Drowning

Well yes, I should be called the Queen of Procrastination, thank you. I excel at it. I rule at procrastination.

This is not a good thing.

I have done zero towards getting a hold on my financial situation. Nada. Zip. Nothing.

Again, this is not a good thing.

Working at the restaurant has begun to consume my life. This is day seven out of ten. Then one day off and back at it for six more days. As of August 9th I'm unemployed.

I have one school paycheck left in August.

Time to get serious about job hunting.

Smartphone for a (dumb?) blonde

Well, I did something that was not frugal. The kids knocked my cell phone on the floor the other day and it broke. Completely. I don't have a landline (haven't had one for four years) so this is my only means of outside communication short of email. I depend on my phone and it goes more places with me than my debit card. :)

I have been long wanting to have internet access on my phone and I've long wanted a PDA. I love my planner (Franklin-Covey) but it is large and bulky and I get tired of carrying it everywhere, because I? Am not a purse person. So while I was at my friendly neighborhood cellphone store I inquired about the cost of changing my plan and upgrading my phone.

The customer service rep was very nice and after reviewing my plan, figured she could get me into a plan with 'net access and my two phone lines (one for the kids) for roughly $10 less than my current plan. It would mean downgrading from 1000 to 400 everyday minutes. But by using the lovely little MyCircle plan all calls to those numbers are free, all my mobile to mobile minutes within their company are free, and night/weekends would start at 7pm and be free. That makes the vast majority of my calls free and not ones that would use up the 400 minutes.

I had originally wanted a smartphone with Palm software. I let her talk me into trying the MotoQ. While it's a pretty good phone and there's really nothing wrong with it, it's not for me. It syncs up with Outlook and I'm a Palm girl. I'm returning it to get a phone with the Palm software. The MotoQ would have cost me $75 after the initial on-site rebates and the mail-in rebate. After doing some researching I figure the Palm Treo should be about the same. I also plan to upgrade the kids phone since it's a new two-year plan and there should be an upgrade period for both phone lines. The kid's phone is pretty much obsolete. It was a replacement from when their original phone quit working.

The frugal thing to do would have been to downgrade as much as possible. But considering the amount of time I've already logged on the smartphone I don't considere it to be a complete waste of money. We'll see.

The MotoQ goes back next week. We'll see how it goes with the Treo.

Terminal Blondness is Interfering With My Tracking

I am suffering from a tremendous attack of short-term amnesia or as I prefer to call it, terminal blondness (I can say this because I am a blond). I truly mean to write down what I'm spending. Seriously I have really good intentions. I just sort of . . . umm . . . forget. So this week I have switched to using my debit card only. This way I can view my account online and have a basic idea of where the money is going. This also means that I must start depositing my tips in the bank to keep track of where that money is going. Working part-time as a server means that I tend to generally have cash on hand. I'm finding it way too easy for that cash to just simply disappear. Milk from the store? No problem. Quick stop for ice cream? Sure. Drinks for the ball games? Of course. All of a sudden . . . hmmm . . . where did that cash from my last shift go?

My terminal blondness is getting in the way of accurately tracking what I'm spending. So we'll see how the debit card route goes.

Breakdown of expenses for last week (7/7/08-7/13/08):

Gas $95.48

Housing inspection (my share) $100

Electric/water/sewer $150

Groceries/household $240.81

Eating out: $100

Car insurance: $60

The car insurance and electric bill are constants, the housing inspection was planned for. Unexpected eating out occurred in delivering and picking up the kids from their dad. I do know that we've been eating out way too much lately. Things have been so busy and I have not planned properly to have quick meals ready to go before we leave. Definitely an area that needs revamping.

The gas expenses are quite high but that should drop some once we move. I have to go to the city at least once a week for moving/housing related things (not to mention seeing Mr. Irony). Now I also have the additional miles added on by meeting the kid's dad halfway twice a week for drop-off/pick-up. After we move we'll be within a few miles of each other so that will help a lot!

There will be a city-wide rummage sale where we currently live the weekend before we move. I'm debating whether or not to participate. I have a truckload of items that were earmarked for Goodwill. If I started now I could get them all marked for a sale and possibly make a little extra and cut down on the amount that I have to haul into Goodwill.

I'm trying to be more observant about my spending this week. Anyone know any cures for terminal blondness? :)

Procrastination

Okay, so I've been slacking here. I admit it.

I did order a free credit report from annualcreditreport.com. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be but I wonder what may be on the other two companies reports that maybe weren't on this one.

So way back a couple of weeks ago I completely intended to track my expenses. My "blondness" got in the way and I forgot to do it everyday. Was that my subliminal fear coming through, I wonder?

I did get an unexpected break on my student loan payment. I kept waiting for it to be withdrawn from my checking account. Every day I would log in and no payment had been taken out. After 10 days or so I called the company only to be redirected to a different company. It appears that my student loan has been "sold" to another educational loan corporation. Apparently a large chunk of loans have been sold and the transfer is taking place throughout the end of June/beginning of July. No payments will be withdrawn during this time period and the automatic withdrawals will start back up with my July payment. That's $110 for me to rollover into my "moving" fund. Wouldn't you know that I received the letter explaining this whole process the very afternoon after I had called the company?!

I have started tracking my cash flow again this week. We haven't been going too many places due to car problems. A trip to the tire place this week confirmed that the tires are balanced so they are not the cause of the vibrations that occur when accelerating between 40 and 50 mph. Next week will bring a trip to the dealer to have this checked out as there are still about 8000 miles left on the warranty. I'm hoping that whatever is wrong is covered by warranty and won't eat up my moving money.

This car problem is a prime example of why I need to learn to manage my money and start working towards a secure & debt free financial future. I HATE borrowing from Peter to pay Paul! I hate the worry of "how will I come up with that money". It's just another sign that I need to get serious about this NOW!

I'm about halfway through re-reading all of my Financial Peace material. I had planned to start and finish "Your Life or Your Money" but I can't find it! I'm not sure where it has gone because I thought I left it on the dining room table. Gremlins, I tell you, Gremlins!

I'm a great procrastinator and I still have not totalled up all of my debt or contacted a realtor about selling my lot in town.

I need to get myself in gear, don't I?! Any suggestions for motivation?