Paying Off the Debt

I got an email yesterday from Zander Insurance saying that they needed the name, address and phone number of the doctor that ordered my kidney scan back in 2006 and the reason why I was diagnosed with renal failure. Huh??? First I've heard of that!

I sent an email back giving them the information about the doctor and explained, again, that I had the kidney scan to rule out problems with my kidneys when I was sick. I also explained, again, that the problem turned out to be a reaction to the blood pressure drug Benicar and that since I've stopped taking it and have been taking Lisinopril instead, the problem has gone away. For Pete's sake...

And no, I'm not talking about my $39.95 I pay to Weight Watchers every month. Of course, it won't be long and I won't have to do that though.

I am 4.6 pounds away from my official Weight Watchers goal weight so once I make that and maintain for 6 weeks, I'll be a lifetime member and will no longer have to pay unless I gain more than 2 pounds. Good motivation to keep that weight off.

The expense comes in the purchasing of new clothes. I had saved a lot of my old clothes when I got sick and began to gain weight, but I've pretty much blown right past those sizes and need smaller ones now.

I went shopping tonight because I have no dress pants to wear to the financial conference next week. I ended up with several shirts so that I have more than just a couple to choose from, a skirt and one pair of pants. I'm going to have to find at least one more pair before I go.

I read the article on the MSN Money site, Will Our Kids Be Dumb and Broke, today and agreed whole-heartedly with it.

We NEED to start teaching our children how to manage money. A lot of them graduate from school having no idea how to do basic personal finance tasks like write a check, balance an account, or figure out how much money they can afford to spend on a house.

You can go to the Jump$tart Coalition's website to see if your state requires any personal finance classes for students. My state has no requirements. I would really like to see that changed.

This is one reason I'm excited about the seminar I'm going to next week. We really need to start offering the public some resources on personal finance and I'd really like our public libraries to be a part of that.

DH and I have been talking about what repairs need to be made to the house this year and decided that the priorities are the new roof on the garage. He'll do that to save money and probably have DS#3 help with it. The other things that we feel need to be done are any sort of improvements that will increase the energy efficiency of this 120 year-old house.

So we're going to replace the final 4 windows that we haven't done yet, replace the faucet in the upstairs bathroom that leaks hot water continuously and finish trim around doors and windows that hasn't been done yet. We are also looking into a wood stove for the basement. We are hoping that by having a wood stove in the basement, the rest of the house will stay warmer meaning we'd go through less coal and wood pellets for the upstairs stoves. We can get a wood stove from a friend fairly cheap, and probably would be able to get free or fairly cheap wood. We'll have to check into all that.

Also, I got some grant money for school for next semester. So that means that I will be going to school half-time. Between the grant money and the CE money from my job, most of the cost of enrollment will be covered. I've started saving my weekly pocket money and survey money to help with book costs.

Today our stimulus payment was deposited into our checking account. I have it ready to be transferred to our home repair account on ING Monday. I'm transferring it there with the hope that we won't need it for repairs and that I'll be able to apply it to the mortgage instead. That's probably a pipe dream, but I'm going to hold onto it.

Still haven't heard a word about my term life insurance application. I've forgotten now when I even started this long, drawn-out process.

Still waiting to get the bill for DS#2's helicopter ride. I've heard to expect to owe about $3,000 after the insurance has paid.

DH filled up his truck today and that came to $75. Yikes! I heard Dave Ramsey say this week that these rising gas prices should not hurt your budget. Well, when you're still digging out of debt it puts a pretty good squeeze on it.

On a brighter note, my speech class is finished. I gave my last 2 speeches this week and now am just waiting for my final grade. I'm enrolled in Business Law for the fall semester and will take one more class if I am able to get financial aid. Still haven't heard if I will or not.

Tonight is DS#2's Senior Night at school. In order to graduate, they work on researching a chosen profession for their junior and senior years, ending in a presentation that they develop for the entire community.

DS wants to be a flight medic so he has chosen to set up a mock accident on school grounds and have the fire department respond. Hopefully, they will be using his wrecked SUV and one other car. DS#3 and a friend will be the victims. They will have makeup applied so that they look like they've been injured.

Once the fire department responds they will request Mercy Flight to be put in the air and, if weather cooperates, Mercy Flight will land at the school. Mercy Flight is the helicopter that flew DS#2 to the trauma center just last month, so this project is quite appropriate. Almost too much for me.

The only hitch is that the weather doesn't appear that it is going to cooperate. They're calling for thunderstorms this afternoon. He's going to be so disappointed if this can't all come together. He's worked long and hard on coordinating all of this and it really would be a great project.

But, even if Mercy Flight can't get in the air, the fire department will still be there regardless of weather. I just hope the storms will hold off for him and it can happen as he has planned it. He's already been told by his advisor that there is no way he's going to fail whatever happens.

I went to work today never dreaming that I'd spend the day planning a trip to a financial seminar! We got an email on our library listserv that the Office of Financial Education is holding their 2nd annual Common Wealth Symposium. The topics all look very interesting and I have CE money, so off I go!

I signed up for a pre-conference workshop that will cover "Right on the Money" a program that uses children's books to introduce financial concepts to children aged 5-7. It also gives parents tools to reinforce what their children have learned. I would love to get something like this started in our System's library in each community.

Another session will cover fundamentals of insurance, investments, and retirement planning.

There will be a workshop that introduces you to many of the resources available to teach personal finance. I can't wait for this one.

The last session I'll go to is to learn how to design a local financial resource kit for your community. I would love to do this for our libraries.

I think that with the uncertain financial situation the U.S. is in, that many people will suddenly become interested in personal finance as their wallets start to feel the pinch. The library is the perfect place for them to turn to get information and find resources. I want to have that information ready for them.

I've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our stimulus check into our checking account. I've checked several times every day this week.

I had planned on using the check to pay down the mortgage, but with the unexpected car expenses, rising gasoline costs and the need of a new roof on the garage, it's going to just be transferred to savings for right now.

The garage roof has been leaking for a couple of years and is desperately in need of replacing. DH reminds me that we need to replace it now before it runs into more repairs. Good news is that he can do it himself, saving labor costs.

He also replaced his radiator in his truck last night. So that saved the cost of paying someone else to do it. It's great that he is so handy with things like that.

My car repairs this week didn't amount to much. The mechanic could not find anything wrong and did not even hear the creaking and groaning while turning slowly. So all I paid was $23 for the time they spent on it. That was nice, but the sound is still there. At least I can be assured that it's not something that's going to fall apart on me while going around bends. I hope.

I'm watching the Today Show and they're interviewing a young man that was mugged while having a seizure. That is just totally despicable. How could anyone stoop so low as to not help someone, let alone take advantage of him while he's seizing?

I guess it hits me so much because DS#2 has seizures. They are at their most vulnerable during one and it really angers and saddens me that someone would be calous as to do this.

I had posted before that we earned enough points from buying our groceries at our local Tops store that we could fill up one vehicle for 80 cents off each gallon. DH took his truck down yesterday and filled up at $2.89 a gallon. It still came to $62 to fill it, but he saved over $17.00. That sure helps the wallet a bit!

He also found out today that his radiator needs replaced, so that's going to be another $120. He's going to try to put it in himself to save money.

My car goes to the garage on Monday. It's making all kinds of creaking noises when turning. After using all the car repair money for the paint job on the truck, it looks like we'll be dipping into the EF to pay for these repairs.

Always something!

Last night at my Weight Watcher's meeting I weighed in and had lost another 1.8 pounds. That is just incredible to me since I'm getting so close to goal and I didn't feel like I did nearly as well on the Core plan this week. I went over my weekly points because we attended a birthday party on Sunday. But I did do a lot of walking on Saturday- 10 miles! So I guess that helped.

I have also realized that I'm lactose intolerant and since I've started drinking soymilk instead of skim I've noticed a huge difference in how I feel. I have a lot more energy since I've cut way down on dairy. I am still finding out how much lactose I can tolerate. I found out that 1/2 cup of cottage cheese is too much and even 2 tablespoons of cream cheese set my stomach off the other day. So it will be a matter of trial and error. I take at least one calcium supplement every day to make sure I do get some calcium in my diet.

So 8.4 more pounds until I hit my official Weight Watchers goal. After that, 6 weeks of maintenance and then I will not have to pay anymore to attend meetings.

I would like to be a receptionist once I am a lifetime member. That would pay for my gasoline to get to the meeting and be an accountability factor to keep the weight off.

I got my Discover Card statement today and we have earned our first $20 cash back! I am having it sent to our bank account and it's going on the mortgage. Of course, I said that about the $250 we earned on the Chase Rewards card and that ended up going for DH's paint job on the truck. I'm going to 'forget' that this money is extra so that I won't be tempted to divert it if something comes up.

Today was the last day to earn points at Tops (our grocery store). Since we started using the e-mealz menu plan we've been getting our groceries there. For every $100 spent there during the accumulation period you earn a 10 cent discount off of every gallon of gasoline (up to 30 gallons) for one fill-up at their store. Our grocery bill today brought our total of points to 892. That's 80 cents off!

We're planning on practically draining DH's truck down to nothing and then filling it up. Gas prices right now are at $3.54 so it will be really nice to fill up for "only" $2.74. Who would have thought I'd ever think that was cheap gas???

I have a friend who is concealing from her husband the fact that they have over $6,000 dollars of credit card debt. She has had to use the credit card to cover daily expenses. Both of them work, but when he gets his check he only deposits a set amount into their joint checking account and he pockets the rest. He thinks that between what she makes and what he contributes, that should be enough to pay the bills.

I have tried, over the course of the last year, to tell her that she really needs to tell him so that they can face this together. She is losing sleep at night worrying about finances while he regularly goes out and buys new hunting supplies for himself. She has even gone so far as to have her own check garnished so that there is enough set aside to pay the credit card each month.

I know that there's nothing else I can do for her except to be there. I have offered for DH and I to meet with them in a small group to go over Financial Peace University, but I know that won't be much good without full honesty between the 2 of them.

She's afraid if she tells him how much the credit card has charged on it that he'll leave her. I really don't think that will happen. I do think he'll be very angry that she's kept it from him this long.

I think he needs to wake up and be realistic about how much it costs to raise a family and provide for them these days.

Tomorrow is the day I have to give my persuasive speech. I chose to speak on why everyone should have a budget. I'll be presenting it to our librarians' group in the morning.

I came up with some visuals to make the speech a bit more interesting. I have a graph that illustrates how much the cost of one cup of coffee a day would grow if it were invested in a mutual fund earning 12% interest for 30 years. I also did a pie chart of the 'perfect' budget categories and what percentage of income should be allotted to each.

The meeting is taking place at our town library, which is where I was the director for 2 years, so at least it will be a familiar setting for me and make me a bit more comfortable.

At my Weight Watchers meeting last week my total weight loss was 41.2 pounds. Since switching to Core I lost 4 pounds in 2 weeks. That is really good considering that the 3 weeks before switching I was losing an average of half a pound a week. Core has really worked well for me.

So tomorrow will be the end of my 3rd week on Core and I'm anxious to see how I've done. If I've lost at least .6 I'll be on my last 10 pounds to get to my official WW goal. I was even more excited when I realized I was that close to goal. Then if I maintain or go below my goal weight for 6 weeks I'll be a lifetime member and no longer have to pay for the meetings. Being a frugal type of person, I can't wait for that. LOL!

Once I hit my goal weight I'll reassess and see if I want to lose more or am happy at that weight. But at least I won't be paying anymore. That's incentive enough for me to keep it off.

I have to deliver my persuasive speech this week and I'm looking for a clip of the Chase commercial that has the Queen song "I Want it All" playing. The scenario is a guy shopping for a big screen TV. At the end of the ad it tells you to text Chase to find out your balance with the presumption that you will know how much TV you can afford to buy.

Does anyone know if there is a clip of this commercial on the internet? I looked on youtube and searched on Google, but did not find it. I can find the song, but not the commercial. It would be excellent to have that to play during the part of my speech about credit card spending.

I had mentioned in a previous post that DH's truck was getting some body work done that was long past due. He had taken it up and asked for a written estimate, which we never got. But the guy doing the repairs had looked at it and told him it would be between $900 and $1000.

Well, today we got a phone call that it's not all done but the body shop has got a lot of work coming in so we could come pick it up, pay for what is done and they'd finish the rest in 2-3 months.

The total for what has been done? $1378. The balance of what still needs to be done? Another $800!!! A far cry from a total of $900-1000. I could see if the entire truck was being done.

So needless to say, the car repair fund is bottomed out and the $250 that I just got and was going to apply to the mortgage has been gobbled up along with our federal tax return.

Still, I am counting my blessings. It's only money and after the week we've had, it's not a big deal. I keep telling myself that we could have been attending a funeral this week. I'll gladly pay the $1400 for the truck instead.

I haven't blogged for a few days. I've been busy dealing with unexpected life events instead. It's taken me some time to get my thoughts together enough to sit down and write a blog entry.

At 12:30 a.m. on the 7th our fire department was toned out for a roll-over vehicle accident. It was reported that "Car 40" was on scene. That is never good news because that is code for the county coroner. As DH is getting dressed to respond, I realize that I don't hear DS#2 moving around in his room to go also. That means he did not get home from work yet. He should have been home an hour before this. I knew immediately that it was him in the accident so I got up and got dressed.

Sure enough, DH got on scene with the 2nd ambulance and was immediately pulled aside and told that it was our son. The county coroner had been responding to another call and was the one that discovered him. He had fallen asleep, crossed the opposing lane of traffic, climbed the enbankment and hit a rock outcropping with the undercarriage of the vehicle. That sent the SUV rolling over. He rolled at least 3 times before bouncing back up onto all 4 wheels. He ended up sitting across the lane of traffic for 30-45 minutes before the coroner came along. Thank goodness no one else had come along and hit him meantime. He was unresponsive and the coroner thought that he was dead at first.

He ended up being flown out to the nearest trauma center. All we knew as we made the 2-hour drive was that he had become responsive to the ambulance crew before they flew him out.

Miraculously, he had NO injuries! Not even a bruise from the seatbelt. He was discharged from the ER 3 hours after we arrived and has only had a headache since.

I highly recommend the Mitsubishi Montero. If it had been any other type of vehicle I don't think he would have survived this accident. It costs an arm and a leg to keep gasoline in it, but it sure outdoes itself in an accident.

The picture above is one that the firemen took on-scene. Pretty scary for a mother to imagine her child being involved in that!

I got a phone call from Zander Insurance yesterday telling me that Banner Life is still processing my application for term life. She said that it looks like they're going to rate me at a level 6 or reject my application completely. They are waiting to hear from the nephrologist on my renal scan I had in 2006. I told her that it showed nothing was wrong with my kidneys but that I knew they had to hear that from the doctor.

If I am accepted it will cost me $60 a month for $250,000 20 year term. DH pays $40 a month for $500,000 20 year term. She ran some other options and I would only save a few dollars a month to drop the coverage down to $150,000 or go to a 10 year term. I told her to leave it as is and see what they decide. Right now I pay $200 annually for a crappy $10,000 whole life policy.

It totally stinks that I'm having so much trouble getting life insurance all because I had an allergic reaction to my blood pressure medicine and it took the doctors forever to figure it out!

We earned enough points on our Chase Freedom card to redeem them for a check for $250 this month! This money is going straight to the mortgage.

I knew last month that we were getting very close to being able to claim that money. We could have had 4 $50 checks last month, but why not wait a month and get the extra $50?!

I got the mail on my way home tonight and saw that there was an envelope from PPL, our natural gas utility. I knew that this meant they had adjusted our gas budget. So I eagerly opened it because we no longer heat with gas at all.

I was happy to find that our payment has gone from $101 a month to $60! Yeah! I still think that's awfully high since all we use the gas for is our hot water heater and the kitchen stove. But I'll take all the savings in my budget wherever I can get it.

We may have to dip into the Emergency Fund this week. DH made an appointment to get some rust taken care of on his truck and I'm afraid it could amount to more than we have in our car repair fund. We have kept putting this off because the money was always needed in other areas. It's time to get it done before it's so far gone that it can't be repaired.

This truck is a 1989 GMC. It really looks great for its age, but time has taken a toll on it. It's been a very reliable vehicle for us with few repairs. It has well over 200,000 miles on it. Since it is still reliable, we do not want to get rid of it and get anything else and feel it is worth the money to touch it up to make sure it will pass inspection.

If we do have to kp into the EF, our tax refund should be coming in soon and I'll get it back up to $1,000 with that.

I watched the film Maxed Out as a resource for my persuasive speech I have to give in a couple of weeks. Wow! I have to say it presents a very powerful message, especially the interview of the 2 mothers of college students who committed suicide because they got into so much credit card debt.

It's really given me something to think about as far as my use of credit cards. Since getting our balances paid off, we no longer carry a balance each month. But I'm rethinking even that strategy now.

I was hoping to pay an extra $280 on the mortgage this month. Didn't quite get there, but almost. I just wrote a check for $264.66 extra. That brings our total on that debt down to less than $7500.

If I can keep around this amount of payment up, it will be paid off in August 2009. That will be 21 years ahead of schedule!!! That's quite a difference!

I went to my Weight Watchers meeting tonight and according to my weigh in my total weight loss is now up to 37.2 pounds. I am less than 15 pounds from goal.

My next mini-goal is to get to 40 pounds lost. I'm hoping to get there by the end of April. The weight is coming off much more slowly now that I'm getting closer to goal.

Since the weight loss is slowing down I've switched to the Core plan for the next few weeks, at least, to see how I do on that. I've read that quite often just switching plans will jump start the weight loss again. So we'll see how I do with less tracking of what I eat and more of eating less processed, nutrient dense foods.

I have to give a persuasive speech for my Speech Communications class in the next couple of weeks and this week I have to declare my topic. Pretty sure it's going to be "Why You Need a Budget", or something very close to that. It has to be 5-7 minutes long. I don't think I'll have any trouble filling that amount of time.

Budgeting is something near and dear to my heart, since it has turned our financial lives around and given me peace of mind. I don't think that this one is going to be nearly as hard as the last speech I had to give.

Walking Her Home by Mark Schultz is one of my favorite songs. I usually can't listen to it without shedding a few tears.

I was doing a search on youtube the other night and found that someone had made a video with this song using scenes from the movie "The Notebook". That is my favorite movie and I love the book it's based on. My grandfather died with Alzheimer's so it touches a sensitive nerve with me.

If you click on the link be prepared to need a few tissues.

I gave my first speech yesterday. I had to present a print advertisement analysis. Since this is a distance learning class, I presented it in front of my fellow librarians at our System meeting. Glad it's over with! Only 3 more to go.

One of our assignments is to interview 3 people in different aspects of the field we're going into. I am interviewing a public accountant, an accountant for Adelphia Communications Corp., and our very own Jeffrey Strain of Saving Advice!

I still have to present a persuasive speech. I think I'm going to talk about "Why You Need a Budget" or something along that line.

We also have to present a special occasion speech. I don't have the details yet as to what the requirements are for that one.

I have enjoyed this class as far as learning about different types of communication, but could do without presenting the speeches. LOL

I feel like once I get this class behind me, I can handle whatever else I have to do. I am not the type that likes to be the center of attention in a group. I'm more comfortable fading into the background.

Thanks to DH's 14.5 hours of overtime last week and one of my part-time bookkeeping jobs, I'm going to be able to pay an extra $280 on the mortgage this month.

I decided to also start applying the money I earn from Pinecone to the mortgage payment. I've been cashing the checks and using the little bit of money towards my meals while I'm on my work deliveries. I think that I can cut costs here and there to avoid doing that. That little extra will add up, even though it's small.

Getting desperate to have this mortgage behind us!