13-Days After Losing Silver…

I am exhausted!

I have found that riding the bus everyday to and from work makes my days three hours longer than the work-day itself.

Example:

I have to be at work by 9:45 am – I have to leave the house by 7am to catch my 1st bus at 7:20 am, then a connector at 8:00 am arriving at the shopping center where I work around 8:45 am – if i leave at 8:00 to catch the 8:20 am bus I risk the connector being late and thus in turn being late for work (the buses here are NOTORIOUS for being unreliable and consistently OFF schedule)…so instead I get there early – sometimes I go to the break room of my store and hang-out other times I’ll head to Starbucks and borrow their internet while having another cup of coffee.

Then when I get off work at 6:15 like I did today, I caught my 1st bus at 6:45 and the connector at 7:15 getting dropped off around 7:35 and home around 7:45 – talk about a SUPER long day.

I am both mentally and physically exhausted.

Last paycheck I wasn’t able to put aside any money, I actually had to pull funds from a savings account to cover our financials for the two week period – still getting used to this bi-weekly pay schedule.  I did send $200 to Progress Energy for our electric bill and had some other items auto-draft.  I also cancelled my Personal Training contract and put a timeline stay on my gym membership (which will continue to draft) in an effort to save some money.

Anyhew – we’ll get there, hopefully sooner rather than later.

I am rambling – can you tell I have a LOT Of mental downtime on the bus?

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Week Ending 03.23.14 Budget – Vehicle Taxes and An Electric Bill Eats At Us…

 So this week was a long one – and tough on us financially – while I did get some overtime, it  wasn’t enough sadly and we overdid it again in terms of the bills – then again we had (2) two big  bills come in that had to be paid we didn’t plan for – I know sad I don’t plan for the electric bill,  but alas it came in and we needed to pay them almost $200…I am not sure what else to do, our  electric bill is so high that there’s no end in sight.  We unplug all of our small appliances (well  there’s only 2) when we’re not using them, turn off lights when we’re not in a room, have a  ceiling fan in our living room, and don’t run the heat/ac unless it’s extremely cold or extremely hot – we don’t have a dishwasher so we’re not running that all the time – the only things left on consistently are the lamp in the living room, the computer, the light over the stove and sink – BUT they are all switched off at night when we go to sleep or if we leave.  Unless we are going out at night, all lights are turned off when we leave – if we go out in the evening we leave the light on over the stove so we don’t come  home to a completely dark house…yet our electric bill is still so high…don’t get it…so that was $195.00 to be paid.

 At the same time our Vehicle Tax/Registration bill came in from the NC DMV, $65.19, to be  paid in order to get a full tag for our new van – for now we have a temporary sticker on the  tag.  I paid the bill now vs. waiting until almost the deadline – then again the dealership would  not have given me the tag unless I paid the bill right then and there…Ugh if I could roll my  eyes here I would.  While I am happy Bessie now has her tags and is official in the eyes of the state I wish that the bill would have come in a few weeks vs. now…but alas it is what it is…

Though the upswing to all of this is that on 3/31 not only did I cross the bridge of my 13-Mos blogging anniversary, we also hit 8-Years since we left the DC Metro area and moved to North Carolina…I still can’t believe it’s been 8 Years.  That day 3/31/2006 was a daunting one, we packed the final items into the truck, loaded up myself, the kids and our two cats into our car with my husband and Dad in the moving truck and off we went, for 9.5 hours we drove south on I-95 then to I-40 East to Wilmington, twas the longest day of my life, but one of the best! Moving here was a difficult decision, not one we came to easily, but it was one that has been for the best!  Coastal living certainly has agreed with us and for that I am very happy! So happy 8th Anniversary to us!

Ok so onto why we’re here, the budget:

$31.69	Remaining from W/E 03/16/14			$519.45	Lara W/E 03/23/14 Salary, Pay Date 03/28
$16.00	Amt. Spent		$ 233.96	Jimmy W/E 03/23/14 Salary
$15.69	Avail. Starting		$753.41
$15.00	Savings for X-Mas ’14		$15.69	Avail. Starting
$1.00	Facebook?		$753.41	Total Pay
$ –	$769.10	Avail. For Bills
$ –
$16.00

And the breakdown:

$769.10
$195.00	Progress Energy
$574.10
$65.19	NC Vehicle Tax
$508.91
$70.00	Brigades Boys & Girls Club
$438.91
$200.00	Groceries
$238.91
$25.00	Dinner, 03/28
$213.91
$25.00	Jimmy’s Money
$188.91
$60.00	Gas
$128.91
$40.00	Cat & Dog Food
$88.91
$5.00	CCA, 03/31 Auto-Draft
$83.91	$83.91
8%	$6.71
$6.71	$77.20

So there we are – I forecasted out our budget through the end of April and I am sad to say it’s not going to be pretty unless we get some kind of financial gift or something comes through…not happy to say the least.

Still looking for another job, its slow going, but I am looking.

Hope you all have a good week – weekend, it should be lovely here through the weekend, have a few more items I need to get my hands on this weekend before going to Camporee next weekend, I am just hoping for nice weather honestly LOL!!

Lesson Learned here: Pre-Planning can help unknowns and unexpected financial expenditures from happening…good luck with that one!

Images borrowed from:

http://www.123rf.com

http://www.myfox8.com

http://www.martialartsptc.com

Week Ending 01.19.14 Budget – I think I May have Thrown Up

This week was particularly frustrating when I was doing the budget – why? Simple – the utility bills are  continuing to go up, mostly the electric bill as we’re having to run out heat at like 75 just to keep the  house at 68 around the damn clock because it’s too friggin’ cold out! Never mind that out heat pump  can only do but so much to convert 6 degree air outside to 68 degree air in the house – BRRRRR – we’re  seeing an electric bill upwards of $200.00 added to what we already are past due on and it’s over  $400.00.  

 GAH tax time can’t come soon enough in my book! I sent all of our tax docs to my Dad last week and he’ll file them sometime in the next few weeks when he has time.  Then when done we can hope beyond hope that the refund comes somewhat quickly! We desperately need that money sooner rather than later!

So on that note here is the budget for the week:

$41.74	Remaining from W/E 01/12/14			$507.39	Lara W/E 01/19/14 Salary, Pay Date 01/24
$36.40	Amt. Spent			$210.37	Jimmy W/E 01/19/14 Salary
$5.34	Avail. Starting			$717.76
$5.00	Savings for X-Mas ’14			$5.34	Avail. Starting
$5.00	Ashley Dr.			$717.76	Total Pay
$5.00	CCA			$723.10	Avail. For Bills
$2.06	KTC			$27.76	Money Spent Before Paying Bills
$3.75	Kindle Charges			$695.34
$15.59	Wal-Mart
$36.40

And the breakdown, here’s where you will see my frustration

$695.34
$63.44	State Farm, 01/27 Auto-Draft
$631.90
$84.50	Credit Accept
$547.40
$90.00	Brigades Boys & Girls Club
$457.40
$200.00	Groceries
$257.40
$25.00	Dinner, 01/10
$232.40
$25.00	Cat & Dog Food
$207.40
$25.00	Jimmy’s Money
$182.40
$30.00	Gas
$152.40
$7.99	Hulu.com, 1/21 Auto-Draft
$144.41
$30.00	GS Troop# 1327, Camporee/Jan Dues
$114.41
$17.94	Shipping of GS Cookies
$96.47
$55.00	Progress Energy
$41.47	$41.47
8%	$3.32
$3.32	$38.15

The two points of my major frustration lies in these two lines:

$90.00

Brigades Boys & Girls Club

Why? Simple – I paid the $70.00 for last week, 01/20 – 01/24/14 but THEN schools were closed for a teacher workday on the 24th, Brigades was open but yet it was an additional $20.00 ($10.00 per child) for the day, so I ended up paying them $90.00 for last week – can someone please explain this to me???

And second:

$55.00

Progress Energy

NOT having enough funds to make this payment in FULL, $183.00 to bring us somewhere close to current.  that just bugs me to no end!

You know normally I might have been whining, moaning and complaining, but then I read this article yesterday written ever so eloquently by a woman who is in a much tougher spot than I am at the moment and I finally just told myself to shut to heck up and move on.  You can find her article titled This is Why Poor People’s Bad Decisions Make Perfect Sense here, take a moment to read it and share your thoughts below.

Lesson Learned: While you think your financial life sucks arse, there’s always someone who’d happily trade with you!

Images borrowed from:

http://www.thesuperzilch.wordpress.com

http://www.bemanaged.com

http://www.myfox23.com

Got Good News and Bad News…

Good News: Car Passed Inspection and my hubby got the Tags renewed this morning. I also got Accepted to WritersCash as a Freelancer, Woop Woop! Gotta now get my PayPal account Activated so I can get paid!

Bad News: I had to drain our Merrill Account to cover the electric bill – they were en route to shut us off if we didn’t pay them $107.00 to keep it from being shut-off…we wouldn’t have had the funds until Friday to pay them and yeah we can’t go that long without power…too cold outside for that and our Beardie would die from the cold…UGH UGH UGH!

This woman is Dropping MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY F BOMBS RIGHT NOW!

Week Ending 10.27.13 Budget…It Got Real…

Seriously a break would be helpful? Why is it this time of year everything goes to sh*t and our finances takes a large plunge down the drain, UGH! This go around it was new tires for the car, a trial Amazon.com Prime Membership I forgot to cancel in time re-routed just about everything I had allocated elsewhere to spend on bills.  The $200 I was going to send to Credit Acceptance and the $115.00 for the Electric bill (which I am hoping beyond hope is still on when I get home tonight)…so we’re pretty much screwed this week…if i could I would just fill this post with the “F” bomb until I  exploded!

I explained what happened with the tires in a previous post, if you missed it, it’s here

Otherwise, here’s the budget – I seriously am going to figure out a way to fix this and get us back on track, I submitted my essay the other day to WritersCash, you can read it here in hopes its accepted and I can begin making money freelance writing, we could really use it!

With that rant over, here’s this weeks’ budget, the money paid to Amazon will be refunded after the pending transaction clears, Thankfully! Then maybe, just maybe I can pay part of the electric bill; I tried to request an extension on their website, but that was a no-go, my hubby tried to call them this morning and all he got was a message saying “all circuits are busy at this time” oh gee I wonder what happened there!

$126.31	Remaining from W/E 09/08/13			$491.39	Lara W/E 10/27/13 Salary, Pay Date 11/01
$126.00	Amt. Spent			$223.77	Jimmy W/E 10/27/13 Salary
$0.31	Avail. Starting			$715.16
$100.00	DSS			$0.31	Avail. Starting
$9.44	Harris Teeter			$715.16	Total Pay
$0.79	KTC			$715.47	Avail. For Bills
$15.02	Adj.			$50.00	TXFR From Merrill on 10/30, Voided 10/11 Transaction
$0.75	Kindle Charges			$765.47
$126.00				$25.00	Re-Deposit of Cash Withdrawn
				$790.47

Ok so let me explain a few things here – the $100 to DSS aka New Hanover County Dept of Soc. Services is the Kids’ NC Health Choice insurance deductible for the year – Thankfully one thing went right and we were re-approved for another year, yes thank-you Brigades you brought our income down enough to qualify us!

The $25.00 put back into our account was that I accounted for dinner @ Incredible’s Friday night and by the time we got there to meet my hubs he’d purchased the pizza with our debit card, so I put those funds back into our account…

So here’s the breakdown:

$790.47
$223.07	New Tires
$567.40
$70.00	Brigades Boys & Girls Club
$497.40
$200.00	Groceries
$297.40
$25.00	Jimmy’s Money
$272.40
$23.17	Dinner, 9/13
$249.23
$40.00	Gas
$209.23
$25.00	Cat & Dog Food
$184.23
$79.00	Amazon.com Prime Membership
$105.23	$105.23
0.07	$7.37
$7.37	$ 97.86

And with the lump sum cash withdrawal:

$790.47
$223.07	New Tires
$567.40
$70.00	Brigades Boys & Girls Club
$497.40
$320.00	Cash for Week
$177.40
$79.00	Amazon.com Prime Membership
$98.40
$7.37	Merrill Transfer
$91.03

So here we are, Halloween went well, the kids had a BLAST trick or Treating! We walked around downtown for about two (2) hours before heading to Harris Teeter to get Ashley some cold meds – she felt a little warm to us and was coughing some during trick or treating, though she didn’t let that bring her down, she took off as per usual and had  so much fun!

Here are the kids in their costumes:

 

Our Little Devil!

 

And our Shadow Ninja!

Week Ending 09.08.13 Budget…Misc. Spending Has Gotten Out of Hand…

My Goodness did we WAY Over Do it last Week in Terms of Misc. Spending…literally taking a HUGE chunk out of our would be bill paying funds…ugh ugh ugh…thankfully this week we’ve managed to cut that off and not spend way too much like we did…It hurts it really hurts when I look at these numbers – it’s no wonder we can’t pay our bills, just look:

$114.25	Remaining from W/E 09/01/13			$428.45	Lara W/E 09/08/13 Salary, Pay Date 9/13
$74.95	Amt. Spent			$331.36	Jimmy W/E 09/08/13 Salary
$39.30	Avail. Starting			$759.81
$15.00	GS Troop #1327			$39.30	Avail. Starting
$3.83	Target			$759.81	Total Pay
$2.03	KTC			$799.11	Avail. For Bills
$12.84	Clothes Mentor			$365.00	In From Savings for Citi
$8.54	Hobby Lobby			$1,164.11
$6.42	Starbucks
$12.51	Brownie Stuff
$4.38	Target
$7.57	Best Western, Tax
$1.83	Unaccounted For Spending
$74.95

You see where we went overboard? It would seem a bunch of somewhat smaller transactions added up relatively quickly! The trip to Clothes Mentor for a top to wear to the concert, $12.84, a trip to Hobby Lobby, $8.54 and a treat of Starbucks, $6.42 along with getting Ashley’s Brownie tab, Flag Patch and GS Emblem for her Sash added up quickly – these are items I probably could have budgeted for elsewhere but failed to and now we’re dealing with the consequences…OUCH!

We just got our Water bill yesterday, $210.00 for TWO (2) Months USAGE!!! WTF?!?!?! It’s not like we use a ton of water…oh wait, yeah Ashley likes to take LONG Showers…well those are stopping effective immediately – we’ve curbed that.

Also our electric bill was $276.73, with a past due balance of $113.47 due by 09/30/13 – OUCH again! Thankfully it’s starting to cool off some…the temp might spike again…but for now it’s cooler and we’re not running our AC.  In fact last night we slept with the windows open because it was so cool (I prefer it cold when I sleep, if I am hot I can’t sleep)! So yeah for Fall Weather!

Alright so where are we now that we’re on the back end of our stupidity?? Well I’ve upped the grocery budget to $200.00/week, which left us with $49.00 after we were done shopping Saturday morning – so $22.00 of that went towards new sheets for Ashley (hers were infested with bed bug remnants and eggs – a battle we’ve been fighting for a looong time now) – we had to completely clean and treat her bed Friday night to rid it of all remaining bed bug adults, eggs and larvae – ICK!  And the remaining $27.00 went towards the kids’ rewards for being ready on time last week and the week before (2.00) and then I made a Harris Teeter run last night to the tune of $20.00 leaving me with $5.00 cash for the savings jar!  Not too bad…I was able to make an unexpected purchase and still have funds remaining! YEAH!  That made  me happy and it kept us out of the checking account!

So here we go, this weeks budget – I only sent a portion of the Mortgage payment to Citi, we sent them $625.00 leaving a balance due of $499.00 to be paid at a later date to complete Septembers payment and the late fees, leaving us with Pennies for this week remaining, but I pulled in $15.00 from the Merrill Account just in case, if we don’t use it I’ll put it back…it’s Wednesday and we haven’t touched it, so I say we’re doing good:

$1,164.11
$70.00	Brigades Boys & Girls Club
$1,094.11
$5.00	OT Solutions
$1,089.11
$200.00	Groceries
$889.11
$25.00	Jimmy’s Money
$864.11
$25.00	Dinner, 9/13
$839.11
$40.00	Gas
$799.11
$25.00	Cat & Dog Food
$774.11
$89.00	APM Int’l, 9/15 Auto-Draft
$685.11
$5.00	CCA
$680.11
$625.00	Citi
$55.11
$15.00	Girl Scouts
$40.11
$5.00	Cape Fear Peds, 09/17
$35.11

And with our Cash withdrawal:

$1,164.11
$70.00	Brigades Boys & Girls Club
$1,094.11
$5.00	OT Solutions
$1,089.11
$320.00	Cash for Week
$769.11
$89.00	APM Int’l, 9/15 Auto-Draft
$680.11
$5.00	CCA
$675.11
$625.00	Citi
$50.11
$15.00	Girl Scouts
$35.11
$5.00	CF Peds
$30.11

So that’s that! I know I got long-winded and I apologize! TTFN until next Week!