart spreadsheets. I really do. I could take them home and snuggle them all night long.

Ahem.

We closed on our refinance on Friday evening. We had a 5/1 ARM at 4.75 that was due to adjust next february. We’re not going anywhere for the foreseeable future, so I know that getting into a 30 yr fixed was the right thing to do, but I still can’t shake the “did we do the right thing?” feeling. Plus, just the stress of getting it all DONE - sending paperwork to the credit union, calling and checking up on things, fax this, fax that.. I was wigging out! It’s done now. Yay!

We should be getting around $1600 back from escrow on the old mortgage. I am going to enter it as supplemental income, and then when the last paycheck of the month comes in, I will be entering that one as “primary”, which kind of makes us 1/4 on the way to Rule #1. It’s tempting to NOT do this, and just plug it into the debt, but I know that operating under rule #1 will be a big benefit to our family.

I scheduled only minimums to our credit cards this month, due to the closing and saving up for closing costs, however, I also put in a reimbursement claim for our dependent care FSA, which I decided early on in this “let’s get rid of all this debt” journey, that all FSA checks would go toward debt.

So $384 got sent to citibank. Nice Makes that escrow check not going toward debt a smidge better.

Can’t wait for bonus time. - after that, I should be able to enter 1 or 2 more paychecks as “primary” instead of “supplemental”.

Once again…. Just wondering if I’m talking in the dark here.. or if anyone is reading this?