Updates

Updates, updates, updates.

First here is my budget for January 16-31

$230 utilities
$100 groceries
$100 savings
$100 gas
$1,555 credit card
$200 spending
$33 home alarm monitoring
$100 car registration

I spent over $14,000 in medical expenses last year (mostly dental).  I believe the total is $14,097.00.  I will be able to deduct a good bit of that on my taxes.  I ran a tax estimator and it is showing that I will receive a refund of about $3000 (the medical expenses and mortgage).   Any refund that I receive will like go to fund my dental savings account so I can get the last bit of work done. 

I have not heard anything back from the law firm I interviewed with, so I can only assume that I will not be offered a position with there.  I don't think I'm upset about it.  My interview was a bit off kilter, so I don't think it would have been a good fit.

I paid off the last bit of dental expenses that I had remaining on my credit card so my credit card debt is back down to $0.  I had to pay around $20 in interest and boy did that hurt.  I am being totally serious, I had hoped to never pay another dime in credit card interest in my entire life.  Oh well.  Baby steps, I suppose.

Technically I made my last payment on student loan earlier this month instead of in December so the total principal paid on my student loan last year was $4,753.79.  The total payments (principal and interest) were $5,524.74.  Yes, it's pretty sorry.  However, between the medical expenses ($14,097) and student loan payments ($5,524.74) I cash flowed almost $20,000 last year and that's pretty good. I will take that into account when preparing my goals post for 2015. 

My boss continues to be in denial about the state of the law firm and my general unhappiness.  He continues to tell me that he knows that he needs to bring in more work.  (His paralegal had 2 billiable days in December.  Yes, that's all.)

I have consulted with a local attorney about my career and received some really helpful advice.  I plan on implementing some of the advice I received.  It was really nice to be able to speak with someone about my career who genuinely cared and was able to give objective advice.  (This local attorney knows my boss and has for years- so I had no need to give him any background).  I still owe you guys an update on the things I want to do to advance my career.