Should have checked it way before now.

So I now the opportunity to join the retirement plan our company has. It is a Simple IRA with up to a 3% company match. I was doing the math on Sunday to find out how much I could afford to put in and what it would leave me. While doing the math I figured out I was not making the amount I was supposed to be making. I am currently making $30k a year. I should be making $32k a year. I should have been making this since May at least.

It is obviously my own fault for not checking my pay stub sooner. I should have known there was a problem when I asked for my address to be changed and it is still incorrect. Luckily that person is gone and I will be more vigilant from now on especialy since I will be putting 7% of my check into this retirement IRA. Once you include the 3% from my company that means next year I should have over $3500 in that account (hopefully more since I chose a couple high performers for putting my money into).

Today was busy

So today was a busy day for me financially. Besides the Prosper loan bid that I put in today I also paid some bills so that we can start looking at Christmas shopping.

Paid - Comcast $140.25 no they are paid up to date
- Nelnet $200.00 now my student loan is up to date

I added a recurring payment to Patti and my mortgage so that I don't have to swap money any more. The money will come directly out of the House account so that as long as I leave the money there I don't have to worry.

I have also gotten out checks for all of our magazines that we read so those should be good for another year. I have to put a check in for my football pool (another $50 for this half. I got to do better than the last half. I was close but no great weeks so I could win the $400 half.

Good thing is student loans, Electric, Gas, Cable, and phones are paid (phone bill is due the 4th of next month). We still owe some for association dues (I will figure out how much to drop there later tonight).

Current Balance without payments:

Saving - 50.00
Checking - 1339.25
House - 867.95

So figuring the $340 I just paid and I will shoot high for $150 for the other outstanding checks. That leaves us with $849. I am thinking $450 for Association dues so that leaves us $400 for Thanksgiving and the rest of the week. We get paid and I have to pay Mortgage, association, and cell phones after next week.

Well I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving, I know I plan on having a great one.

Trying something different

So I decided to try a loan "service" that I have heard about. www.prosper.com This site is basically where average people lend to other people with an entity (Prosper) being the middle man and holding the money. Here is how it works.

I create an ad that has my credit rating (only a C right now), how much I want to borrow ($4,000), the percentage I am willing to pay (16.27%) and a list of my income, debt and reasons why I am looking for the loan.

At this point people with money review or search for the different kind of loans available and bid on them (bidding means they are saying they will lend you a certain amount of the whole and what percentage they are willing to pay). This means that someone might lend you $20 or $100 or $500 or more depending on how they feel about the loan. For lending the money the user gets the interest from the loan. Think about that, if you feel the person is going to pay you can make 10 - 20% on your money. As god or better than any mutual fund out there.

If I can get this loan I should be able to clear out all of my outstanding delinquent credit. This should raise my credit score at least 100 points and put me into either a B or an A rating. At this point I might be able to get a car loan for Patti. Also if this works out I hope to be able to pay off some of Patti's delinquent credit and get her to a point where we can refinance the mortgage and save at least $400 a month JUST ON OUR MORTGAGE!!!

10 days left of bidding on my loan. If any of you join please let me know so that I can make some money off of it. I will split what ever I get with you!

Simple IRA

Okay so I got a packet of information from my company saying that I am eligible to join the company Simple IRA plan. So basically I can start saving towards retirement with the company matching up to 3% of my income. I am definitely going to do it but now I have some choices to make. I have to decide how much money to put in (obviously at least 3%) but how much is going to be good. I am going to go with the most aggressive plan I can.

So financially now I have roughly $590. All bills due this week are paid. I do have 2 bills that are outstanding. Association dues 4 months worth and my student loan about $350

So I have made a payment of around $140.00 for my student loan.
I am writing a check of $250 for the association to start to get caught up. I will also have Insurance due Thursday when Patti gets paid and I will have to pay gas and electricity ($160) shortly.

Another couple weeks of tough going to get to a point where we can start saving.

Week is almost over!

Wheeww, so this week is almost over. All my current payments are through and Patti's pay check has come in. I have never seen my accounts so low without going $0 or negative. I think that is a good testament to Patti and I keep our hands out of the cookie jar.
I should probably speak about pay for a moment. We have 2 incomes and 3 jobs. My Alltex job where I run laundry around IBM pays me %50 a night. I usually work 5 nights a week for about 2 hours a night. This mean Gross for Alltex is $250, and after taxes the net is just over $200. Now this money is direct deposited every Friday. I recommend direct deposit to everyone because there is no need to get to a bank get your money.
Now my normal job with The Kea Group pays me a salary of $32,000 a year, which after taxes means I take home $858.61 every 2 weeks. This direct deposit goes directly into the house account so that helps make sure we do not spend the mortgage or the tax money, (I did not escrow it in because I figured I could make a little money on interest instead of having the mortgage company make the money).
Now Patti's check is the one that is hardest to say how much she makes. I believe her current wage is $17.51 an hour. She gets shift differential for different times of the day like 5pm to 11pm is one rate I believe and 11pm to 8am is another. Looking back at the deposits it looks like her mode lowest pay is $533.06 but there have been times with overtime that she has made $805.05 in a week. So Patti has the potential to bring home a lot more than I can in 2 weeks even with me having 2 jobs.

Alot out quickly

Okay so I did not do much today. We did go have dinner at Tiny Thai and spent $25.00. I know it would have been better to not go but Patti was pretty much stuck in the house both her days off. We have a problem with our gas heat that I will talk about later.

So it looks like everything has gone out except the mortgage, so we are definitely getting low. With only 1257.03 in the checking and a 1425.oo check coming against it, it will be a game of chicken. I am going to move all my money into the one account so that if it comes out tomorrow I will not get hit wth fees.

Cheap day - Hooray

So today was a good day. No money spent at all. It will always bee cheap when Patti wakes up with a migraine. She has no ability to do any shopping so hey all I got to do is just work and shut up.

Current standings:

• Saving - 50.02
• Checking - 1619.32
• House - 134.34
• Total - 1803.68
  

Outstanding:Aubuchon (Items for installing new Over Range Microwave) - 14.50

Sprint - 127.81

Dr Martell (Eye Exam) - 79.00

Mortgage - 1425.00

Costco - 79.00

Amazon (SQL books I hope to be reimbursed by my work) - 64.48

Total - 1789.79

Reasons for financial change

Why are Patti and I trying to be good with our money? That is a good question and I think I have some answers. These may change with time and are in no particular order.

• Get out of all debt
• Refinance Mortgage to a more reasonable number
• Get a couple (newer) cars
• Get married
• Build our dream house (yeah a condo will not do it forever)
• Start a business (not sure what yet but I think it will have food and order environmental impact)
• Travel

I will probably add on more later today so you may want to come back to this.

Starting a new path

For the past 4 years my girlfriend and I have been pretty much walking away from our financial responsibilities. There have always been a good excuse: not liking the way they are charging fees, not agreeing with the way they were posting transactions or just not having enough money because I was going through school. These are all good but really the problem is that we like to spend money and don't really have any self control. I am not the one who sets limits as I should since I handle pretty much all of the money. So I have decided to do several things.

Set a cash allowance for both of us. Currently I have set the limit at $40 a week Thursday to Thursday

Be open with my spending habits since I may have a tendancy to spend money on stupid things (to much money on food).

Be more open with Patti so that she know exactly where we are and can take a more informed roll as to where we are and what we are doing.

Those things being said, here is where I am today. This list will not be pretty but it is acurate.

Cash on Hand:

Saving - 50.02

Checking - 2122.98

House - 134.34

Total - 2307.34

Here is my outstanding payments I expect to go through this week.

Sprint - 127.81

Dr Martell (Eye Exam) - 79.00

Mortgage - 1425.00

Lewis Motors (New Starter for my car) - 503.66

Aubuchon (Items for installing new Over Range Microwave) - 14.50

Costco - 79.00 (approximate I don't have the reciept or the amount in the check book since they have the nice feature of writing out the check for you)

Amazon (SQL books I hope to be reimbursed by my work) - 64.48

Total - 2293.45

These numbers are worse than I thought. I had not added them up till now. So if everything goes through I only have $13.89 I will list out all of our financial info later after a couple beers and some time to think.

Oh here is my spending for the day just to let everyone know.

• HomeDepot (Electronic Thermostat and electrical items) - 46.98
• Mobil (Newspaper) - 1.75

Later - Scott