Almost There!

We only have $2,727.81 left to reach our emergency fund goal of $10,000!  So I’m going to spend the next 2 months throwing everything extra at it so we can relax knowing whatever happens we have a great emergency back-up.  I figure I can put in at least $1,390 this month and the remaining $1337.81 next month, though those figures don’t include interest earned or the automatic monthly savings.  From there I’ll take all the money, other than what’s already been set up to automatically go into the emergency fund account, and throw it at the debt.

That’s about $1390 per month extra over the regular payments made!

• That means the credit card will be paid off in 2 1/2 months.  September 2010-November 2010
  
• Next I can start paying down the Heloc.  I should be able to get it down to around $32,600 (estimating) before my student loans become due.  December 2010-September 2011
• Then I’ll throw everything at the student loans (after I consolidate them) before returning to the Heloc.   October 2011-January 2013

Hopefully those dates are an overstatement. I’d love to be down to a Heloc and Mortgage payment only before 2013!  I’m not including that I’ll actually have more money to put towards the debt as I pay things off.  The regular credit card payment will be gone and added to the Heloc.  As the Heloc gets paid down, the interest payment will lower and so I’ll actually have more to put towards the student loans when they become due.

Of course this is still all wishful thinking assuming nothing major happens over this time period to negate these plans.  Though I could also find more money here and there, which may reduce the payoff times.  It all depends on the “What If’s”! *sigh*

Regardless, the emergency fund is the quickest and easiest item to take care of first!  I think I’ll go see if I can come up with some more money!

A Simulated Mortgage Payoff

I was playing around with my mortgage company’s new amortization calculator to figure out what would happen if we wanted our loan paid off in 10 years (May 2020).  Of course, we’re not ready to put it into action right now because we have other debt that needs to be paid off first, but it was fun to see what could be.

We currently owe $106,198.88 and our current payoff time is January 2034, which is already one year earlier than it should be due to a loan deal we made through my workplace (who happened to be the same mortgage company) at the beginning of the mortgage.

To pay our loan off by May 2020, we would have to add $458.68 per month towards principal.  This is totally viable for us because we’re already using more than that each month to pay off our other debt.  If we were to do this now, then we would still have over $500 each month to pay down other debt.  There will be even more, when I eventually go back to work, therefore possibly reducing the mortgage even more.  But that is for another time to figure out since I don’t even have a paying job right now!

Doing this will reduce our total interest from $81,930.66 to $33,689.51, saving us $48,241.15 overall! It would also reduce our mortgage by 13 years and 8 months.

Hmmmm….I think I’m almost talking myself into doing it now instead of waiting until later!  Can you imagine having your home paid off in 10 years!  What a relief that would be!  Our youngest, who is now in the 2nd grade, would be about to graduate from high school!

I think it’s time to have a talk with my husband and see what he thinks about this!

What would you do?

More Payments To Truck Loan!

Hubby got paid again so I made 3 more payments ($698.28) towards the truck loan.  That means I’m almost done!  Yay!  Of course, I have no idea how much is actually left on the loan.

That’s because the credit union that holds the loan changed their website and no longer lets you see the current loan information!

How horribly stupid is that!  All you can look at is the 3-month statement and I’ll have the loan paid off before I even get the next one!  Oh well!  I’ll be calling them after this check clears to get the final payoff amount, which I believe will be around $500-$600.

I really can’t believe the loan will be gone and both our vehicles will be paid off! My car was bought in February 2004 and I paid off the loan in 2 years, then we were able to get my husband his truck in October 2006.  It took a little longer to get his paid off, but we did have two instances where we didn’t have an income.

The next step will be to reduce the car insurance amount because we’ll no longer need full coverage on his truck.  We should get a partial refund for that and our next payment amount should be lower so that will give me more money each pay period towards debt.

Then I can start on the next debt, which is our credit card!

No Paycheck

My husband’s new job pays them on the 8th and 22nd of every month (unless it falls on a weekend or holiday).  So we thought we would get a check on the 8th for the first two days he worked, then get a full paycheck on the 22nd.

Apparently not!

Instead we’ll be getting a full paycheck on the 22nd only.  Usually paychecks cover the two weeks prior to the payday week, but not here.  The paycheck for the 8th of each month is from the 16th to the end of the month.  The paycheck for the 22nd is from the 1st to the 15th.  Since he started on April 1st, then he gets his first full paycheck on April 22nd.

We’ll be spending more of the funds we left in our checking account to use while he was out of work, but the paycheck will more than make up for it in the end.  I’m actually happy that it works out this way!  Now I don’t have to fix my MoneyDance program to reflect a 2-day paycheck, then turn around two weeks later and fix it for a normal, 2-week paycheck.  Less work for me is always good!

I’ve already started to transfer money around within my checking account to make my MoneyDance program look more like it does when hubby is working.  We stopped doing a lot of things during his time off that we did normally…now we have to get back into those things again.  This is what I’ve done so far:

• I placed $200 into the “miscellaneous” account.  This is the extra we leave in the account in case we run over any given month.
• I placed $200 into the “medical” account.  I use this for anything I have to pay out of pocket over what we have left in hubby’s HSA.  I will be contributing to this every pay period.
• I transferred what was in my “roundup from checking” account to my online emergency fund.  I usually round up all my purchases, then transfer it all at the end of every month.  I stopped this when hubby lost his job.  I’ll be starting it up again on the 22nd.
• I’ve prepared the payment stubs for the next 9 payments of hubby’s truck loan.  The money left to pay off the truck is now less than the amount owed so I’ll be paying what I can, then taking care of the remainder in the next several months.

There’s not much else I can do until the first paycheck, then I’ll have a ton of planning to do!

Hubby Got a Job!

For anyone that does not know, my husband was laid off from his job in December (he was actually let go in October, but was considered a non-working employee until December).  Thankfully, we are well-prepared people!  We have very little expenses and have saved enough of a buffer to be fine for up to a year with unemployment benefits filling in the gaps.

But we don’t have to worry about that anymore!

And do you know the best part?  He didn’t even apply for this job! He received a call from their HR person asking him if he was still available.  She apparently found his resume on Monster.com and thought he would be a good candidate for the position.  She immediately set up an interview for yesterday morning.  So he went in, talked to the guy, and that afternoon he received a call from the HR person with a job offer!

I am so happy that I’m going to have him out of my house! I mean, I’m so happy for him!  LOL!

This really is a great opportunity for him and our family.  We were doing so well with him out of work that I still have enough to pay off his truck when he gets his first paycheck.  We’ve also increased our emergency fund (I didn’t even touch it)!

He’ll be a programmer with a government contractor and his start date is April 1st, so he has a couple of weeks to just relax or get some errands/chores done.  He will have to do some traveling, but not much, except at first.  We’ll find out the schedule for that later.

The best parts are the pay and the benefits!  He has always been working for way under the median income for his job and the area.  Finally he is going to be paid for what he does!  That’s over a $20,000 a year increase!  We don’t really need all that extra so I’ll be socking it away into savings and paying off debt!  Woohoo!!!!

The benefits are just as awesome!

For health care it’s:

• about $72 per pay period for family coverage
• no copays
• they pay 80%, we pay 20% over deductible, though they do contradict themselves on this because they also say that once the deductible is paid, then we are only responsible for 10% (perhaps one is for in-network and one is for out-of-network…either way works for me!)
• and they pay 100% of deductible!

The dental is:

• about $12 per pay period for family coverage
• they pay 80%, we pay 20% (of course that depends on in-network and out-of-network, and the type of work needed.  Sometimes they pay more!)

There are more benefits, but those are the most important right now.  We still need to find out if the insurance starts immediately or if we need to keep COBRA for a while longer.  The 401K is after 3 months and they match 5%.  The life insurance is paid 100% by them!

I’m anxious for him to go back to work…I know he is, too!  But I’m also anxious to see how much I can pay off and save now that he’s making more money than we need!  I was already paying the debt off early with $20K less so I can only imagine how quickly I can get rid of it now!