And in other news…

I haven’t posted in so long.  So much has happened and I wasn’t sure I wanted to share with everyone.  But, I’ve come to terms with a lot of it, so here is a brief synopsis:

• Shaunna started college in September, 2010.
• I lost 30 pounds from August, 2010 – January, 2011.
• I quit smoking January, 2011.
• Shaunna dropped out of college January, 2011.
• I didn’t speak to Shaunna for approximately 4 months.
• I gained 15 pounds back.
• Shaunna enlisted in the Navy February, 2011.
• I started smoking again April, 2011.
• Shaunna got married June, 2011.
• I managed to lose 5 pounds.
• I started college classes June, 2011.
• Shaunna leaves for Basic Training July, 20, 2011.

Yeah, a lot of crap with the oldest.  Sigh.  But, we have reconciled and I am again hopeful for her future. 

And I’m back on the Flylady bandwagon.  It’s helping me keep up with the housework while juggling work, school, kids and social life.  Or wait a minute – I have no social life.  Got to work on that.
So of course with my life so crazy right now, I guess I’ll start blogging again.  I really need my head examined.

Update

I wanted to note that I updated my Bucket List.  I quit smoking!  Which is a huge deal, because I started smoking at 12, and I quit when I was 39.  27 years.  That is so gross!

I am now depositing $220 a month in my savings account – the approximate amount I was spending every month on cigarettes.  My house and car no longer stink, my clothes don’t stink.  I can breathe better.  I’m working out at the gym, and walking 30 minutes a day.

This one change is propelling me towards meeting other goals on my list.  Getting out of debt, becoming healthier, running those road races. 

I can do this!

A New Plan for 2011

Last year, I had my quirky little mantra a better Jen in 2010.  It didn’t work out.  At all.  In fact, I am further in debt than I was then.  Sigh.

This year, I’m making a different plan.  I will be 40 in March.  And I’m pretty fed up with pissing my life away.  My ex and I decided to get divorced 4 1/2 years ago.  I moved out into moderate income housing.  Rent is based on my income. My plan was to live here until I received my settlement from the divorce.  I would put a down payment on a house or condo, and continue my life.

Only, I lost my job a couple of months before I received my settlement.  I couldn’t find full-time permanent work, and ended up temping for almost two years before I was hired at the company I work for now.  I did receive my settlement, paid off all of my bills, and put away $20,000.  But then I pissed that away.

There is no money for a house.  I’ve been living in this crappy duplex for 4 1/2 years.  I even began to think that maybe if I could find a man, I would be able to move into his house, or we could afford a house with 2 incomes instead of trying to do this on my single income.  And those thoughts began to scare me.  I never, EVER want to be dependant on a man again. 

Then in August, I had a health scare.  I was diagnosed with high blood pressure.  A month later, I was diagnosed with high cholesterol and diabetes.  I am only 39.

Diabetes scares the hell out of me.  Both of my parents are insulin dependant.  I don’t know why I though I would be immune.  Somehow, I would be special, wouldn’t need to take care of myself and I would avoid this disease.  For Christ’s sake, I weighed 100 pounds more than I did when I was 20 and got pregnant with Shaunna.

I’ve lost 25 pounds since August.  I’ve got my sugars under control.  And while the doctor has increased my blood pressure medication, she reduced the diabetes medication in half.  But I’ve got a long way to go. 

This is what triggered me finally taking care of me.  And I have a plan.  And a “Bucket List.”

1. I am applying to an online college to finally get my Bachelor’s degree in accounting.  While I had a horrible experience with University of Phoenix, I’ve finally figured out that due to my co-parenting schedule, there is no way I can do this on campus.
2. I will continue eating healthfully and lose weight.  I have lost 25% of what I need to reach my goal.  I will lose the other 75%.
3. I will quit smoking.  I’ve picked my quit date 1/2/11.
4. I will continue to increase the amount of exercise I am getting until I can meet the challenge of my co-worker and run the Manchester Road Race next year.

I will turn 40 in March.  I am determined to make 2011 the best year of my life!

I saw him again.

Remember my lemon drop crush? I saw him again last week.  It’s been over two years since the last time we saw each other.  He’s still single, I’m still single.

He came home with me.  We made out on the couch.  He told me I was a good kisser.  I complimented his eyes.

He spent the night (NO SEX.)  He stayed all day Sunday.  I made breakfast, he drank copious amounts of coffee.  (Seriously, I never expected to meet anyone that drank more coffee than me.)  I refused to make more after the third pot was gone.

We talked about life, and politics.  We talked about his job and mine.  We talked about going back to college.   (He’s getting his Master’s, I need to finish my Bachelor’s.)

He blew off his daily run to stay and talk.  He finally left with just enough time to shower and get to work.  He said he’d call and we’d get together for coffee.

It’s been seven days.  He didn’t call.

An Open Letter to My Daughter

I love you.  I have always loved and will always love you.  I love you unconditionally.

You have a lot of choices to make in the next two months.  These choices will affect your entire life.  The first choice you face is whether to walk at graduation.  I hope you choose to do this.  It’s something that you will remember for your entire life.  In the future, looking back on graduation day, you may not remember that you and I were fighting.  Should you choose to not walk, you will most definitely remember the hurt and anger you feel now.

You also have to choose whether to go to college or not.  This decision will affect so much of your future.  It’s the difference between struggling like me, or the chance at having a secure future.  The ability to travel, own a home, earn a comfortable salary all hinge on this single decision. 

I’ve always encouraged you to spread your wings, try new things, get outside of your comfort zone.  I’ve never tried to control you, belittle you, or put you down.

These decisions are now up to you.  I can’t make them for you, and I can no longer protect you or shield you from the consequences of your decisions.  I’ve held your hand for 17 years, and knew the time would come when your hand would slip from mine, and you would be on your own.  But instead of the gentle sliding into adulthood, we’ve both snatched our hands away, leaving us both hurt, angry, and sad. 

But we can go back.  You can choose to come home, and spend the next two months with your family, with the love and support we offer, and slide gently into the next role of your life.

Love, Mom

And 1 day later…

I told her to leave my home.  Sigh.

She did it!

Shaunna is graduating high school.  In less than one week, she will have that piece of paper that proves she survived 13 years of public school education.

And in two short months, I will be dropping her and her things off at college. 

Didn’t I just give birth?  When did she turn into a woman?

Baby Shaunna

Shaunna at Senior Prom

 

Congratulations, honey.  I love you!  May all of your dreams come true.

Credit Card Companies Using Profiling Techniques?

With the CARD Act of 2009, credit card companies are afraid of losing profits because they can no longer rely on the dirty tricks they have practiced for years.  Highlights of this reform include:

Banning Unfair Rate Increases

Preventing Unfair Fee Traps

Plain Sight /Plain Language Disclosures

Accountability

Protections for Students and Young People

I had heard of these credit card companies reducing credit lines based upon where people use their cards.  Shopping at Wal-Mart, consignment stores, or even using your credit card to pay for marriage counseling could cause your limit to be reduced.  Because we all know that shopping at Wal-Mart means you’re poor, shopping at consignment stores means you can’t afford new clothes, and if you’re in marriage counseling, you are headed for divorce.  (And I can tell you first hand how divorce can tank your credit!)

I thought that this was a crappy practice, but now they’ve sunk to a new level.

A data mining company called Rapleaf claims it can predict riskier individuals based upon their Facebook friends.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve befriended co-workers, family members and high school classmates I haven’t seen in years.  I have no idea what their credit histories are or whether they pay their bills on time.  The fact that their credit histories could affect my credit worthiness feels a little Orwellian to me.

Let’s hope when the government releases its report next month on whether data purchasing and data mining are harmful to consumers, they enact some protections for the average person who uses social networking sites.  Because while I’m sure being friends with my man J. Money would help my credit, I’m not so sure about that kid in 12th grade that always borrowed lunch money (and never paid me back.)

I am a permanent employee!

Just two months shy of temping two years, I finally have a permanent job.  With benefits.  Paid holidays.  Paid time off.  401 (k).  Healthcare flexible spending account.  Dependant care flexible spending account.

I won’t need the medical, dental or vision because the kids and I are covered under HUSKY. 

The 401(k) isn’t matched by the employer for now.  (I’m hoping this is going to change.)  I need to decide if I can be disciplined enough to make contributions to by Roth IRA because without company match, the Roth is a better investment vehicle for me.  Or, because I really have a tough time if things aren’t done automatically, I should contribute to the 401(k) so that I am finally saving regularly for retirement.  I think I’m going to see if I can make those deposits to my ShareBuilder account for the next three months.  If I am able to do that before I can open the 401(k), I’ll continue with the Roth.  If not, I’ll open the 401(k).

Now to decide how much to deposit into my flexible spending accounts.  Calculating the dependent care is easy.  I counted how many more weeks the kids have in day care this year, multipled by the fee, and divided by the number of pay periods left. 

The healthcare account is a little tricker.  I’ve decided to contribute an even $1,000.  I don’t have much in the way of health care expenses.  My dental cleanings and x-rays, Shaunna’s and my contacts, and over the counter medications.  I’m hoping that I’m contributing enough, but not too much that I end up losing my money at the end of the year.  (There may be a huge purrchase of Tylenol on 12/31/10!)

My new employer also offers supplemental term life insurance for me and the kids.  I can purchase $200,000 with no medical questions.  This will cost $9.14 per pay period (every other week.)  I can also get each kid a $10,000 policy for $0.67 per pay period.

I’m excited about having benefits again.  And all of the reading and calculations has ignited the interest in getting my financial house in order (again!)   Especially since I will be paid every other week instead of every week.  I’ll need to adjust my automatic payments over the next month so that I’m not late on any of my payments.  And the fire to get all of the credit card debt paid has been rekindled.  The good news is that the lawyer is FINALLY paid in full as of this week.  That frees up $75 a week towards debt repayment.  Woohoo!!!

And maybe I’ll start blogging more!

A Better Jen in 2010

Like my new mantra?  I thinks it’s corny, quirky, and cute!

It’s time to start thinking about those New Year’s Resolutions.  Instead of listing the same things I want to change (but don’t) year after year, I’ve decided to tackle my finances.  But I’m going to try a different approach.

I read a post on Frugal Dad that really got me thinking. It’s a guest post from Neal at Wealth Pilgrim titled Are We Ever Done?

In his post, he talks about setting goals, achieving them, and moving on to the next goal. It made me realize that I am all over the map with my efforts. I want to incorporate everything I have learned about personal finance all at once.  

For example, I have been trying to reduce my expenses, stop spending more than I earn, save for a house, put away an emergency fund, save for Shaunna’s college, save for furniture, take the kids on vacation, save for retirement, etc, etc, etc. all at the same time.  And guess what?  It’s not working.

I started off 2009 with $20,000 in a CD.  I know that I will piss my money away if I have access to it.  But in using the knowledge I had gained through personal finance blogs and books, I decided to pull all but $2,000 of that money out and place it in an ING savings account because the interest was better.  Today, I have the original $2,000 CD that I left at my bank, and only $5,307 in the ING account.  I have an additional $1,000 that I used to open a Roth IRA, and I made loans to family that total $3,372.  If those loans are repaid, I will have $10,679, out of the original $20,000?  Where did it go? Most went to Disney.  A lot went to pay bills.  A little went to this year’s Christmas shopping.  And some was just pissed away.

So, a year of learning some tough lessons. But I have learned from it and I’m going to make some changes for 2010.

1. Transfer $1,000 into my credit union savings account for an emergency fund.
2. Pay off my credit union Visa ($934.37) with savings in my ING account.
3. Pay off my Master Card ($196.49) as soon as the statement comes in. Pay using my paycheck.
4. Pay off Walmart card in 90 days ($382.09)  I signed up during a promotional period for 90 days interest-free.  Pay using my paycheck.
5. Pay off Firestone card in 90 days ($252.24)  This is also 90 days interest-free.  Pay using my paycheck.
6. Transfer approximately $3307 back to my Credit Union and put back into a CD.
7. Loan #1 is being paid back at $100 a month.  Leave this money in savings and every time it reaches $1,000, open a new CD.  (Credit Union has a minimum deposit of $1,000 to open a CD.)
8. If $400 loan payment comes in from loan #2, add that to savings until I can put into a CD.

This is my financial plan as of today.  There are a few other things that I want to do, including:

1. Really trim the fat from my budget, and learn to live within my means.
2. Put $20 per week away for birthdays and next Christmas.
3. Find $96.15 per week to max out a Roth IRA since I don’t currently have a 401(k).
4. Add to savings any and all money I can squeeze out of my budget.
5. Read 2 personal finance books and one self-improvement/motivational book per month from the library.

I have a plan for 2010.  I feel good about where I’m heading.  Here’s to a better Jen in 2010!