I have some new numbers for this month’s debt report since the IRS applied my stimulus check to what I owe them:
Debt balances:
- Dentist (crown): $325
- Attorney: $449
- IRS: $2,752.40
- CFCU Visa: $4,826.15
- Chase HELOC: $4,847.58
- Capital One HELOC: $21,440.60
First mortgage balance: $117,050
Debt Balance excluding co-signed student loans and first mortgage: $34,641
Total debt including first mortgage, excluding student loans: $151,691
Student Loans:
- Co-signed student loan, approximate balance: $45,238 (need a complete audit on these accounts; not sure this balance is correct or even close)
Possible total balance including 1st mortgage: $196,929
I had a sick feeling deep in my gut that this was going to happen. Oh, well. Less debt to the IRS is good.
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August 25th, 2008
Posted by
joubess |
Debt Reports |
6 comments
I just opened today’s mail, and I got another letter from the IRS telling me they applied my stimulus check to my IRS debt. That sucks. I guess you only get to stimulate the economy if you don’t owe the IRS.
Now I’ve got to come up with an extra $774 to finish paying my dentist and my attorney. I’ll have to focus on the dentist first and the attorney second. My permanent crown was installed last week and I still owe $325 on the work.
I still owe my attorney $449 before I can file for bankruptcy.
Can you go broke going broke? If you can even figure out what I mean by that…
Good news? Why yes, there is some. I’m earning a fair amount of money from home working with others on their websites for an hourly rate or flat fee. With the on-going hourly rate jobs, I bill weekly. With the flat fee jobs, I bill half up front and half when finished. I’m already making as much monthly as I was when pizza delivery tanked on me. I don’t have to drive around to do it either, so that good.
Tutoring is starting out slowly, but I have two steady students and expect more in the coming couple of weeks.
I printed two fliers to put around at friend’s and colleague’s offices, one for tutoring and the other for website work. I need to get my backside over to Kinko’s, make copies and distribute them during the rest of this week.
A broadcast email will also be going out to my friends’ email list letting them know I’m available so they can help hook me up. I have a fantastic network of friends that I don’t ask to help me often enough. I’m not an island unto myself and I have to remind myself of that sometimes.
Technorati Tags: debt, income sources, IRS, stimulus check
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August 25th, 2008
Posted by
joubess |
Bankruptcy, Debt Reduction, Earnings Updates, Unexpected Costs |
3 comments
You may remember back in July I sent you to a video by Yaro Starak called “Conversion Blogging”, which outlined Yaro Starak’s system of blogging and marketing with an email list to bring in over $100,000 per year.
CLICK HERE TO GO TO CONVERSION BLOGGING VIDEO PAGE WITH TEXT VERSION
That video was a huge hit and many people who watched it went on to join Yaro’s coaching program, Blog Mastermind.
However some people don’t like video or have such slow Internet connection that makes video unusable. To help these folks, Yaro has released a text transcript of the video, so you can read his advice.
The report is ready to go. It’s 15 pages long in PDF format and just like the video, it won’t cost you a cent.
You can get it on this page (scroll down and look for the text link under the video) -
LINK TO TEXT TRANSCRIPT OF CONVERSION BLOGGING VIDEO
If you are thinking of doing anything business related with a blog or you just want to know how you can make a solid income by following Yaro’s proven system, you need to read this report or watch the video.
This is information you won’t find anywhere else.
Here’s to your successful blog,
Sherri
PS. I’ve been keeping my eye on the Aussie dollar
and lately it’s dropped about 5 cents against
the USD. That means the price for Yaro’s coaching
program is now 10% off if you will be paying
in US dollars because Yaro is still charging in
Australian dollars.
That’s a good discount and it’s worth taking
advantage of sooner rather than later. You can do
so here -
BLOG MASTERMIND SIGN UP
Technorati Tags: Blog Mastermind, Blog Profits Blueprint, Conversion Blogging, Yaro Starak
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August 22nd, 2008
Posted by
joubess |
Resources |
no comments
Debt balances:
- Dentist (crown): $325
- Attorney: $449
- IRS: $3,648.91
- CFCU Visa: $4,826.15
- Chase HELOC: $4,847.58
- Capital One HELOC: $21,440.60
First mortgage balance: $117,050
Debt Balance excluding co-signed student loans and first mortgage: $35,537
Total debt including first mortgage, excluding student loans: $152,587
Student Loans:
- Co-signed student loan, approximate balance: $45,238 (need a complete audit on these accounts; not sure this balance is correct or even close)
Possible total balance including 1st mortgage: $197,825
Discussion
I got a letter from the IRS telling me I owe them money and how to pay it by various methods. I have to call them tomorrow or Monday and get the payment plan option going. My accountant said I have 3 years to pay them in full and that should be plenty of time. I plan to pay them $110 per month as of now. That may be changed when I talk to the IRS and work out a payment schedule.
I haven’t heard from the State of Louisiana about my tax bill to them, but I’m sure it will be soon. They tend to keep the same schedule as the IRS.
Surprisingly, I will get my $900 economic stimulus check even though I owe the IRS. I plan to use it to pay my dentist the rest I owe for my crown and my attorney the rest I owe her for the bankruptcy. Whatever is left over will go back to the IRS. It may be used to put gas in my car and buy a few groceries like bread and milk that we run out of each week.
The mortgage problem I talked about last month was solved, and my mortgage payments have been properly credited to my mortgage account. Chase will begin autodebiting my mortgage payment from my checking account each month in September.
Doctor and dentist bills are what broke the budget this month. My son was sick and he was no longer eligible for Medicaid at the time, so I had to pay cash for him to go to the doctor, have some test run and pay for his prescription. I have to reapply for Medicaid for him and I may qualify now. It would help a lot if they would pay for my prescriptions. I’m also looking into private health insurance but having pre-existing conditions is such a pain that I haven’t even been able to get a quote let alone apply.
Whoever the next president is, I hope he will get some private insurance laws changed so that those of us with pre-existing conditions can buy health insurance for reasonable premiums. I’m all for a market solution, but it needs to solve the problem for everyone who needs insurance but can’t buy it at any cost. I’d be willing to pay into Medicaid and I believe they have a low premium pay plan for those who make too much to qualify for free Medicaid. If we could pay a reasonable premium there it would solve our problem of being uninsured. At this point with the way the insurance business is now, both my son and I are uninsurable at any cost. If I went back to work for a company that has insurance, we would have to wait a year to qualify for benefits on our pre-existing conditions.
Just one of my son’s regular prescriptions costs $340/month with a discount card. His other one costs $122. All mine together cost $275. That doesn’t include doctor visits or tests, and God forbid, an ER visit or hospital stay.
No one can answer my question: What are we and people like us supposed to do about health care?
The only answer I get regularly is I’d better earn a whole lot of money and have a huge emergency fund just for medical costs. That isn’t realistic, at least not soon.
Does anyone reading this have any ideas? I’m wide open for suggestions.
Technorati Tags: August 2008 Debt Report, Debt Reports, IRS
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August 21st, 2008
Posted by
joubess |
Debt Reports |
no comments
The economic slump is hitting big time here now. What I’m earning delivering pizzas and what I’m spending on gas to drive around are getting too close together.
Pizza delivery isn’t netting me enough money to keep doing it. People still tip, but not as well as they did a few months ago. Even though gas prices are down to around $3.65 a gallon, tips are only two-thirds of what they were in May. Tips are where you make all your money. I’m stopping delivering pizzas as of the end of this week. I would have been reducing my hours anyway since school is starting.
Not as many people are ordering pizzas for delivery. I used to go out with 3-4 pizzas on board. Now it’s 1 or 2 and the pace has slowed slightly. I work the same number of hours but make half as much. It’s about the same number of miles to deliver 3-4 pizzas as it is to deliver 1-2, so I’m paying out the same amount in gas money.
I was grossing $1800 per month on average and netting $1400 after taxes. I know that’s too much tax for that amount of pay, but I’m still earning at least $1200 a month in summer tutoring where no taxes are being taken out. I have the taxes taken out of the pizza delivery job instead of having to pay quarterly self-employment taxes for tutoring. Gas costs me an extra $250 per month to do the job, so my net was $1150. It was worth it for that amount of money, and often it was a couple of hundred dollars more than that. Now I’m only netting $575. That’s not enough. I can make that amount up by adding 5 hours a week to my tutoring schedule, which isn’t hard to do.
If you are delivering pizzas for extra money, make sure you’re actually netting enough to make it worth your while.
Tutoring Is Back
School started this week so tutoring will start ramping up next week. I have a GED student continuing with me from the summer and I have one new student scheduled starting Monday. That will ramp up quickly by the end of August. I’ve already warned all my regular students that if they want their pick of times and locations, they need to get on my schedule early.
I also got a raise from the tutoring company I work with (I’m a 1099 contractor), so that’s extra money for each hour I spend tutoring and that was effective August 1.
New Cost-Cutting
I thought there wasn’t any more I could cut out of my budget, but closing down my business officially has freed up some more cash. I shut off the business phone and that saves us $40 a month. I had to keep the phone on until I could file my form ADV-W with the NASD.
Tuition for my son’s homeschool curriculum will stop next month and that will save us $66/mo. I wrote my own curriculum for this school year. It’s not that hard knowing what I know from teaching high school kids from all over the city. I know what they take and what they have to know before they get into each class, so coming up with a 7th grade curriculum wasn’t that difficult. I was able to get all the books we need from the last library sale for about $15. Libraries often carry textbooks and other very good how-to books, like the “For Dummies” series. They sell old editions when new editions are purchased. Check out your next library sale and pick up some real bargains.
I’ve been reducing the number of features we have on our home phone as time has progressed, and I’ve decided we don’t need caller ID anymore. That was the last to go. Our regular home phone bill used to be $80/mo when I started cutting features last summer (2007). Now it’s down to $20/mo. I screen calls the old fashioned way, using the answering machine. I only pick up when it’s not a collections call. Otherwise the machine takes messages and I call back when I’m ready.
The last big cost cutter was to do everything possible to extend the gas mileage of the Honda and consolidate trips as much as possible outside of pizza delivery. I was able to reduce our gas consumption by 1 whole tank per month, saving us $50.
Totaling the savings up: $250+$50+$40+$66+$15 (home phone) = $421
That’s another big reason I’m stopping the pizza job. Excluding the $250 in gas money, we’re saving $171 extra now. My tutoring income plus the savings will more than make up the $575 my take-home pay will be reduced.
Another Side Business
I’ve also been working on another side business. I’ve been helping local people and business owners set up their own websites using WordPress. I got into it from the suggestion of another blogger. When I sold my red beans and rice recipes blog, the guy I sold it to needed help with transferring everything over to the domain on his server. I helped him as part of selling him the site, but I’ve found a couple of small businesses that want a web presence but don’t want to spend around a thousand dollars having a professional designer set it up, and then them not be able to make changes easily. Those companies also charge too much money each year to keep hosting your site. The cheapest I’ve heard about was $250 per year for one site. That’s criminal! It costs me $230 per year for domain name registration and hosting for 10 sites. That’s $19 a month total. I more than make that up with a few affiliate product sales.
I’m making around $250 per WordPress site. I do most everything for them. I set up the domain name and hosting, install WordPress and help them pick out a free theme, or they can browse around Google and get a paid theme if they want. I set up their site with the theme they choose, add the plugins they’ll need, set up tracking (Google Analytics), teach them what the main statistics mean and show them how to use the WP administration panel. I also set them up with an RSS feed and get them a FeedBurner account.
Once they go through WordPress with me and then over the phone when they make their first change on their own, they’ve got it down. One website only costs them $380 to set up and host for the first year, then hosting and domain name registration will run them another $132 per year from then on. They can add more domains for another $11 per year each. I set them up on hosting that allows unlimited domains so the cost doesn’t go up if they add a site.
This is just something I’ve picked up on the side since I’ve gained so much experience with WordPress over the past year. I’m going to start marketing it locally, networking with my local business owner friends and acquaintences. They’ll let me leave business cards or fliers on their counters.
I haven’t run into anyone who wants an autoresponder system yet, but when I do, I’ll set up AWeber accounts using my affiliate link and earn a monthly commission on top of that. I set people up with hosting that I’m an affiliate for and I earn a monthly commission there as well. It’s not a lot, a dollar or so a month on each account, but after awhile it all adds up and I don’t have to spend a bunch of time and no money getting those income streams to flow.
If you’re a Baton Rouge local and want a website set up that you can run yourself that doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg, please drop me an email at joubess at gmail dot com. Please leave your name, business name and phone number, and we’ll get together and get you set up.
Technorati Tags: pay raise, pizza delivery, side business, tutoring, WordPress
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August 13th, 2008
Posted by
joubess |
Cost Reductions, Earnings Updates |
3 comments
