New life

A lot has happened in the past few months that I have been away from this blog. First and foremost, I'd like to apologize for letting this blog go untouched for the past few months. My hubby and I separated back in May, and I have been busily forging out on a new path of being a single mommy, taking care of all of the bills (which I was even when we were together), and trying to organize my life. The worst part of the whole thing (other than wondering if I made the right decision) is the organizing part of things. My house seems so cluttered, I never seem to have enough time, I am racing around doing things that I feel should have been done sooner, meals are thrown together and not always healthy because I just don't have the time. But I am working on becoming more organized, slowly but surely. Its funny that I am completely unorganized when it comes to my life, but very organized when it comes to money... usually its the other way around. Since H and I split, I have not missed a payment on anything, and actually managed to make extra payments on my credit card! I qualified for repayment assistance again, which is a catch 22. Thank god I did because if I didn't, I'd be in deep cah cah if I had to come up with $566 a month, but at the same time, this darn thing is never going to get paid off! Well, I will do it some day, but hopefully I will still be young enough to throw a huge party :)

I haven't really been finding any good coupons lately, although on the back of my corn bran cereal boxes, there has been coupons for a free box of granola bars, which is pretty good! The best one I have come across, was a coupon for free frozen yogurt, ice cream or ice cream cones, up to $5!!! I took full advantage of that one. PC had a chocolate almond bark ice cream on sale for $4.99, and for me, it was free :) I have also switched from pampers diapers and wipes to Teddy's (Superstore's brand), and to my surprise, I actually like them better. And it saves me about $6 per shopping trip. :) I have to be honest, the money I have saved in these cases has not gone to the student loan. I am still trying to pay off the credit card and build up a little emergency fund first, which isn't going terribly, all things considered.

Not a whole lot new.....

I had a comment on squidoo asking me to update and let my readers know how I am doing. First and foremost, thanks for reading/following my blog! We are doing alright. I qualified for repayment assistance, meaning because we don't make a lot of money, they don't expect me to pay any on my loan, which is good because we are struggling as it is, and bad because its not getting paid down at the moment. So right now we are at a stand-still when it comes to paying off the loan.... Right now, I am focusing more on paying off the credit card and building up a bit of an emergency fund, which is VERY slow going at the moment... not a lot of extra money at the end of our bills. All I can say is thank god we qualified for repayment assistance, because we'd be in big trouble if we had to come up with an extra $566 per month right now.... eventually something is going to have to happen though, so I can pay it off. I can see big changes in our near future. By the end of 2011 things will be different, although I hesitate to divulge online the options we are considering.... Soon enough. Soon enough.

I am learning more about where to get coupons and hitting good sales, and I have racked up enough swag bucks to buy over $30 in Amazon gift cards. Swag Bucks is kind of addicting! I have some friends in on it now and they all love it. I mean, really, its free, and you can get amazon or pay pal gift cards?!? Why wouldn't you!

March update.

Well, the update for now is that I am still using budgetpulse.com
I have been using it all month, tracking all of my spending and categorizing it. At the end of the month I will have a look and see if I am wasting any money. It looks so far like we are not wasting too much at all. Which is good, but bad, because it means we can't change the spending habits and save money.... Oh well.

The second car has been parked for a while now. It is broken down again. Gas has increased quite a bit, so we are trying to cut down on our driving. That is easier said than done, as we live quite a ways out of town.

I am getting really frustrated with the money situation. I don't buy clothes, shoes, etc. I rarely spend money. My house looks terrible, my wardrobe is very sparse, I'm so discouraged. The life plan at the moment is to junk out my house, get rid of tons of stuff, maybe paint, and possibly put the mini-home on the market. We'll see, as it takes us forever to get anything done.

March update.

Ok, so we have paid the bills we were behind on, and are now almost on track. We had car issues (again...sigh...) so that has cost us $175, and its broke down again. Ugh so frustrating. I have decided to start a budget on www.budgetpulse.com Well, so far it is just a list of income/expenses, but it gives us an idea of where our money is going. I still have to add a few more things into it, but when its all done, I think it may help out. We also got a property tax bill in the mail the other day. Great. My mortgage should be taking care of that, plus, we over paid last year, so that balance should be in there... I'll have to find out about that ASAP. I was going to do it today (I'm home sick...) but I think the bill is in the car.

One bit of financial good news: they approved my application for financial assistance. This means the government will pay the interest, and no payments will be expected from me until July, because we don't make enough money. It's good in a way, but its bad because it means I am miles away from paying it off. Hopefully we'll be able to put some $ away for it....

The coupon thing is not working out too well, as I really don't have any that I can use lately.

So many things to save up for: student loan, credit card, emergency fund, down payment, retirement, child's education, UGH. Oh well. It will happen..... Hopefully sooner than later because my hopes are starting to fade a bit....

Getting back to normal, slowly....

Finally got a full pay! So all of the bills that we didn't pay in full last month (hydro, TV, Cell) are paid in full! We have a bit left over and I would like to put it towards the credit card, because we put a few hundred on it last month for necessities. However, I will keep it in the account for now because its two more weeks till next pay day, and we may need some of it. I'd rather keep it into the account and use it when we need it, rather than putting it on the credit card and then having to charge more on to the card if we need something. I was able to put a small amount into savings. The plan is that whatever is left in the account come pay day will get switched into savings, because we obviously didn't need it. Then when savings gets big enough, we will dump it on the credit card, or whatever else needs to be paid. It's usually not much, but it will add up.

I've never been so excited about paying bills LOL I hate being late and this is the furthest behind I've ever been on regular bills! But I can breath a little easier, as they are now taken care of. That means that I am one step closer to putting a plan into action that will help pay down some debts ASAP. YAY!

New Plan: Rollover method

I decided to search for debt calculators, and came up with this site:
This is so cool. You put in your debts, min payments, interest rates, and any extra income you have left over at the end of the month, and click submit. It then tells you how much you will pay in interest (SICKNING!) and how many payments you have left to make. Then it shows you how much you will save in interest (SHOCKING), and how many payments you will cut down if you use that extra income and the roll-over method. This was a real eye-opener for me. Its so simple, and yet I didn't think of it. In my case, I would take any extra income I have and put it towards my credit card. I could get it cleared in a few months. Then I take the extra income, plus what I would have paid as a min payment on the credit card, and put it on top of the min payment for, say, my student loan. In doing this, I would save over $30,000 in interest, and pay it off almost 5 years FASTER. Unbelievable. I am a visual person, so seeing the numbers month after month (you can see the monthly or yearly payment schedules) really helped me. I feel kinda stupid that I didn't see this before.... I will be using it as soon as we get back on our feet, which should be later on this week, maybe the end of the month. We'll see.

Well.....

It turns out that this little project of mine has triggered mountains of bad financial luck! That's alright. Once we get into next month and full pays, I'll be able to see a little clearer. As for this week: LO was very sick again, and I missed most of the week of work, but I get sick pay, thank god. I do have to say that I am glad I live in Canada, or the past month and a bit would have been financially devastating to us.

Hubby's car needs big time work to pass inspection, and the muffler fell off of it the other day. So we have to buy the muffler and get it put on tomorrow. Another expense we were not expecting.... BUT: When hubby went to pay the daycare today (we have to pay $160 a week for 1 baby, whether she is there or not) They decided to take pity on us and only charge us a holding fee of $80 for the week because LO was so sick and could only attend monday!!! This is seriously the first bit of good luck (financial or otherwise) that 2011 has shown us. Maybe things are starting to turn around!!! :) :) I just feel like I am drowning, and I pop my head up above the water to catch a breath, only to fall back down again. But hey, at least I can take that breath and envision the shoreline! It's there, but I have a long way to swim yet....