Debt Report Nov. 2008
Debt balances:
- Dentist (broke another tooth): $415
- Attorney: $449
- IRS: $2,581.27 (TY 2007)
- LDR: $2,735.00 (Louisiana Department of Revenue, TY 2007, no payments scheduled yet)
- Chase HELOC: $4,742.82 (couldn’t pay this month)
- CFCU Visa: $4,987.86 (could only pay $85, still owe $65 for Nov.)
- Capital One HELOC: $21,434.99 (going on 2 months behind)
First mortgage balance: $116,476
Debt Balance excluding co-signed student loans and first mortgage: $37,346
Total debt including first mortgage, excluding student loans: $153,822
Student Loans:
- Co-signed student loans, approximate balance: $40,001 (got a letter this week from these folks; need a complete audit on these accounts; not sure this balance is correct)
Possible total balance including 1st mortgage: $193,823
Discussion
Man, when it rains, it pours. Another molar broke but the dentist was able to fill it with composite (an epoxy-like material) and that only cost $207 more. Now I owe my dentist $415.
I had a humiliating experience at Walmart this week. I was ready to pay for my groceries after checking out and found there wasn’t enough money in my checking account to cover the full amount of my grocery bill. I couldn’t think of anything that was supposed to have come out of my account that I didn’t account for in my balance, but obviously, something had been deducted. I later remembered it was my water/sewer bill. I had to give back items until my debit card was approved.
Now I know why people sort items on the conveyor belt in order of necessity rather than in order of where they go in the house once you get them home. I’ve seen that happening more often lately than ever before, and now I’m going to have to start doing it myself until I can get my income up again.
Income Is Down
Tutoring income has absolutely sucked since Hurricane Gustav in September. This month is better than October, which was better than September, but I’m nowhere near making what I was at this time last year. I’m not even making what I was making over the summer. I suppose people are cutting back on tutoring to save some money. It is expensive, especially when you go through a tutoring company. I made $640 tutoring in November. Other income amounted to $1,500. $2,140 in one month for two people puts us at just 183% of the poverty level. I made $1,805 in October (155% of the poverty level) but had a little bit left over from making good money over the summer as a cushion. The cushion is now gone.
I am distributing fliers of my own and I’ve picked up one regular student outside the company I work for, and that pays better. I also picked up a one-time client who was preparing to take the GED and wanted a quick math review. I had to lower my prices to get private clients. I was charging $45/hr, and now I’m charging $25/hr. It’s either that or I can’t pick up hours. My tutoring company has finally increased my number of students and I worked 8 hours over Thanksgiving week. I usually don’t have any hours Thanksgiving week because school is out. But this year it seems everyone is trying to get a jump on studying for mid-term exams.
Now that gas prices are back down, I was going to go back to pizza delivery since mowing season is over for a few months down here. Unfortunately, people aren’t ordering pizzas as much either, so there aren’t any delivery jobs available immediately. They’ll call me when they get an opening.
WordPress consulting and website building are still start-up endeavors. I earn at least a few hundred dollars a month from them, they take less time than anything else I do, and I get paid a lot more for them. I’m working my hardest on increasing these revenue streams.
I’m putting out fliers to local businesses who don’t have websites to see if I can drum up some more website work. I go through the yellow pages and call businesses who don’t have a website listed in their Yellow Pages ads and that I can’t find a website for when I do local searches. Every business at least needs a one-page website with their name and logo, address, phone and fax numbers, email address and a map to their store. Once built, a WordPress site is easy and very cheap to maintain, about $10/month.
Late Payments
Because of decreased income, I’m behind on my Capital One HELOC by two months. I paid late in September and didn’t have enough to make a payment in October or this month. I will have to remain behind until I can make up the money to bring it current. I’m also a month behind on my Chase HELOC now, and I couldn’t make my full Visa payment this month either. I couldn’t pay my dentist and I couldn’t pay my attorney.
The only things that were paid were the first mortgage, the utilities, prescriptions, food, one tank of gas in the car, $30 in web costs for my online businesses, and the IRS.
More Cost Reductions
I found out that I can get my telephone service through my cable company, who already provides our internet service, for $9/mo. I’m shutting off my phone service with the phone company and moving it to my cable company. I get to keep my number and it will save us another $20/mo. The $10/mo plus tax phone bill I was supposed to have through AT&T turned out to be $35 by they time they were finished adding everything up.
I’ve cut our grocery bill about in half. We are eating beans and rice, spaghetti, mac and cheese, and tuna along with cereal and sandwiches a lot. We’ve also started eating one breakfast food meal for dinner every week. My son loves pancakes for dinner. I love it that they are cheap to make.
I made an 11 pound turkey for Thanksgiving, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a pumpkin pie. After removing the turkey from the bones, I put them into the stock pot and they are simmering as I write. We are having turkey and sausage gumbo for supper tonight and left overs for the next couple of days. Then I’ll freeze any left over turkey for dumplings later this month. Gumbo freezes well and I’ll make a supper-sized meal of it to freeze along with some individual meals for something quick when we’re short on time.
We don’t get the newspaper, but we’ve scoured recycle bins on our street for the coupon sections of the Sunday paper, and I’ve increased the number of coupons I use. Every little bit helps.
Medicaid and Food Stamps
With my income so low for so long now, we qualify for Medicaid, and I’m signing us up. We do not qualify for food stamps because my income exceeds the 130% of poverty level maximum for a family of two. We may have to visit the local food bank if I’m short on money to buy food.
I know many of you feel accepting Medicaid is wrong, but here’s what’s really wrong. We can’t buy our own medical insurance, even if we could afford it, because of pre-existing conditions. I am an able-bodied scientist with a degree in chemistry and I can’t get a full-time job in the field at all. I hope some new jobs will come around in chemistry here as oil and chemical companies ramp up work on green technologies, but I’m not holding my breathe. I have my resume up-to-date and all my contacts contacted that I’m looking. I know there will be more interviews soon, but getting the job seems to be the problem. I have too much experience to get an entry-level job. They just won’t hire me for one. Temporary jobs used to be relatively available 5 years ago, but they also dried up as companies cut costs.
I am waiting to see if I will be hired into the local school system for the 2009-2010 school year as a chemistry, physics, biology, environmental science or math teacher. I would substitute teach these subjects, but I earn much more per day tutoring them. They only pay degreed subs $50/day while salaried teachers make $40,000 per year plus benefits starting out, and only work 9 months minus school holidays plus 2 weeks before school starts and 2 weeks after school ends for classroom set-up and clean-up time (I estimate 1560 hours per year). That comes to about $26 per hour for the time spent at work at school. You work for the county, so pay raises come annually and are tied to inflation as well as performance. Subs with college degrees only make $6.25/hour. Huge difference.
I usually have 3 or more students per evening, so I earn $60/day minimum tutoring, and $20-$25/hour. I also work 6-7 days per week during mid-terms and finals months, so my income goes up at the end of each semester. Why not do both? Subbing overlaps with my tutoring hours.
I earn money working other jobs during the day, so subbing isn’t worth the time to earn just $50 when I can earn at least $80. It’s especially lucrative when I can get consulting or website clients. When I deliver pizzas I do it during the day if possible or after tutoring, so about 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. I earn a minimum of $50 in tips for 4 hours of brain-dead easy work.
Lots of things are seriously broken when you can earn more delivering pizzas and tutoring than you can being a substitute teacher. BTW, they pay non-degreed subs (read babysitters) $35/day ($4.38/hr), so think about what that means when your kids have a substitute teacher. The person babysitting them at school earns less than you probably paid your own babysitters when those kids were little. They certainly earn less than people who work at fast food chains for the minimum wage.
Goals
I am going to set the following goals to achieve over the next 3 months.
- I am going to quadruple my passive online income from a steady $125/month to at least $500/month.
- I am going to quadruple my active online income from $200/month to $800/month.
- I am going to get my tutoring income back up to $1,100/month.
That will put us back up to nearly 250% ($2917/mo in 2008) of the poverty level for a household of two. We will still remain on Medicaid and we’ll have to pay a small premium once we exceed the 200% of poverty level income threshold. I hope by the time my income exceeds 250% of the poverty level that President Obama’s health care plan will have passed and we will have access to medical insurance on a sliding scale based on our income.
I know you hard-core Dave Ramsey folks are dead set against national health care, but you fail miserably at solving my household’s problem of not being eligible for insurance at any price, let alone affordable insurance. I should be able to purchase reasonably-priced health insurance even though both my son and I have chronic, pre-existing medical conditions. Today, that isn’t possible.
[...] Debt Report Nov. 2008 Every business at least needs a one-page website with their name and logo, address, phone and fax numbers, email address and a map to their store. Once built, a WordPress site is easy and very cheap to maintain, about $10/month. … [...]
Pingback by free e-mail account | CNN.com | November 29, 2008
[...] Debt Report Nov. 2008 $2140 in one month for two people puts us at just 183% of the poverty level. I made $1805 in October (155% of the poverty level) but had a little bit left over from making good money over the summer as a cushion. … [...]
Pingback by level 3 | CNN.com | November 29, 2008
[...] Debt Report Nov. 2008 I had to lower my prices to get private clients. I was charging $45/hr, and now I’m charging $25/hr. It’s either that or I can’t pick up hours. My tutoring company has finally increased my number of students and I worked 8 hours over … [...]
Pingback by private health insurance companies | CNN.com | November 29, 2008
[...] Debt Report Nov. 2008 I was ready to pay for my groceries after checking out and found there wasn’t enough money in my checking account to cover the full amount of my grocery bill. I couldn’t think of anything that was supposed to have come out of my account … [...]
Pingback by checking accounts | NBA.COM | November 29, 2008
[...] Debt Report Nov. 2008 I am waiting to see if I will be hired into the local school system for the 2009-2010 school year as a chemistry, physics, biology, environmental science or math teacher. I would substitute teach these subjects, but I earn much more per … [...]
Pingback by current science | CNN.com | November 29, 2008
[...] Debt Report Nov. 2008 I was ready to pay for my groceries after checking out and found there wasn’t enough money in my checking account to cover the full amount of my grocery bill. I couldn’t think of anything that was supposed to have come out of my account … [...]
Pingback by free money to start a business | CNN.com | November 29, 2008
[...] Debt Report Nov. 2008 Every business at least needs a one-page website with their name and logo, address, phone and fax numbers, email address and a map to their store. Once built, a WordPress site is easy and very cheap to maintain, about $10/month. … [...]
Pingback by free email account | Digg.com | November 29, 2008
[...] Debt Report Nov. 2008 I hope by the time my income exceeds 250% of the poverty level that President Obama’s health care plan will have passed and we will have access to medical insurance on a sliding scale based on our income. … [...]
Pingback by private health insurance | AMD.com | November 29, 2008
Have you *actually* applied for open positions as a Chemical Engineer, such as the 20 or so within 30 miles of your home on Monster Board, with four or five different companies?
Because your wording is very vague — just passing your resume to some folks you know is not the same as hitting the job search hard, and actually interviewing, trying to get hired.
Also, isn’t it time you get your child into a normal public school, give up on all your weird little odd jobs, buckle down and admit that your thinking about money from blogging, or being a Robin Hood Financial Counselor for the oppressed is simply not working for you?
Finally, you are nearly 48years old, and frankly, seem to still be living in a dream world of wishes and make believe, even while you drop to poverty. Real life is often tedious, monotonous, boring, and frankly, a drag. But well-functioning adults learn that accepting certain requirements allows us freedom in other ways, and lets us be productive members of society.
I hope you don’t take this as heartless, but IMHO, you simply need to Grow Up, already.
Comment by Wake Up | November 29, 2008
@wake up,
First off, I’m a Chemist, not a Chemical Engineer – huge difference in education and in job duties and responsibilities. You are obviously not in the industry or you would know that. You would also know that by contacts, I mean local staffing agencies all the companies use AND all my former colleagues are scouring the area within 50 miles of Baton Rouge for temporary and permanent jobs I might be qualified for.
Second, you didn’t use your real name, even your first name, and you have no link to your website, so you are a coward. You won’t even tell me who you are, so why should I listen to you or explain anything to you? I shouldn’t. But for anyone else reading, I will explain things more clearly for them.
You also don’t seem to know that I spent 20 years as a full-time chemist working my ass off just to get laid off when my entire lab was outsourced to a temp agency. I can’t work for my old company for my old job even as a temp because of the terms of the lay-off. I’ve been called 5 times for interviews at my old company (for less pay, fewer benefits)and I get cut off each time they try to sign me up for an interview. That is in addition to the 20 or so interviews I go on every year to other companies and to local and state government agencies.
I’m getting tired of explaining my industry (petrochemical) and its practices to those who don’t have a clue about how they operate. This industry has shipped more jobs overseas than just about any other since 2000. The few jobs that remain are very hard to get when I’m competing against people 20 years younger than me who often have a Ph.D. that they can hire for less because of their lack of overall experience but specific skill sets that I don’t have.
I’m a wet chemist. That pretty much qualifies me for a job in the last century, not in the new one. At least not in the traditional petrochemical companies. There have just been another round of layoffs, so industry jobs are fewer still and more people are looking.
I have my resume out to 5 agencies who are looking hard for companies in the newer green technologies that are beginning to start up. I have a lot of research experience and would be an asset to a small company who doesn’t have as much choice of employees because of vaguer job descriptions and the need to use research experience flexibly in new areas. They also tend to pay less and don’t provide benefits. But, it would be full-time work at a full-time salary of at least $25/hr.
You also don’t seem to grasp that for every analytical chemist job open, there are about 300 people applying for it. Not good odds. That’s why I’m tutoring, working on an online business, and why I’m working towards a full-time teaching position through the Teach Baton Rouge program. It’s our local Teach for America program. But, you have to apply the year before the school year you would be teaching. Salaries for Teach BR applicants went up to $40,000/yr, nearly double what salaries were just a year ago.
Don’t tell me to grow up when you don’t understand what’s going on. You need to get a clue about the chemical industry economy. I’ve explained this situation in previous posts and comments.
Those of you still telling me to grow up and get a job either haven’t read what I’ve written or haven’t grasped the situation. The oil industry is flush with cash for more than a couple of reasons. One is that they have downsized to almost beyond bare bones staff. If I had been offered any full-time chemist job I would have taken it.
Government jobs are hard to get because you have to wait for someone to retire or die for a position to open up.
So, YOU need to face the realities I’m facing. I’m doing whatever I can to make enough money to live on and its growing each month. I’m doing whatever I have to do until I get a full-time job. My business may take off and provide a sufficient income along with tutoring by next fall. I don’t know.
But I have to do whatever I can NOW to bring in money. This month is mid-term exams and I’ve picked up several new students and my regulars are scheduling more hours. That will mean my tutoring income will be back up to normal this month, more than double what I made in November. That plus child support pays the basic bills. My online and related income pay for catching up where I’m behind.
IMHO, you need to get a CLUE.
Comment by joubess | December 2, 2008
Sherri:
I appreciate your full and errrr… ‘vigorous’ response. It actually gives me hope that you are more engaged and aware than I have previously given you credit for. Keep that level of energy up, and directed to moving forward!
As to me being a ‘coward’ — puhlease — I use a pseudonym on the internet because I do not desire to have my particulars strewn about and picked over — in fact, there is some speculation that the reason you have failed to be hired is your own rather shameless blogging about your debt and responses to it, as well as other details. The cat’s out of the bag on that now, but it is something to consider.
In any event, whether you believe it or not, I do wish you well, and appreciate your spirited defense and explanation of your particulars, as you see it.
Given all of that, I am unmoved from my own conviction that if a person is actually needing full time regular employment to bail themselves out of a heavy debt situation, attempting to ‘blog for dollars’ or invest even a moment on ANY internet money schemes, is complete folly.
And just so you know, I have hired many Engineers and Technicians within the high tech industry (not petro), and managed same, so I am not so ‘clueless’ as your emotional response would purport. Rather than telling me what *I* ‘don’t grasp’ and ‘fail to appreciate’ and ‘haven’t read’, I’d just offer that you seem to have gotten my intended message – Concentrate your efforts are meaningful full time work that leverages your skills, experience, and education. You claim to be doing that, and I so I say more power to you.
While I already apparently have your dander up, I guess I’ll make it a complete circuit and offer one more morsel of unsolicited advice — why would you still be associated with someone else’s student loan debt? IMHO, you need to use every effort to disentangle yourself from that odd situation. There is no other part of your situation that would bear as immediate fruit as resolving that to your favor.
I leave you with my honest best wishes, and hope that your visceral over-reaction to my one-time chiding isn’t a symptom of why you were among those selected for lay off in the first place, and why you also don’t seem to be able to get re-employed in any meaningful capacity.
Comment by Wake Up | December 6, 2008
Wake Up: You still don’t get it.
I was not laid off because of my “attitude”, I was laid off because my entire lab was outsourced. I wasn’t the only one who went by-by. It wasn’t personal. It was a fact of life of being employed at will in the petrochemical industry. Just because you are in a tech field does not enlighten you to the world of petrochemistry. I do not claim to know anything of consequence in other technical fields, especially when it comes to their hiring and employment practices and opportunities.
You still haven’t stood corrected about the difference between chemists and chemical engineers.
“I do not desire to have my particulars strewn about and picked over”. You can do it to someone else, but they can’t do it to you. I see. Ya, you’re a real piece of work.
If you fear being yourself on the internet and feel you must use a synonym, then you are a coward, or maybe worse, a sociopath. Can’t take responsibility for what you say in public? If you are in any way afraid to be yourself and you are ashamed of anything you might say online, maybe you shouldn’t be saying it at all. If you can’t own up to it, don’t say it in the first place.
If anything I say on this blog or any other is not kosher with a potential employer, so be it. I refuse to live in fear of what others think of me. So I’ll continue to be in your face on my blogs.
In chemistry you don’t handle money, so my debt and credit situation are not of any consequence.
FYI, I just got a terrific sponsorship with MSNBC on one of my blogs and it will be quite profitable. You may not appreciate what I have to say, but MSNBC does and is willing to pay for it.
You aren’t willing to pay to put your opinion here. Or if you are, click on the “buy me a coffee” button and cough up some cash.
But quit sitting in judgment of others if you are unwilling to be judged yourself.
Comment by joubess | December 10, 2008
One more thing, Wake Up:
I co-signed on a student loan for someone else. I am trying my best to get that person to pay the loan. But if she can’t, I will end up stuck with it and there is no way out of it. It is not bankruptable. It’s not secured so it can be the last thing I pay, but I can’t get out of it.
That’s why one should never co-sign for anyone else on a loan. The co-signer will very likely end up paying the loan. I didn’t know that when I did it, and I’ll never do it again, not even for my own mother.
Comment by joubess | December 10, 2008