Twenty Years? That's Just Not Good Enough

So as the things settle in with Jonny's new job, and we clean up the things we've had to let slide (car repairs, house essentials, etc) we've started looking at the UGLY reality of our student loan payoff. What we've discovered is this: by paying only the minimum due of just over $800 a month for all of our student loans, it would take us until February 2032 to pay the darn things off. TWENTY YEARS!!! I'll be 51! That's ridiculous. I've said this a million times in this blog: If you are a high school or college student who is reading this DON'T TAKE OUT STUDENT LOANS. Please! You can (and must) find a way to pay for school without them. Don't let the darn things follow you for the rest of your life. Please read my previous post which has some suggestions on things you can do to avoid taking out student loans while still attending college.

Luckily, we don't intend to only pay the minimum. In a few months when we get things cleaned up we will be able to pay $1200 a month towards the student loans, versus the $800. That extra 50% drops my timeline almost in half: The new payoff date would be July 2022.

But...that's still just not good enough. I really REALLY want to throw at least $2000 a month at this monster. Why? Because I want it GONE. It's not fun watching my money come in and money go out, and as Dave says, only the names are changed to protect the innocent. With a $2000 a month payment, our new payoff date would be... wait for it... September 2017. That's just over 5 years from now, and that's shortly before what will be our 10 year wedding anniversary. Debt freedom for a 10 year anniversary gift? Yes please.

So the question now is... what can we do to get another $800 a month? Well, realistically, we probably need another $1000 a month to account for taxes and tithing. I really need to get serious about applying to be an online professor...I'm just intimidated by the process and I haven't quite found all the tools I need in order to make sure I have the proper credentials to do so.

So anyway... I'm not sure what we're going to do to bring in that extra $1000 per month...but we know this is what is necessary if we want to meet out goal of having everything paid off in 5 years. I really wish I could deliver pizzas again, but it would be detrimental to my healthy eating lifestyle I'm trying to follow. Ugh. Hopefully I'll have an answer to this problem before too long.

Let me call the WAHHHH-mbulance.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-05-13/student-debt-loan-rate/54921852/1


College education is not a right. It's a privilege. And guess what folks? With a little sacrifice, you too can have that privilege. It's called researching and applying for scholarships, or, gosh, being a great student/athlete, etc and being awarded scholarships or a free ride. What - you mean you aren't a genius? Well, even if you aren't a great student, you may qualify for voc-rehab (someone very close to me got his entire college paid for like this). Or your can serve your country and get your education paid for via the military or via teaching in low income areas.


From the article: "I look at the loans my daughter is taking out, and I've got to wonder what it's going to be like when my son, who is in eighth grade, gets there," said Tony Pollack, 55, of Detroit, .... "We can't help them out — they've got to shoulder all that cost and get so many debts."

This is a pitiful excuse. This guy has time to figure out a game plan to prevent his son from needing student loans. Again, great grades, scholarships, and military are some fabulous options. But if parents stick their head in the sand and ignore the situation, then sure, that kid may be up a creek without a paddle when it comes time for college. Such a negative attitude, assuming that the son will be forced to take on debt.


I have a crap ton of student loan debt because I was stupid. I was in the military. I could have used my education money wisely and not taken out ANY loans... but I was dumb. Ask me about it sometime, and I'll tell ya how. I'm not blaming anyone but myself... but guess what? I have a plan to get it paid off, and I have a plan to provide for my future kids. I think increasing student loan interest rates is a FABULOUS idea because I think it's a great way to reduce the national debt. No, not everyone "deserves" a college education. If you want it - you need to get off your butt and do what it takes to get it. Shut up about the sacrifice you have to make - whether it's serving in the military, teaching in a low income area, or paying high interest loans because you weren't  able to (for whatever pitiful reason) get scholarships or work your way through school to pay for it. Living in America doesn't mean everything should be handed to you on a silver platter. Such a shame that so many people thinks that's exactly what it means though.

Peace...

It's finally happened. After 3 1/2 long years, Jonny has been offered a full time, salaried, with benefits job. A REAL job - not like that title pawn crap place that treated him wrong back in January when he wouldn't compromise his integrity to do something they asked that was wrong. He's going to be working as an accountant for a law firm. YEAH! This is perfect. Thank you, Jesus. He starts the new job on Monday, May 7th. Funny thing, when I graduated 5 years ago, I started my new job at the Credit Union on Monday May 7th. Crazy coincidence :)

I am THANKFUL that we have been forced to cut our lifestyle down to bare basics. We've cut it down just about as far as we could go. We cut cable. We cut cell phone costs. We are mindful of our electricity and water usage. We've cut our food budget by stretching our meat and frozen veggies, and we buy organic milk, which even though it's more expensive, it lasts longer and doesn't sour as quickly as traditional milk. Therefore, we're not buying as much, so the money we spend is actually lasting us a longer period of time. Not only that, I don't seem to be lactose intolerant with it, which I thought I was with regular milk. We joined a local food-co-op. Paid approximately $15 a week to get a weeks worth of fresh, locally grown vegetables. It was an upfront expense, so that's $15 a week that we don't have to pay in the mean time. There are several other things on our budget that if things had gotten much worse, we probably could have cut them too. One example is the $17 per month trash service... we could have started taking the garbage to the dump ourselves, but that $17 convenience fee sure is worth it.

At any rate, we cut and cut and cut our budget some more, so that now that he has this new job, it's a HUGE blessing to make progress on things that we've "needed" to do, but have had to let slide recently. I posted on FB recently that I was going to be coming after the student loans with a vengeance as soon as I cleaned some stuff up. I'm not quite sure when that is actually going to happen, though. In the short term, we've got to rebuild our emergency fund, and sinking fund accounts, which takes care of our yearly or semi annual bills, such as car tags, life insurance and stuff like that. We also have some trees that need to be cut down in our back yard. We haven't been able to do that yet. The quote is only $750.... but that's $750 we haven't had. Hopefully we'll be able to get those monsters taken down by the end of May now :D I also have some medical bills to take care of too. We also want to save up some money for some things we want to do this summer.... go to a Nascar race, maybe a concert, etc. Our 5 year anniversary is this October, and we'll be going to the beach with our church family as we do every year. It just happens to fall on that weekend. I think we're planning on going down a couple of days early to make a vacation out of it.

So yeah, now that this has happened, we can dream again. Not go crazy, but we can actually budget a little more entertainment money than we had been so that we don't go absolutely stir crazy. I'm actually excited that we're going to be giving a larger tithe to the church! Tithing is something that's been especially important to me.

I worked on a generic budget with our new income, and I'm at a point now where we have a surplus amount that I'm not quite sure what to do with it yet. Part of me thinks "Throw it at the student loans!" since that's the ultimate goal anyway - get those suckers knocked out. But another part of me thinks I need to set a little more aside in our emergency fund and sinking funds account, to create a little bigger of a cushion. Technically, per Dave Ramsey's baby steps, we are still on Baby Step 2 - Pay off all debt. Baby Step 3 is a fully funded emergency fund. However, in his teachings, he does also give you the wiggle room to bump up your emergency a little bit if you are going to be in Baby Step 2 for a long time... which we are. It's been 3 years, and we still have a mountain of student loans. Even with his income, I anticipate we're going to be here at least for 4-5 more years, if not longer. I'm hoping we can do it in 5 years, with anticipated increases in salaries, yard sales, and maybe even a part time income on the side for me. I'm currently trying to find an online teaching position that I can use my MBA for.

Well... and the truth of the matter is, while writing this, I just remembered that we desperately need to start a "Car Replacement" sinking fund... badly. My car is 9 years old. It has 150K miles on it. It's still running well, though it needs a little more TLC these days. It's due for a major service, which we were not able to afford when I had the oil changed yesterday. I need Jonny to bring in a few paychecks before we can do that service. It's got a few quirks about it, and hopefully we'll be pregnant before too much longer. When that happens, I'm going to be in the market for an SUV. I will NOT be able to fit into my car once I get pregnant. Those of you who don't know, I have a 2003 Toyota Celica. It's a small little sports car, and it sits so low to the ground that my mom jokes about dragging her butt on the ground whenever she rides in the car with me. So yeah.... when I get pregnant, it's not going to be easy to get in and out of. Worst case scenario, Jonny and I will be able to switch cars (he has a Corolla, which is a 4 door, and sits higher off the ground than mine does) until we're able to afford another car. But the fact still remains, it's time to get another car, and we REFUSE to make payments. NEVER EVER AGAIN will I pay payments just to have a metal box with wheels. No thank you. So yeah... I think I just answered my own question. Those surplus funds will become the car replacement fund. When we're able to save up about 3-4K, we'll be able to trade my car for probably only 2-3K, and get a decent running early 2000 model SUV. We'll continue to save and upgrade again within a year, just like Dave's Free Cars for Life video illustrates.

Man.... it's good to be able to dream again!!! We cut our expenses so much, that this blessing gives us wiggle room to take care of things, without increasing our lifestyle. Our goal is not to go out an party, and eat out, and buy expensive new phones, or go on vacations every month with the extra money we're going to have. Our goal is to be responsible.... save up to replace the cars so we don't have to get a loan on a new one, throw a little extra money at the student loans when we get the emergency fund where we need it to keep Murphy away, clean up some medical bills, gets some trees removed, do some inexpensive work to the house that we've had to put off.... etc etc.

Thank you Jesus, for these blessings. THANK YOU for allowing us how to struggle, so that with this blessing we can be responsible with it.

Clean Eating is Hazardous to my Wallet

So I've been on this Eat Clean kick for 5 months now. In that time, I have completely given up soda, and as of now, I am 5 days Sweet Tea Free. That pains me. I'm a southern girl, and southern girls drink Sweet Tea. But enough is enough and I'm trying to ween myself off of it. Maybe one day I'll be able to have it as a treat and not fall off the wagon.

I've recently become fascinated by a lot of health documentaries. If you haven't seen these, I HIGHLY recommend you check them out.

Food Inc 
Forks Over Knives
Food Matters
Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
Hungry For Change

These movies have changed my life. Oh my goodness. Sugar is "legal" cocaine. High Fructose Corn Syrup, despite what those awful commercials tell you (google" sweet surprise", I don't want to link to it), is AWFUL and you really should not be eating this garbage. Monsanto is evil. And I'm tired of eating food that is mass produced in terrible conditions.

I'm starting to buy mostly organic foods, when possible. I joined a food co-op, Jenny Jack Farm and I'm looking forward to having locally grown produce every week! And I'm supporting the local economy in the process.

While I'm not a vegetarian... yet... I'm working towards that goal. Jonny's digging his heels in, which is fine, he doesn't have to go meatless just because I do... but I think it will help me in the long run if I can eventually work towards this. I can't even remember the last time I had beef. I do still eat alot of chicken and shrimp or fish though.

I'm pretty disgusted by the things those videos showed me about how animals are treated, and how our foods are genetically modified. NO DAMN WONDER I'M FAT. Okay, I mean that very tongue in cheek, but seriously. These videos have shown how these bad awful processed foods are marketed to you, and how you come to rely on, and, for lack of a better term, become addicted to sugar, and other bad for you foods. Even right now, I'm thinking about a cheap box of mac n cheese. The crap where the cheese comes out as a powder and you mix it with milk and butter. I haven't had a box of that since October, but I still think about it, because I LOVED that stuff. I don't buy it anymore. If I have it, I WILL eat it and I don't want to eat it because it's processed garbage.

If you cannot pronounce the ingredients, or it reads like a chemistry book, you shouldn't eat it. Period. Oh yeah, "Fat Free" is a term for added sugar. You'd really be better off eating the fat filled stuff than eating the fat free crap loaded with sugar. And Diet Sodas? Yeah, you might as well be drinking gasoline.

Look, if I'm ticking y'all off, or you're thinking I'm a hippie, nobody ever told you you had to read this. I'm on a mission to fix my FAT ASS. Educating myself is the first step to that. I now feel like it's my duty to buy local, buy organic, buy cage free, grass fed, etc etc. COWS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO EAT CORN. Chickens should not be injected to grow faster and have bigger breasts for breast meat. Just because chemicals work doesn't mean we should participate in this nonsense.

It really makes me mad to know that the normal every day foods that I'm so used to buying are mass produced in bad environments, or they are genetically modified, or have extra garbage added into them to get me addicted to that food product so that I will want it more and more.

It's a conspiracy theory I guess. I guess I'm "one of those" people now. Fine. My wallet is suffering because buying good quality foods are expensive, but it's healthier for me, and I'm not going to give up. One of those videos has a family who says it's easier and cheaper to go to Taco Bell and order off the value menu than it is to buy produce and other high quality foods. Sad part is, they are right. What is WRONG with this picture?

I'm not a "crazy activist" but I can certainly do my part by buying good quality food, and by not supporting the bad treatment of animals, or buying processed garbage that make these food producers filthy rich while they are just making the rest of our bodies filthy disgusting and unhealthy.

Watch the videos. Then come chat with me.

Buh-Bye, Sprint.....

I wish I would have done this 3 years ago when I first started the plan... but I guess better late than never. I have been a Sprint customer since 2003. Hubby and I have grown very accustomed to our dumb phones, and for the longest time, that wasn't something I was willing to give up.

I finally realized enough was enough. We don't use or blackberries for all the frilly extras that they have the capability of doing. Honestly, I talk, I text, and I check email. I try to surf the web, but it's slow, and it's a pain in the tush, so I eventually get fed up and wait until I'm near a computer anyway.

I'm going to pay the stupid tax $120 early termination fee for my phone (his has already passed the contract date) because in only 2 months we'll have saved that much money to make it worth the switch.

We were paying $130 a month for our 2 phones. I checked our usage with sprint, and between the two of us, we barely hit 1000 minutes per month. We decided to go with the $30 plan at Straight Talk which is 1000 minutes, 1000 text, and 30MB of data. They also have a $45 per month plan which is unlimited talk, text and web. I found a phone for $30 for me, and a refurbished phone for $20 for him. A couple of up front costs to save more money in the long term.

WHY DIDN'T I DO THIS SOONER?????

So, the phones should arrive on Friday. I can't wait to activate them and be done with my ridiculously priced Sprint bill.... 

2011 Review, Ready for 2012

2011 was a season of ups and downs. The ups were good, the downs were bad. Suffered some surprising disappointments but finally realized it was God's way of taking a stupid burden off of me.

In May, my husband and I took a 7 day cruise to Western Mexico to celebrate my graduation from grad school (last December) and his bachelors (this May). it was the single most best vacation I've ever been on and I cannot wait to go on another one.

In June, we had to put our Tri-Pawd beagle, Buster, to sleep after the cancer that took his leg returned and consumed him. A month later, we adopted another rescue, this time, a bagel (basset hound/beagle mix) named Freckles.

In July, after 2 years, 5 months and 7 days, we paid off the rest of our 42K in non-student loan debt. This was a big milestone in our journey to getting out of debt. Since then we've been tackling the student loans with a vengeance, between 2 bachelors and a masters degree, we'd like to pay them all off in 5 years or less. However, at our current rate, that's not going to happen. Still wishing for hubby to find a permanent full time job.

In August, I started my own Mary Kay business, it's providing a little bit of extra income, but I have no desire to be the crazy Cadillac lady.

In September, I found out that I have PCOS....and in November I found out that I'm insulin resistant/pre-diabetic. Hubby and I wont be able to have babies until I get this crap under control. Soooo, bye bye pizza, fast food, and processed garbage. I started the eat clean lifestyle (eatcleandiet.com) in November and have already lost 14 pounds. I'm "maintaining" through the holidays and hoping to really get focused after the beginning of the year.

I continue to be blessed in ways that I cannot put into words with the amazing job I have. I celebrated my 3 year anniversary with the company in October, and I'm crossing my fingers for some new opportunities in the upcoming year.

While I can't complain because God has really provided for us....I really hope hubby finds permanent full time work soon. We've made such financial progress, but these student loans are troubling me. If it weren't for the SLs, I could handle the household finances, and we wouldn't have anything to worry about... If you're an undergrad student reading this - PLEASE PLEASE keep/get scholarships, work a part time job and AVOID STUDENT LOANS.

As much as I despise the month of January, I'm ready for it to get here, because the quicker it gets here, the quicker it can be over. On my birthday a few weeks ago, I said 31 was going to be my best year yet, and I mean that. I've got big plans for 2012....and I'm ready to get started.

Black Friday shopping

Black Friday was not nice to my wallet. However. I spent only money I had, and I bought only things that I really "needed." I did not buy Christmas presents. I did buy Jonny a few new polo shirts, but other than that, it's was "birthday" gifts for myself.

I've been wanting a programmable crock pot for a long time now, and just could not justify buying one for $50. Yesterday, I got one for $20 with a $10 mail in rebate. Thank you, JCPenney! I also bought 2 sets of Store N Lock food storage containers for all the new healthy food that I'm keeping in my house. Whole Wheat Flour, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour, Flax Seeds, Quinoa, Brown Rice, Rice Pasta, etc. Half opened boxes and bags with chip clips stuffed half-hazzardly in my pantry just wasn't cutting it.

I'm also learning to can. I bought a pressure COOKER,  because I was told that a pressure cooker and a pressure canner are the same thing - and they are, but a pressure canner comes with a jar rack that sits in the bottom of the pot. Honestly, I don't understand why companies just don't make combined pressure cooker/canner for everything. For safety reasons, I took the pressure cooker back and bought a Presto pressure canner/cooker from Walmart. It was NOT on sale, and cost more than I really wanted to spend, However, I had a ton of turkey stock that I had to store SOMEHOW. I would have spent more money buying freezer containers, than I did buy sucking up the cost of the pressure canner and some jars so that I could put it up in my food pantry, rather than freezing it all. Plus, I can reuse the canner over and over again. I'm planning to can as much as possible. On the new diet, I am staying away from sugar, and salt when possible, which means its VERY difficult to find spaghetti or pizza sauce that I can buy at the grocery store. So I'm going to start making my own with fresh tomatoes, or start out with canned no salt added tomatoes and go from there. I made my own cream of mushroom soup a few weeks ago and had to freeze it all. I'm looking forward to being able to can the next batch I make. Whoop!

I also bought some black out energy efficient curtains for the living room, dining room and our bed room. Eventually we'll get some for the other rooms of the house. I got a great deal on these curtains at big lots. I found the sizes I needed in colors that matched the paint and decorations in the house, and had no trouble putting them up. I HATE having to use these curtains though, as I prefer natural sunlight. However, I'm hoping these live up to their name and will help keep the heat in during the winter and the heat out during the summer... We will see!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!