Day 170: No Good

I didn’t want to post this entry this month. I kind of want to beat myself after looking at it, honestly. Here is our debt for this month, including the money we’ve spent on Christmas so far.

So what can we discern from this image?

I am lousy at paying off debt. We have added over $17,000 in debt since June. We have added over $3000 in credit card debt since June. We have added over $2500 of that credit card debt in just the past month. From last month to this month, we have added nearly $2000 in overall debt.

Taking stock in our current financial picture, I think it suffices to say that I am not meant to be a debt counselor. Our balance transfer from our Target card did us no good. Not only did it max out our credit union card, but the Target card is now nearly maxed out again.

We are foolish. We are never going to get out of this debt trap. I’m ready to return my washer and dryer. My husband is using that purchase as an excuse to go out and buy himself an expensive Christmas gift, even though the conversation we had when we bought the washer and dryer was “If we buy this, then we’ll just buy small gifts for each other.” I should have known that he’d want everything to be “fair and equal.”

This is why I don’t let my husband know the state of our financial affairs if we get extra money. He will never know how much of a bonus I bring in. He won’t know how big our tax return is. He won’t know anything about money I’m putting into savings. Is it horrible that I’m thinking about withdrawing our kid’s savings accounts to pay off our debt? I feel like, if I do that and I’m not paying interest on credit card debt, that we can replenish their savings accounts quickly.

Does it make me a bad mom for withdrawing their savings when they’ve earned less than a dollar of interest YTD on either account? I just kind of think that’s the only way we’re going to get rid of our debt. But what if that doesn’t work either? I feel like we’re drowning.

On a slightly less desperate note, I joined Swagbucks three weeks ago and have since earned enough swag bucks for three $5 Amazon gift cards. If you're interested in doing things to earn Swagbucks (which can ultimately be cashed in for real gifts), please click the button to the right to sign up using me as a referral. I also cashed out all of my survey winnings last week so I can put that towards paying off Christmas. It was only about $60, but $60 is better than nothing, right?

Day 159: Why?

Why do we keep doing these things?

We went and bought a washer and dryer last week. To be fair, it was an amazing price. A Samsung steam washer and steam dryer, king sized capacity, for about $1300, plus we got a $130 gift card back on the purchase. I love the set, and I’ve been looking at upgrading our washer and dryer for about three and a half years now (since we bought the house), and like I said, phenomenal price! We put them on our Best Buy credit card at 18 months with 0% interest and justified it because of the no interest financing.

To be honest, I also justified it because of the Energy Star price tag that says it uses $12 a year to operate based on a $0.10/kilowatt energy rate, versus our old washer that used $77 per year based on a $0.07/kilowatt hour energy rate. The sales man also told us that while traditional washers use close to 50 gallons of water per wash, the set we bought is probably closer to 16. Given that we were doing probably 8 loads of laundry a week, that’s a substantial savings. Oh, and since this is a king capacity set, we’re not doing as many loads as we were before. Well, we are this week, because I’m so in love with the set that I can’t stop washing laundry, but once the novelty wears off, we’ll probably be down to four loads a week, maybe five. I’m anxious to see next month’s electric bill, just to see if the cost savings are that substantial, and then our water bill in two months.

I’ve seen a difference in our electric bill since I hung blinds and curtains in our daughter’s bedroom last month, but I don’t know if it’s because the weather is warmer than this time last year, or if it’s because the heavy curtains legitimately make a difference. I should have hung the heavy curtains in my son’s room too, so maybe I’ll see if I can find the liner that you attach to the back of existing panels. The true test will be in January, which has traditionally been our highest energy month over the three and a half years we’ve lived in this house. I signed us up for the budget payment plan in May for our electric, and right now we’re running a surplus of over $170 for the past six months. If the energy efficient measures we’ve taken do what they’re supposed to, perhaps our electric bill will be closer to $120 a month next year, instead of $160. Hopefully, it will be even lower than that.

In good news, I found out that my bonus next year actually comes the second pay day in February, instead of April as I had thought. I will actually receive two bonuses next year, a large one in February, and a significantly smaller one in April, because I changed jobs three months into the year and I get bonuses from both departments. We should see our reimbursement from the county in the next month, the bonus in February, the tax return in March, and the second bonus in April, then my husband should receive his bonus in June, and I should receive a pay increase in March, so hopefully in four or five months, I can stop obsessing over where the money is going to come from and instead obsess over how we’re never getting back to this place again.

Also, I signed up for swagbucks. If you're interested in doing random things like using a search engine, taking surveys, answering polls, and watching videos for points that can be redeemed for prizes, please consider signing up using my referal. I have been doing it for less than a week and have already earned enough points for a $5 gift card from Amazon. I appreciate your help. http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/justaname

Day 149: Annual Enrollment

I completed my Annual Enrollment last week. I went back and forth many times, worrying about what it was going to do to our bottom line if I took the steps I wanted to take. Ultimately, I knew I had to make a decision and I decided that it was better to save money on the premium and go with the High Deductible plan. I contributed $900 annually to our HSA, which will be matched 100% by my employer. That only works out to $75 per month. When I plugged it into our monthly spreadsheet for next year, it did take us negative for a few weeks, but I have a few months until I have to worry about that.

I don’t know if I’ve shared or not, but because I’m so obsessed with improving our financial lot, I’ve created a spreadsheet. It originally started with just listing monthly bills and their due dates, that way I could check off items that I paid and I’d know what was still outstanding. As we’ve gotten further into debt and been teetering closer to the edge, I added columns with each weeks pay date. I now break down exactly what is coming out of each paycheck based on what we need to pay our bills. I added a conditional format to let me know when our balance for the week is below $0. In 2011, we have 14 weeks that are below $0, and two months that are cumulatively below $0, however, we have several months at the beginning of the year that leave us with $300-$500 extra after paying bills, which means probably $50-$150 after paying for gas and groceries, so hopefully it won’t be too much of a hit.

While completing my annual enrollment, I established a separate savings account. Since I am only contributing $75 a month towards our HSA, I have decided to have a separate savings/checking account for the additional premium, to balance everything out. I will be contributing every two weeks to this savings account. It is tied to a checking account because if we have to pay medical bills, I want easy access to this money. But, if we don’t have medical bills or a financial emergency, the debit card for this account is going to stay locked in our fireproof lock box. Assuming we have no medical emergencies, we would accumulate $2600 in this savings account, $900 of my own contributions to our HSA, and $1160 in company funds in our HSA by the end of next year. That’s $4660 that can go towards medical bills if we ever needed to pay our deductible.

I know putting the $2660 in the savings account is not the best financial decision since it is not tax free, however, since we do not have an emergency fund and the $200+ monthly hit would have been too great for us, I think this is a great option for this year. This money can serve as both our medical savings, and our emergency fund, should we have an emergency that demanded this money. If I contributed it all to an HSA, we’d only be able to use it for medical expenses.

My other plan is that I’m going to increase my exemptions to 3 and change my status to married, and contribute the difference to a secondary savings account. My credit union allows you to create multiple savings accounts for multiple purposes. My plan is to divert the money that we were previously paying in excess towards our federal taxes into this savings account. Every $500, I will put into a CD, staggering the maturity dates. This will allow me to earn interest on money I was previously loaning to the government interest free. If I owe taxes at year end, I will have that money sitting in a savings account/CD and it won’t hurt our financial position to pay it. If our taxes stay at the same level, we would still see a tax return, it would just be a lot smaller, and we’d have earned interest on the difference throughout the year.

I’m not going to lie, these changes make me very, very nervous. I’m used to knowing that I have a small deductible and that most everything is covered by my insurance. I’m used to knowing that I’m going to receive a large tax return at the end of the year. The thought of not receiving that lump sum of money makes me very nervous. But we have to stop living like we are, and having money in savings, even if it is an emergency fund, will reduce a lot of the stress in our marriage.

I really just want us to be happy again. And I want to be in a place that I can teach my kids to be responsible with their money so they don’t go through the same mess when they get older. Like I’ve said before, my parents didn’t really teach me anything about money, at least not anything good. I want to change that with my kids.

Day 143: Financial Anxiety

It’s Annual Enrollment time again, and this year I find myself experiencing high anxiety at the thought of making decisions that will impact us for an entire year.


Our company offers a Health Savings Choice Plan, in addition to the traditional PPO plan that we have had for the entire five years that I have worked here. The health savings plan includes a $35 biweekly premium, $2700 deductible, and $900 company matching, dollar for dollar into an HSA. The PPO has a $154 biweekly premium, $1000 deductible, and no company matching or HSA. Looking at what we have paid over the past several years, I don’t believe that we would ever even touch that $2700 deductible.

With preventative care 100% covered with no copay or deductible, the HSCP sounds like a great option. But what happens if we’re hit with a catastrophic medical issue? What if we don’t have a $2700 deductible if one of us has to be admitted to the hospital? What if I start contributing to an HSA in January, only to have one of our children break an arm in February? Or worse? There’s also the fact that HSA contributions only come out of the second pay of the month, so even if I wanted to put the difference between premium ($119/paycheck or $257.83 per month), we would be taking a HUGE hit every second paycheck. Do we have the self control to budget the extra $119 so that the money lasts us all month? My other thought was contributing $119 per month to the HSA and then $119 to a savings account on the first pay of the month. We’re still saving the same amount for health expenses, but the first $119 would be in a savings account that could act as both an emergency fund AND a health savings account. It wouldn’t have the same tax benefits as an HSA, but we would still be saving the money, gaining (minimal) interest, and we’d have it available if we had a catastrophic emergency.

Since I’m in the “planning for next year” mindset, I’m also considering increasing my exemptions, claiming married status, and putting the difference into a savings account. Based on this years tax rates, I would have saved $2568.80 in a savings account, accruing interest. That’s still less than our projected $3700 tax return, so we still wouldn’t have had to pay at the end of the year, but we would have been earning interest on that money (although again, it’s minimal). Although I know it makes good financial sense, I’m still suffering some severe anxiety at the thought of not receiving a massive tax return in 2012; although, if the Bush tax cuts expire, I won’t be receiving a massive tax return in 2012 anyway.

I know I can change the tax exemptions later in the year if it isn’t working out for us, if I find that we’re not saving like we’re supposed to be, but the annual enrollment terrifies me. If I decide that I don’t want to pay a $2700 deductible, I’m out of luck until 2012.

My husband told me he trusts me to make the right financial decisions, but it’s moments like right now that I’m not sure what the right financial decisions are.