Paying Off the Debt

When I logged in to the Saving Advice forum this morning I spotted a post from Jeffrey asking for more ING links. I promptly went to my account and sent them off and within a few hours I got an email that I had earned an extra $10 from the referral. Now half will go to Jeffrey, but that $5 was the easiest money I've ever earned in my life! This is my birthday trip account so that makes it even better!

I added $9 to my challenge money today. My mother returned a sweater that she'd gotten me for Christmas and gave me the cash instead so I added it to the challenge money. Total in the challenge fund is now $88.56.

Sunday, 1/14/07, was a no-spend day for me!

$1.00 added to the challenge money.

I guess I've sort of been missing in action lately. All I've managed to do is post daily spending.

The reason is that since being given the go-ahead to exericse I've really been concentrating on my health instead of finances lately. Not that I've given up the good debt fight! No way! I've just been spending more time on line reading about stress reduction and natural blood pressure control than blogging about my finances.

I've been off of the blood pressure medicine for over a week now since it took a dive to 85/54 a little over a week ago. The doctor's office said to stop the medicine altogether, except the diuretics, and keep track of it daily like I've been doing. I'm to call them weekly and let them know what it's doing.

So right now I'm controlling it with diet and exercise. I started doing my yoga again today after more than a month and my BP today was 117/75 with a pulse of 68! Very good compared to lately and excellent when you consider that's without medicines.

We are beginning to think that all this (racing heart, pitting edema, high blood pressure, etc) was caused by the blood pressure medicine! The day I quit taking it I immediately began to feel much better. My pulse dropped, the edema started to go away (I lost 14 pounds!), and I just felt much healthier.

So that is my main challenge for this year: get back to my previous good health and slimmer body! Boy, just when you've lost the weight and feel good something's got to come along to mess it up, huh?

Water/sewage bill overage= $19.50
Groceries= $24.02
Dollar General= $20.41

Total= $63.93

Tithe= $31.00
School lunch account= $15.00

Total= $46.00

Local wage tax for last quarter of 2006= $135.56
Home repair= $26.65
Life insuance= $50.60
School lunch account= $10.00

Total= $222.81

Yesterday we received an EOB (explanation of benefits) from our insurance in the mail. I always file these by date with the medical bill attached.

Well, I looked at this one and saw how much the insurance had paid and about died. They paid $18,634 to Corporate Care Management, whom I've never even heard of. This was paid on behalf of our son for services rendered from 11/1-11/30 of 2006. Now I know that with DS#2's migraines that he has a lot of bills, but he hasn't run one up for over $18,000!!!

DH took the EOB into work today and asked about it. They tried to contact the insurance, but to no avail. They have stopped payment on the check until they can figure out who's bill this actually is.

She told DH that she has only ever had one other person bring anything in to question. She said that most people don't even keep them, just look to see if they're paid and toss them out.

So if DH hadn't taken it in they would have paid this money that they might not really owe. Who knows how many $$$ have been wasted?

It would be interesting to know how it got charged to our account. Probably a simple transposing of numbers.

Birthday dinner= $19.65-$5.00 gift certificate= $14.65
Gasoline= $24.75
Groceries= 80.59

Total= $119.99

I saved $1.60 on an instant rebate at BJ's, so will add the $5.00 saved at dinner and send $6.60 to my challenge fund giving me a new total of $78.56.

Today I turn 40. I've taken the day off so I can read and relax as the big milestone rolls on by.

My boss bought me a neck massage pillow and my parents got me an adding machine that I've been wanting.

DH's disability insurance= $45.00
Glasses for DS#1= $25.00

Total= $70.00

Dollar General= $41.21

$5.00 for gasoline to DS#2 because he took his sister back to college for us

Wood pellets= $146.78

We got our new payment statement for mortgage #1 in the mail yesterday. I took a deep breath and braced myself for what was inside. This is the account that our insurance and taxes are escrowed. We know that our county taxes are going up 14% and that school taxes are increasing 17% so I was sure the payment was going to jump by quite an appreciable amount. Instead the amount came down $7.22. I guess we won't see the effects until next year, maybe.

So I quickly adjusted the budget to add that $7.22 to the credit card payment each month. Not a lot, but it will sure help!

Phone= $46.56

He really got me last night. It was our 22nd anniversary and when I came home there was a bouquet of 22 carnations in mixed colors. Carnations are my favorite flowers.

He took me to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner and I learned that the idea he had for buying bicycles for our anniversary was something he mentioned to throw me off on what he really had planned.

Some background first: for his 40th birthday last year I saved for months and surprised him with a trip to the Poconos to a Nascar race.

Our anniversary and my birthday are very close, 6 days apart. I'll be turning 40 on the 10th of January. I had told him that I honestly didn't want anything big and expensive because I really want to pay the CC off. So he felt like his hands were tied as to what he could do. Well, he did some good thinking.

He told me last night that our anniversary/my birthday gift is a trip to Mississippi to see my best friend that I haven't seen in 3 years! I can choose any time this year that I want to go. So I'm thinking that we'll go in mid-September or October. That gives me plenty of time to put my ING account to use (thank you Ima!) and save up enough money and incur no credit card debt.

He arranged all this with my friend without my knowledge by emailing her. He was sneaky about getting her email address. He had me provide it when I organized all the financial information just before my visit with the neurologist about the cyst in my brain. He said he wanted her address so he could let her know just in case something should happen. Ha! Keep in mind, he has never met this friend or her husband, so this is really sweet of him.

So now I have a new challenge: to save money for this trip. I set up an automatic transfer for it and will just figure it in with the regular budget.

Now for the planning....

Anniversary dinner= $29.32

Today will be an expensive day. It's our 22nd anniversary so we're going out to dinner and then DH would like us to both get a bicycle so we can ride together for some fun and exercise. We used to do that all the time when we were first married and lived in Virginia. It would be nice to do again now that the kids are old enough to care for themselves for the most part.

Credit Card= $122.42
Cable/internet= $54.58
Electric= $208.43
School lunch account= $10.00
Groceries= $93.36
Gasoline= $16.99

Total= $505.78

Started off my day today with a trip to the doctor's office (yes, again) to get my blood drawn to make sure my potassium levels are okay. Then off for grocery shopping and then the EEG.

The EEG wasn't too bad and they say the results will be back in about 2 weeks. Of course, I'm trusting Tina that they'll find nothing and that the cyst is just there for latent psychic abilities. LOL!

Since I was cleared to walk I got out early morning and got in a 15 minute power walk. Well, not quite as powerful as before all this, but I did surprise myself at how fast I could go. Then tonight DH "walked" me again for about 40 minutes. That was a bit slower of a walk, but good because it was longer. So my pedometer is showing that I got over 20,000 steps today. Yeah me!

Ima's blog reminded me that I deposited $11 of rolled change today but forgot to transfer it to my Challenge account!

So that bring my total to $71.96.

I saved $2.10 at B.J.s today with coupons and an instant rebate. So $2.10 goes to the challenge fund!

$5.00 I chipped in for dinner with DS#3.

I went to the doctor tonight for a blood pressure check and found out that my stress test came back fine. No heart problems! Hurray!!! And I can begin to exercise again tomorrow with some very basic, low-key walking! Yippee!!!

So on to the EEG tomorrow to make sure that the arachnoid cyst in my brain is not causing any malfunctions (LOL).

They are also scheduling me for a 2nd MRI, this time of my neck. They think there may be a pinched nerve somewhere that is causing the numbness and tingling in my arms, hands, and sometimes legs.

They've also decided that the elbow pain is most likely tendonitis caused by too much typing and the pinching movement of pulling books off the shelf during deliveries. I'm allowed to begin deliveries again as long as I feel better and the pain does not get any worse. So now maybe my $20 Challenge pot can really do some growing!

My blood pressure was up again at the doctor's but I took along my spreadsheet I'm keeping that showed that my BP had been perfectly fine at home an hour before we left. Do I detect some white-coat syndrome here?

Furniture payment= $77.00

...on the race of the $20 Challenge!

I'll reiterate my goals for the $20 Challenge here so I have a source of reference for myself:

- $5.00 added every time I pack a lunch and don't buy one when on the road delivering books
- 39 cents added every time I save postage
- $1 for every pound I manage to lose
- any gift of money that I get throughout the year
- use more coupons and transfer the money I save
- money from recycling pop bottles
- $1 for every no-spend day

My goal for the year is to save at least $1000 by participating in the challenge as I look for unique ways to save money.

I was looking back over the goals I had previously set for 2007 and realized that I need to adjust them. Here is what I had originally planned on:

#1: $1,000 in EF for bare minimum
#2: pay off at least half of CC#2
#3: pay off furniture
#4: pay off DH's truck
#5: look over DH's 401K investments and determine if we should change the mix
#6: max out my IRA contributions
#7: get disability insurance on me
#8: hopefully have the term insurance process finished soon!

Because of my health issues I seriously doubt that #7 is going to happen any time soon, if at all, at least until we find out what the underlying issue is. And I realized that the more focused I am on less goals, the more I'll be driven to see them accomplished.

So, here are my "adjusted" 2007 goals:

#1: $2,000 in Emergency Fund
#2: CC #2 paid off
#3: pay off furniture
#4: get overall debt below $65,000

I'm going to keep it short and simple so I can really focus on those goals.

2006 was the best year for us so far financially, I think. Not because we paid off a lot of debt, but because we (okay, I) got focused on getting out of debt. I found Saving Advice and felt like I really fit in here because of my desire to control our money instead of our money controlling us.

We managed to get our outstanding debts below $80,000 by the end of the year and paid off one of the credit cards. I started to really keep track of where our money goes so that I could better set up a workable budget.

We started setting $20 aside in an interest-bearing savings account so that we had an emergency fund when needed so that we didn't add more debt to the credit card.

So all in all, 2006 was a good year because it made us get serious with money and saving for the future.

On to 2007!

Gave DS#3 $5.00 to buy snacks for the New Year's Eve youth lock-in at church.

My net worth chart for December 2006: