Melissa's Personal Finance Blog

I took a new job at the end of the school year, knowing that I was going to take a pay cut. It cuts my daily commute from 2 hours to 1/2 hour, saving me tons in gas, tolls, and oil changes for my 200k+mile car. My share of the health/dental insurance is a fraction of what it was at my former job, so I figured I would come out about even anyway.

When I got my contract, they had me at the Master's level instead of the CAS/Doctorate level. I asked about it, and they said since I don't officially have either, I will have to stay at the Master's level. Like I tell my students, persuasive writing is one of the most important things they can learn to do, as it will help them for the rest of their lives. So . . . I wrote a persuasive email to the superintendent back in July. I explained that I could have my CAS right now, but if I did that, I can't get my doctorate; it's one or the other, and I am working on my dissertation because I want my doctorate. I also explained that I know everyone is trying to save money, but think how much they will save because I already have my M.Ed (so they don't have to pay for classes), and I have my National Board Certification (another $2500).

I got home the other night to an email from my supervisor, out of the blue, saying they decided to raise me to the CAS level. :-) I had already signed my contract at the lower pay, so I was thrilled. It's only $2k, but it's $2k more than I was making a month ago :-), and it's the point that they are acknowledging my credentials. So, with this, I will probably end up with more money in my pocket than I was making in my previous district, plus will gain so much more personal time back in commuting.

It's a nice start to the school year.

(Numbers updated for those who asked about it.) At the end of June, our debt snowball was at $204. Since then, along with debts paid off, I added subscriptions that I canceled. This month I added $37 from paying off my iPhone, and we got our first combined cell phone bill, which saved us $63/mo. As bizarre as it seems, the combined bill is .26 less than my husband's individual bill was. It pays to take some time to really go over what you need for a plan.

Anyway, with those two amounts added, we are now at $439 for a debt snowball. The next debt is only $343, and I paid the extra $63 from the phone bill to it, as well as $25 from the pawn shop. It's now at $255.

**edited to add: just realized I had $32 left in my tolls category, but with my new job, I won't be paying tolls. Put that on current debt, which is now at $223.

The next debt is only $320, so between the leftover debt snowball, and a giant yard sale I am having with my family in a couple weeks, I'm hoping to see that debt gone this month too. I'll have some unusual bills to cover though, so I don't know if we can do it; I'm going to try.

Paid of my iPhone. When I called, they sort of tried to talk me out of it by telling me I would not be eligible for an upgrade if I paid off my loan. The representative actually said, "Are you sure you want to do this?" OMG!!! Crazy.

Anyway, with this payment gone, our debt snowball is now bigger than our next debt, so some will go on the following debt as well. With that in mind, I'm looking for all the extra money I can find to see if we can pay of two debts in August.

Have been doing some Field Agent stuff, and have $24.40 that I will try to cash out, and found some more jewelry for the pawn shop. Would love to find enough money to take out the next *two* debts in August!
Accounts left to pay off

Truck $27k

***Under $1500***
CitiBank CC $1485
Capital One CC $1380
Discover CC $1250
Target CC $1270
PayPal #1 $1120

***Under $1k***
Dell $900
Walmart $780
BN CC $775
Home Depot $670
Amazon $730
Ulta $650
PayPal #2 $660
Old QS CC $320
BuyPower CC $340

***Paid Off***
iPhone 8/'18 $336
Venus CC 7/'18 $325
Lenscrafters CC 7/'18 $250
Lowes CC 7/'18 $230
JCP CC 5'18
QS CC ??/'18
CareCredit CC ??/'18

***Extra money in***
We sold jewelry at the pawn shop, broken gold and silver online, sold my motorcycle, and changed our cell phone plan.


***Debt Progress***
We ended up paying off three small cards (Lowe's, Venus, Lenscrafters), putting us about two months ahead in our debt payoff plan.


***August Extra Money Plans***
-found a few more pieces of jewelry for the pawn shop
-gathering tons of items for a big yard sale with several other family members
-old mechanic interested in my spare car

The $300 from selling my old, broken jewelry online, plus the minimum payment, is enough to pay off the next debt in the snowball.


Accounts left to pay off

Truck

***Under $1500***
CitiBank CC
Capital One CC
Discover CC
Target CC
PayPal #1
Dell

***Under $1k***
Walmart
BN CC
Home Depot
Amazon
Ulta
PayPal #2
Old QS CC
BuyPower CC
iPhone

***Paid Off***
Venus CC 7/'18
Lenscrafters CC 7/'18
Lowes CC 7/'18
JCP CC 5'18
QS CC ??/'18
CareCredit CC ??/'18

Again, this is really just for me to keep track of our progress. Paying off Lenscrafters.


Accounts left to pay off

Truck

***Under $1500***
CitiBank CC
Capital One CC
Discover CC
Target CC
PayPal #1
Dell

***Under $1k***
Walmart
BN CC
Home Depot
Amazon
Ulta
PayPal #2
Old QS CC
BuyPower CC
iPhone
Venus CC

***Paid Off***
Lenscrafters CC 7/'18
Lowes CC 7/'18
JCP CC 5'18
QS CC ??/'18
CareCredit CC ??/'18

I sold my motorcycle to a fabulous young woman heading to college for small engine repair. I listed it for $400, she offered me $300, I was so happy to sell it to her that I took it right away, no negotiating. Happy to have it gone and for her to have it. She's already named it Gretchen . . .

Took some old jewelry to the pawn shop and got $80 for it. I didn't even think I would get $50, so counting that as a super win.

Paid off another debt, and set aside $60 as my husband feels more comfortable when we have more than just the basic emergency fund, so we are doing a 52 week (sort of) challenge at the same time as paying off debt.

I've not sold any of my stuff on CL yet, and I'm getting antsy. The $63/mo savings on our cell phones won't kick in until the end of August, beginning of September. I am still collecting items for a large yard sale at the end of August that will involve two other families.


I have a friend who used sellyourgold.com before, so I decided to go through my jewelry, dig deep, and sell some of the things I haven't worn in years. In total, it's about an ounce, although there are some pearls on a gold chain, so the weight isn't all gold. I'll be mailing it tomorrow morning, and hoping for the best. I have to drive about 20 miles to a Fedex location, so I'll use my BBB gift card while I'm in the area, and I'll also try some of the Field Agent jobs I've heard about.

***Update*** They offered me $297 for the gold, plus an additional $5 if I left a review, so I did. $300 seems like a little less than I expected, but still high enough that we decided to accept it. After all, it's mostly a pile of broken jewelry, and this will just about pay off another debt.

I took some time yesterday to really delve into combining our cell phone plans as we are with different carriers. When all was said and done, we ended up saving $63/mo versus our previous individual plans. We also got a $100 accessories gift card for the store.

$63 more to the debt snowball starting in September.

I also went to buy a new hair clip with my very small pocket money allowance, and was appalled that they were $5. I needed a new one, so decided to buy it anyway. When I got to the register, I had $3 in rewards (!), so paid only $2 for the clip.

I also had a $10 off a $10 purchase at Staples, so bought a $9.99 pack of blank discs and a .99 storage bin.

It was a good money day. Now, if I could sell any of the things I put on CL, I'd be super happy as I could actually pay off a debt.

I decided to sell some things I don't need or use anymore (or enough to keep right now at least) on Craig's List. I dragged them out of the garage yesterday, cleaned them up, and posted them last night. I will take almost anything to get them gone, but I've posted my rototiller for $400, motorcycle for $400, and my practically new motorcycle helmet for $75. A couple responses so far, but no real interest.

I think we sold an old beast of a snowblower for $100. It worked up until someone offered to 'fix' it for me at the start of last year, after which it never started again. The buyer is supposed to come today; not counting my money until it's in my hands, but this would be more than just money, it's also one eyesore hulking pile of metal that will be gone from the back of the yard.

I'm also gathering up everything I can come up with to bring down to my mother's at the end of August to have a big yard sale.

Hopefully I can look back on this over the coming months and see how much progress I've made. We are being financially strangled by a million small minimum payments on credit cards. The plus side of that is with so many with balances under (and mostly well under) $1k, progress comes quickly and keeps me motivated.

Accounts left to pay off

Truck

***Under $1500***
CitiBank CC
Capital One CC
Discover CC
Target CC
PayPal #1
Dell

***Under $1k***
Walmart
BN CC
Home Depot
Amazon
Ulta
PayPal #2
Old QS CC
BuyPower CC
Venus CC
iPhone
Lenscrafters CC

***Paid Off***
Lowes CC 7/'18
JCP CC 5'18
QS CC ?? '18
CareCredit CC ?? '18

I came across this site while looking for some Dave Ramsey forms. I couldn't believe my old posts were even still here! It was amazing reading through them as my life is so different now.

Of course, I wrote an amazingly long post, and got logged out/timed out/whatever, so lost it all. So . . . redoing the quick version.

**This will be boring for anyone to read; it's for my accountability. Just warning anyone who might read it. You'll never get those minutes back. ;-)**

Worked really hard before to become debt free, also got divorced. Saved up money, bought a cheap house for cash, bought two used cars for cash so that when one was in the garage for repairs I could still get to work, saved up for an amazing solo vacation to Moorea, an island off Tahiti, and most of a trip to Iceland with some friends.

***Going Back Into Debt
Got back from Tahiti a little broke, but came across a car that was much better than mine, for a crazy low price. Ended up using my EF to buy it and pay for the few repairs it needed. Started using my credit card . . . but didn't touch my long term EF. Dumb.

Met my future husband. Spent the remaining EF on our wedding. It was an amazing dream wedding that we only spent $4k on, so totally worth it. We lived in his small apartment (long story) until we could move into my house. Ended up charging my spending money in Iceland; bought a new washer for the house; spent oodles of money redoing the bedroom at the house; and spent tons of money while living at the apartment because it was quite stressful to be there and we agreed that we would rather go into credit card debt than deal with living in the apartment without being able to have fun. And fun we had. Now it's time to pay down the debt.

***Income situation
This is a little up in the air as I am changing jobs. I'll make less money, but pay less for insurance, and will avoid the daily tolls and 2 hour daily commute cost, so the lower pay should be offset by the savings in gas/tolls and insurance. Together we should make $75-$80k.

***Debt situation
We have about $10k across a bunch of credit cards (about $3k mine before meeting my husband), and about $30k left on my husband's truck. We pay about $500/mo toward credit cards and $550 for the truck. I've worked out the debt snowball by hand and with the debt snowball calculator on undebtit. We should be free of debt by October 2021.

***Goal
My goal is to look back on this post four years from now and think, omg, curbing spending sucked, but it was so worth it. We have two mortgage-free houses (inherited family vacation home on river that we use for vacation), a beautiful paid truck, no debt at all, and a fully funded 3-6 month EF.

Again, this is just for me to keep a running log of my debt as I hopefully get it all paid off.

Merrick Bank $442.28
PayPal PayLater $61.99
Orchard Bank $479.21 (a stupid annual fee)
Capital One $1359
AT&T $75.17 (They added $29 to my bill when I canceled prior to my next billing cycle. Jerks)

Total April: $2417.65
Total March: $2609.74

Paid Off
Target
HSN
Macys
IKEA
Sam's...

Last Month
Target: $24.40 paid
HSN: $39.00
PayPal Pay Later: $140.00
Merrick Bank: $465.31
Orchard Bank $443.40
Capital One: $1362.63
AT&T (last phone bill)$135.00

It is so little debt in the grand scheme of things, but it seems like it is taking forever to pay off!

Total:$2609.74

Paid Off
Macys
IKEA
Sam's...

Since I know I'll forget about this, I wanted to document it to remind myself of how silly it is.

I switched from my iPhone to a Virgin Mobile slide/touch phone about three weeks ago (and will be saving a ton of money doing so). For the first couple of weeks, when I took out my little phone, I felt a bit uncomfortable, like I couldn't afford an iPhone or something. I was shocked that I would feel like that over a phone. Now I'm fine with my new, non-status phone. (Not that iPhones are status symbols anymore, everyone has one it seems, but still . . .)

Soooo, I'm leaving work at the same time as several people yesterday, and start noticing all the shiny new cars in our parking lot. There were a couple older cars, but mostly new. It didn't bother me at all to walk over to my definitely non-status symbol car. It's a 1998 Ford Escort wagon with 72k miles (30k of them mine). The paint is nice; it has one tiny dent FROM BEING TOWED, but is in great body/engine shape.

Why my phone bothered me but my car doesn't just seemed odd to me.

I've never purchased anything from Living Social, but earlier this week they had a pizza deal for a place I've wanted to try, and you got $2 extra dollars off if you watched the trailer for a new television show. I thought I was getting a good deal - $20 gift certificate for $8.

I checked my account this morning, and there is $10 'processing' and $8 and $10 charges listed as holds, all for Living Social. Maybe it will be fixed, but in the meantime it's on my mind and aggravating me. What's the problem? Charge me the $8 that showed up at checkout and be done with it. I don't understand why there are many different charges/holds (3) on my account for one purchase.

So I had my traffic court appearance today and got nothing, nada, zip. Before I even could explain, the judge asked if I had switched insurance. I told him yes, and that I had documents from Geico, and copies of what I sent to Harrisburg to prove I had insurance back in March of 2010 when I switched carriers. He said this happens all the time.

He mumbled something to the clerk and told me to go sit on a bench and wait to be called to sign my paperwork. I asked about getting some of my $436.00 back, and told him that the previous judge told me I should get all but the 'administrative fee' of $75 back if I could prove I had insurance and had given notice of such to Harrisburg. The judge didn't even want to see any of that. He said that they don't give any money back -- he literally said they can't afford to do that (I know, who in the world would ever believe that in a million years. I really wish I would have taped the whole thing). Then he said that he dropped the $594 fine for the suspended registration even though my registration *was* suspended at the time. Gee, thanks for the favor.

So . . . as a last resort I am going to forward all my information to the PA Attorney General's office and see if they'll look at it. Years and years ago Wells Fargo screwed up my mortgage, and I forwarded all the information to the AG, they took on my case, and Wells Fargo had to right things. Hopefully I'll be lucky again.

Oh well. I was hoping to get at least a couple hundred dollars back to infuse my now non-existent EF. After the $400 in January, then $400 in February for inspection and repairs, I'm more broke than I've been in about forever.

So it's not the first until tomorrow, I just want to get this in. My plan is to update at the beginning of each month so I can track my progress. I estimated last month, so these numbers are correct.

Target: $24.40 paid
HSN: $39.00
PayPal Pay Later: $140.00
Merrick Bank: $465.31
Orchard Bank $443.40
Capital One: $1362.63
AT&T (last phone bill)$135.00

It is so little debt in the grand scheme of things, but it seems like it is taking forever to pay off!

Paid
Macys
IKEA
Sam's Club

To set the stage, I started a new job the last week of October and took a giant pay cut. On top of that, my first five bimonthly paychecks were prorated, and $400 less than they normally would be. I had some money in the bank (knowing I would be switching jobs), but barely enough to get through until my pay went back up. Of course, I had also planned on getting paid for the sick time and personal time that I had built up my first two years at my previous job (75% for personal/25% for sick), using that as a buffer. Apparently you have to give 90 days notice or you forfeit all that money. Okay. FU. It's worth it to get out of that horrible job that had me unable to sleep at night, wake up in the morning, go through lockdowns, and have my family constantly worry for my safety.

That left me super broke though.

I got a tutoring job. I sold books on half.com and classroom sets on ebay. I cut everywhere I could cut. We got in a screaming fight because I said we weren't going to make two damn trips to the Dollar Store in one day and waste gas. We turned the heat down and used only single lamps with high efficiency bulbs. Boiled water for pasta and then shut off the gas to let the pasta cook for 20 minutes with no heat. Spun clothes dry and hung them on a rack. Seriously. We did everything.

We had the most minimal Christmas you could think of. My parents paid our gas and tolls so we would go to their house. By January we were broke, but knew my income was going to go up by $800 that month.

On January 5th my car got towed because someone in Harrisburg screwed up. When we switched insurance, Hbg thought our insurance was canceled, and they sent us a notice to either send our plates or proof of insurance. We faxed in proof. We were actually covered by two different companies during the time they said we didn't have insurance. We got another notice saying our fax wasn't legible, send in copies. We did. We have copies of our fax receipt and the letters we sent with proof. We heard nothing else. Then our car gets towed nine months later.

We brought all our receipts/copies to traffic court so we could prove we had insurance and go get our car from the PPA. It was like a cross between Parking Wars and a Kafka novel. $600 later we had our car and another court date (3/8), and we were informed that we *might* get our money back if we had proof (we also have proof from the insurance company that they notified Hbg) of insurance for that time period. Oh, even if we proved we had insurance and Hbg was notified we wouldn't get back $75 of our money because it was an 'administrative' fee.

Okay. So we're flat broke now. Literally using change to buy milk, and rationing that out.

We start to climb out of the hole. With my Feb. 15th paycheck, I actually splurge and let us each have $15. We did have to get our car inspected, and knew there would be about a $130 repair. Okay. That sucks. But we had money for it -- amazing considering what's gone one. What happens? One side of the emergency brake is frozen, and if I want the car inspected it will be $398. So, again, I'm flat broke. My next paycheck on the 28th will cover rent and bills that are due before the 15th, leaving about $115 until I get paid on the 15th. Thankfully I'll have a small tutoring check and my husband's small check, but those don't add up to much. My check on the 15th will be used to start building up savings again, which I'm sure will disappear to another unforeseen disaster.

Sometimes it just gets so depressing to scrimp and save and go without just to have it all taken away.

Since WF bought Wachovia, I thought I'd check on what was going to happen to my Wachovia Rewards account. I logged in and found that I had 5,229 points. After reading the faqs, I learned that WF will charge $12 per year to take part in the rewards program.

The first thing I did was use 5,200 pts to 'buy' $40 that will be credited to my checking account. Now I want to see how many points, on average, I would earn by paying bills with my card. I don't really use my card for anything else, since I'm one of those people who, if I don't have a cash envelope for a category (gas, groceries, etc.) I tend to spend more than I planned. The only thing I really use my card for is paying bills online, so I doubt it will end up being worth it.

My husband and I both have iPhones that we've had for years. I've been really annoyed at AT&T because my bill is about $130 per month.

I finally decided to break with my iPhone, which kills me, but I need to get this debt paid off so I can start saving money again.

I bought us each an LG Rumor Touch phone from Virgin Mobile, and signed up for the $25 plan. Unlimited text and web, and 300 minutes of talk time. That should be fine for us since we mostly text.

This will save us about $80 per month, so the phones will pay for themselves in about two months or so.

Again, it pains me to lose my iPhone, but I downloaded Opera Mini to the new phone, and I can deal with it for $80 per month savings.

Target: $24.40
HSN: $39.00
PayPal Pay Later: $170.00
Merrick Bank: $451.00
Orchard Bank $428.00
Capital One: $1326.00

I don't know what my student loan payment will be because I'm going to be on the Income Contingent Plan. I am going to begin an Ed.D. program, but my job pays tuition. YAY!! I should add that $3K per year to my income as I will use it every year.

I haven't posted since 2006, and I'm so surprised my blog is still here. I get a new job, moved to a new city, went back to school to get my Master's, and completely forgot the name of this site.

A few weeks ago I was searching for something else and this site came up! I was so excited! I had completely forgotten the few things I wrote about (at the time I actually canceled internet and used it only at work, so I stopped posting anything anywhere). I'm going to lay out my situation so that I have a record of where I am and what my plans are.

I left the job I moved here for, taking about a $15K paycut, which, believe it or not, was totally worth it not just for the piece of mind, but for the kick in the pants it gave me about money. I sort of went on a spending spree over the summer planning to go back to my awful job, but ended up switching jobs, taking a pay cut, and having too much debt.

Since no one knows who I am :-), I'm going to lay out where I am and where I want to be for my own records.

After massive pay cut, $48,500 salary. Hopefully I will get a generous raise next year. I get an extra $200 or so per month from tutoring, and my husband makes about$70/week at a weekend job (he homeschools our son during the week).

I am going to do a 'debt' and a 'budget' post so I don't have to wade through everything to see where I am.

I just got my direct deposit notice, and I apparently got a $12.00 raise in my living stipend. It was actually a nice surprise since I didn't expect it at all. Every other week I will take that right off the top and put it into my emergency fund so it will be like I never even got it. It's just $312 extra over the course of a year, but I'll certainly take it!

.07 from my husband's car
12.69 from my car
-----
12.76 this pay period

My husband's car was completely empty because he made an out-of-state trip last week. I was pretty psyched about my car, but unfortunately I have a trip for work this weekend, and I won't be getting reimbursed for my travel. My destination is about 1.5 hours from here, and I'll be doing some driving once I'm there. Hopefully I won't use too much gas. I also have a trip next week (not a budgeted gas week) that I will get reimbursed for, so I'm trying to figure out how to account for that. Maybe a category for reimbursed work expenses/expenses, and another for reimbursed work expenses/income to even it out? I'll have to think about how to account for that since I do it about once per month.

I'be been trying to figure out what to do for a $20 challenge for the past few weeks. I've been trying to find some new place where I've been 'leaking' money, and it finally came to me. I budget $40 for gas every other week for both of our cars, and don't go over that unless we have a long trip somewhere (rarely) or I have to travel for work and my reimbursement for travel is mailed to me after the fact. However, we are often under the budgeted amount, and I leave that extra in the checking account, where, eventually, we spend it on something else.

So, my $20 challenge will be to transfer all of the budgeted money I don't use for gas to my $20 challenge account. It won't be much, and it will only be every other week, but I feel like that is an area that I 'cheat' in by treating that extra bit of money as fun money and wasting it. I only have an emergency fund account set up at ING, so I am going to try to set up a subaccount today to get my challenge started. I don't know what I am going to use that money for yet, but I'm sure I can come up with something. :-)

I spent this week earning my CPR/AED/First Aid instructor's certificate from the Red Cross. I am now certified to teach CPR/AED/FA classes; I'm so excited! Part of my current job is to teach these skills to low income populations for free, so I will get a lot of instructor experience this year! I'm not allowed to have a second job until my term is up next August, but hopefully, after that, CPR training will provide me with a little extra income since I'll be able to be a per diem community/workplace instructor. I think knowing basic first aid and CPR is extremely important, and if I could afford the manikins, I would teach it for free to anyone who wanted to learn.

On a different note, when I went grocery shopping last week I got a nice surprise at the checkout -- a '$10 off your next grocery purchase' from Kraft, with no purchase requirements. Since I don't buy packaged foods, I'm not sure what Kraft products I bought (other than cheese), but, I don't really care! :-)

This weekend I plan to go over my budget and finances again as I've been a little lax over the past two weeks. I also finally got a copy of The Total Money Makeover and the workbook that goes with it. I started it last night and hope to at least skim through the whole thing over the next couple days.

OT, but related to an earlier post--
Well, the check I was worried about earlier still has not come in. I have no idea what is going on, so I think I will have to call the hospital. Thankfully I have plenty of money in the account to pay for it now.
***********************************
My husband and I are going through the process of adopting, and we had our first home study appointment last night. It was a joint interview that lasted about three hours and asked everything you could imagine about us, our marriage, our lifestyle, our parenting philosophy, and our financial situation.

The embarrassing part -- when she asked how much money we have left over each month, I didn't really know! August has been so crazy, and we have been so off-budget, that all I could do was guess. I explained that we (unexpectedly) had our two nieces for one week, then our nephew for another, we had an out-of-state funeral, had to buy a new (used) care because ours died (paid cash), and we also had our vacation in August. Oh, and we make very little money right now. I told her that I automatically had $62.50 per paycheck put into our ING account, along with whatever was left from my husband's paycheck every other week. I knew every one of our bills. We prepaid our car insurance, we have life insurance, etc.

We were very concerned that, making so little money, we might not be considered qualified to adopt. Well, she was actually very complimentary about first, our conscious decision to live as we do, second, about the fact that we knew what our bills were, and third, that we believed in saving money in an emergency fund. Although we are very financially depleted due to the crazy month of August, she said it was clear that we understood financial management, and knowing that what we went through in August didn't put us in debt or into an emergency situation, it was obvious that we were financially okay. She also said that she does home studies with people who make a lot more than us, and who have NO savings at all, and have huge credit card debt (we have none). We felt really good after the interview.

So I guess the whole 'it's not what you make, it's what you save' really does count. :-)

I've been reading all the posts about poor people lately, and I just got this quote in my email, from Discovery Health no less:

When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.
- Saint Jerome

I just felt it was appropriate.

Okay, so I finally decided to start a public blog as a way to actually admit the problems I am having with sticking to my budget.

I paid two hospital bills last month, one for $640. & one for $1640. Well, I ended up having to go to a funeral, which cost me about $125 to go to (gas, tolls, etc.), and $100 for a donation to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in lieu of flowers. I knew I didn't have that money budgeted, but this person was very important to my family, and I really wanted to donate.

Knowing that would overdraw my checking account, I transferred $200 from my ING account (leaving just $600 after having to buy a new *used* car last month). I also had my nephew for an unexpected week, and spent more than I had planned. The $1640 hospital check bounced because I wasn't paying attention to my account during the time around the funeral. I transferred money from my savings account to cover that, leaving barely $100 between my two savings accounts at the credit union.

Then, I'm checking my account, making sure I have enough money to cover the bounced check when it comes back in, and out of nowhere I see a $240 check cashed. I found out that it was a check that I had written at the beginning of June before I started using MS Money, and I thought it had already been cashed. So, now the only way I can cover that bounced check is to transfer almost all my ING savings into my checking account and I don't want to do that even though I know I should. Leaving myself no emergency money at all just won't work psychologically for me, especially after all the emergencies I've experienced lately.

So, if the bounced check comes in after Wed. at midnight when I get my direct deposit, it will be paid. If it comes in before that it will be sent back to me, and, here is where my guilty conscience kicks in, I am only going to pay part of it and make monthly payments on the remaining balance so that I can keep some of the money. I know I should just transfer some of the ING money, but I just can't bear to do that. I worked really hard to save money, and all of a sudden my car breaks (frame, so it couldn't be fixed) and I have an out-of-state funeral to attend, and my savings are virtually gone. I feel very vulnerable with only a couple hundred dollars in savings, so I am most likely going to avoid paying the hospital the full amount all at once by letting the check get returned. I know. That's really horrible.

There it is, my guilty conscience.