Struggling to be debt free

Credit: Plume Ploume I've read a lot of interesting articles about this topic.  Some people advocate paying off their mortgage with extra money and others advocate investing the money.  Where do you stand on this topic?  I am totally on board with paying off the mortgage.  This is for a few reasons: (1) I hate having debt, (2) I hate having a mortgage, (3) If something bad happens (like job loss) I would prefer not to have a mortgage payment to make, (4) I don't plan to make this house my forever home and I would like to have as much equity as possible when I sell so I have more money to put down on my forever home, (5) I want to make sure that even if the house market drops again that I will not be underwater on my house in the event that I am forced to sell and (6)I have PMI on my mortgage and I am trying to pay down the balance of the mortgage so that PMI is no longer required (maybe by early next year!).  If any of these scenarios occur, I think paying ...

 Credit: Maklay62   This week has gone by so fast!! I haven't had a chance to post.  Work is crazy busy and I just can't keep up right now. My boss, however, strolls in about noon a few days each week.  He's always sure to tell me how he's going to start helping out because he knows I am so busy.  Yet somehow when the partner in the South Florida office asked him to help out with 2 appeals, a pre-suit mediation and a trial...he dropped them all on me.  So much for help. Anyways, on to the point of this post... My goal this year to contribute $10,500 to my retirement savings. I plan to contribute $5,500 to my Roth and $5,000 to my taxable brokerage account.  For April I only contributed $765 to my retirement account (due to my very expensive car repair ). That brings my total contributions for 2018 to $4,035 Only $1,465 more to go to fully fund my Roth for the year.  I hope to be max it out no later than May of this year (but pr...

Privilege has been a hot topic in the media. The terms "white privilege" and "male privilege" have been tossed around a lot. I didn't really buy into the whole privilege argument.   I thought it was silly to state that someone was privileged because of their race or sex, especially when so many people struggle regardless of race, sex  or socioeconomic status.  The more traction that the theory gained, the more types of privilege were bandied about in the media and in the personal finance community on twitter ("American privilege", etc)  And then, just a few weeks ago, my Mom called me out on my privilege. Mom told me that  I was privileged. I was shocked.  How could I be privileged?  We were not a wealthy family when I was child.  I'm not wealthy now.  All of the money that I have saved and the assets that I have accumulated are based on my own hard work.  I went into debt for law school and paid back all of my student loan...

I don't know about everyone else, but throughout my life I often seem to be in opportune (or inopportune) places to hear sensitive, scandalous or private information.  No, I'm not eavesdropping, sometimes people will voluntarily reveal information to me- maybe because I'm the only other person around.  Sometimes it is said in such a place that I am unable to avoid overhearing the information.   Due to the nature of the information I have been made privy to I cannot disclose it to those close to me as it would ruin friendships, working relationships or simply be construed as gossip.  I'm not the type to want to cause drama in the lives of my friends, family or work relationships. So, your beautiful ears (or eyes rather) will get to hear the random secrets and lies that I hear. I figure my blog can act as my stress relief/venting place for all of the craziness I hear.  First up--a girl that I work with who I have previously referred to as "Michelle"....

I had to take my 12 year old car in for maintenance this weekend and boy it was expensive, to the tune of $1,302.  I had an oil change, new spark plugs, rotation, all sorts of fluids flushed, etc.  Don't let anyone ever tell you that aging cars are not expensive to maintain.  Vehicles are costly little buggers.  However, I looked through my old service records and I don't think I've ever had the spark plugs replaced on that vehicle (which now has over 120,000 miles on it). I plan to pay for the maintenance/repair work out my 4/1518 paycheck which means less will go towards retirement than planned.  I'm okay with that though, because I'd rather have one expensive car repair/maintenance bill  a year over $6,000 in new car payments for the year.  I'm off to work.  Have a great Tuesday!

 At the beginning of the year, I set some goals for myself.  Let's see how I am doing. 1. Add $10,500 to retirement savings with the goal of having $35,000 saved for retirement by the end of the year.  $5,500 will go into my roth ira and $5,000 will go into a taxable account. Come on stock market growth and no recession! Last year I contributed $9,500 so this will be an  increase of $1,000.  So Far I have contributed $3,270 towards retirement this year.  All of that went into my Roth IRA.  I still have $7,230 left to contribute towards retirement.  2.Increase EF to $18,500. I have not added anything to my EF fund yet.  It is still sitting around $17,000.  3. Pay an extra $290/month toward principal on the mortgage.  My easily reachable goal is to have the mortgage paid down to $200,000 by the end of the year.  The ultimate goal is to have the balance paid down to $197,500 by the end of the year so that the PMI will...

Here's where the numbers stand. Savings-  $11,985 Emergency Fund  $10,913 Online Savings Account/$5,757 of that amount is for my Car Replacement Fund  $22,794 Retirement- Roth IRA   $2,006 Taxable Brokerage (Retirement) $497 Travel Fund (Work) $653 pet fund  $57 medical fund $1,801 furniture fund $169 Slush fund Home- $299,378-per zillow                   Total (not including home): $50,875                   Total (including home): $350,253 Liabilities- Mortgage $206,466                                  Total (not including mortgage): 0                     Total (including mortgage): -$206,466              ...