Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Budget 2/04 - 2/17

This budget may need tweaking in a few days as I'm going to see a friend for the weekend and expecting my tax refund soon but in the meantime I should post it to keep myself honest. I'm also budgeting for a manicure since it's high time I got one (and to show off my ring!).

Starting Balance = $1138

Credit Card - 100
Aunt Sallie Mae - 406
Defaulted Student Loan - 260
Nice Collection Agency - 125
Train ticket - 80
Groceries - 50
Beauty - 30
Valentine's Day - 20
Misc. - 67

I'm throwing $100 at my credit card and will hopefully get rid of the rest of it this month with the help of my anticipated federal tax refund of $316. New York is also giving me over $100 back but they are not half as quick as the feds.

I don't anticipate spending too much money when I visit my friend as she's sort of a homebody but I could be wrong. I'm looking forward to seeing her and catching up on some girl time before I'm an old married hag.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

umm, are you ever going to pay your friend back? I really like your blog and applaud the wonderful changes you've made with respect to your money...but this one thing always bugs me. I'd be upset if I were your friend.

Sallie's Niece said...

You're totally right anon and I just now wrote to her and asked her the address. It's a little awkward since so many months have passed but knowing her she has completely forgotten about the money she leant me. She's pretty loaded and loose with her cash but hey I do owe her so I may as well send it.

Jim ~ mydebtblog.com said...

How does your fiancé feel about the student loans in the future? My wife has quite a bit of student loans, taken out in her name alone, but I still feel they are something WE should pay off together. I don't think marriage makes one feel old, becoming a parent is another thing.

Sallie's Niece said...

That's a good question, Jim. I think he was a little shocked when I first revealed how much they were and how bad I had been with money in the past but he's really proud that I've started paying better attention to things now. He knows all about student loans having a bunch of them himself but we both value our educations so we have few regrets.

As for the responsibility of paying them? He's going to continue to pay his bills and I'm going to continue to pay mine. We will also both contribute towards shared expenses and goals. That's what we have discussed for now...to be implemented when I move in.

Anonymous said...

i think that's a good plan - in my case, the fiance and i both have student loans, and the figuring is that we'll both keep paying them down and, when one of us finishes, we'll snowball that onto the payments of the other one. i'm on track to finish first, so i'll just double-up on his. right now, with the economy, i'm more worried about reducing our required monthly payments than anything, so we're working on things like paying 6 month premiums on car insurance and saving up money.

as for the friend, i think that just acknowledging that sort of debt is a big deal for people who have had trouble managing money in the past, and so i'm proud of you for a) leaving it on your list and b) seeking out how to pay it off, no matter HOW old the debt may be or how small it may be to the lender. i think some readers might not get what big steps those are for someone who's not been awesome with cash in the past. it's weird to bring it up again, because then you feel that sort of guilt and shame all over again. hopefully at some point anon will make a small loan to a friend without begrudging it and be pleasantly surprised when it's paid off long after he's forgotten about it :)

Sallie's Niece said...

Idub you summed it up exactly. I essentially have to send my friend a weird note saying "remember when I couldn't afford my own train ticket eight months ago?" But I will!

Anonymous said...

Aaah - I see, ldub. i hope I didn't come off as accusatory or rude Sallie - I have a BOATLOAD of school loans, that horrify my husband and also have money issues. And I am impressed with your huge changes, you are an inspiration to me.

Anonymous said...

hey, everyone's in this personal finance learning curve business together! as long as we all keep talking about what works and what doesn't, how our emotions get tied up in money, and just the day to day business of taking care of our finances so that we can stop worrying about them, i'm impressed with the whole posse. i certainly wouldn't have thought at the start of last year that i'd have accomplished so much, and without reading about other people's successes and mistakes, i'm pretty sure i wouldn't even have tried.