Debt Report Mar 2008
Debts Paid in Full:
- Debts paid in full: 6
- Amount paid in full: $4,404
Status Report:
- March 2008 payments: $1,072.22
- Total amount of payments made to date: $11,859
- Debts left to pay off: 15
- Next debt in line: Northland Group - Capital One Visa $3,549.53 (to get the balance to go down on this one I’ll need to come up with $35/month)
Balance Report:
- Original Debt Balance: $200,946
- Current Debt Balance: $200,001
- Balance change since last month: $663 (increase)
- Balance change since starting the plan (April 2007): $945 (decrease)
Income and Spending
I have a total of $1,862.39 income this month to pay for everything. This isn’t enough money to pay the essentials of food, utilities, gas in the car, the first mortgage on the house, and essential medical care (essential in that without it I won’t be making any money at all). Those total costs are $2,294.96. I’m short $432.57.
On top of that, I have the non-bankruptable debts of $572, I wanted to get out from under the at&t advertising and publishing bill of $440, and I needed to pay the rest of my creditors a little something, like a few dollars each along with a letter explaining (again) that I’m working on getting a new full-time job while working part-time and earning as much as I can. That comes to $61.
The total comes to $3,367. I covered the shortage of $1505 from my Traditional IRA and we counted up all our change and rolled it. I withdrew $1500 (plus taxes and 10% penalty, ouch!). The change amounted to about $35.
I spoke with my accountant and I’m getting a tax refund for 2006. I’ll probably get at least a small one for 2007. I’m not quite done with taxes for 2007, but plan to finish that up by the end of this week and turn it over to my accountant.
I’m also eligible for the federal tax credit, so I’ll get a check for single head of household with one child.
Temporary Game Plan
The tax refunds will go into a “hill and valley” fund so we’ll have enough to pay for essentials.
After this month, if I have enough money, the non-bankruptable debts will be paid the minimum payments before the bankruptable debts. Any debt that is bankruptable will be paid a minimum of a few dollars a month until my income increases if there is any money left.
I will not be working on my debt snowball until I start making enough money to pay for more than the essentials. There may be some progress because I put every debt in the debt snowball, including a large business loan and a large home equity loan.
We are having another yard sale, and any money we earn will either pay an essential bill or go into the savings account to cover essentials next month in case my income is still too low, depending on tax refunds.
February was a slim month tutoring. It was a short month, and in Louisiana, we had Mardi Gras week with no school, so I had many cancellations. I will make more in March because there are more school days. It still won’t be as high as it could be because spring break is in March and I’ll have a lot of cancellations for that week. April will be a full month with no breaks, and May will be lucrative because of final exams. I’ll get lots of extra sessions from my regular students and I’ll be able to pick up a few extra hours from students who just want exam review tutoring.
I’ll still need to sock some money away for summer (June and July) when tutoring hours are lean. I’ll also pick up another part-time job (pizza delivery) to cover expenses unless I land a good-paying job or get a business going like gangbusters.
If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to my RSS feed!
I have only recently found this blog and I’m curious as to why you don’t seem to have had a full time job since you left the chemical engineering one just over 4 years ago.
Comment by arthurwankspittle | March 4, 2008
Arthur,
I had a full-time business until the beginning of February 2008, which I closed because it wasn’t profitable enough to support us. I do take a few clients occasionally and earn some extra money because I still have my RIA license until the end of 2008, but the business is closed and I’m phasing out meeting with clients completely.
I was laid off from the chemical industry where I was an analytical chemist for 19 years. I became a math and science tutor after many months of not being able to land another full-time chemistry job. The chemical industry is moving a lot of jobs overseas. My job was eliminated, and similar jobs at other companies have also been eliminated.
Please read back through my posts for more on that. I’ve posted details on my career and goals over the last 10 months. I keep increasing my tutoring hours, and I’m approaching full-time now.
Summer will bring a tutoring slump, so I’ll be delivering pizzas and working on my blogging and online affiliate sales during June and July. School starts back up in August, and I’ll have a waiting list of people trying to get on my schedule.
Good math and science tutors are very hard to find, so my current income as a tutor is actually more secure than it would be if I went to work for another chemical company. I’ve found I really love teaching more than being a lab rat, so that’s what I’m doing. Tutoring pays a lot better than being a full-time teacher as well. It’s flexible and leaves me more time with my son. I also have time to write, another of my passions.
I’m in the process of updating my post categories so the career category contains everything I’ve written about my career. That’s in progress so please stop back by and read more as I make it easier to find past content.
Sherri
Comment by joubess | March 13, 2008
Sorry I haven’t got back quicker, I hadn’t checked this post for a few days.
First, although it hardly matters now, four years seems a long time to have taken to conclude that the business wasn’t right for you or working fully.
More importantly, you now say you have near full time employment from tutoring, which is good. (and yes it pays more than W2 employment but then it has to, to cover the slumps in the summer) But you have to address the debt problem. I’ve been there, done that, received the collection calls, been to court, the lot. You have to get that snowball sorted out and take action on it. You need steady money coming in, and I don’t mean the odd $14 per month off some website. I think you need to think about the amount of time you spend on the websites and blogs and the like for the returns you get in actual $.
Comment by arthurwankspittle | March 20, 2008
Sherri, you said: “I will not be working on my debt snowball until I start making enough money to pay for more than the essentials.”
You know, sometimes we need some ‘tough love’ to make us see the things we might not want to see.
Two things:
1) What is the criteria on which you intend to finally decide to file bankruptcy?
2) Given that you signed commitments to pay these people for money they gave you, whether you file for protection or not, I would hope you feel a sense of obligation to pay back every dirty penni, no matter what. If you do, then I just have to ask why you are not getting up at 5:30AM and heading down to the school to work as a cafeteria lady, or going down to the Circle K to work as a Slushie Systems Analyst, or otherwise getting yourself into a position to actually EARN some money to put towards those debts, versus this pie in the sky multi-level marketing scam of sweet passive income through blogging.
Here comes the tough love: It is plain from your writing you have no special skill or talent in that arena. You seem to be able to crank out copy that is relatively grammatical, and free of overt spelling errors. But that’s it. There is no unique style, clever wit, endearing charm, saucy sarcasm, insightful analysis, humble introspection, or other compelling attribute of your writing that would compel a person to read it. My personal driver to come here is based on your situation, not on your content. I want to find out: “Well, what is she going to do?” not “My, what has she got to say about it?” You do see the difference, right? It is an an immensely important distinction. It is roughly correspondent to humor, wherein people are either laughing AT you, or else they are laughing WITH you. I am sure your child, your parents, your friends, would never wish for you that it were the former.
In short, this can be boiled down to three simple words. Words I wish your parents had more deeply instilled into your upbringing:
“Get a job.”
That could be followed by three more:
“Don’t be a bum.”
Comment by coolguy3000 | April 5, 2008