Govdocs Aquake

Right this minute, my husband has been laid off and we must pay our electric bill (including the heat) in 10 days way more money than we currently have. There are a couple of other necessities that must be covered as well. My income alone will not cover it all.
I am completely serious.
Any suggestions? We are new to this DR plan and don’t have it all in an emergency fund. Hubby’s last paycheck will go to some other bills that must be paid, including our car insurance (in Ohio, if you are uninsured, and pulled over, your life goes to hell quickly. Just as the “system” is designed.)

I will be listing a few items up for sale on Craigslist and eBay this week. Unemployment holds back a week, so he won’t get his first payment from them until after the due date for these bills that are due by the 20th of this month. Even with that, it is only a % of what he normally brings home.

Being in debt, having bills to pay and his being laid off really just sucks. We are so motivated to improve our financial picture.

Make no mistake, the local energy company will cut off the heat & electricity if they are not paid. Our toddler and I will be in our car at that time, since at least it has heat.

My hubby has been out looking for work and applying at several places, some of which have no openings. We are still hopeful. He is hitting several other places tomorrow. Right now, paycheck to paycheck would be a step up. I am sure some of you have been there.

Please pray with us. If you have any additional suggestions of where to get the $$$$, please share them…QUICKLY.

with 97k not including the house and we are at 67k now. Next week will be in the 57k range Woohooo!

This all said Dave’s message saved us from making some HUGE mistakes. We were going to buy a house with 100% down and 12k in the bank. Instead we moved to a cheap duplex cut expenses by over 1k a month and are paying off the debt like crazy people.
Our goal is to be done with BS2 by June 09….The math doesn’t add up yet but I think with some creative thinking it will work.
Keep your head up and make good choices every day. You will get there, good things will happen. Just a month or so ago a man making $11/hr gave away millions. Think steady and slow. We are here to help!

We changed some things and kind of did a budget but then charged a new computer, I
got another credit card, and well we finally reached a level of sick and tired of being sick and tired. We are both having job issues and do not have the freedom to make choices due to our current financial situation. So we are buckling down.

I have signed back up for the TMMO and am finding that very helpful. We are waiting on tax refunds and will complete BS1. I have completed our new budget for March and am eagerly awaiting to start BS2.

I have found some ways to cut costs but our biggest expense is gas and groceries. It is my husband, myself, 3 dogs and our son, Grey, who is 20 months old. We are still in diapers and that will change within three weeks.
I have showed this class material to two other people in the last two months. One is totally debt free within 30 days (had a small amount) and the other is still working on it. A co-worker and I will be going over her stuff tomorrow for her to work on becoming out of debt.
I listen to the Tom show but have yet to hear anyone paying off as much debt as my husband and I have. In the 8 years we’ve been married we have accumulated over $180,000. Yep that’s right. You can get up off the floor now…..over $180,000. Only $64K is our house.

Young and dumb! Now a little older and a lot smarter. I save every penny and cut everywhere I can. Well, enough about me. I’d love to hear about some of you.

Looks like we are going to wind up our briefly northern trabel for this year in the next two weeks. Sorry guys, but between truck troubles, and doctor appointments we aren’t making it past straight up from OK to SD this year. With nights in the low to mid 40s it is time to head south.

Tentatively we plan on going east through TN, NC etc over to Jamestown and Williamsburg then down to St. Augustine in FL and of course on down to Disneyworld then across the deep south back to OK. Between September 21 to Thanksgiving. Hoping to get to see some of you as we travel.

I’m very depressed. “even if” we were completely out of debt, we couldn’t live on just DH’s income alone…thanks to the $2k a month for medical and car insurance. but at least I have a plan with the income we do have.

So i noticed one of the things where the irregular income falls down…it really has to be combined with a regular budget. For example, doing the irregular budget presumes that things can “just wait” like medical insurance etc vs the reality that they hit on specific days of the month. so it will take a little finagling.

thanks for letting me share.

Dave Ramsey when ‘life happens’ and we find that we don’t have to go into panic mode. Today is one of those days. My dad (88) was taken to the hospital Saturday evening. My parents live in Chicago, IL and I live in Atlanta, GA. I have a brother, but he is in NYC. Plus, I have been the adult child who usually does the caregiving, supporting my mother (86). Without going into too much detail, as of Friday evening Dad hasn’t been able to walk. His condition isn’t life threatening (so I’m told), but I must go to Chicago unexpectedly.
Over the last 24 hours, as I have been trying to make space to go without disrupting my life, and particularly my income, negatively, I had to step back and say “this is why you have an emergency fund.” If I miss 12 hours of work (and some of my income is based on working hourly) I have the money to cover that. I have money to pay for a pet sitter. I have money to pay for leaving my car at the airport, if that’s what I decide is the best thing to do. I have enough.
Not naive enough to think that I couldn’t blow through the emergency fund very quickly, but nevertheless. . . This is why you have an emergency fund. That’s my mantra today. I can panic over other things, but I don’t have to panic over that.

remember Uncle Sam comes first because there are greater penalties and fees than with most other delinquent bills. Put those payroll taxes at the top of the list of bills that are behind. Then you can go from there depending on the amount, penalties and fees.

I know my business account needs to get beefed up and I am hoping a customer I am working with comes through. Expenses on this big order can be relatively low so profit has the potential to be good.

I turned off all auto pay savings, sinking funds, bills, IRA , etc.
Our clients always pay slow the end of summer, and our savings has dwindled to unsafe levels for a company that has over $50K in overhead each month.
I cut every budget in our home account to zero that I could and only spent 1/4 of our grocery budget, hoping that by Wednesday we will get more checks in.
DH isn’t panicking, but we are behind on paying vendors and payroll taxes and it stresses me out!
That’s my homework for the week.

I wish it had happened before I accepted this little $9/hr job I took to stop the bleed, or at least slow it. After 80 hours I will take home a whopping $560-600. Vs $479 a week tax deferred by staying home. (She shakes her head)

Geico finally decided to make an offer to settle. Don’t know how much it is yet, we’ve been playing telephone tag. But I’m sure it’s not going to be much after all the stupidity.

And I have an interview with the sheriffs office here tomorrow. Pays less than half of what I used to make, but it comes with “full benefits.” Not sure what that means. And I have an interview with kohls for holiday season in their (you’ll laugh) credit card center. That one pays a whopping $12-16/hr no benefits but will turn in to permanent mid January and then it will come with benefits and I know what those look like 😍

Just didn’t think it would be this slow going to find solid decent paying work.

I am a math nerd and because we are totally debt free and living like no one else I may do my bookkeeping a little different than you.
Our main income is once per month and that is what I base our budget on. Any additional that comes in goes into the ffef.
Each month I move a set amount of money to savings, first on paper. I make entries in excel of how much goes to what sinking fund.
Then, still on paper, I subtract any sinking funds that are scheduled to be withdrawn that month. The remaining balance is what should be left in the account for that month.
I then actually only move from checking to savings the amount needed to balance my Excell worksheet. That leaves the money needed to payout to sinking funds in checking.

EXAMPLE: if my monthly deposit is normally 1,000 and I have a 200 sinking fund due that month I only actually only move 800. All bookkeeping is done in excell where I keep track of what is going in and out of each sinking fund, not the actual payments. The actual payment comes put of checking like it was a grocery purchase or something