I Paid Off My Law School Loan!

Only one of them. Don't anybody get too excited! I still have five left to pay off.

I've been waiting to post this for days! As you could tell from my last "where it went" I made an extra big payment to my Law School Loan courtesy of the extra money I was able to earn doing some outside work. After I made the payment I logged into my account for the next couple of days to see when the account would say zero. Instead, I owed $3.11 in accrued interest. And so I paid that and then waited some more. Finally, I am able to share this exciting image:

And as luck would have it, the smallest of my student loans also had the highest interest rate. 8% is wack. I'm SO glad it's gone. This means in addition to paying off the closed credit card account back in April I have lowered my monthly debt obligations by $165 in 2010! Plus I'm about to start saving $35 a month in health care costs, which effectively means I have $200 more a month to work with.

Getting rid of this loan was on both my 2009 AND 2010 resolutions so I'm glad to meet this goal at last. Freedom!

I started paying this loan in November of 2008 and had 60 months to pay it off. By knocking it out in 23 months I saved $286 in interest. That doesn't seem like much but I'll take any victory I can get at this point.

Now time to snowball my Perkins Loan!

Budget 10/13 - 10/26

I've decided to call this budget the "okay fine, I'll admit to buying stuff" version. Instead of trying to spend almost every cent of my paycheck paying off debt and bills, I'm going to let myself plan for some purchases. Hopefully this will actually help the recent credit card problem because I have to use cash to get the things I want and need. Also I'm feeling a little burnt out.

I need new sweaters since, as I mentioned, moths have attacked mine. I need moth balls or moth hangars. I need flat shoes since mine are literally falling apart. I need a new coat. I want better bathroom storage. I could use a Halloween costume.

I'm not going to run out and buy all of those things in the next two weeks but I may buy a few and I"m not going to beat myself up about it. So there.

Here's my very lenient budget for the next two weeks. Most of the money going towards bills of course, but then some for me as well:

Starting Balance = $1285

Sallie Mae - 407
Defaulted Student Loan - 260
Sprint - 74
Health - 60*
Event Tickets - 60
Charity - 30
Groceries - 100
Clothes - 150
Misc. - 144

*I got a bill from my OB's office stating that I owed them $30 from November of last year. What the heck? This stuff always seems to happen with my doctors - I don't know why they don't bill me during the visit.

Where it Went 9/29 - 10/12

The great news about this budget report is that I was able to bring in $500 in additional income from a court assignment I received. The good news is that I paid off A LOT of debt.

The not so good news is that I also spent more money than I had planned, partly due to the windfall. And the bad news is that I still have a big credit card balance mocking me. I'm just gonna put this out there as I've sort of been evasive about the amount in the past month as I've been trying to attack it: I have $2700 in credit card debt. There I said it. It was actually quite a bit more a month ago. It's "only" at 8.9% interest rate but it's pissing me off and I want it gone as soon as possible.

So without further ado, I will show you how I spent my paycheck plus my windfall the past two weeks:

Budgeted/Actual

Credit Card - 700/700

Law School Loan - 200/434

Perkins Loan - 94/94

Health - 65/100

Gift - 60/60

Misc. - 167/180

Beauty - 0/59

Clothes - 0/198

Yeah yeah, I know. It's pretty bad. If I hadn't overpaid the law school loan so much I would have had money for the clothes. AND if I didn't have such a high credit card balance to work off I would have had money for both the loan AND the clothes. I just really wanted to use the windfall towards erasing debt and it did to a certain extent. Look for a big student loan announcement later this week.

Also I showed up at a doctor's appointment to find out that my health insurance decided not to cover my flu vaccination. What the heck? Luckily I think I am going to be able to reduce my prescription co-pays going forward so that will help a bit. It's also open enrollment time for Flex Spending Accounts so I am looking into that as well.

If all goes according to plan, I can have the credit card paid off by the end of the year. Wish me luck!

Monthly Student Loan Debt Roundup

I can't believe September has come and gone so quickly. It seems like just yesterday I was posting August's student loan debt roundup. Yet happily I was able to decrease the balance by over $1000 this month. Sometimes I make charts and spreadsheets and see how fast I could get rid of all my student loan debt and I get encouraged...until I realize that would mean ignoring all of our other financial goals. It's frustrating.

The good news, however, is that I am achingly close to paying off my first student loan! Because of my increased snowball, the balance stands at a measly $434.41. I hope knocking it out will give me the momentum I need to push harder at attacking the rest of the balances. (I also would like a raise but that's a whole other story.)

Anyway so here's my updated chart:



Thanks for reading and I hope we can celebrate the payoff of loan #1 soon!

Budget 9/29 - 10/12

I know people say "never again" a lot, but I'm saying this right now. Never again will I get sidetracked from my financial goals. I will keep this post as a reminder. Paying for meals you ate and whatever it is you did several months later stinks.

Wanna know why? Let me show you my new budget:

Starting Balance = $1285

Credit Card - 700 :-(
Law School Loan - 200
Perkins Loan - 94
Health - 65
Gift - 60
Misc. - 167

Why yes, most of my paycheck will be going towards my stupid credit card.

How much is $700? I mean other than some numbers on a page, what does it mean to me?

With $700 I could pay off the entire law school loan balance!

With $700 I could buy an I-pad with 3G wireless!

With $700 I could spend a three day weekend with my husband in Niagara Falls!

Oh well. At this rate the debt should be gone by mid-November. I doubt I'll be getting an i-pad any time soon - though I would love to travel to Niagara Falls. Check out this deal - if you have money that is!

Where it Went 915 - 9/28

Good morning! Isn't pay day great? :-)

Time to see how I spent my last paycheck before I go on a flurry of bill paying and budgeting. So here is where my money went compared to the budget I set:

Budgeted/Actual

Sallie Mae - 407/407

Defaulted Student Loan - 260/260

Credit Card - 200/200

Sprint - 74/74

Gift - 40/40

Health - 25/25

Clothes - 100/50

Charity - 20/20

Groceries - 0/30

Misc. - 152/155

Still working dilligently to get rid of our new and unwelcome consumer debt. I'm gonna pay off a bulk of it in a few minutes - that's gonna feel good - and next week I have a legal one time gig that is going to bring in some money too.

I didn't do a big clothes shopping excursion yet - just picked up a few things from Walmart which were suprisingly not cheap but I still need to soon as the weather gets warmer. Moths ate FOUR of my sweaters. I've never had moths before and I don't like them one bit.

Stay tuned for a new budget post!

2010 Financial Goals Checkup

Happy Fall everyone! The weather is getting cooler and things are finally slowing down for the newlyweds - at least for now. We spent three out of four weekends in September at home - which is sort of a record for us the past five months. At work I'm experiencing the "calm before the storm" and expect things to pick up significantly in the next couple of weeks.

And in a few days a six week period of family birthdays start up, including most likely the birth of my parent's first grandchild (I'm gonna be an aunt!), Thanksgiving and then the winter holidays.

But for now, I have a moment to reflect on the financial goals I set for 2010. Here's how I'm doing:

1. Get married without going into debt. Pass. We achieved this goal - however we did not save up enough money for the honeymoon and pretty much depleted our financial reserves which we're working now to build up.

2. Increase 457 contribution. Pass and Fail. I did increase my contribution for most of the year but lowered it when we decided it was more important to max out Roth IRAs.

3. Max out Roth IRAs. Fail. We're pretty focused on debt repayment right now but I'm still optimistic we can do this by April.

4. Buy Back Pension Credits. In progress. I just submitted the paperwork to do this last week.

5. Eliminate Law School Loan. In progress. The balance stands at $634 and hopefully will be down to zero by the end of the year.

So that's how I'm doing so far. I also changed my beneficiary to DH on several of my accounts.

Budget 9/15 - 9/28

After a long hiatus I've decided the honeymoon is over and I should put up a budget post. Note, however, that this budget only reflects my income and the bills I'm responsible for. The DH and I haven't changed the way we manage our money now that we're married though as always we talk about our money and mutual goals. I still transfer money to our joint savings account that we were using for the wedding, except now it's being used to pay off debt.

And about that....yeah, we managed to rack up some consumer debt. It's not terrible and we have a plan to eliminate it, but it puts some other goals on the back burner.

Anyway, here it is:

Starting Balance = $1277

Sallie Mae - 407
Defaulted Student Loan - 260
Credit Card - 200
Sprint - 74
Gift - 40
Health - 25
Clothes - 100
Charity - 20
Misc. - 152

I need some new clothes for the upcoming busy season at work and we have two weddings to attend in October.

My paycheck is a little less than normal because I'm now paying for health insurance for two. The good news is the amount I'm paying now doesn't increase if we add dependents in case we ever decide to make any little humans.

Monthly Student Loan Debt Roundup

Hello out there in blog land. I'm back and married and anxious to tell about my wedding, my fabulous honeymoon, my fine new husband and our married financial adventures. First, however, I bring you a monthly student loan debt roundup - only a day late after skipping the month of July.

Lest you think I ran off and changed my identity to avoid paying student loans forever, I am happy to report that in the past two months I have cleared over $1500 in debt. Here are the stats:



As you can see, since I started this spreadsheet on July 1, 2009 the total amount of student loan debt I've eliminated is $10,845.32!

Stay tuned for more in the chronicles of Sallie's Niece, the married version.

Budget 7/07 - 7/20

Since I need this paycheck to last me until the second day of my honeymoon I figured it was wise to write up a budget so I don't forget anything in the midst of wedding planning.

BTW I should have realized what I was going to get when I googled "two brides" but this image refers to a semi-financial quandry I am in. :-)

My friend is also getting married and her shower and bachellorette party are this weekend. I have already RSVPd yes to both events, but due to a death in a third friend's family I no longer have a way to get to them - five hours away. So...I'm trying to figure out what to do...and how much it will cost. So here's my worst case scenario budget:

Starting Balance = $1337

Sallie Mae - 406

Defaulted Student Loan - 260

Credit Card - 100

Sprint - 74

Health - 45

Shower gift - 60

Transportation and party misc. - 180

Wedding week & misc. - 212

Okay, so that's not too awful. Of course it doesn't take into account the vast amount of money we will spend during the week of the wedding but that is coming out of the separate wedding budget I've worked so hard on for the past year. Time to enjoy it!

Where it Went 6/23 - 7/06

Oh man, I NEED to write a budget post. With the wedding right around the corner I have to make sure everything is on track as today is my last payday of my single life.

Luckily just sorting through the last pay period's expenses it seems I didn't get too far off track - save for maybe giving my little sister a $200 graduation present (cash) but I'd have given her $2000 if I had it so there's no trying to talk sense into me after the fact.

So here's where my money went for the past two weeks, just for accountability purposes since I didn't bother to post a budget in the first place. :-(

Starting Balance = $1416

Wedding Savings - 500
Gift - 200
Credit Card - 150
Perkins Loan -93
Law School Loan - 80
Clothes - 60
Health - 40
Wedding Spending - 32
Misc. - 120

I got some clothes to wear on the honeymoon at Old Navy - yay for $5 t-shirts!

Monthly Student Loan Debt Roundup

Wow, how is it the end of June already? Do you know what this means? This is my last monthly student loan debt roundup as a single gal! Yay!

There probably won't be a July roundup as I will be sitting on a beach in Hawaii next to my new husband, but in the meantime here's the current numbers:

Where it Went 5/26 - 6/08

Wedding. Money. Life. Stress.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. How is everyone else doing?

I'm pretty good, especially knowing that even with the daily stressors of planning a wedding, that I will be married to the man I love soon....and then boarding a plane to Hawaii. Can't wait!

So here's where my money went for the past two weeks compared to the budget I set:



Budgeted/Actual

Credit Card - 150/200
Wedding Savings - 700/700
Wedding Makeup Deposit - 50/50
Perkins Loan - 93/93
Law School Loan - 80/80
Groceries - 75/0
Healthcare - 40/40
Misc. - 149/160
Clothes - 0/40




I got a dress I may wear to my rehearsal and one I will definitely wear on the honeymoon. Found a really great discount shop a few towns over. Resisted urge to spend more than the $40 in my wallet.



This weekend I have what I hope will be my last dress fitting and then my hair and makeup trial. It's really getting close!

Monthly Student Loan Debt Roundup

Technically Monday is the end of the month, but I'll be enjoying a relaxing day off from work, so I figured I would do my monthly student loan roundup a few days early. It may skew the numbers a bit on the loans where they update the interest daily...but you get to see the basic picture..the balances are going down down down! My law school loan now stands at less than $1000. I can't wait to kiss that sucker goodbye!

Here are this month's numbers:




Have a Happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone!

Budget 5/26 - 6/8

I can't believe it's almost June! Which means, among other things, it's almost time for me to get married. Wow! But that's not until July so I'm gonna take things one month at a time.

I need to be on top of my budget as the wedding nears so we can pay off all of our vendors and have money to spend on our honeymoon. I can't wait for Hawaii, I need a vacation.

Luckily, Memorial Day weekend is just around the corner so we do get a three day weekend. We're going camping with some friends.

So here is my budget for the next two weeks.

Starting Balance = $1337*

Credit Card - 150

Wedding Savings - 700

Wedding Makeup Deposit - 50

Perkins Loan - 93

Law School Loan - 80

Groceries - 75

Healthcare - 40

Misc. - 149

*Look at all that money. Did I get a raise, you ask? No. After speaking with our financial advisor, I decided to reduce my 457 contributions so that I can contribute more to a Roth I.R.A. first. I am still saving 2% pre-tax and will post more about the Roth later on.

Where it Went 05/12 - 05/25

I've been a bad blogger and an even worse budgeter! Work, life, wedding planning, etc. etc., but instead of making excuses, I will just give the quick and dirty details of how my last paycheck was spent:

Credit Card - 150
Sallie Mae - 406
Defaulted Student Loan - 260
Sprint - 74
Healthcare - 40
Personal Training - 60
Misc. - 240

I wish I could remember what I did with the $240, which is a little higher than I usually manage to spend in a two week period, but I can't seem to recall right now. Bad bad budgeting. Getting back on the wagon right now!

Wedding Wednesday

Ann over at Affecting Change in Me posted a Wedding Wednesday post today and it was interesting for me to read and I figured maybe some of my readers (who aren't yet as sick as I am of wedding talk) would like to read it as well.

I don't have a nice organized list like she does, but here is a random stream of consciousness on all things wedding related today...

• I had my shower two weeks ago and I only have a few more Thank You cards to send out. I know as a guest I hate getting late thank yous so this will be finished this week. The shower was a blast and we got some really nice stuff. (Now where to put it?)


• My bachelorette party is this weekend!!! A few friends and I are meeting in the city and going to a bar and then a show. I'm very excited!


• We are sending out invitations ASAP. Hopefully they will be in the mail by Monday, which will be exactly two months before the wedding. We already sent Save the Dates a year back so most everyone knows when the wedding is, but we still have to do this, ugh.


• I have my first dress fitting next weekend. I am excited and nervous at the same time. I have not seen the dress since November!


• Next week my fiance and I are meeting with our photographer to do an Engagement Shoot. This should be a good time to get to know him better and be more comfortable posing for pictures on the wedding day - plus it's included in our package. I don't know what to wear!

That's about it for now. Well, not actually. I don't now if my future groom and I have a place to stay the night of the wedding, I haven't even looked at veils, figured out our centerpieces, our menu or our cake...but those are blog posts for another day!

Happy Wedding Wednesday to other brides out there in cyber land!

Where it Went 4/28 - 05/11

Is this thing on? After many requests and convincing my FH to agree, I posted his budget last week and no one said a thing. Is anyone still out there?

I am pretty stressed right now to be honest. Not money-related exactly but I feel with the wedding coming up there are so many demands on my time. Easter, Mother's Day, dress fittings, showers, parties, etc. have kept me traveling for the past five weekends. And there is no end in sight. In fact, between now and the wedding I will only spend about three Saturday nights in my own bed. (Hahaha I'm sleeping around...but really!) And on top of all these obligations, there's the nine zillion wedding details to work out.

Spending has been a little high too. I think I'm going to stop seeing a personal trainer. On top of being expensive, I really don't have the time anymore. So here's my latest budget breakdown:


Budgeted/Actual
Credit Card - 100/0
Wedding Savings - 500/500
Perkins Loan - 93/93
Law School Loan - 80/80
Groceries - 100/60
Health - 90/105
Personal Training - 140/140
Misc. - 157/180
Clothes & Gifts - 0/100


I got my state tax refund finally - for some reason they only decided to give me $88, about $100 less than Tax Act said I was supposed to get. They sent me a letter but it didn't really explain it in a way I could understand. It made up for the two sets of Mother's Day cards I bought - left one at work (doh!). Guess I'm all set for next year.

Going private?

So I'm posting this in the hopes that one of my favorite Personal Finance bloggers sees it. She has commented a few times on my blog so I hope she subscribes. I've been reading her blog for years and it looks like she went to invitation only recently.

Anyway, if you think you are this person, please (pretty please!) send me an invite to your blog at salliesniece (at) gmail (dot) com.

And if you're not sure if you're that person or just a person who wants me to read your blog - feel free to send me an invite as well.

Our Money: The Other Side of the Coin

At long last, I am able to share with you the rest of our household finances, i.e. where the heck my fiance's money goes. I would have done this sooner since I know a bunch of people are curious how things will work after we're married but my fiance's way of maintaining his finances and mine are pretty different.

As you know, every two weeks on payday I map out the bills I need to pay and how I plan to spend the rest of my available cash. I guess you could say I am still living paycheck to paycheck in this respect.

My fiance, on the other hand, has a complicated (to me anyway) system he tracks using Quicken where he transfers money in and out of multiple accounts. He also pays for and gets reimbursed for a lot of business expenses. Every time I tried to look at his spreadsheets with all the colors and mathematical symbols I would get frustrated and just give up. But alas he has provided me with a simple spreadsheet, which I further simplified, that gives a better look at a typical month's expenses. Here it is:




So there you have it. His biggest priority is paying off some credit card debt that we (admitedly) both acquired during vacations over the past year. The total is about $6,000 and most of it will be paid off by the wedding.

As you can see this budget is far more detailed than my "pay student loans and then maybe some other stuff" budget but I hope it gives you more insight into our household finances.