Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Desperate

Things at work are just terrible right now.  My boss is a liar (ha ha, I know all attorneys are liars) and because of his lies he is causing problems in the office. He is making life miserable for me.  I just want to find a new job.   I'll admit I kind of slacked off (totally slacked off) with regard to my job search.  The job market here is so tough, it's hard to find anything to apply for.  I can't seem to find any positions for which I am qualified that are decent paying jobs.  I feel stuck and I hate feeling stuck.  I am going to re-up my job search.  I might even start attending the bar meetings with the hope that I'll make a connection for a new job. 

Friday, June 19, 2015

June 16-30 Budget

$250 utilities
$100 groceries
$1040 student loan
$600 sister's birthday
$33 alarm monitoring
$241 spending
$50 savings
$100 gas

In addition to the student loan payment budgeted above, I paid the $108 I cashed out from my credit card rewards and some travel voucher reimbursements and made the $1,784 payment referenced in my previous post.

To date, I have $3,151.97 in my online savings account and I am on track to make $1.90 in interest this month. 

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Is it sad

That the most exciting thing in my life right now is making big payments on my student loan? I made a whooping $1,784 payment yesterday (pay day) on my student loan.  It made me so excited!  I was literally giddy with excitement when I logged into my account this morning to check that the payment went through. It did, everything is well with the world.  I now owe $17,025 (with interest through June 30, 2015) on my one and only outstanding student loan! I am happy to be finally making progress, earlier this year I was busy making payments on my dental work so I was unable to make huge payments on the loan.  I should be just about done with paying for dental work (Still waiting on the final work as to whether I need anything else done) so hopefully the rest of the year will be spent putting extra on the student loan. I am currently paid up through October of 2016, so a little over a year (my student loan company will advance the due date AND apply the payment to principal). 

Okay debt bloggers, what makes you excited??

Friday, June 12, 2015

Travel voucher drama

You all have heard me complain (numerous times) about the extremely long length of time that it takes my firm to reimburse travel vouchers.  This year, I had expended over $1,400 out of pocket to travel on firm business and not one dime had been reimbursed.

So I took a stand, I advised the firm bookkeeper that I needed to be reimbursed for something.  I had been waiting over 3 months and was out of pocket almost $1,500.  I told her (although I did not want to) that I would speak to one of the partners if I had to as I could no longer bear the expense of extending credit to the firm for over 3 months at a time.  Well I guess she wanted it to come from her and not from me- so she spoke to one or both of the partners and the reimbursements starting rolling in. I had a check the very next day.  It was wonderful because I did not have to speak to my boss (whom is impossible to deal with) and I still got most of the money I was owed.  To date I have received checks totaling over $2,000 (this represents out of pockets costs-plus the mileage reimbursement). I still have a few travel vouchers outstanding (less than 30 days old), but that's all.

I have asked and asked over the years for my travel vouchers to be reimbursed more timely.  I always got some kind of crazy excuse (I have to balance my books first and it'll be a few weeks before I can get to it, the partners won't let me reimburse you until the client pays the bill, etc.).  However, typically the amounts were small enough that I felt that making a fuss out of a $150 travel voucher would not present me in any flattering light to my superiors.  Well, anyway, the stars perfectly aligned and everything worked out with very little chaos or stress.  That is very unusual in this firm and I expect that I will pay for it later.  Also, knowing that bookkeeper, she probably has it out for me now because she had to admit her faults to the partners.

Oh well, at least it's Friday!

Friday, June 5, 2015

2015 Goals- Status

I made 10 goals at the beginning of the year.  Let's see how I am doing.


1. Pay off $10,000 on my student loans.

To date I have paid off $4,711 on my student loans this year.  I do have a stretch goal of paying off $12,000 this year on this loan.  To reach my stated goal of $10,000 I am  ahead, technically I have until the end of June to pay off $300 more dollars ($1,300 to reach my stretch goal).

2. Pay off the smaller student loan completely.

DONE!!!!

3. Cash flow the dental work I have left.

SO FAR -DONE!!

4. Be a better friend to my friends.
DEFINITELY IN PROGRESS

5. Read at least 24 books
I HAVE TOTALLY FALLEN BEHIND ON THIS I HAVE ONLY READ 4.5 BOOKS

6. Give more (time and money).
7. Lose weight = 30lbs. OMG!! Weight loss to date--3lbs. Sigh.
FAILING- I HAVE LOST 4 LBS.

8. Find a new job.
FAIL!

9. Be more positive!
FAIL!

10. Increase online savings account to $3,500.
TOTALLY ON TRACK- TO DATE I HAVE $3,101 IN MY ONLINE SAVINGS ACCOUNT 

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

June 1-15 Budget

Here's the budget for June 1-15

$1,480 mortgage
$367 student loan
$60 pet plan
$90 groceries
$217 spending
$100 savings
$100 gas

I made the payment on my student loan late last night and it has finally posted! I now officially owe $18,937 (and change) on my student loan (that's with interest through June 15).  I've been waiting to see some progress and falling in the $18,000 range is making me feel so much better! I owed approximately $23,650 in December of 2014.  If I can get the balance down to $17,650 by the end of June I will have met my (internal) goal of paying $1,000 per month.  Just $1,300 to scratch together. I'm going to try to come close!