Sabrina’s Money Madness

Oh boy, that was not a good phone call, especially since it came from the Department of Education. Actually it came from a collection agency contracted by the dept but whatever.

When we got down to the nitty gritty details, it seems like my payments haven’t posted to my account since August of 2011. My bill is on auto-pay so I never noticed that I hadn’t received a statement. It never occurred to me to look for one since my checks were clearing my bank. After talking to the department, they were having trouble with their system getting payments to post.

I still don’t understand why I didn’t get a letter or a phone call before the collection call but at least I have the situation under control.

I know there is rule of thumb out there that says to save 1% of the value of your home every year for maintenance. But I have several friends who own there own home and they seem to spend much more than that. I’ve heard that it averages out over the years but supplies are expensive.

Right now it’s Winter and we have a lot of snow. So there’s salt for the snow and a snow-blower for my guy friends. Then in spring we get all of the composters, seeds for new flower beds and all of the other yard things. Plus rakes and mowers in the Summer. And that’s just the stuff off of the top of my head for exterior maintenance. I haven’t even touched on interior maintenance.

A condo is looking better and better every day.

And I’m a internal employee. I’ve been looking for a new job for a while. I finally got 3 interviews within the last 3 months. One job I didn’t get at all. The other 2 have me sitting around waiting.

I’ve been waiting for one job for 5 weeks. The manager was off for 2 weeks to have surgery so I do understand. It will probably be at least 2 more weeks before I hear anything either way. I interviewed for a job last week and was told that they were looking to hire someone late January or early February. My coworker interviewed for the same job and was told it would be mid-February.

Ughhh just let me know either way. You can best believe I’m still sending out resumes though. I’m not giving up the job search until I have a position firmly in hand.

Just a quick update to what I wrote the other day. I wrote the administrator and apologized for the accounts being late. I told him that I was finished with one and working on the other and it should be done by tomorrow. I was expecting him to pitch a fit but he was really cool and said no problem just let me know when they’re done.

Now I’m putting pedal to the medal to get them done by tomorrow.

It’s only partially my fault though. We have a certain amount of time to get the work done which is usually enough. But I have 2 accounts instead of one and they’re both full of problems. I mean just one ridiculous thing after another. I did call the person who is waiting for the work to explain the situation and to let them know that they will have the work by the end of this week.

I just hate to be late though. It makes it look as if I’m slacking in my duties which I’m not. Luckily my boss and the person waiting for the work both know my work ethic and understand that things happen.

Either way, this is not a good look.

Well the snow is putting a kibosh on that. There was ice on the roads this morning but no snow on the ground. When I got almost to work, I noticed that it had started snowing. It’s been snowing for the last 3 hours and the snow is sticking and piling up.

I need to go make a deposit to my housing account as well as do my usual shopping. I bought a pair of boots 2 weeks ago but I wanted to buy another pair this weekend. I also need a new pair of every day black pants because the zipper on my normal pair went off of the track and the teeth of the zipper are bent, so I don’t think it can be fixed. I’m not going to pay more to get the pants fixed than I paid for the pants in the first place.

I guess I’ll just camp in front of the tv and hope something good is on since I’ll be home-bound for the weekend.

I haven’t balanced my checkbook in almost 2 weeks. Not a big deal right? For me it’s oh so wrong. I keep most of my paycheck in my checking account but it’s in separate “buckets”.

Since my main bank doesn’t have sub-accounts, ala ING, I just keep a separate piece of paper with the name of the “bucket” and the amount. Then when I spend money, it comes out of it’s respective “bucket”. At either the end of the pay period, or the end of the month, I transfer some of the excess money to my savings account.

Right now I have several bills that will be due by Friday that are budgeted to come out of checking. I also have 1 bill that is taken out of Friday’s check but will be paid in advance. I do keep more than enough money in this particular account to make sure I can always cover everything.

Some days I don’t mind playing around with the number, but some days I wish I had a simpler system.

I’m waiting to hear back from 2 jobs that I recently interviewed for. One was almost 5 weeks ago. The manager was actually out having surgery so it’s going to be a little longer than normal to hear from her. The second interview was this past Friday. They’re interviewing this week and next so the earliest I would hear something is the week of the 23rd.

I really want the job that I just interviewed for. It really matches my abilities and what I’m interested in. The first job is not what I’m looking for but it will provide me with very valuable experience. Whichever job I get offered, I’m taking though. In a perfect world I would get offered both jobs. I’m just hoping that in this imperfect world I get offered at least one of them.

I’m crossing my fingers that 2012 is the year that I find a new job.

I had a lot of little wins in December which made sweepstaking fun:

• 2 Coke 12 packs
• 3 coupons for either a single pack of M&M’s or a Snickers
• Pair of movie tickets
• $100 WalMart GC

The WalMart GC will be saved until I move to help buy either a vacuum cleaner and/or a new microwave. It’s so much fun even when you win small stuff, but these are all great prizes in my opinion.

I wish I could always have months like this.

During the month of December I added $275 for a total of $1,635. My goal is $2,300 by May which means that I still have $665 to save. I didn’t add any money to my 10% fund this month so my housing total is $1,400 with $600 to go. I do have more money that should go towards the 10% fund but I haven’t added it to my bank account.

I should easily make my goal before next May at this rate.

I didn’t really have a lot of goals last year, 3 actually and I didn’t meet them. So I’m going to get going in 2012 and start anew.

1. Get my housing account to $2,300. I’m already at $1,485 so I’m really close and I’ll definitely meet this goal.
2. Save an additional $1,000 for hand money ($500) and to pay for my housing inspection upfront (another $500).
3. If I haven’t purchased my house in 2012, which I probably won’t, be on track to close by March 2013.
4. Save a random $250-500 towards furniture and future student loan payments.
5. Have my regular non-housing account savings up to a minimum of $3,600 or the higher of 6 mortgage payments. You need this amount in your savings to get approved for a mortgage so it’s now a goal. Once I buy my house and get settled, I’ll raise my savings levels.
6. Lose a pants size. I keep saying this year after year and I always fall off of the wagon but I need to lose the weight this year. It’s not just vanity now it’s a health issue so it’s pretty much a done deal that I will.
7. Add at least $500 to my stock account. This is money that I make on the side and not from my main job so it gets invested. It also represents dividends and interest on money that I already have invested. As long as this money is still coming in, I may as well put it to good use.

That’s all even though it’s a lot. Mostly I’m focusing on savings in 2012. I guess I’ll be buckling down this year.

I generally save all of my change and turn it in once a year. Then I get a gift card and buy something for myself. This year I had planned on turning in about $100 worth of change and putting it towards a Ipod Touch for myself. Except I just looked at my change jar and realized that I don’t even have $50 in there. I  haven’t been using as much cash this year as I did in the past. I put a lot of my everyday expenses on my credit card and pay it off monthly. I do accrue points but that also means I don’t get any change back.

I did plan for the Ipod so it’s not like I don’t have the cash to buy it. I just wanted to use the change and keep the cash for something else.