We hadn’t been watching tv and had our computers turned off because it was payday/errand day. It wasn’t until I started getting queries about our safety. So I turned on tv. OKC is about 100 mile wsw of us. The cell that is moving through okc and dropping hooks is slowly moving toward us. I think I better get supper over with pretty quickly.
I’m trying to get hold of a really neat photo of the Broken Arrow, tornado cloud last night. Dh and ds both saw it on the web this morning, and I have a small captured photo of it, but I can’t seem to copy it to post it. It looks like a nebula (donut shaped). If we get it worked out I’ll let you know.
Right now we are watching the coverage of OKC and St. Louis, looks like the way the storm is moving we’ll be blessed with being missed again. Thank you Lord. Unfortunately there are at least 2 deaths in OKC tonight, They “think” Moore and OKC have been hit, but they are also saying the debris cloud may be from the debris from last week. Praying hard for everyone in the path of tonight’s storms, which thankfully seem to be easing up.
we are under tornado warnings again tonight, tomorrow and maybe even Sunday. So far so good, it sounds like a very loud bowling alley outside right now.
That’s what always told our kids, “the angels are bowling” with this type of thunder. That they understood since their grandparents worked at bowling alleys when the kids were little and therefore they’d been behind the lanes and everything.
My guys are out trying to get all the birds put up before this next round of storms starts dropping big old rain drops and possibly big hail too.
I waded the garden far enough today to see that between the storms or maybe during them those rascally rabbits had eaten almost all my sweet tater plants. Wally World was out of blood meal. I’ll have to pick some up tomorrow elsewhere. Then as soon as the weather clears up sprinkle it all around any surviving plants.
I came across a journal that I was calculating debt pay off in on paper (this is before I got the debt snowball spreadsheet—thanks to whoever it was that posted it. You have saved me a LOT of time since then.
Anyway, I looked at our balances I had recorded in September 2014 (21 months AFTER we started the plan) and then I compared them to our current balances. There was $85, 570.19 difference. Now these are the balances NOT including the interest paid in that 20 months! It did not include the medical bills we were paying on at that time and since for ER visits and such, or paying into IRS nearly $6,000 total. Nor does it include utilities, groceries, critter feed, car tags, insurance and other day to day expenses. On dh’s salary that $85,570.19 alone should have been impossible. Gee I guess we’ve worked more extra jobs and sold a lot more than I thought. We still owe around 122,000 (mortgages included) but after seeing this and knowing what income changes we have coming up with the first of the year I think we just might meet our goal of by the end of Dec in 2014 for everything including the ffef.
The reason I posted this is to tell others IF we can do this so can you. Trust me we have not been near as gazelle intense as we should have been. We are far too fond of travel. Including doing a day of staycation tomorrow.
I sold my second car yesterday and threw all of the money at my debt snowball, the check went out in today’s mail. I’ve gone from total debt of $12,412 on 12/1/15 to $640 on 5/31/16! It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you have a plan and stick to a budget. Thank you Tom!
We are having a huge neighborhood garage sale in two weeks and I’ve listed a bunch of stuff to sell on Craigslist. Baby Step 2 will be done by June 15th!
My company has been acquired by a bigger company and I’m getting some one-time extra money due to the acquisition. They are cashing out my 3.5 weeks of accrued vacation ($3,500) and giving me a bonus of $1,000 for every year I’ve been employed with the company ($7,000). A big chunk will go to taxes but this a big leap forward for Baby Step 3. It looks like my job will be stable for at least 2 years and likely longer. However, this change gives me more inspiration to continue to stay focused and fully fund my emergency fund to 6 months. It feels good that after having a difficult time this winter finally some things are happening that are positive.
If they are due before the first September paycheck then you should probably pay the bills first. Since I get paid every two weeks the checks do not arrive at a the same time each month. I have to watch what bills are due before the next paycheck and pay those first before I can figure that I have enough money left over to put towards the debt! I’d rather delay my debt paydown 2 weeks than make a late payment and get assessed late charges, or worse!
Yeah!!! Problem now is I’m in panic mode. I know it doesn’t make any sense because we are doing so much better money wise. When I get that last paycheck of the month there will be some left over after funding the BEF. Should I use that to start paying September’s bills that have already come in or should I use it toward our debt snowball? I’m leaning toward paying next month’s bills but know Dave would probably say that I’ve already budgeted those for September so I should pay it toward the snowball. Did anyone else go through this? Hope someone can give me some advice that will stop this panic. Thanks.
do debt validation letters to some small debts that were on my credit report (I believe all were small medical debts that weren’t a priority when DH wasn’t working) I want them off my credit report and to pay them if I owe them. Unfortunately, I don’t know what each of them are since they are with debt collectors – so I sent debt validation letters to all of them. I’ve received no response from two of them and one letter was returned as not a valid address.
Just wanted to touch base on what you all think would be the next step if they’re not responding? All three are still reporting them as delinquent (as recently as April) on my credit report. If I owe them, I want to pay them, and have the money set aside for them (they are the first in my debt snowball – and I feel really yucky about them until they are wiped out! Plus that money sitting there not going towards wiping them out is killing me!)
Do I dispute them all on the credit reports just to get them to respond? I feel weird doing that because I don’t know that I technically dispute them — but they’re obviously in touch with the credit bureaus so I’m wondering if that’s the only way to get a response?
Since your children are saving from the other part of their pay for their own futures, I would treat the percentage they pay you as regular income and do with whatever you’re doing with the rest of your income. Since you’re in emergency mode, pile it up for an emergency. When your husband finds work, you can take any surplus and make a big snowball payment.
but we had a few small bills that had large monthly payments and low balances we paid off so we would not have to deal with those companies as things got tighter later on. Our theory was it would be that many fewer angry creditor phone calls. But like I said they were large minimums due and low balances.
It was mess and is about 80% ready for work. I had stacks of paperwork to file. Got a lot of that done + take out cash advance online. I still need to get my work table clear.
I have spent this evening working my website. I got a few more products added and worked on my “about us” page. Website building is new to me so this is a challenge. My plan is spend time every day till it’s up to speed then just work as needed to update. The shopping cart is ready but I have a few kinks to work out on some things. It will come together with time.
If not, I’d keep that money for monthly bills. You’re in emergency mode right now. I wouldn’t worry about debt repayment as much as worrying about keeping money to cover the day to day stuff as well as the unexpected problems that crop up, especially in a home with children. Save it if there’s a surplus and when your husband is employed again, then worry about your debt repayment. btw, you have nice children.
My older 2 kids (16 and 17) are hoping to get jobs for the summer. They have volunteered to contribute 25% of their income to the household with the rest going to save for college tuition, missions, etc.
Regardless of the source, in general should I slot that money to pay monthly bills, or use it towards debt snowball? Right now, we are good, but by the end of summer, those little bits may add up to paying September’s month’s bills (about $1k a month.)
I’m just not sure which is the best course?
We’re fine, it was a LOOOONG night, I lost count how many times the local weather “saw rotation”, then the flash flood warnings rang our phones all night. I weather watched until nearly 2 am, before feeling secure enough to go to bed. We were back up and gone before 9 for our one day “staycation”. I’ll be writing a blog post on it, we had to change plans at the last minute due to the tornadoes and flooding. We just now got back home. Tom who is celebrating they are saying we aren’t suppose to have any more storms until mid week, because she needs some sleep in ok.
Can you even go to a homeless shelter and own a car? Honestly his father, her father and I are looking for them to help themselves. Come up with a plan on their own and make an attempt at successfully executing their plan. If they came to us and actually had a plan of going to a homeless shelter, or actually applying for section 8, or WIC etc, it would mean the survival part of their brain actually worked. Right now they are still too prideful, spoiled, privileged…
The monster we created unintentionally.
Many teams are very protective of their trademarks. Ds’s friend did a t-shirt that said “I carried the watermelon” and it was put on the website she used for sale. It is apparently from some movie and she was told to remove the item for sale or be sued for big bucks. She removed the t-shirt for sale. It’s strange how the copyrights go. I use cricuit cartridges for some of my cards and scrapbook pages. I can use those cartridges royalty free up to a certain number. HOWEVER, I can NOT use Disney and some other trademarked items for my sales. I can for personal use, but not to sell. Go figure.