Yes, Money stresses even me out sometimes :)
People think I always have it together, financially. For the most part I do. I didn’t always, but that’s a whole other post for another day (and one I’ve been meaning to make again here sometime soon). But the last month has been particularly stressful, and I generally sit down and think about what I plan to do to trudge through the next 3 months. Usually this is done through blog posts.
The current status:
Well, first off, my bills are fine. I never have any trouble paying my regular bills, because I make them #1 priority. The first one being the house, obviously. Still to this day I see people who are late on rent, forget to pay rent, can’t pay rent, because they spend money on other things first (chinese take-out and tattoos anyone? Seriously?). ALWAYS pay your mortgage/rent first, and figure out the rest later. If you don’t have a place to stay, if you are foreclosed on or evicted, it’s going to hurt you a lot in the long run.
Now that my mini-rant is over…
So yes, my bills are fine, no concerns there. My current struggle is with debt repayment and putting money back into savings. I am about a month away from getting my savings back up to “acceptable” emergency level. That is going to continue, and once I hit that level, I will stop putting money into savings again until the debt is gone. Once the debt is gone, then everything goes back into savings again. See how that works?
The Stress:
The debt however, I’ve become a victim of my own advice. With recent events concerning my dads emergency gall bladder surgery, now his truck breaking down again as of last night (after I bought my vinegar, argh), I’ve attempted to pay off two debts at once. 1. My fathers recent situations, and 2. my last personal loan debt from a friend. Doing both at once over the last month has not been helping, simply because you’re making less of an impact, while other stuff starts “piling up”. That’s why in my Personal Finance class, I say to make your minimum payments, and put everything else on one debt until that debt is gone.
So while I do feel bad that I’m going to have to reduce paying back my friend, and even moreso not reaching my goal of having them paid back by December 2010, it’s going to be better in the long run. I don’t know how much fixing my dads car and truck is going to cost me, but whatever it costs it is going to charge me interest. So I’m going to have to pay it off as priority. But I will be at least sending some money to my friend in the interim.
The concern now though, how much is all of this automotive work going to cost me? Catalytic Converters, some other thing I forget, and yearly inspection for dads car. A tow to a mechanic and then whatever the mechanic fees are for dads truck. I can’t imagine getting out of there for any less than $1000.
The sad irony is, I do plan to buy my dad a new used vehicle eventually (in cash, no car loan). AFTER the debts are gone besides the house. Theoretically I was hoping for September 2011 as a birthday gift. It may still happen, it may not. If we can get these two vehicles working enough to last another year and a half, I will be very happy.
