Budget 4/28 - 5/11

I am crossing my fingers that my wedding dress arrives in the next two weeks (oh please go back to that post and read some excellent troll comments!).

Ticker update alert - with today's contribution I believe we have just over $5000 left in the Wedding Savings account. We're just about on target with our wedding savings with under three months to go.

Personal training has been going well too, though I'll have to scale back my sessions to once a week instead of twice of week due to money and time constraints. A month of intense training gave me the foundation I needed to work out on my home and was, in my opinion, money well spent. It's tough to stay motivated every.single.day but with a lot of hard work, I have seen some results.

I am also anxiously awaiting the busy time at work to be finished - we all are - but right now it seems everything is in such a state of flux that there's no telling what will happen. My workload has doubled and while I am getting tons of hands-on experience, it's hard to juggle three projects at once. Last night I had a dream about my boss! (Not that kind of dream I swear, but he bought me mozzarella sticks....weird, right?)

Anyway, enough non sequitor, let's get to the budget!

Starting Balance = $1261

100 - Credit Card
500 - Wedding Savings
93 - Perkins Loan
80 - Law School Loan
100 - Groceries
90 - Health*
140 - Personal Training
157 - Misc

*I'm pretty frustrated with my insurance company. They never tell me I owe them anything at the appointment and then I get a phantom bill in the mail several weeks later (still directed to my old address even though I moved six months ago and have told them that). Anyway, today I sent a check for my $25 annual dental deductible and have another $20 to pay for labwork. I finally found my checkbook!

Where it Went 4/13 - 4/27

I was really bad and didn't even get around to posting a budget on the 13th for the past two weeks. But even still, I want to document how my money was spent just to stay accountable.

It's been pretty busy both at work and in wedding planning. My fiance and I got to take a quick trip out of town two weekends ago, which will probably be our last weekend truly alone before the wedding. It was fun. This past weekend I had my shower (yay for presents!) and the following weekends are chock full of many obligations to friends and family. The fun has just begun!

So here's a quick accounting of how I spent my last paycheck ($1261):

Credit Card - 160
Sallie Mae - 406
Defaulted Student Loan - 260
Sprint - 74
Healthcare - 85
Office Work Party tickets - 60
Misc. - 160

Stay tuned for more budgeting!

I Paid Off Nice Collection Agency!!

Back in May 2008, shortly after creating this blog (woah reading those old entries is a bit painful) I posted about reaching a payment agreement with a creditor I termed "Nice Collection Agency." Every month for 21 months they have been deducting $125.81 from my bank account and I knew that, someday, this old credit card would be paid off.

Last month they only deducted $75 and I thought that was curious but since I haven't really been keeping track of the amount I still owed, I waited one more month to see what would happen. And this month it seems the debt has finally been paid off!

So yes, 21 months after entering into the agreement, and a full decade after racking up the charges, I am DONE with Nice Collection Agency. I feel very relieved to have that monkey off my back.

Next up is getting a copy of my credit report to make sure the account shows up as paid in full...and figuring out what to do with an extra $125.81 a month (I'll give you a hint....saving it!).

Today when I was digging through my old blog posts I remembered how frustrated and helpless I felt back in 2008, when I couldn't control how I was spending my money and future stability seemed so out of reach. I realize I still have a ways to go..but it's nice to know I have made some progress.

Where it Went 3/31 - 4/13

Personal Training is going great! I have lost ten pounds in three weeks!* And inches too. I'm feeling pretty good even though it's really hard work and the diet is kicking my butt.

*Note that it's only healthy to lose about 2 pounds per week and my trainer wasn't expecting that much to happen so quickly so I have to be careful I'm getting enough calories and don't hurt myself, etc.

Expect a longer post today about the final stages of wedding (budget) planning but for now here's an accounting of my budget for the previous pay period:

Budgeted/Actual

Personal Training - 280/220
Perkins Loan - 93/93
Law School Loan - 80/80
Credit Card - 0/200
Groceries - 75/0
Health - 45/40
Wedding Savings - 580/580
Misc. - 163/140

In other news, I learned an expensive internet lesson: just because something looks awesome on a web site doesn't mean it will look awesome in person. Sigh, have to return a too expensive dress I bought to wear to my shower but at least I'll get my money back!

And since I was having too much fun with my April Fool's Day post, I neglected to mention that it's been a year since I've been at my "new" job. Woohoo! Hopefully this means I will be seeing a pay bump soon.

I Won the Megamillions!

I can't believe I'm writing this. I haven't even told any of my family members or friends this life changing news but it's been eating me up inside and I figure since this is an anonymous blog about my money I just couldn't hold this secret in any longer.

Let me say that I usually abhor gambling, but last month while accompanying my fiance to a business trip in California I urgently needed to use a restroom after drinking three Ginger Ales on the plane. We stopped at a convenience store and I had to make a purchase to get the restroom key. Since I clearly didn't need anything to drink and I already had gum I thought the next cheapest thing was a throwaway lottery ticket. It was a few weeks later that I finally discovered the piece of paper floating around my pocketbook was worth $133 Million!

I'm so excited! But cautious at the same time. I don't want to let the secret out and have people try to influence my financial decisions. I have hired an estate lawyer who specializes in lottery winnings. After paying taxes up front - and of course paying off my student loans - I should net about $70 million. My lawyer has reccomended buying an annuity with most of the funds which will pay out about $200,000 a month for the rest of my life!

We are buying a boat and sailing the world. Stay tuned for blog posts from paradise! Early retirement here we come!

Budget 3/31 - 4/13

Sadly, it looks like I will fall short of my March Savings Madness goal of saving $2000 this month for the wedding. With an addition of $580 this pay period I will have transferred $1710 in the month of march. What's breaking the budget is buying a month of personal training for $280. But there's no use getting down about it now, I made the decision to really focus on my fitness goals, so focus I will.

I hope to post some pros/cons of working with a personal trainer after I have a few more sessions. One obvious con is the cost involved but the pros so far have been knowing there's someone who believes I can meet my goals and really pushes me to get there. I hope in the end, my improved health and self-esteem will be worth the money. And seriously folks, I'd appreciate it if you kept your snarky comments to yourself today...I've grappled with this decision for some time and I have made up my mind to spend the money.


Also my $184 state tax refund never showed up, despite the fact that I filed in early February. As of today when I checked the status online, it's scheduled to arrive on April 13th but it says that the amount has been adjusted. I wonder what happened? Did I screw up my taxes? Stay tuned.

So here's my new budget for the next two weeks...

Starting Balance = $1286*

Personal Training - 280
Perkins Loan - 93
Law School Loan - 80
Groceries - 75
Health - 45
Wedding Savings - 580
Misc. - 163**

*Paycheck is slightly bigger because I received a meal reimbursement, which is all well and fine, except that I was taxed on it....even after being taxed on the meals it covers. Where's the fairness in that?

**Includes $10 towards Administrative Professionals Day and maybe a new outfit for Easter.

Monthly Student Loan Debt Roundup

It's the end of March so you know what that means.....time for my monthly student loan debt roundup!

The only thing to note this month is apparently two of my loans (with the same lender) went up instead of down since I just paid them today and it takes the system six days for the payment to kick in. Boo, I don't like to see numbers going the wrong way...especially since I paid double the minimum payment on one of those loans!!!

Oh well, here are the numbers. Almost below $130k, woo hoo! I really want to celebrate when I hit the below six figure mark but maybe I should celebrate smaller goals along the way too. The $120s aren't far away!

Where it Went 3/17 - 3/30

Rain rain go away! I can't wait until tomorrow when April officially begins because I'm sick of the weather in the Northeast. Cold and rainy day after day.

Good things happened in March though! I am hoping to meet my March Savings Madness challenge later on this afternoon. And this was made possible by the three paycheck month and my bringing in $500 of additional income!

And I've been busy as a bee, working, planning for the wedding, and I started seeing a personal trainer to help motivate my workout goals. I was on the fence about actually paying for this service, but after a couple of session I am really hooked. I have been doing a lot of things half-heartedly and meeting with the trainer is setting me up to be much more accountable to myself.

But more on that later. For now, here is how I did on my budget compared to my projections the past two weeks. Nothing too exciting happened. Our grocery bill has slowly creeped up now that we're making an effort to eat healthier, but we're actively looking for ways to cut costs in that department.

Budgeted/Actual

Credit Card - 165/165

Sprint - 76/76

Healthcare - 105/100*

Groceries - 75/100

Gift - 40/0

Wedding Savings - 1170/1130

Misc. - 130/180

*Includes $60 towards personal training.

So I have to save an additional $870 to meet my $2000 savings goals. I don't know if I can do it. I need to flex the numbers a bit but stay tuned for my new budget coming up soon.

Budget 3/17 - 3/30

In the next two weeks I will be hoping to find my Pot of Gold! And I will...in that March is a 3 Paycheck Month and I should be coming into at least $500 in additional cash from an outside job that I am doing next week. Maybe even my state tax return will show up!

So here's my budget for the next two weeks. My paycheck has been "reduced" by $14 since I upped my 457 contribution to 8%. I'm sure I'll be thanking myself for that in 30 years.

I spent some time online getting my cell phone bill reduced since there was a random charge on it that I did not authorize. Success! Got my money back!

Interesting tidbit about today - it is the one year anniversary of my interview for my current job. Amazing how time flies! And there is exactly 4 months until our wedding!

Starting Balance = $1261

Credit Card - 165

Sprint - 76

Healthcare - 105

Groceries - 75

Gift - 40

Wedding Savings - 1170*

Misc. - 130

*Includes $500 in expected additional money.

Have to go out of town (again) next weekend for a family event. Here's hoping I can keep my costs down this time!

Where it Went 3/03 - 3/16

Hello there and a Happy St. Patrick's Day! Here's hoping my Irish blood will bring me some luck soon as I'm currently behind on my March Savings Madness by $32 and with New York State (and several others apparently) holding on to their refunds I may even get further behind before this month is out.

It has been a good couple of weeks in terms of personal development. I started working out more and eating healthier. This new development came with a higher grocery bill but I've been researching ways to eat healthy for less and hopefully will have some new tips to share soon. And the new Spring weather headed my way meant adding some new clothes in my still pretty basic wardrobe. So all in all, I'm slightly over budget.

Here are the numbers compared to the budget I set two weeks ago:

Budgeted/Actual
Credit Card - 120/120
Wedding Savings - 100/68
Groceries - 75/120
Sallie Mae - 407/407
Defaulted Student Loan - 260/260
Nice Collection Agency - 125/76*
Healthcare - 70/40**
Misc. - 118/195

*I don't know why this payment was lower. Maybe as I get closer to paying off that account (yay!) the payments get lower. I need to look into that because I would really like to free up that monthly line.

**I still didn't send in my annual dental deductible. I hate mailing bills and I am completely out of checks.

Miscellaneous spending includes a bus, train and subway tickets since I went into NYC for a while before visiting my fiance's family. There was some wedding spending but that came out of the Wedding Savings. I hope after this month we will be well on our way to paying for our wedding in cash!

Since today is Extra Paycheck Day (March is a 3 paycheck month) I'm hoping to catch up a little bit.

Financial Goals for 2010

I've been thinking a lot about planning our lives after the wedding and wanted to make a "Bucket List" of sorts. I've been adding to it in my head for days now...and it was getting a little intimidating. So, first, I thought I would list my immediate financial goals for 2010 - better late than never, right?

1. Get married without going into debt. There is a finite deadline on this goal - a hopefully beautiful Saturday in July and we're pretty confident we can pull it off with our combined savings.

2. Increase 457 Fund contributions. Check! After reading again and again that you should have one year's salary in your retirement funds by age 30 and feeling woefully inadequate at 30 years, 3 months and only around $10,000 saved, I bit the bullet and upped my contributions from 7 to 8%. It only means a $9 biweekly paycheck impact which I can handle.

3. Max out Roth IRA. After the wedding I will start funneling $400 a month towards this goal plus occasional snowflakes so that I can accomplish this goal by April 2011.

4. Buy back pension credits. As I've mentioned before, I have to buy eight months of credits into the pension system because I joined late. It's only going to be a couple hundred dollars and I will start this process right after the wedding as well. This way, I will be set to vest in my pension in August 2011.

5. Eliminate law school loan. This was one of my 2009 resolutions and I'm sad to say it hasn't happened yet, but now I've added the progress bar to the blog and have a plan to knock out the loan by November using some of the money currently going towards Wedding Savings (the rest is going to the Roth IRA).

In short, the rest of 2010 is going to be a great financial year for me. I'm going to marry a great guy, beef up my retirement savings, and start snowballing my student loan debt. Wish me luck!

Budget 3/03 - 3/16

This budget is sort of annoying. I am anxious to put my March Savings Madness into effect, but I have to be patient because I have a lot of bills to take care of first.

Well technically, my monthly payment to Sallie Mae won't be debited until the 17th - my next payday, but I can't risk moving the money to the wedding savings before that happens. Oh well, the money is "saved" in my head.

Here's my budget for the next two weeks, before the March Savings Madness truly begins:

Starting Balance = $1275

Credit Card - 120
Wedding Savings - 100
Groceries - 75
Sallie Mae - 407

Defaulted Student Loan - 260

Nice Collection Agency - 125

Healthcare - 70*
Misc. - 118

*This amount reflects the $25 deductible I apparently owe to my dental insurance, which is lame since I ask every time at the dentist if I owe anything and haven't been there this calendar year. Oh well.

Oh and if you click through, please note that I have started updating my sidebars after several requests. I added my next debt I'm focusing on (my smallest and highest interest student loan). I am going to add savings goals next, stay tuned!

Where it Went 2/17 - 3/02

I am happy to report that this past budgeting period was very successful. $100 in wedding spending on our Pre-Cana course and $500 in wedding savings, all the while being on target in every other category. As I've learned, if you transfer the savings out of your account immediately, you're pretty much forced to be on budget...because you have nothing left. Genius!

The Pre-Cana (marriage preparation) course went really well. It gave us a lot of food for thought in terms of planning our future together. Most of it was stuff we had already talked about but it was a good refresher nonetheless.

So here's how I did on the budget I set out two weeks ago:

Budgeted/Actual
Pre-Cana - 100/100

Groceries - 75/100

Wedding Savings - 500/500
Credit Card - 150/150

Sprint - 84/84

Law School Loan - 80/80

Perkins Loan - 93/93

Health - 65/40

Misc. - 163/160

We booked our flights to Hawaii for our honeymoon! Well, part of our flights at least. Now we have to make some decisions, save up some cash, and plan out the trip. I'm excited.

Stay tuned for my next budget - when I'm actually more awake and dressed. Right now I've been up for hours because I couldn't sleep.

March Savings Madness

Wow, it's March! Which means the wedding is only a little over 4 months away. Yowser! My fiance and I sat down and wrote out the remains of what we need to pay for and how we're doing in our current wedding savings and it's time to step it up.

Which brings me to the March Savings Madness.

In the month of March, I, Sallie's Niece, will save $2000 for the wedding.

You may be saying "but Sallie, you only get net $2400 a month and have $925 in monthly debt obligations, however will you accomplish this goal?"

Well, a few ways:

• I still haven't gotten my state tax refund, which brings me to a tax related conspiracy theory but I'll save that for another day. Assuming it comes this month that's $184 towards my goal.
• It's a three paycheck month! So I can divert almost $1000 of the "extra" paycheck towards the wedding savings.
• I got some extra work! Almost a year ago, I wrote about a court case I was assigned to, which sadly only netted me $50 at the time. Well it's finally ready to go to court so I get the remaining $500 of my statutory fee!
  

Plus my regular savings and a bit of belt tightening, I am confident I can reach this goal. Wish me luck everyone!

Monthly Student Loan Debt Roundup!

Here it is, that time again to do a monthly roundup of my student loan debt.

February has flown by between Valentine's Day, work craziness, a weekend trip, and wedding planning. We are now just four and a half months away from saying "I do" which means lots of planning, decision-making and saving. I'll post more about our plans soon.

But in the meantime, here are the numbers. Freed myself of $741 student loan debt in this short month.

Budget 2/17 - 3/03

This weekend my fiance and I have pre-cana, or marriage preparation with the church. It's an all day course where we will discuss a lot of the tough issues married couples face, including finance. I'm pretty excited! But also, do you think the diocese will accept cash because I just realized I am completely out of checks?!

So here's my budget for the next two weeks, including the $100 course:

Starting Balance = $1310

Pre-Cana - 100
Groceries - 75

Wedding Savings - 500
Credit Card - 150

Sprint - 84

Law School Loan - 80*

Perkins Loan - 93

Health - 65

Misc. - 163

*I paid double the minimum payment this month because I loathe that student loan the most and want to evict it from my life ASAP.

Today also begins Lent and I have decided to abstain from beer and liquor, which maybe will help me spend less money as well. Guess I'll find out.

Where it Went 2/03 - 2/16

Payday! My two (and sometimes three!) favorite days of the month.

I may have some exciting news soon -or rather I do have news but I don't know how exciting it is yet - about bringing in some extra money next month. Stay tuned!

And now, where my money has gone for the past two weeks. A bit of a mea culpa here is that not buying groceries during this entire budgeting period - working late, snow, etc., has left both my fiance and I spending too much money on lunch at work.

Bad bad! I thought I had learned my lesson to brown bag it. Must try harder.

So here's how I did:

Budgeted/Actual

Wedding Savings - 500/500

Credit Card - 125/125

Sallie Mae - 407/407

Defaulted Student Loan - 260/260

Nice Collection Agency - 125/125

Groceries - 75/0

Sprint - 78/0*

Health - 60/40

Misc. - 110/220

*I just paid this today so I will include this amount in the next budgeting period.

So yes my spending wasn't awesome but because of my federal tax refund I was able to give a nice boost to the wedding savings account. Just as a preview, my fiance and I have decided that after the wedding I will continue to save money in this account as general savings for us - to help grow our emergency fund, save for our next car, house, etc.

Saving For the Honeymoon

What's the one thing people wish they had more of, even moreso than money? Time. While I can't make more time (drats!) my fiance and I have been saving our vacation time for our honeymoon.

Last I wrote about it, we were still on the fence about possible destinations. As the wedding approaches, we are more convinced that Hawaii is the place to go! There are some great hotels we can stay at using rewards points and it's someplace I've always wanted to travel to. (My fiance has been to the Big Island while on an extended layover trip but he was all by himself.)

Airline miles are getting harder to come by (and save up) as my fiance hasn't had to travel for work in a while - a good thing - but we have enough to cover one roundtrip ticket.

And the most important thing, after paying for the trip, is how are we going to be able to get away from work for an extended period? That's where vacation time comes in.

With my fiance's recent promotion he gained an additional week's vacation! Which means he now has three weeks a year. We will need to use a day or two before the wedding to travel and get ready, save a couple of days for two weddings of our friends in the fall, as well as the Christmas holidays. That leaves about two weeks for the honeymoon!

As for me, since I've been with my employer for over three years (though in different offices) I just received an increase in my vacation accrual! As of January, I accrue 5.5 vacation hours every two weeks. Right now I have:

Vacation - 57.75 hours

Personal - 35 hours

Comp - 15.75 hours

Since it's the busy time of the year I can expect to accrue at least 20 more comp hours in the weeks to come. By July it looks like I will have over three weeks vacation saved up, not including personal or comp time.

Hawaii here we come!

Budget 2/03 - 2/16

I'm having one of those "why doesn't it grow on tree" days in regards to money.

Logged into my credit card account and realized I have been spending too much on new clothes lately, which is discouraging considering I don't consider myself even close to having a decent professional wardrobe. I need to lose twenty pounds or just wear a sack every day. Or both.

I'm just going to lay off the clothes shopping for a while and try to step it up at the gym.

And despite the feeling that all I have been doing for the past 5 months is pay bills and save for the wedding we are slightly behind in our savings.

So here is my budget for the next two weeks, taking into account the $495 federal tax refund I received:

Starting Balance = $1740

Wedding Savings - 500

Credit Card - 125

Sallie Mae - 407

Defaulted Student Loan - 260

Nice Collection Agency - 125

Groceries - 75

Sprint - 78*

Health Co-pays - 60

Misc. - 110

*Sprint is approximate since the bill isn't showing up yet but I took into account the $73 I usually pay plus a $5 donation to Haiti I made.

Our of miscellaneous I also want to buy a Valentine's Day gift for my fiance.

Where it Went 1/20 - 2/02

I got my federal tax refund yesterday, yay! $495 to add to the wedding account. Did I mention I was looking forward to the wedding..... being over with?

And in the meantime, here is how I did on my budget for the past two weeks:

Projected/Actual
Wedding Savings - 400/400
Attorney Registration - 350/350
Credit Card - 174/174
Perkins Loan - 95/95
Law School Loan - 55/55
Groceries - 100/90
Valentine's Day - 50/50
Health Co-pays - 40/40
Misc. - 111/150

Included in the miscellaneous spending is $50 in birthday money my parents sent me.

Paying for the bar registration dues is annoying. I guess I'll have to remember them two years ago so I can better prepare.

Luckily most of Valentine's Day has already been paid for thanks to me finding a good deal.