My debts as of July 18:
Chase $4109+ 2400 = 6509
Discover $3000
TOTAL $9509
I am so screwed. Chase sucks. I am going to pay the debt with $2400 first and then I should get some money from my mom (repayment from the money I loaned her) totaling to $5000. I am hoping so much she is going to pay me back. That would be a big substantial help. That would reduce my debt to below $5000. And that would make it easier for me to pay off.
At the same time, we are trying to save money as well. I am just so bummed right now. Our saving is up to $4300 now. In 2 more weeks, that saving is going to go up to $5000 or $5300. Then in a month should be either $5750 or $6000. We do have a lot to sacrifice though, I admit. I have to start cooking more often. I have to prepare dinners at home.
Saving money is not easy. I hate that mom is borrowing money for me while she is paying my sister $400 every month so she could pay rent in her nicer apartment, while she is not working. That doesn’t make any sense. She and her husband are building a condo somewhere and they are waiting on it to be built and in the meantime they live on one income. But they don’t have enough money to rent a bigger apartment so she asks my mom for more money each month. So my mom gives her money each month. I don’t get it. I thought once you are married, you are supposed to be on your own???? I want to say something but we’re thousand miles away. And my mom is not going to listen because apparently she likes it when someone asks her for money. It gives her more power and control over that person. So, a leech and a blood donor. What a combo.
I love my family so much except the fact that everyone is asking my mom for money. Everyone. Except me. And when my mom calls me, she always says, I am sorry I can’t pay the money I loaned from you yet but I promise I will pay soon. Then we would talk about something else and before she hungs up, she says, if you need money let me know. Ummm, yeah how about you just return the $5000. That would be nice. Then I wouldn’t in debt so much.
I am thinking my family thinks I live in a mansion with nice cars parked outside and a swimming pool in the back. Have you seen my house? Crappy little fixer upper we bought 4 years ago and we haven’t even fixed the kitchen or bathroom yet. We have no kitchen. It’s just a makeshift kitchen that we make so we can cook at least. I have cooking in that stupid little corner in the back of the house. I hate it. In fact, I wish so much we had never bought this crappy house and had waited until now to buy a house. We could have bought a gigantic mansion for the money we paid for this crappy house. But I am sure God has a different plans for us. I guess life is not always about daisies and lilies.
I want more money. I hate my job. I have not enough savings. And too much in debts. My life sucks.
I have almost 2 1/2 more hours to go until the new year. It is time to make changes in my life. Good changes that will bring more lucks, joy, happiness, fortunes, true friendship, health, and love. I am done with 2008. The new year will be so joyful. I am going to be a happier person in so many ways.
In January, I will be starting sewing classes. It is 6 weeks long and it costs $85 for the entire length of class. The class will start on January 15 I think. I will be done by the end of February. Why am I taking this class? Well, let me tell you something. I have been wanting to learn how to sew. I want to make pretty things for babies and for women who like to wear pretty things. I want to make baby blankies, diaper bags, changing pad, baby bags, or aprons for hot all the mamas out there. I want to make them and I want to sell them online. As of right now, I am looking at etsy.com as a place to sell them. I do have my own website, which sadly, I hardly use actually. I might get to use that soon enough. So. Now you know why I am taking sewing classes. I want to learn a new skill each year. In 2008, I learned cake decorating skill that I enjoyed learning.
Financially, I would like to earn more money. I want to do what I love. I want to find my passion. I really, really need to figure out what it is that I want to do. My plan is to open my own business. As of right now, I am not 100% so sure what it is going to be yet. In a fairy-tale-ending world, I would open a baby boutique. Something that is affordable for new mothers. I will carry handmade items. I want to sell pretty things that mothers and babies will adore.
Year 2009 is also the year my husband and I would like to have our first baby. I want a baby. My husband wants a baby. We want a baby. I am 100% sure we are ready emotionally. I know my husband will be a good dad.
I have so much I want to accomplish in 2009. I want to get a new house in 2009. I really want to. I want something a bit bigger for our pets and our future family!!!!!
Here’s a toast to a Happier New Year!!!!!!!!!!!
I do not like my new neighbor. Just because they bought the house I w anted. I was so dissapointed today I cried in front of my husband. I really wanted the house. The house was sold to a young couple with a dog from Washington state. Uggghhh. I don’t like them already.
I am so mad.
I drove home only to find out my favorite house on my block was SOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was supposed to be my future house!!!!! I wanted that house so bad. I prayed to God all the time. Sigh. I am so bummed.
My husband is working at his part-time job tonight (from 6PM – 1AM). And I just got back from grocery shopping. I bought everything I need to make next week’s dinners and lunches for both my husband and I. I still have quite a few ingridients I can cook from last week so I didn’t buy much this week. I bought some extra items: 2 jumbo packs of baby diapers ($22) and 3 cans of tuna ($3). The baby diapers are to be donated at my church tomorrow and the canned tunas are for the homeless man who I see everyday at the bus stop.
Dinners and lunches for my husband next week are going to be Bulgogi, Lasagna, and meatballs. I actually still have to buy some extra ready-made mashed potatoes (buy-one-get-one-free) tomorrow. I have some veggies (cauliflower, brocolli, and carrots) I am going to blanch or roast to accompany the main dishes I am making. I bought some canned soups to eat for lunch next week. Some days I don’t feel like eating much so these canned soups come in real handy.
I stopped by at Petsmart today before I went grocery shopping. I bought 2 boxes of cat litter and 1 big bag of cat food. I have a $15 off coupon so I ended up spending $38 only for everything.
The handyman (from Handyman Connection) came by this morning for a free estimate for fence installation. Labor was estimated to be $3000. The materials should be between $1000 – $2000. So worst case scenario, to fence the whole house, we might need to spend $5000. We’re going to ask for several other bids within 2 weeks for comparison. We’re looking to fence the house this month.
This afternoon, my little sister (from Big Brothers Big Sisters) and I went to volunteer at a homeless center in downtown. We helped them to bag lunches for the homeless. We also did a tour around the facility. The whole thing truly was an eye opener for us. I thought I had it bad; I was wrong. These people who live in the facility had it worse. Some of these people hit the bottom of the bottom. They had no money, no job, no place to go, and some don’t even have families. Thank Godness for homeless center like the one we visited today. They help men, women, and children. The facility is now at its full capacity with more than 100 people on the waiting list. They did say the turnover is high–which could be good or bad. It broke my heart to see the little kids at the facility. Sure, it’s better than being homeless on the streets but in a perfect world, kids are suppose to live in a place where troubles are non existent. Apparently what I saw was a dose of the reality and it wasn’t pretty. The whole experience makes me so so so so so thankful for everything I have in my life–my little money+saving, my families, my husband, my house, my pets, my job. My life is beautiful the way it is now. I am truly thankful for it.
My husband starts his part-time job tonight. He will be working from 6.30 PM – 1 AM. He will also work on Sunday from 11AM – 6PM. This part-time job is only from October – May. He should be able to bring in an extra $400 – 600 each month from this gig. Not bad for a part-time job.
Tomorrow, we are going to a home and patio show. We plan on going to the show early in the morning. My husband’s football team is playing at 3.30 tomorrow and I have an appointment with a dog trainer at 3.30 as well. After that we are going to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua at the movie theater. Two of our Chihuahuas look like the 2 main characters.
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This week, for 5 days straight, I was able to not go out for lunch or eating out for dinner!!! I usually bring lunches from home but sometimes I get tempted to buy something else during lunch. But this week I was really good. So I am happy for that. Also, my husband and I have been eating dinner at home this whole week. Tomorrow, we might get lunch somewhere–we have tons of buy-one-get-one-free coupons. I still have some grocery that I can cook to make lunches and dinners for maybe couple days next week. My husband still has about one loaf of meatloaf. I plan to make him Turkey chili tomorrow for dinner. The weather is starting to cool and I think chili would make a nice dinner on a cool evening. I don’t know what else I am going to cook for him. I think the grocery store has some chicken on sale so I might get some for him.
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Today I was having a debate with myself on what I should really do with the money my mom is going to send. She is sending me $20,000 to fix up the house. My husband thinks we should pay off our debts (or at least some of them).
I feel bad that everytime I ask for money to my mom I always tell her it is for the house but then we always use it to pay our debts or something else. This time my mom is being super generous and she is giving us $20,000 to fix up our house. I was so excited. I want to have a pretty little house. I don’t want my house to be the ugliest house on the block. My house is pretty small comparing our neighbors’ house but that does not bother me. What bothers me is that I see very, very little improvements in my house since 3 years ago when we bought it. I really really really want to put fences around my house so I can let my big dogs outside during nice cool days. They could use more exercise in the backyard. I also want to start enjoying my porch with my dogs in the afternoon. I have nice big porch but since we have no fence, I can’t really let my dogs out in the front porch. They always run to the streets and I hate that. So having my house fenced is definitely on top of my list. Also another thing I want is to have my kitchen done. I am not talking about having a super duper kitchen. I want a real kitchen. Something simple. And I want a laundry room. I am tired of going to the laundry room every weekend. I hate it.
At the same time, I also want to save money. I wish I could save all the money that my mom sends me. All $20,000. That would make our emergency fund up close tol $24,000, which translates to 8 months of living expenses should both me and my husband lose our jobs.
To make things complicated, I also want to make a dent in our debts. That $20,000 would make a serious dent in our debts. That would actually wipe out all our CC debts–mine is about $6000 and my husband’s $14,000. If we paid off our debts, we’d wipe out about $800 in CC payments every month.
$5360 (total combined take-home income per month) – $3075 (living expenses + 2 cars payments) = $2285 —> per month that we can save!!!!
This sound SOOOOO good. I am actually tempted to do that. Wipe out all our CC debts. Gosh. That would be nice. But I also want to fix up the house. Part of me wants to use the money to completely fix up the house and part of me want to wipe out our CC debts. But I feel that our CC debts are our responsibility and it is not fair to use the money my mom gives me to wipe out the debts when she wants us to use the money for the house. If we use all the money to wipe out the debts, it will take us about 10 months to save $20,000.
In March 2009, I should be getting about $13,000 in bonus money.
Ok let’s say we used the money my mom gives me to wipe out the debts. So this month, we’d be out of CC debts. That means, we should be able to save at least $2000 (I won’t count my husband’s part-time income) each month. And by end of March, we should be able to save $12,000 (2000×6 months). Also in March, I will be receiving $13,000 in bonus money. So, $12,000 + $13,000 = $25,000 in 6 months.
My husband’s part-time job should give us extra money as much as $5000 in total by March 2009. Plus come to think of it, I should be getting a raise again in December to be effective in January 2009. I expect to get $200/month raise (after tax and after 2% increase to my retirement account).
If we want to go crazy, we could use the $25,000 saved by March 2009 to pay off our cars (should be less than $20,000 by then). This would lower our expenses by $625 to $2450 per month. Assuming our take home income was going to be $5500/month, this would make a possible saving of $3050 every month. Holy Cow. Do you know what this means? This means, my husband and I can live on one income!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! His income alone would be sufficient to support both of us!!! That would be a life transformation for us really. And this also means that starting March 2009, we would be able to save at least $3000/month. And we’d be able to use the money to fix up our house.
What do you think???
My super generous mom called. She told me she is going to send me about $25,000 — for plane tickets and money to fix up our house. I CANNOT believe it!!!!!!!!!!!! Twenty Five Thousand Dollars!!!!!!!!! I plan to use the $5000 to buy tickets and pocket money. The other $20,000 I plan to use to fix up the house. I might use $3000 to pay off my Chase credit card. This would leave me about $2000 in CC debts but the rate is not bad so I can continue to pay it off before the end of the year.
My mom asked when she can send me the money. I told her whenever she wants. My mom is awesome. God bless her.
Now I wonder how should I save the money. Emigrant Direct gives me 3% only. I can probably save $5000 in there. Or $7500. Then the rest I’d like to keep it where I have easy access–for house renovation stuff, kinda urgent; my house is falling apart and I am not kidding.
Anyways. I am so excited right now. I will send thousands of prayers to God tonight.
Oh yeah, I still hate my job btw. I so wish I won the lottery.
Another day I started early.
I woke up before 8AM. But I didn’t really get up until about 8.15AM. I went to catholic class at 9AM. Class started at 9.10AM. Another nice class. Today was our 3rd meeting and I enjoyed it so much. My husband joined me at church for the 10 o’clock mass. We enjoyed free donuts and coffee after mass. I know it’s kinda bad but I thought it was nice of the church to provide us with free donuts and coffee after each mass on Sundays.
We did laundry after church. We spent $7.50 today. Oh yeah, we had seafoods for lunch today. We had a buy-one-get-one-free coupon so we used that. Lunch for two was $16.00 (tips included). I had some leftover lunch so I will take that for lunch tomorrow.
After laundry, we went to Target to check out some of their Hallowen stuff. I didn’t buy anything for Halloween yet though. Maybe in a week or two. I am waiting for candy sales. I am sure stores will be having some serious sales soon. I am excited. I think Halloween is the start of the holiday season. Ok sure some people think Halloween is satan’s holiday but I don’t think that way. I didn’t grow up in this country and back home, we did not have Halloween. So to me, Halloween is just a fun day to give out candies to little kids. I always give out good candies too–chocolates mostly. I don’t give kids nasty stuff. I plan to spend between $25 – $30 on candies this Halloween. But if can get them on sales, I probably don’t have to spend as much. I am going to decorate the house again this Halloween. My husband is going to register our house as one of the safe houses in our neighborhood so kids can come and do trick-or-treating. It’ll be fun.
Back to today’s activities. After Target, we went grocery at Publix. I spent about $50 on grocery today. Got a lot of buy-one-get-one-free deals. We bought meats (pork chop, T-bone steak, and ground beef)for my husband to eat for the week, olive oils, spinach, sweet teas, dog bones, gallon water, fruits, dry pasta, and 2 pieces of tilapia fish. I made my husband pasta with meat sauce for dinner tonight. There were enough to make 2 dinners and 2 lunches. I baked 4 garlic breads as well–frozen. Tomorrow, I am thinking I can grill the steak for my husband. I have some fresh green beans I need to cook tomorrow. And some spinach too. Yum.
Ok. I am so tired now. I cannot wait until our house is completely done so we can relax on weekends at home. Doing nothing. Nothing. Just relaxing with the dogs…..
It has been a very long day today.
I woke up at 7AM. Last night I found out Compass bank charged me with 6 overdraft fees. What???!!!??? Anyways, long story short, this morning I made myself went to their branches to get those fees removed–I also called their 1-800 number. One branch was nice to me; the other was nasty about it. Summary: they were going to remove, I think, 5 out of those 6 fees. They won’t come in until Monday night so we’ll about that. If they won’t remove them I am closing my damn account. I hate Compass bank.
I was ready to go by 8AM this morning. I decided to go online and my nephew was online so I talked to him a bit. I asked him to see if my mom was home. He called and he said that my mom was on the way home from the doctor. I asked him to tell my mom to call me. So he did. My mom called about 10-15 mins after that. I spoke to her on the phone and asked about my sister’s wedding date, which I found out is going to be March 15, 2009 (Saturday). I plan to go home. My mom said she is going to pay for everything–I mean, everything!!! I don’t have to pay a thing for it. So ok, I guess I will be going. My mom said she is going to invite 1000 people for the wedding and to spend $10,000 – 15,000. Damn. This is for a one-night party???????????? Since when my mom became a millionaire??????????????
Then I asked her if I could borrow some money–$20,000 to fix up my house. She said she and my dad will think about it. Arrrghhhh. I need the money!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am going to pray so much that my parents will send me the money. If not, I am screwed bad. Real bad.
My husband’s family is getting on my nerves. His grandma called today and asked my husband to take her to go shopping for grocery for my husband’s aunt who is recovering from a surgery. She made it sound like it was a life and death situation I kid you not. We were busy with Dog Days in the park almost allday today. So I asked my husband, does this have to be today? And so he called his grandma and she said that my husband’s aunt didn’t have any foods to eat. Ok…………………………… how………… in the world a family does not have a thing to eat????? Ok, if she were living in the ghetto and poor I would understand. This is NOT. So long story short, we went all the way (45 mins drive) to my husband’s grandma’s and aunt’s house to help them to go to the grocery. I asked if they they had a grocery list. There was a list but I did not see any FOODS listed on it. I saw Oreos, milk, cereal, toilet paper……….. as I went down the list I could not find a REAL food listed on there. Not one. I was pissed. They made this sound like a 911-type emergency. NO Freaking foods on the list. I thought there were starving and were about to die because of NO FOODS in the house. Someone needed to have some oreos. Yeah, lack of eating oreos is going to kill someone apparently. I swear, my husband’s families are useless sometimes. I am never living close to them. EVER.
I feel so glad my families are not here. I feel so glad that I am here by myself. I do not have to depend on others, no one is going to ask for my help. I am free to do whatever I want. And when I need money, I can just call my mom and she’ll send me money. Ok, what is better than that?????????????
I don’t know. Maybe I am not in a good mood today. Uggghhh. Everyone seems to be an idiot to me today.
