Firefly's Personal Finance Blog

So how are you coming along on your new goals for 2008? I'm doing well so far. I updated my Roth contributions and the first increased contribution went out on the 15th. My 457 contributions have remained steady until I hopefully get a new job, and a raise. I opened a CD on the 5th as part of my emergency fund. I haven't received any tax forms yet. I'm waiting on receiving my tax refund to pay off my credit cards. So far, so good.

The interview went well. I was there about an hour and a half. It didn't feel like it. I answered some questions with a panel of 5 people that I would be working with. When I went to sign out of the builing I recognized the name of the other person that they were interviewing for the job. I've known her for several years and she was actually one of the people that trained me when I was in doing my clinical rotations. She has more experience and seniority than I do so I wasn't hopeful at that point. I even came home and started browsing more positions.

A few days later the lead interviewer called and left a message on my answering machine. When we finally got back together on the phone a few days later she had more follow-up questions for me. Rightly or wrongly, I was completely honest in answering her questions. I didn't want to waste her time or mine. Basically she wanted to know if I had other aspirations besides this position and I do, absolutely. So we'll see where that goes. Judging on the lack of communication, it's not going anywhere. That's fine. I'm not stopping on my quest for a new job.

I got my first interview! The lady emailed me on Tuesday saying that she had received my application and wanted to interview me. She would be out of the office Wednesday and wanted me to contact her Thursday. Well, she ended up calling me on Thursday at 7:30 in the morning because she wanted to make sure to catch me. She didn't have to worry as I get off at midnight. I had only been asleep for a few hours so I hope that I was coherent. The interview is January 9th. I'm the first interviewee. I don't know how many positions they are interviewing for, if there are multiple positions.

It would involve some local travel, which would be my only drawback. I'm already putting a lot of my miles on my new car to get to graduate school. Hopefully they provide a car. I also hope that they will be understanding og me attending graduate school. When I'm at work I'm totally there, but I need my off-time to be for school.

December is always a big month for me, but even more so this year. I turned 30 on the 5th of this month. I finished my first year of graduate school and for the first time in over 7 years I'm looking for a new job. I'm so excited about all the changes happening in my life right now.

I'm really concentrating on growing my income by working smart, rather than just hard. Which means I'm advancing my career rather than just working a lot of overtime. I think I'm on the right track.

So my final payment to Sallie Mae was finally processed after 4 days. Unfortunately, they also processed my regular automatic payment. So I have a credit sitting in my account that they refuse to return to me until they finish "processing" my loan. In 30-45 days! Never again.

As well, they always credited my extra payments that I sent through the mail to interest as well as principal. Now I'll pay the principal online and save myself the postage. My graduate school loans aren't to be in repayment until six months after I graduate at the end of 2008.

So I was looking at my Sallie Mae account. I have three loans, only one in repayment. I was looking at the measly $304.97 balance and I was like, why exactly am I not just paying this off? I have about $1500 in my checking account. So I made a payment online for the entire amount. So long Sallie Mae, you are outta here, girl! Well, at least until I have to repay my graduate school loans, ha!

I decided to write down my goals for 2008.

EMERGENCY FUND:

Contribute $245 to my three accounts. My goal is $15,000 in 3 years, my current balance is just over$5,000.

DEBT:

I have about $2,000 on a credit card. I will contribute $500 plus the amount of my monthly purchases every payment.

My original Sallie Mae loan is now at $300. With automatic payments my loan will be paid off in about 4 months. My grad school loans will begin repayment 6 months after my December 2008 graduation.

My car payment will be $326. After finishing with the credit card balance I will contribute the extra to the car payment.

RETIREMENT:

Continue contributing $400 biweekly to my 457. That is an annual contribution of $10,400.

Continue to fund my Roth IRA to the maximum. That will be $5,000 in 2008.

HOUSE:

My payments are $313 biweekly. I occasionally get a few pennies interest from a savings account and will transfer to principal. Otherwise, my payments will continue as is for this category. I'm more focused on the other debt.

CAREER AND SCHOOL:

In somewhat related plans, I want to focus on school and looking for a new job. I'm off this week since I worked the holiday (12 hour shifts for 4 days) and I'm writing papers and taking civil service tests.

The lady asked why I wanted to take the test again since I scored so well. I told her that I wanted an 80 on the test. I scored a 74. She said that few people score so well and I must be a perfectionist. I'm not. What I am is really motivated to move on to a better position.

I took another test since it hadn't been 28 days since I took the one that I wanted to retest on. Next time I'll take a different one again. I'll keep taking them until I'm where I want to be.

What are your goals???

Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University on CD is on clearance and I bought it. I've been listening to it in my new car. I enjoy listening to him, I don't pretent to believe or follow everything he advocate, but he inspires me to do better.

I'm determined to pay off my student loan and credit card in 3 months. I will then attack my car loan and grad school loans. Repayment isn't for 18 more months on the grad school loans so I will concentrate on the car loan which is at a low 4.94%. The grad school loan are at 6.8% and the student loans in repayment are at 7.25% with a $300 balance. The original balance was over $7,000.

My car loan came in at about $17,300. The grad school loans will be $20,500, but I'm getting several thousand back once the tuition is paid. I guess I will put it on the car loan before the grad school loan.

I just bought Alicia Keys new CD at Best Buy online. Just $9.99 and free shipping!

I've been thinking a lot about my next job. I'm not considering staying in the same position once I finish grad school. It's insane to even consider it. I wouldn't put out $18,500 to stay in the same position.

In my Organizational Behavior class I have to write a paper that details my Personal Strategic Plan. I'm glad that my professor chose this particular subject for the paper.

I do have some dissatisfaction at my work now. We have administrators that have such little regard for what we do and how we do it. I'm tired of feeling so belittled.

I've actually applied for some jobs at DHH that would give me an immediate 10-14% percent raise, with another 4% raise after 6 months. I would lose me shift differential, but working evenings is not conducive to school right now so that's okay.

I'm nervous about this because I think my mom will question my decision, but at the end of the day I'm the person most qualified to know what's best for me. I'll have to wait and see how much of a commitment a new job will be if I get an offer and weigh the pros and cons. I'm just waiting for the call...

I sold my car Tuesday for $2,000. I'm happy to have it sold. I probably could have gotten more if I had been patient, but I wanted it done with and I was trying to do something good. It was somewhat of a stressful transaction for me and next time I'll know what to do differently.

I'm using the money to pay off my credit card and student loans for good. That will be such a good feeling. I was thinking about using it to pad my emergency fund, but Dave Ramsey has inspired me to get Sallie Mae out of my life!

Turned on the heater last night. 68 degrees is a little hot. I'll have to try lower the next time I need it. I may ask for an electric blanket for my birthday or Christmas.

I picked up my new car yesterday. I love it. It's a white 2008 Toyota Corolla LE. I did the internet pricing so got a price below invoice price after the incentive. Yes, I know all about used vs. new cars and depreciation. I'm satisfied with the decision that I've made.

Two people have come by to look at my 1997 Toyota Corolla. I think I have a buyer. I'm settling for $2,000 but I feel good about the potential buyer. She really desperately needs a car. Violet, that's my car, is looking especially nice. I vacuumed her all out and got her washed. I almost hate to sell her.

My car is in the shop again. The engine light came on and it almost stalled on me as I had to turn in front of oncoming cars. That scared me. They called about 4 hours ago to ask me what was going on. They haven't figured out the problem yet as they haven't called to ask me if I want it repaired. They usually call sooner than this. I've had the starter, the power steering line, and the radiator repaired at this same shop. I get no rental car either as it's in the shop for repairs and not an accident. Darn.

I was just saying to my mom that I hope to keep this car through grad school. I was hoping it would hang on. Toyotas usually last longer than this and I don't know why mine hasn't faired better. I've been pre-approved for a 4.94% loan from USAA and I've looked online for some certified pre-pwned Corollas. I won't get much for mine if the problem is with the head gasket, or whatever it's called.

The longer I don't hear from the garage the more I'm thinking that the problem is significant.

I've read several personal finance books. I like David Bach's recommendation to save at least 12% of income and paying yourself first. He breaks down how much you need to save to retire at a certain level of prosperity. I plan to save no less than 20% of my income to retire wealthy.

My increase to my 457(b) went through but my decrease to my 403(b) did not, so I saw a little less in my paycheck this week than usual. That's okay. This allows my contributions to reach a certain goal level.

I've had issues with this particular non-profit group that keeps calling. I think they're called Non-Profit services and apparently several groups contract through them. They have been an incredible nuisance. I don't like being called for charitable donations and I don't like what almost feels like harassment from this particular group. When I offer a certain amount they tell me that I can't offer that little and to send more. Are you serious? If you're asking for donations you accept whatever you get. A minimum donation? Whoever heard of such? Their mailings can't possibly cost them more than $10. If so they need to change agencies.

So today the man hung up on me when I asked him to take me off their calling list. Now I don't feel at all guilty about my impressions of this group. They really are hurting whatever causes they are representing.

I will continue supporting Christian Children's Fund and my veterans groups. My passion truly lies with these two groups. I also am beginning to support my local food bank. It's amazing, but for every $1 donated they get $12 worth of food.

I've decided to stop contributing to my 403(b) and just contribute to my 457(b). It's nothing that ING did, but I just decided that it's better to streamline things. I think I have better expense ratios with my 457(b) as well. I hope that they allow me to do a direct rollover to my 457(b) even though I'm still employed.

With the year 2/3 over I'm trying to get an idea of my tax situation for the year. A lot of it depends of whether my second installment of tuition of $4,500 can be paid this year instead of next. If it comes this year I'll meet the $10,000 Lifetime Education credit, if it goes through next year I'll exceed the limits and thus miss out on some of the tax benefits. I'll have to speak to our Financial Aid Coordinator to see what the situation is.

What I understood is that the payments would post as my financial aid comes in, but it looks like they're putting us on the same 4-payment schedule as those that will pay as they go. The next payment would be due January 5th if so. I'm going to ask her to post that payment in December instead. I've already taken out the loans so I'm already paying interest. Might as well have it paid on my tuition when it could help me financially, rather than next year.

So today was orientation. I got off last night after midnight. My dad had called at 8:30 last night saying that he didn't think that I should be driving my car back and forth to New Orleans. So after getting off, I went by my parents' house to get my sister's car. Actually, it's my parents' car, but you know how that is. It was all good though because she has a CD layer unlike my car so I was able to rock out on the drive up. It went by fast, but time-wise was actually about 1.5 hours. I could make it in less time, but I'm not trying to speed. They had an accident on the spillway to boot.

I got there around 7:30 this morning. I think I got maybe 2 hours sleep last night and I'm being generous saying that. I was up before 5am. They have a really nice continental spread for brekfast on class day. Every kid of juice, soda, coffee and tea, plus cereal, oatmeal, pastries galore, yogurts, and a beautiful selection of fresh cut fruits. So anyway I grabbed some fruit and coffee and tried to give myself a jolt for the day.

I'm so excited about the program and my classmates. We had to stand up and tell the class something about ourselves. I get so nervous speaking in front of people. I feel like I forget to breathe. I admire my classmates that speak so easily and I hope that their eloquence and easy conversation rubs off on me.

We had a financial aid meeting after. Oh yeah, and lunch was an awesome hot buffet meal. I can't believe that the program provides such quality in all aspects for the $18.5k fee. It really is reasonable. Anyway, I found new loans offered on my student account online after coming home. I accepted them all. They'll deduct the amounts as they come in. The rate of 6.8% isn't great, but I'd rather continue contributing to my investment accounts and get a tax break there as well as for my student loans.

So it looks like my employer will pay about $3600 and I've already paid my $500 deposit. So that leaves me a $14.4k balance. I know my parents' offered to pay some, but I'd rather have that money at another time. I think was approved for the maximum amount of loans which is something like $20.5k so my balance will be covered.

As well there is an international trip at the conclusion of the program. We'll be going to Grenoble and Paris, France as well as Geneva, Switzerland. It will cost about $3k and a guest can accompany you for $1k. Plane tickets not included. I have to take the international business course on top of my regular load so I'll have to see how I'm handling things before I make a decision. I have a while.

That's a long blog, but I guess I just had a lot to say. I'm really pumped to do this. Getting my master's has been a goal for as long as I remember (like way back when I was in high school and thought that 29 was old) and now it can actually be reality. I hope my enthusiasm doesn't waver too soon. I'm also hoping I can go and get some sleep!

Today I went get my oil changed. Now usually, this is a several hours long ordeal because I take it to Wal-Mart. But I decided to take it to Benny's Express Car Wash and they were done in 10 minutes. If course it was more expensive but you can't put a price on the frustration saved because of not dealing with the Wal-Mart car care. One time I was over an hour late for work because they kept telling me that my car was almost ready.

So I was finished in about 15 minutes including the car wash that was included in the $31.99. I also got an air filter. I think the total price was $54 and some change. I then headed to the post office to send back some scrubs that were the wrong size. One was labeled the wrong size and the others just ran small. Hopefully this is the end of the problems I am having trying to get my scrubs together now that we're going back to wearing one color.

I figure today's market is a great value. It's a bargain to buy today. My funds automatically purchase on the 15th of every month. Sometimes I buy high, sometimes low, but I definitely prefer the buying low. I'm not worried. I first started investing in 1999 so I got in while things were high and just before things started going down. So that was my first exposure to investing and this seems like the norm to me. I enjoyed the great market of the past few years but they also made me a little nervous. It almost seemed too good to be true. I've been waiting for a correction and now that it's happening I'm just glad that it was the even more dramatic downturn that I envisioned.

I got my bill from Chase. It was as large as I expected what with the car repair and dental bill, but I'm not able to pay off all of my monthly charges yet as I was planning to do. I thought I would have enough overtime to cover it, but apparently not. After I get my third check for August I may be able to cover it.

I was thinking of the high interest rate that I'm currently paying and thinking of using some of the balance of my loan money to pay that credit card off once and for all. The loan rate is much better than my credit card rate. I'm now pretty excited about the prospect of getting rid of that debt - finally!

Yes, I found out something good about my 457(b) just now. I noticed on the salary deferral agree that there is now an option to take 300 hours of annual leave as a lump sum payment to your 457(b) when leaving state employment. This is as long as you haven't met your maximum for the year. I hope that this is in addition to the 300 hours leave that you are paid when leaving state employment, but I'd rather put it in the 457(b) than cash out if not. I now have over 600 hours so this would help me not lose some hours if I can take both. Not that I'm planning to leave state employment right now, but in the future I may be.

I'm feeling pretty good about the amount of debt that I've paid off this year. Since September 2006 I've paid off more than $9,000 in debt. Next month I'll cut my remaining $6,000 or so debt in half. I worked a lot of overtime to make this happen, but it was worth it. I can't wait until I see that amount down to $0.

These past few weeks I've had some big bills to charge to my Mastercard. I had over $600 from my car repair and about $150 for my dental bill. I hope to be able to put some overtime towards that.

Today I spent over $100 on scrubs. My hospital is now requiring that we wear a certain color so I'm getting ready for that. I said that I would wait to order them in September since the dress code isn't in effect until October, but I decided not to wait. Better to get that off my mind and just focus on grad school. I also need to have my oil changed if they didn't do that at the garage already. I don't think so, but I need to check the invoice.

And in case you're wondering, though I know you're not, my weight went back down. Thank goodness.

Darn, darn, darn. I just lost a whole entry. Here I go, here I go again...

Yesterday, I went to Whole Foods. I got some good things including some pork ribeyes to make pork chop rice skillet. I made that late last night and just put it up since I got dinner from their deli.

I got the $5.99 plate for 3 side dishes. I got shrimp/sausage/chicken jamabalaya, with cauliflower cracklins which was roasted roasted cauliflower with peas, and sauteed cabbage. It was all very good but, probably very salty as well.

I weigh myself daily and I had put on 3 pounds overnight. What?! It was so funny because I started hitting my scale because I thought it was stuck or broken. Then I remembered what I had eaten yesterday. I can't gain 3 pounds in less than 24 hours on 1400 calories. So I'm chilling out and drinking plenty of water.

I brought some cherries that I bought by my parents' house today on the way to work. These cherries ended up costing me $11 to my surprise. They're very good though. My mom called me to come by and get some food. I got some beef stew and black-eyed peas. I had some brown rice in my freezer to go along with this as well.

I really need to start cooking more. Especilly now that I'm starting school and not working as much overtime. My dining out is definitely where I could stand to cut some money. It just gets a bit tiring eating the same thing everyday, what with living alone.

I don't know why I never considered that there were sites for blogging about your finances, but imagine my surprise when I search for something else and stumbled upon this. I visit so many financial sites, but this is an entirely new concept for me.

So let me introduce myself. I'm 29 and single. I bought my first home last year. I'm working full-time on the 3-11 shift. I will be attending graduate school on alternate weekends starting in 3 weeks. I have two undergraduate degrees, the second earned while working full-time so I feel a little bit prepared for this.

Graduate school will cost $18.5k. I have paid the $500 deposit which comes off the original amount. Then there are $4.5k payments over the 4 semesters. My employer paid $1k. The remaining $3.5k will come from Stafford loans. Yes, more loans when I was so close to paying off the small loan from my first degree. I incurred no loans the second time around. My mom says she will pay $5k toward my tuition the last 2 semesters.

My immediate goals are to build up my emergency fund, a car fund, and a short-term savings fund, which I will call my Christmas fund. Why I call it that I'm not sure as I will end up using it for more than Christmas.

I got paid today, or actually now it's yesterday. Today's check reflected the $0.72 an hour that all state workers received. Not a huge amount, but $1500 a year, and every little bit counts. I'm going to increase my savings to start funding the aforementioned savings accounts.

Today I went shopping. It's called tax free weekend, but you actually still pay 5% local taxes. I got some school supplies, some groceries, an outfit, and some hand soaps from Bath and Body Works. I haven't shopped like that in quite a while!