No room on this paycheck for extra payments on my student loans unfortunately. Here's how everything fell out:
$200 utilities
$100 groceries
$1,500 dental work
$95 Continuing Legal Education
$50 Mom
$100 savings
$269 spendings
$100 gas
I upped my spending because I am taking the whole last week of April off in order to use up some vacation time. I also need to buy some flea medication for the cats so that will take up an extra bit of the available spending money.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Case of the Frustrations
I have a serious case of the frustrations! I haven't written because I am so frustrated with life and work in general. I want to be debt free. I want all of my dental work done...now. I want to lose weight...now. I want a wonderful good sturdy bedroom set...now. I want my house painted professionally...now. I want to invest tons of money...now. I want lots of things, but I can't afford anything!
I have officially applied for a new job because I feel like I just cannot take my current job anymore. It's frustrating. My boss is a lazy, lazy piece of crap. His secretary, although I like her personally, is just as bad. She's not keeping up with the work...which is sad because there's not much to do. It seems as though if I ask her to do something, she simply does not do it. I don't know why she has taken on this attitude. Pretty much the only time that she works is at the end of the month when she is getting our boss' billable time into the bookkeeper. I feel conflicted. I don't know what to do. Do I say something to her? I already stopped giving her work to do on my cases. However, if I do something for my boss and he reviews it it is up to her to get it out. I don't want to become a nag or a pushover, but it's not right that I have to do clerical work on my own cases. I need to focus on billing. I guess my only option is to keep on top of her to make sure that things are going out as requested. If that's not bad enough, she's had about 5 or 6 raises in the 3 years that she has worked there. Why? She barely comes to work, she always leaves early and she never does any work. Yet somehow that behavior warrants a raise. I come in early everyday, I stay late if necessary, I do all of the drafting and writing for the office and some for the other office. What am I missing? I had to beg to get my part time assistant a raise and she's been there over 5 years now and had never had a raise. That felt good to vent. Thanks for letting me bend your ear.
I have officially applied for a new job because I feel like I just cannot take my current job anymore. It's frustrating. My boss is a lazy, lazy piece of crap. His secretary, although I like her personally, is just as bad. She's not keeping up with the work...which is sad because there's not much to do. It seems as though if I ask her to do something, she simply does not do it. I don't know why she has taken on this attitude. Pretty much the only time that she works is at the end of the month when she is getting our boss' billable time into the bookkeeper. I feel conflicted. I don't know what to do. Do I say something to her? I already stopped giving her work to do on my cases. However, if I do something for my boss and he reviews it it is up to her to get it out. I don't want to become a nag or a pushover, but it's not right that I have to do clerical work on my own cases. I need to focus on billing. I guess my only option is to keep on top of her to make sure that things are going out as requested. If that's not bad enough, she's had about 5 or 6 raises in the 3 years that she has worked there. Why? She barely comes to work, she always leaves early and she never does any work. Yet somehow that behavior warrants a raise. I come in early everyday, I stay late if necessary, I do all of the drafting and writing for the office and some for the other office. What am I missing? I had to beg to get my part time assistant a raise and she's been there over 5 years now and had never had a raise. That felt good to vent. Thanks for letting me bend your ear.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
The dentist
So this year I started seeing a dentist that I liked very much. He seemed nice and knowledgeable about his subject area. I have had bad dentists in the past so I really appreciated someone who knew what he was doing. So here comes the bad part, I went to have a crown placed a few weeks ago, but it turns out that he needs my other two teeth extracted first due to all the swelling in the gum, etc. So he removes the temporary crown and does a buildup in preparation for the crown. I pay, a total of $99, for the work and get my receipt which shows a $0 balance. One week later I get a bill in the mail from the dentist for $87, it shows a charge of $170 for a buildup and $21 for an xray. I check my receipt given the day of the service and it showed a $21 charge for an xray and $83 for the buildup. I received an approximate 5% full payment discount. Obviously, the statement in the mail is a mistake on their behalf I call the office and explain the discrepancy. I scan and email my receipt to the office. The office assistant replies, that they made an error on the date of service and they will give me extra time to pay. I was irritated because to me the statement appeared duplicitous. The $83 charge is not listed anywhere on the bill in the mail, I would assume they would have credited the account to show the mistake and keep proper records. I was furious because they knew they made a mistake, and knew that the statement would be at odds with the documentation that they already provided to me, yet they did nothing to explain the mistake until I called. Why did I have to waste my time and reach out to them? Why didn't they note on the bill that an error had been made? I felt that the customer service I received was less than stellar and I will not be returning to the office. I think it was just one of those things were it hit me the wrong way on the wrong day and I took greater offense than necessary. Nevertheless, I am petty and will not be returning. Thank goodness there are tons of dental offices in the area.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Extra payments on Student Loans
My hope was, initially, to make large (at least $1500/month) payments on my student loans throughout this year, but the dental work blew that out of the water. However, when I found out that I would be spending the majority of my disposal income this year on dental work I started making efforts to make extra payments on my last 2 (I consider it one) student loans. So despite the major blow to my debt payoff plan, I have still managed to make extra payments. The minimum payment is $202.37/a month for both loans combined. The larger loan (over $20,000) has a minimum payment of $150.82, the smaller loan has a minimum payment of $51.55. I am paying $300 ($150.82 towards the big loan and $149.18 towards the small loan) at the end of each month. Then mid-month I am making a $165 payment on the smaller loan. The smaller loan is over $6,000 so I am using the extra payments to chip away at it so that at the end of the year only a few thousand dollars will be left. Any money that I have left at the end of the year that does not go toward dental expenses I can put on that smaller loan and pay it down even further. The sooner I pay down the smaller loan I will be able to use that extra $51.55 to pay on the bigger loan.
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