Responsibility

Even though Jonny and I ended up with a messload of debt before we figured out how to take control of it, I can honestly say that unlike some people, we never EVER attempted to get out of our moral obligations for things we had purchased using credit. NEVER. Even when his scum of an ex-girlfriend allowed a car he co-signed on to be repossessed, we paid the $900 or so that was left after it had been auctioned. Granted, if we had the DR knowledge back then, we probably could have settled for less, but now we know better.

This is why it makes me ILL when I hear stories of people who let their homes go to foreclosure, filing bankruptcy, or just going to collections because the bill is not important enough to pay. Now I realize that extenuating circumstances is one thing, but stories like the post I made several months ago about people who stopped paying their mortgage so they could start eating out and driving their boat on the lake again, is another.

There are people I know who never paid outstanding tuition, or they filed bankruptcy because they racked debt up and got in over their head. Rather than being responsible and hunkering down to get it done, they begged the government to forgive their stupidity. What irritates me even more, is many of those same individuals go right back to their old habits once they have a clean slate, and they do it all over again. They start using credit again because it's EASY. And the people who tell me I'm a freak because I'm working my butt off to reach that ultimate level of financial peace. Yeah, you may never understand what it's like to pay cash for something that you appreciate much more because you worked for it, rather than getting selfish instant gratification on credit, even though it ends up costing you more later because you're paying interest on your card.

After a year and a half, I cannot imagine life as it used to be. I cannot imagine using credit cards to buy dinner, or a pedicure, or a movie, or a music CD. I cannot imagine a $400 clothes shopping spree just because I'm "bored." I cannot imagine going to the tanning bed to pass time between classes. I can't imagine wondering around Target aimlessly for no reason, throwing things in my cart just because.

My life has been forever changed. Even when we're out of debt, I think alot of things I used to pay for on stupid tax, will not be able to be justified to pay the price. Yes...the point of financial peace is to be able to buy what you want, when you want, and not worry about it....but what I'm trying to say is that things that were previously important to me when I was being stupid is no longer important. The things that are important now is retirement, a paid for education, paying cash for a car, paying cash for furniture, paying CASH for major home repairs, paying cash for vacations and experiences, and that vacation not following me home on a credit card.

CDs, clothes, and tanning beds are no longer important.

I just bought a brand new set of pots and pans through pampered chef. I got a deal on them because I bought them through hosting a party. Sure, those kinds of things are overpriced to begin with, so that you will host a party, and bring in more orders....I get it, and I'll play the game. Yes, they were still expensive, but the quality is much better than any crap I could have gotten at WalMart or Bed Bath and Beyond. It was emotionally painful to write the check to pay for it, because it was alot of money. However, I thought long and hard about which items I purchased...which items were important now, and which items could wait. Had I been buying it on credit, I wouldn't have had that tough conversation with myself about what was important now and what I could afford now...I would have just bought it all.

Getting a "Get out of jail free" card and a clean slate does not equal financial peace. Paying off debt that is legitimately yours and changing your attitude to determine whats important versus what isn't, does.

Only 4 Digits....EXCITING!

$9,984.46. That's the amount that is left to pay on Jonny's car. The consolidation loan at $320 a month has been paid in FULL!

If we continued to pay only the minimum payment on the car, it would be December 2013 before it got paid off. This is completely unacceptable, and we are going to snowball this amount by as much as we can. Christmas doesn't look like it's going to happen....so our modified new goal is February 22,2011 - our 2 year FPU-aversary.

I'm not going to lie - that is going to be HARD to do...because of the house situation, our sinking funds account got raided, and some of those bills are going to be due before too much longer. I actually need to reconfigure our sinking funds accounts, but I just haven't been able to do that just yet.

I'm still not quite certain on our new monthly budget with the new house, and utility expenses, but here's a best guess so far:


--------Charity--------
Church                             330
AXiD                               10
--------Housing--------
Mortgage/Tax/Ins                   613.76
--------Utilities--------
ADT Security                       28.99
AT&T Land Phone                    35
Water                              50
Trash Collection                   16.95
Cooks Pest Control                 37
Alabama Power                      175
Cable TV/Internet                  85
Sprint Cell Phone                  143
--------Food--------
Food & Household                   400
--------Transportation--------
Gas & Oil                          350
--------Personal--------
A Blow                             200
J Blow                             200
--------Debts--------
Car                                276.11

Disclaimer: The totals do not list our entire monthly income, and this budget is not $0 based....I still have extra to spend, but if I don't find somewhere else that I need it, it will be snowballed to the car. I've also left out paycheck allotments to our savings account and sinking fund accounts which fund our life insurance, car insurance and tags, and home repair expenses.

We're more than 3/4 done!!!! Only 4 digits left in our non student loan/mortgage debt. Jonny's working hard to find a full time, or a better part time job/internship with a CPA firm this fall. Please keep him in your prayers. His military benefits income will go away once he graduates, and so we'll need to be able to replace that income with a job in order to start paying on the student loans at that time.... I'm slightly stressed about repaying the student loans, but not as bad as I would be if I still had all this other consumer debt...so for that, I'm grateful.

Dear Chase....

Dear Chase,


Please issue a refund for the credit balance on my account.

Also, please close my account effective immediately. I no longer use credit cards and do not wish to keep it open. 
Now that I have moved into a house, I no longer care what my FICO score looks like, so please don t try to change my mind. If you need to list a reason for account cancellation, you can put Dave Ramsey. 

Thank you!


Sincerely,
Jonathan Hicks 


*************


Dear Jonathan Hicks,

I sincerely regret that you have chosen to close your account ending in 9771.

I have closed your account as requested. Also, a refund check for the credit balance will be mailed to the address
listed on your account and should be received by September 13, 2010.

Please destroy all cards and checks associated with this account. Remember to contact any merchants with whom you have authorized recurring charges to this account and make alternate arrangements.


Although you have chosen to close your account, please consider Chase for your future financial needs.

If you have any further questions, please reply using the Secure Message Center.

Thank you,

Vanita D'souza
E-mail Customer Service Representative
1-800-436-7927
Account is owned by Chase Bank USA, N.A. and may be serviced by its affiliates.










Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! Now THAT is Financial Peace. No More Chase. No More CUofGA....the only credit card we have left "open" but currently not in use is the NavyFCU Visa, and that's only because we're still paying off debt and do not have our fully funded emergency fund in place. This is Jonny's security gland, which I totally get. Once this last $13K is paid off, and the FFEF is built up....NavyFCU Visa will be going bye bye too...

FINALLY...

With the house situation, we hadn't made any true progress on our debt in the last 2 months because we were holding our funds for the house situation. Well, now we're in, it's painted, I have *some* new furniture, but for the most part, we're working on getting settled in. I am excited to see what our monthly utilities are going to look like, because if things go like I think they will, we'll be saving on our regular monthly expenses now, and will require the budget to be adjusted, which will give us a bigger snowball payment each month. That's the plan, anyway.


I also recently opened yet ANOTHER checking account. This one is with USAA and it's going to become our primary checking account....sort of.

Remember how a few months ago we started on the "month ahead" plan? Well, it's working out fine, but I've realized that I'm a little OCD about the money I'm using this month, mingling with the money that I'll be using NEXT month. I know, I know, it sounds corny, and it shouldn't matter since I have a budget. But it does matter. It's a mind game, that's kind of kicking my butt so what I've decided to do is starting with August, I'll let my paychecks deposit to my Regions bank account as it always has. Right now, I'm transferring all the spending money I have for August to the USAA account and will pull out cash each week for my weekly expenses (gas, groceries, blow money, etc). I'll basically leave Regions alone during the month and won't touch it at all until after the final paycheck for August has been received. After it's been received, I'll immediately transfer it all over to USAA to use for the month of September, and the process, will start over...

This way, I wont be tempted to pay September bills early, which will jack me all up with my budget, and whats been spent for THIS month, and what's been spent for NEXT month....and all that mess. I'm certain this will make it easier to manage....


Oh! You may have noticed that I changed the debt thermometer recently. That's because the $50612.50 total figure was the total figure of all my debts prior to us really starting the plan - maxed out CCs, total car loan prices, etc...). I mentioned when we started in Feb 2009, that we had ~$42K in debt....so I decided to change it to reflect only what we owed when we started and how much we've paid during that time.

I guess that's all for now... :)

Sweet Home Alabama

When this Georgia Girl returned from being in the navy, she swore she'd never leave Georgia again.

So much for that. 

Jonny and I bought our first home today in Smiths Station, Alabama. Our home is located not even 10 miles from the state line. Benefits to  buying in Alabama include lower taxes, lower insurance and a whole lot more house for alot less money. We bought our 1279 sq ft house, as a foreclosure for $100K. When we looked at houses in GA, the houses that were in this price range were much smaller and not near as nice.

Smiths Station AL actually runs on Eastern Time, even though Alabama is Central time. It's a good thing, too, because it was going to SUCK trying to adapt to living in one time zone while working in another.

I don't have any pictures of our own yet, so for now, I'll cheat and post this one that I saved from the MLS listing. You can tell this pic is from the winter because there are no leaves on the trees.

We got our entire earnest money deposit back, so today, we went SHOPPING! I bought 3 new tables for the living room to match the coffee table I already have. They had to be ordered, so it'll be about a week and a half before they come in.

Here's the coffee table I already had. I bought it from Big Lots in 2005 with 2 broken tiles that I replaced at Home Depot. It's an Ashley Furniture piece - the collection is called Antigo.

Blogger is not cooperating for me to upload alot of pictures, but the 3 new tables I bought today match this one. 2 end tables, and a sofa table. Pictures of the finished product will come as soon as we're moved in and set up.

We also looked at rugs while we were at the furniture store and I had just about given up when we were walking out and I found the $99 rug section...which of course NEVER have anything good to choose from. YEAH RIGHT! I found one and it was GREAT. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture yet.

Tomorrow will be a busy day - more shopping, more prepping, etc. This is such an exciting time, and I'm so glad to finally be able to do this..... YAY!!!

Grand Canyon University: Financial Aid CRAP.

Dear Arman,

I emailed yesterday, and I called, and the lady I spoke with told me that you were going to call me back. I didn't hear from you.

I wanted to let you know that a check for $706.54 arrived yesterday. While I am grateful, this is nowhere NEAR what I expected it to be. 

For starters, I am taking 3 classes for Summer term. 

Marketing Management: $1455.00

Management of Working Capital: $1455.00

Sales Tax: $6.23

Canyon Connect?: $75.00

Investments: $1455.00

Sales Tax: $6.23

Canyon Connect?: $75.00

Total for Summer: $4527.46

HOWEVER, that doesn't even include my military scholarship, OR the Post 9/11 GIbill payment that the school should have received on my behalf. The military scholarship should have reduced the cost of the classes from $1455.00 to...what? I'm not even sure how much the scholarship is. 

Nevertheless, according to the NSLDS, $6873.00 was disbursed for Summer term. So not even taking into consideration the scholarship or the GIBill, the cost of my attendance was only $4527.46. 

$6873.00 - $4527.46 = $2345.54. I only received a check for $706.54. Where is the remaining $1639.00????

I've been a student at this university for over 2 years now, and I have NEVER had this much trouble. I am trying to graduate in December, and I should not be having to jump through so many hoops to get my financial aid sorted out. I do not understand what the problem is. PLEASE process my scholarship. PLEASE disburse the rest of my loans, and PLEASE send my post 9/11 GIBill benefits ASAP. We are now finishing the 3rd week of the SECOND 8 week session of summer term. It's going to be really pathetic if my summer aid has not been fixed before I have to go through this mess again for Fall term. If I had the money available, I'd pay cash for Fall just to avoid going through this again.

Please help. If you haven't learned by now, I'm a VERY persistent individual and I am not going to give up on this until I get some answers. I promise I will leave you alone if SOMEONE would just answer my questions and quit giving me the run around.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Amanda Hicks

Reality of our wish list....

5 days now.... Jonny and I spent the day together yesterday, driving around, pricing items we're going to need to paint and clean and get the house ready. There's so many things we want to do to the house, but we've got to remember to take it slow and only do what we can actually afford to do,when the time is right.

3 years ago, I wouldn't have hesitated to open up a new credit card at home depot, lowes, or kohl's and buy everything we "needed" to make the house perfect. But because we don't use credit anymore, we're going to have to do things little by little, as we have the money to be able to afford to do it.

Sure, I would love to buy a new bedroom set, and new living room furniture, replace out current bathroom theme, replace the carpet in the master bedroom, get new faux wood blinds instead of ugly plastic ones, get a new front door with a window in it to allow in some more natural light, refinish the kitchen cabinets, etc etc etc. Yes, that's our wish list that we've come up with so far. But the fact of the matter is, we cannot afford to do all of that right now, so we have to prioritize.

For now, we're going to paint, and we're going to rent a carpet cleaner from publix to clean the carpet in the mater bedroom and throw a rug on the ugly stained spot. I priced carpet at Home Depot yesterday, and even for one room, for the kind of carpet we want is going to be about $500. I've got other things more important to spend $500.

We're going to use Mr Clean Magic Erasers to clean the kitchen cabinets for now. They need to be repainted, but that will have to wait for now. Eventually when we repaint them, we'll replace the handles and knobs because I don't like the yellow gold color - I want silver or white.

The ugly wallpaper in the guest bathroom will have to stay. It's not a priority, but it will eventually be changed.

While our mortgage, rent and insurance will be less expensive then paying rent - this wish list more than makes up the difference. It's all good though, because I'm hunting for deals, thrift mall, flea marketing, and yard saling to see what I can find. I'll be able to do a little something new each month until we've finally fixed everything we want. I cant fix it all at once, but I can have fun fixing it all over time....and that will be an adventure.

Friday, Friday. I cannot wait.