Yesterday I told you that I was able to get a part time job, which is the first part in what I am now thinking of me returning from the edge of sanity (hence this blog post title). If you recall I already have a preliminary working budget, (and also here) where I figured out that I would need $23,769.60 (after taxes), or rather about $1,980.80 (after taxes) a month. I already planned on getting a part time job, although be it I had planned on getting one after I got a full time job, but I'm looking at in a positive light. I was mighty fortunate to find this job and to have my boss understand that I am still looking for a full time job and is more than willing to accommodate this. I'm more than excited to work for such a wonderful group of ladies and want to do my best to help them expand their business. At the rate it is now, it more than compensates for the pay I was looking for in a part time job. So in the grand scheme of things, I might be going about it in a backwards fashion but it'll balance out in the end.
I'm still waiting on the teacher position and I hope to hear something this upcoming week. I'm not all that confident that I will get the position and am still actively looking. I received an email from a former work colleague who asked if I had found work and he would be keeping his eyes opened for anything. So keep the fingers crossed, I still have six days before the end of the month to find full time work in order to meet one of my monthly goals.
Despite the fact that I don't have the full time job I still wanted to come up with a plan of action to jump start my personal finances. I know me if I don't think of it before hand then I'll just go on as before. The first thing I have put down is I can't loan money out, I won't be bringing a lot in so I need to be able to control where that money goes. You might have noticed I put back up my progress bars, although they have been paired down quite a back. I have a bar for Other debt (debt not related to student loans), Student Loans, Car Fund, and Apartment Fund, I might be putting one up for Savings as well.
Other Debt
I currently have $2,713.02 in other debt not related to student loans: credit card 1 ($1,468.00), credit card 2 ($ 777.19), class ring payment ($137.83), and medical bills ($330.00). I plan to get rid of this first for a couple of reasons the main one being it's the smallest amount and I could in theory (if it doesn't grow) knock this one out with in the year.
Student Loans
I currently have $ 17,192.00 in student loans and $749.98 in interest on those loans. I still have four months left on my grace periods and I haven't consolidated it yet either. Which I will be doing most likely in the last month of my grace period. I've already started the process of looking up different options. I have all my loans through the College Foundation of my state, and they boost that they save you money on your consolidation loan, which I would think they all did but guess not.
Car Fund
I live in the south and it's not easy to live in the south without a car. I would like to manage to do without a monthly car payment but I am so particular in what I want: small to medium size and mid-90's to early 00's that I'm more than likely going to have to have a car payment. If I could keep it to under $350 a month I would be good. I've set a $2,000 limit for the down payment. I don't really want to use the whole amount on just the down payment, but on all the other things that goes with starting insurance, tags and licensure, and the payment for driver's license. I've managed to put it off for 23 years I don't think I push my luck any more. Plus I'm getting a bit tired of depending on others for rides.
Apartment Fund
This is the biggest for me, other than getting rid of the debt of course, I need my own place. More for keeping my elusive sanity. I've set a goal of $3,000 for application fees, security deposit, first and last months rents, utilities deposits, first round of food stocking, furnishings, and a house warming party. A friend of mines advised me to have at $1,000 set aside to do the first four items on the list but I like to have a little insurance so I added another $500 to it and the rest of the $1,500 is to do the food stocking, furnishings, and the party all on a low cost budget of course. I would like to find a two bedroom in a decent and safe neighborhood under $600 which I can do, the only aspect would be the commute. Honestly I would be willing to do a longer than average commute if I found my dream apartment. I know with the gas crisis that's a big pf no-no but sometimes it's about filling a want rather than a need.
The Plan
Well like I've said there isn't going to be a lot of money coming in just yet, but I would like to start paying down some debt and saving some money. So the first thing to be paid will be the other debt in a SanityGurl fashioned snowball plan. The class ring payment, then the medical bills, then credit card 2 and credit card 1. There's tons of information on handling a snowball debt plan, which was first thought of (I believe) by a guy name Dave Ramsey. A lot pf bloggers would go with the Highest interest method (I'll discuss at another time along with the snowball debt method) but my credit cards don't have high interest rates and the amount is not that great.I plan to pay off the class payment in full and then take that amount and split equally amongst the other debts on top of the minimum. So in a way I'm doing it the way he prescribes but I'm not over paying just one and not the others. Hopefully buy the end of my grace period in the end of June I will have paid off the class ring and the medical bills, and made a noticeable dent in the credit card debt. I no longer use my credit cards so I don't see it growing much outside of the interest. At the same time I'm paying out for debt I want to make equal payment into a savings account. I plan on opening an high yield one, (another topic for another day) and have three sub-accounts, Car Fund, Apartment Fund, and Savings. I think this is a good start, don't you? It helps that my mom is allowing me to stay here rent free, although I'll still give her some kind of money to help out.
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