So... I held off on this one, giving them a chance. I'm sure there's some reasonable reason for me not getting my paypal-ed dollars today from the ad network I use on teh other blog, but forked if I can figure out what it is. It's totally possible that they're sending me a check, having missed the bit where I decided (about 2 months ago, now) to skip the waiting and just use the electronic transfer-ness.
Which kinda sucked, since I had an appointment to go to, and not enough gas money for a round trip. And not enough money to pay for the appointment. (I did make it, BTW)
Magic Dad to the rescue.
Which makes me feel like crap, of course, and if I were able to be motivated right now, the idea of never calling him for money again would do it. Too bad motivation = 0 right now.
Anyway, he loaned me some more money, and I'm adding it to the list. I think I owe him about $4,000 right now. Wrote down what I remember and added it all up while I was waiting earlier today. That's almost 7 times the cost of my car. It's more than my smallest student loan.
So it feels like crap, but I'm glad he's there. And I think he likes being able to help without dealing with anything messy, and getting to pester me about what kind of late-retirement he expects. Looks like the state home is out. Oh wells.
Now if only the forking ad network would pay me....
Sort of. 5 years ago, give or take 6 months, I moved to the other end of the earth. I took out student loans (or tried to, anyway) to pay for school. If I'd paid attention, showed up for class or (gasp) actually done the work I'd be graduating with a really cool degree in December.
Instead, I have to start paying back those loans in September and October. I know, because I got the "repayment starts soon" paperwork from them yesterday. I'm not totally clear on the numbers fro one of the loans- it seems bigger than I remember. These things happen, though. I just really don't remember borrowing $33810, or any amount that matches that with the interest added.
So I'm a bit lost with that. Now in October I need to come up with three new payments- $141, $67, and $32. And in September I need to start coming up with $81 each month.
It might be time to hunt down an income contingent repayment plan. 'Cause the day $700 (which is my student loan payment monthly total, I think) is 20% of my monthly income is the day I throw a happy happy joy joy party.
Seriously, though- Don't go into *very nice car* worth of student debt with nothing to show for it. Totally not worth the stress.
They're two things in my life working at cross purposes right now. I *want* to act responsibly and pay all my bills. Right now, though, I can pay *none* of my bills, really. So how do I decide which of my responsibilities I can (temporarily) ditch, and which to keep up with?
It shouldn't be an easy decision, but it really is. Turn in the forbearance paperwork, and put off student loans. If I just don't pay student loans, they garnish wages, and can do any number of bad things to me. By not paying my credit cards, I (really) just trash my credit.
So, as I said. Responsibility or Common sense.
I have no great or immediate need for a good credit score. I don't see me wanting to buy a house any time soon, so there's no need to keep squeaky clean for mortgages. The only thing (other than my incoming calls) that might be effected by forking up my credit by paying credit cards last is my car insurance rate.
It still isn't something I want to do. I don't see me declaring bankruptcy. I can't afford to, it's not at all responsible, and honestly? It'd get rid of less than 1/5th my total debt.
Note to people out there- don't move halfway around the world, take on huge debt, then fork it up and drop out- it's forking expensive and damned near impossible to fix or pay for.
So... Right now I'm focusing on making enough to pay the rent, utilities, and pretty basic life expenses. Srsly. If I think about having to pay the rest of it, my brain tries to explode.
So I need to earn...
$350 a month for rent
$20 a month for internet
$30 a month for food
$50 a month for gas
$40 a month for soda
$20 a month for entertainment
$40 a month for car insurance
$50 a month for car fixing
So $600 will keep me fed and indoors. In an ideal world I'd also have $50 for personal random stuff, and $100 for paying back dad.
So my ideal is $750 a month. It shouldn't be this tough to find a $12,000 a year job, but somehow it is.
Anyway- I'm concentrating on surviving for now. I'll fix my credit when I can afford to, sad tho that idea is.
And you have no idea how crappy that makes me feel. Or how freeing it is.
I just had to turn down the chance to make $20. If my sister doesn't take it, I'm not sure what my dad's going to do, but it was an interesting conversation. It went something like this
Him: Want to make a quick 20 bucks running me around so I don't have to call a taxi?
Me: (silence)
H: Unless you have an interview, or something
M: No, just trying to figure out if I have enough gas to get over there.
H: Don't you have some cash lying around?
M: No...
H: What about your Credit Cards? You must have some money on one of them.
M: No, nothing available on my credit cards. I put a gallon in last week, and I'm trying to remember how far I've driven. I *might* have enough, but I don't want to get most of the way over there and run out.
H:No, that would be bad. You're sure you don't have any money? I guess I can call your sister and ask her then.
Gee, thanks. And to make it even better, about a minute after I get off the phone with him, I have my weekly chat with my buddies from Amex. They want to know if I can pay them my whole past due amount, since I've been with them ten or more eyars now with payments "like clockwork" and all. They'll even offer me this great hardship rate (which they may or may not be required to do by law), but I have to come up with a couple hundred dollars. Is there anyone I can borrow it from?
Um, hello? If I had anyone willing to lend me a couple hundred dollars I'd finish paying May's rent, put gas in my tank, and get $5 worth of fresh veggies. We still had the chat for a couple or 20 minutes. Fun fun.
Wonder what Visa thinks? I should probably take a call from them. You know, before they firebomb my rat trap car.
I really hope the G. money comes in soon. I'll use $20 for gas, soda, and veggies, instead of saving it for some un-named other online expense.
I still don't think my father quite understands what I mean when I say I have no money at all, though. I suspect he thinks i'm ducking driving him around. which is funny, because if I had enough gas to get the 26 or so miles to his place, I'd be on my way there, rather than writing this post.
Fork.
Oh, and speaking of this post, sorry it's late- I over slept, then had some drama.
They're approaching, and one has already passed. I'm kinda light headed with terror at the moment. I don't like debt, and somewhere in my little hindbrain is the idea that people will come and break my legs if I don't pay all my bills exactly when they're due.
Which of course, they won't- Cc companies and student loan types are much more reasonable than that. They'll just make life very unpleasant for me.
So I need to make sure I get the deferment/ forbearance paperwork out, and that will get one angry monkey out of the room.
Just to be clear from the beginning- I have no personal problems with Dave Ramsey the person. not even with the business, strategy, whatever.
I figured out what's wrong with it for me.
The Dave Ramsey plan is all about taking care of stuff now so you can enjoy... something... eventually... later. And it's a plan.
I think I've covered my propensity for jumping already, right? I am a singularly contrary person. If you tell me that retirement happens at the end of life when I'm old and weak, I say "ha ha, no!" and take off doing something else. Even though I'm doing a "deprivation experiment", I'm not into deferred gratification. Much like the song in Willy Wonka- I want what I want, and I want it NOW!
So the Dave plan doesn't work for me- too much plan, too much wait, too much "later". Why on earth would you want to put off stuff until sometime that probably will never come? That doesn't work with my brain.
I'm working with a couple ideas I've had. Things I've actually been thinking about starting, but was putting off. I'm moving them up, starting them sooner. I think I've shown myself that I can stick with something (even if half-assedly) enough to get it out there. Now I need to start.
So my finances are still crap. I have a couple short term ways i'm working on to take care of that, plans to build something to deal with them mid-term, and a whole life to plan with them off in the hazy future.
I do know, though, that my life is out there, in the world. Not in an office, or store, or this room I type from. It's on a cheap golf course in Peru, or a trail in Pennsylvania, or a blue water sailboat in the middle of the Pacific. Maybe on a cheap sailboat going to a trail in Peru- I'm really not sure. but it's sure as hell not *here*.
Sometimes I think I'm focused on the wrong things. I can think and write and talk all I want about making things better, but I'm not doing much.
A couple years ago (ok, I'll be honest- like 5) I had almost no debt. I had one smallish student loan, and that was it. I didn't work more than I had to, took time off when I wanted, could quit and move whenever I liked.
I was the Grand Canyon tourist, safe behind the fence. Then I got a crazy idea. I went away for school, something I could only pay for with student loans and credit cards.
Within 8 months of deciding to go overseas--months before I even left the US--that fence was gone. I became the curious kid on the wrong side of the rope, the cartoon character who just had to get a better angle. I was a drunk giraffe ice skating figure 8's 2 feet from the edge of the world.
I didn't like it very much. I'm standing at the edge now and my balance isn't very good.
Right now, this minute, I'm at the very edge. I'm blindfolded, and my toes are hanging off- I know because I can feel the wind whipping along under them. I have two weeks, maybe, to figure out where I am. Two weeks to crawl back a little, or when I take the blindfold off I'll be Wile E Coyote standing in the middle of a canyon with nowhere to go but down.
I want to be responsible. I *need* to be responsible, pay these bills, pay off the debts I incurred. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that some small part of me wonders- would the world really end if, instead of trying to drag myself back from the edge, I just took a huge step forward and let myself fall?
My student loan servicing people called. They wanted to let me know that I'm no longer enrolled in school. I was surprised- I thought it would take them almost twice this long to figure it out. Only one of the loans starts collecting soon, and I need to start working on the "hardship" paperwork now, since they want $50 by the middle of this month. The rest either haven't caught up to me (unlikely), or have some more deferral time left.
Of course, if I go back to school part time, they all go back into deferral. But I just moved states, so that's not likely to fix anything just now. Indeed, paying out of state tuition would cost much, much more than just paying the stupid loans.
right now my estimated monthly payments on all my debts are about twice my (minimum) living expenses. Actually a little more. Cutting out all the fun stuff, all the wiggle room, and all the soda (sob), my monthly living expenses are only about $500. If my other loans only come out to $300 a month, I'll be paying more than $1100 a month on debt repayment- and that's just the minimums.
So I need a job. Or jobs. And someone needs to tell all these people hiring minimum wage, open availability, 10 hours a week that for a max of $72.50 a week they don't get open availability. Ugh.
Put up a craigslist ad for dog walking. Haven't heard anything yet. Hate selling, need to work on that. Joined pet sitting forum for free, going through information and archives.
Borrowing more money from dad, will pay the rent for the month, hold off wolves for another week or so. Hopefully I can at least pull some server job by then.
I'm going to hold off on updating/ swapping out the "progress" bars until i have a job. watching the numbers get bigger is depressing, and I only have to do it on statements one at a time. Don't think I could take it all at once.
Oh, and I robbed my food money to buy gas, so I need to put $20 back in the envelope.
First off- I'm going to try to get on some sort of actual schedule here. Unless I'm sick, dead, or have said differently I'll work on posting consistently Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, before 9am on the east coast of the US (-5 GMT, I think).
I'll update my debt bars in by Monday the 15th, and my savings bars as well, since there's been a bit of change in there. Namely my E-fund is just about gone, and my cc's might be going up in the next couple days.
Interviews- I've had one. For a minimum wage job. If I don't hear from them by Monday on a "working interview" I should assume they're not interested. Which I read as they're not interested now, and just don't want to say it while I'm standing there.
Which brings me to terror.
I have about $70 cash, $50 of it off in ING land, where I can't get to it right now. There are only a couple of places hiring, even servers. But Charleston is very competitive for server jobs, there are lots of career waiters.
So right now I have no job, no idea when I'll get one, and no money. Oh, and I live in a rodent and insect infested dump with a pair of super slobs. The only thing I have anywhere on the horizon is the (faint) possibility of a job that will pay half my bills, if I'm careful. I'm beginning to think I should have just emptied my accounts when I got my tax return and hopped a bus someplace cheap.
Basically, if I don't have a server job by Wednesday, and I'm not earning money by Friday, I won't have to worry about my crap living situation, because I'll be getting kicked out at the end of the month.
There's a lot of emphasis online, and out in the world, to focus on cutting expenses to pay off debt. Sometimes I wonder who these people are, that they still have enough padding in their budget to cut a bunch and pay everything off faster. If I cut all the remaining fun from my budget, dropped to a (slightly) cheaper car insurance, and picked up all the change I saw on sidewalks and in parking lots (instead of just silvered) I'd have maybe an extra 1800 a year to pay stuff off.
While that might add up to my two smallest debts, it also would be me hating life and running around uncaffeinated. That wouldn't be good for anyone.
While there needs to be control of spending while paying off debt, sometimes (most times?) there needs to be increase of income too.
I put up my budget numbers last time, and they aren't very promising, but they are what they are. Less promising is what's available in the local area. $12 jobs don't grow on trees here normally, and South Carolina is not in the best condition now. Tourism is picking up a bit, and with the dollar relatively weak there are more tourists from Europe and whatnot, so service jobs are looking up.
But I am nowhere near a good enough server to pull $600 a week in tips. Just not. The other jobs in town that are interesting pay between minimum wage and $11 an hour, and as the pay goes up so do the expenses- gas because they're farther away, clothes because they go from behind the scenes/ casual to office gear, entertainment and shared office expense. Because while no one at Taco Bell expects you to kick in $15 for the boss' birthday gift, office ladies will drive you out for it.
So I'm going to work on finding a "day job"- something that while it may not pay well, at least pays something- and a server job. And in my (theoretical) spare time, I'll work on building a freelance sideline into something that actually pays at least one bill every month. And of course, work on finding a day job that pays more.
I think the worst part of paying back what I've borrowed isn't that all my money goes right back out, or even that I've left myself no real freedom. It's that money is now very important to me. Important enough that I'm willing to give up things that are also important to me in order to get my hands on more of it. Important enough that I worked a dead end job someplace I hated, with business practices and employee relations I abhor just to have more.
Hopefully I can manage to find something I at least don't mind doing this time. And I've still got just enough cushion in my account/ low enough expenses that with a server job I can at least buy gas and pay the rent. So I can hope for something I even believe in while spamming every place that might be willing to hire me.
My student loans are (mostly) still hanging out in who knows where, not repaying yet land. I hope they stay there a bit longer. As long as I don't have numbers for them, though, my budget is more than a little hypothetical.
So.... I'm breaking my budgeted expenses into two groups right now. I know they should be three or four, but for now they're just life expenses and debt expenses.
Life Expenses (in no particular order, monthly average)
Rent- $350
Internet- $20
Food- $30 (already in my hands thru mid-august)
Soda- $30 (this needs to go down)
Gas- $50
Car repair fund- $50
Car insurance- $30 (paid 6 mo's, so sinking fund for sept.)
Cell phone- $15
Skype- $10 (about $60/ yr. +$3-5/ month in calls)
WoW- $15 (yes, really)
Misc. household stuff- $30 (guess)
lotto/ fun- $20
10% oops- $65
Total per month- $715
There's a bunch of stuff I can take out of there, and a bunch of stuff that's just a wild guess. I don't spend more than $10, really, on the lotto/ fun category. I've no idea how much household stuff will run, now that we've got most of the stuff we need, and it's just soaps and replacements. And obviously, if I don't fix something soon WoW goes away. I could probably pull $145 off of that if I had to, but I'd be running really close to the edge.
And I wouldn't have any soda. That would be bad.
Debt payment/ repayment expenses (known so far)
CC1- $15
CC2- $265
CC3- $365
Dad- $100
S. Mae- $100
other unknown loans- $$$$$
Total debt payment- $845
That's without most of my student loans. Note- don't pay tuition with credit cards. Also don't pay for anything else with them, unless they are then directly paid off with cash from the bank.
So my total out going money (right now) is $1560, with $65 for oopses. In a state with 9% income tax on... everything... my take home will be between 72 and 76% of my gross. I need to make about $2100 a month to break even, without any other expenses. That's a little over $12, working 40 hours a week.
Now I just need to find a $12/hr job in a state with double digit unemployment, in less than two weeks. Yay? But that's a project for tomorrow.
So I have my Tickers up. If I'm very committed, and work very hard, I should be able to take care of my first 4 debts by July of 2012. Which is a very, very, very long way away. Pleh!
The "total debts" by the way, don't include a private student loan still paid by my parents (yes, I know) of about $11,000. Otherwise I think that's everything. And isn't it enough? I mean $76k buys a forking nice car! All it bought me was about half a degree and a whole lot of travel and beer.
Call me crazy, but I think from now on I'd rather pay cash for travel and beer.
So enough depressing debt stuff for a minute. Hiding under the Debt Tickers Of Doom (+1) is a much smaller pile of savings tickers. After all, why bother paying stuff off if you don't get to do cool stuff someday. For some reason I feel the need to explain these. Like people won't understand what I'm saving for. Or maybe I think I'll forget what I'm saving for.
First is a baby e-fund, ala Dave Ramsey. He seems to show up a lot around me. Which is interesting, since he's a hard core god guy, and I'm hard core atheist, but I use what works, and he seems to work. You (or I) might notice that the little baby emergency fund is totally full (for now, baring emergencies) at $1000. Thank you IRS/ Tax refund. If I don't get a job soon this number will go down fast, but it's there now and it makes me feel so... I don't know... Not safe so much as less twitchy.
Next up is a small escape fund. $1800 is probably more than I should spend while paying off piles of debt, but if I don't have money sitting around just waiting for a trip I know at some point I'll crack. It's that whole hope for something better deal, I think. Also, it makes it easier to breathe. Inhalers are expensive, so are panic attacks and the ER trips that go with them. So some feeling of freedom is important, and the escape fund does that for me. It's enough to pay for airfare and all my expenses over a 2 or 3 week vacation- provided I go to another country. Actually I could probably do a 3 week trip on that in the states, if I didn't do crazy shopping at the same time.
Next saving goal is easy to explain- it's the extension of my e-fund from $1k to three months (estimated) expenses. I put this after my escape fund because while it's nice knowing I can survive for 3 months without a job
I don't intend to spend 3 months without any kind of job anytime soon, and
it doesn't give me quite the same warm fuzzy feeling knowing I can run away for most of a month does.
That might only make sense to those similarly afflicted. Wanderlust is a powerful thing. The longer and harder I force it down the more miserable it makes me. Some weaknesses you just have to give in to, and some people just aren't meant to stay in one place.
On to the wild Dreamy stuff. Ever since I was about 12 I've wanted to thru-hike the AT. For anyone not familiar with it, it's a 2250 mile (give or take) trail from Georgia to Maine up the east coast of the US. I think it would be fun, and amazing, and it would allow me to think, and hike, and who knows what else. I just want to do it. The $10010 saving goal includes $600 payments every month for 6 months. I figure that'll either cover insurance or debt payments, but either way, it's important to have hanging around. For the trip itself (food, transport, beer, equipment, extras, hotels in town, misc other stuff) I figured $5500. That's not a huge amount, and lots of people will say it's too low, but it's a perfectly reasonable $2 a mile, plus $1000 for equipment. Oh, and I added in 10% overall for oopses and runovers and whatnot.
Finally, my dream trip. I'm sure I'll talk about this more, eventually. For now, since this is getting long, let's just say it's a multi-year, every country in the world kinda trip. It's also a really high goal. If I can work out a way to do this trip for less, I will. If I can find a way to go sooner than "whenever all my debt is paid off and when I have enough money", AKA in about 15 years, I will.
Ok, so those are my goals. And my debts. It's kinda horrifying to put it all out there and look at the debt all in one place. When it's on separate statements and web pages and not all added up it seems, I dunno, less threatening somehow. Looking at it now, tho... Holy Carp I owe a lot! My net worth is a starter house shaped hole in my world.
Sorry, freaking out a bit. I don't think I've actually looked at it all in one place before. Anyone else have this reaction to looking at their total, or is this just me?
