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Archive for August, 2006

Good things

August 22nd, 2006 at 02:11 am

Thanks to good advice on this site, I moved some money around this weekend. Depleted a $600 taxable mutual fund account to put the money in my Roth IRA. I will not come near maxing it this year, and am glad I'm not going to pay taxes on this money for the next 40 years.

Also got to see my dad this weekend(yay!) and he gave me some money (also yay!).

I'm trying to decide what to do with it. It isn't a whole lot, but it's enough to make a pretty significant dent in my remaining credit card. Of course, I have, like, no money right now, because I just started a new job and won't get paid for a couple weeks. I'll probably use it just for expenses and stuff I need until I get paid, at which point I can put what remains on my credit card.

I want to save a little, too, for the Ren Faire coming up. I know it's an irresponsible expense given that I'm not out of debt. Still, I am going to go ($20 plus $30 either gas or bus fare) and I really, really want to buy something pretty.

We'll see. I don't even know what my take-home pay's going to be. Once I know that, it'll be easier to budget, and if I can make a couple spending cuts to buy myself something pretty at the Ren Faire, that's something I can do.

Back on savingsadvice, thanks to new job

August 20th, 2006 at 01:41 am

I have been gone from savingadvice for awhile. I stopped visiting because I was unemployed, not eligible for unemployment, had no money to save, and began having a lot of anxiety problems surrounding my finances. I really couldn't even think about my finances- even open bills- because not having any money coming in just really, really stressed me out that badly. My credit rating has suffered a lot (probably about 100 points) and I have about $2500 in credit card debt that I need to pay off.

But the good news is (yes, there's good news in this whole mess) that I have an income again.

So I'm going to take the next 4 months (Sept-Oct-Nov-Dec) of guaranteed work (the job ends in January, at that point I might be placed elsewhere in the same company, I might not; depends on work availability and performance) to pay off my credit cards and start improving my credit rating. I know that with all the late payments I've had, my credit rating can only improve so much in 4 months, but I'll do what I can. I'm not planning on needing credit anytime in the next 2 or 3 years (at least) so if I pay on time from now on, my credit rating should be much beteter by the time I want to buy a house or something, which right now looks like it's going to be in the very far future, if at all.

Plan for future:
1. Pay off smaller card (DONE)
2. Start putting away $100/month to retirement and $100/month to emergency fund (DONE)
3. Send $600/month to larger credit card, get it paid off within 5 months
4. Increase Roth IRA contribution to $333/month (to max it out for the year)
5. Increase emergency fund contribution to $400/month

That's the plan for now. I should be here by January; if my job continues, I'll be set. If not... Well, at least at the end of this job I'll be eligible for unemployment, and have no debt, so that's not so bad.