Monday Randomness

I am so done with this heat, and it has nothing to do with being pregnant. I hate sweating, I've over summer clothes, and unless I'm at the beach, I have no use for temperatures over 76 degrees.

We are totally registered for our hospital tour and birth classes. The first class is September 15. I'm obscenely excited, even though I know the whole thing is going to scare the crap out of me.

I ordered curtains for the nursery. I can't wait to get them and hang them and enjoy their girly ruffles. I'll post pics when we hang them.

I have two outfits picked out for my shower (which is in 3 weeks!!!)... one for cooler weather and one for this blazing hotness. I would really rather wear the fall-weather outfit, as I look much, much better in it. The summer outfit is a long dress that at this point looks like a muu-muu on a fat lady. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a 30 degree drop in temperature in the next 3 weeks.

I had to retire my engagement and diamond wedding band. I normally wear my engagement ring, diamond wedding band, and plain gold band all together, but my fingers are either fat or bloated. Either way, I'm scared they're going to get stuck and I'll have to get them cut, and I am soooo not into cutting wedding bands. So I went to get them all polished and cleaned, and I'm currently wearing only my gold band. It's very, very sad, but it's much better than having my rings cut off. Plus, they will be so shiny and sparkley when I put them back on!!

I've officially stopped weighing myself every morning. I like to step on the scale every morning just because... however, the numbers I'm currently seeing are scaring me a little. Not because I'm afraid I won't lose it (WW has worked before, it will work again).... the numbers are just really high. And I don't want to see it.

Ryan's CCCS account is paid off. Zero balance. No more payments. My CCCS account will be paid off in 46 days. Well, let me rephrase that - the final payment is due in 46 days (October 15). I have to actually submit the payment (so it can be credited to my account) by October 8. At this time, I actually can't comprehend the magnitude of reaching this goal. More to come on this, I'm sure.

My ticker says 67 days until my due date... that's just over 2 months. I go back and forth between "OMG just come already" and "OMG I need a couple more weeks to get ready". It's exciting and scary and so fun. Know what makes me feel like a mom? Buying diapers. Standing in Target, sifting through coupons, and trying to get diapers for less than 14 cents each. I love buying cheap diapers, and have a pretty good stockpile going.

This past weekend I was contemplating how delivery actually works. I'm still not 100% on how everything stretches and all that, because.... it just seems like it doesn't fit. I mean, if the average baby is 20 inches long, that means it's feet are still in your uterus while the head is outside your body. This probably deserves it's own post.

Last night's True Blood... just stop reading if you haven't seen it... this is the end of the post. If you did see it... scroll, read, discuss.

Still with me? OMG, I am going to be so.pissed if Eric meets the true death. When Eric whipped out the handcuffs at the end of the episode, I thought that would be the perfect time to chain him to the pole holding up the canopy of Fantasia. Except then Eric chained Russell to himself. Why??????? Chain Russell to the pole and get the hell back inside!!! Also, Jessica and Hoyt are just adorable.

Yey for Us.

We just met with our financial planner for the past hour and 15 minutes....



and the bottom line is.....

WE DON'T SUCK AT LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is all. There is a celebration dinner to be had this evening (at Panera, cause it's cheap and we need to continue to not suck at life).

CCCS is my

bitch.

One of the credit cards that Ryan used to have in his CCCS account was actually the worst credit card ever known to man. It's a First Financial Bank card - and it was the devil. Interest was compounded daily, they only accepted payments via mail, and it took forever to post to the account..... which was convienient, because with interest compounding daily, the balance due went up daily.

Worst. Card. Ever.

I don't know where he got it, but if you have one, cut it up immediately. It sucks.

At any rate, we worked extra hard to get that one paid off (due to the shit-eating reasons above)and I sent in the final payment to them on July 25. Every day since then I have called First Financial to hear the automated recording tell me the balance. It has become our morning ritual. Every day we hear the automated lady tell us that the balance has gone up by a dollar or two.

Today, the lady told us our balance was ZERO dollars with a future payment of ZERO dollars.

That was the card with the biggest balance from Day One (just 2 months shy of 4 years ago). That was the card with the worst interest, worst customer service, worst everything. And now it's paid off, down to zero, and closed so that we never have to get a statement from them ever again.

Today is a very good day at our household. Today is the day that CCCS actually becomes our bitch, instead of the other way around.

There is one other card in Ryan's CCCS account. I will send in payment on the 25th of this month, and will then call in for the pay-off total. The last payment on that card (and thus, his account) will be sent on August 25, exactly 4 years after our very first payments were due.

Yes, today is a very good day.

Dinner Date

Note the new ticker at the bottom of the page, directly above our anniversary ticker.

That ticker is counting down to October 15. That is the date on which I send in the final payment on our CCCS accounts.

That is the date we have been working towards since August 2006. That is the date on which everything becomes worth it: the second jobs, the lack of vacations, the Ramen Surprise dinners (though we haven't had many since 2008), the nights in when we'd rather be out, the strict grocery budgets, the 3 years I spent avoiding the mall at all costs....

That is the date on which Ryan and I will have accomplished our dream of being credit card debt free - and trust me, 4 years ago it really was just a dream. And I don't know what we did to deserve it, but just 3 weeks later our dreams will come true again as we welcome our baby girl into the world.

Our Outlook calendars are marked for a very special dinner date on October 15 - the kind where he wears a tie and I wear high heels. It will be a celebration of how far we have come and how much we have accomplished. It will also be the last time we go out as a couple and come home to only a very happy red dog. It will mark the end of that chapter of our lives and the beginning of the greatest adventure of our lives - parenthood.

And we are thrilled to death.

CCCS Update

The other day I put together a badass chart showing what our monthly payments are to each of our CCCS accounts, and how much of that lump sum goes towards each credit card. Each credit card has a different APR, ranging from 1% to 6%, and we still get statements from each card showing what the balance is and all that good stuff.

So in my chart, I put what out current monthly payments are for each month and then used this calculator to figure out how many months it would take (including interest) to pay off each card. It was slightly tricky because once one card is paid off, that money gets applied to a different one, so I kept having to adjust the total balance field and keep track of the months.

At any rate, Ryan's first card will be paid off in June (JUNE!!!!!!!!!!!!) and his second will be paid off in August (!!!!!!!!!!!!). And then he is done. DONE. Then we snowball that lump payment towards mine, and my cards finish in September and October.

In just 5 months we will be free of the credit card debt (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) that has been weighing us down like a friggin ball and chain since grad school. We started the CCCS program in August 2006 and in just 5 months we'll be done. Based on our original debt they quoted us 5 years to pay it all off, but in the past 4 years we both got new jobs with bigger salaries and have made it our business to throw as much as possible at CCCS to get it paid faster.

I can't even begin to tell you what an accomplishment this is. I realize we should have been smarter with our cards and all that jazz, but what's done is done, right? I can't change the past, but the future currently looks amazing.

One payment at a time.

I love Money Saving Mom and she had The Hormonal Housewife do a guest post yesterday, which you can find here. I can appreciate when people are real about their money, and she really lays it out on the line. Sometimes it's just nice to know that not everyone has their act together, but they're trying and that's what's important.

We try every day. We're not always successful (see ticker at bottom of page), but at the end of the day, we have a roof over our heads (who cares if we don't own said roof), enough food in our fridge, and each other.

What's been going on here?

Looks like I'm losing followers left and right these days... I can't say I blame them, since this blog has been a vitrual wasteland (get it, cause it's on the intranets?) for the past week. What's new 'round these parts? Well, Ryan had a kick-ass interview on Friday, and we're just waiting to see what happens. We should know in a week or two, and if he gets it, it would be HUGE for us. We're keeping our fingers and toes crossed here, folks. It's that kind of HUGE.

Yesterday it was warm (ie 47 degrees, not 20) out, so we spent some time with the windows open to clear out the bedroom/den and did a total spring cleaning on the upstairs den (it's really a second bedroom). That room has been used as more of a huge storge closet than anything else, and I'm just sick of living with crap. We took a carload of stuff to the Salvation Army, threw away a huge garbage bag, and shredded every single bill from 2005-2008. It was liberating.... and a little sad. I have no idea what ever possessed me to keep old credit card statements, paystubs, and every single gas/water bill since 2005, but I had them all. Ryan was manning the shredder, and every so often he'd gasp at the document he was holding. We've come a LONG way since 2005... the balances on our credit card statements were a shit show. I even came across the very first payments we made to CCCS... I kept those ones. I can't believe we're less than a year from being done with our credit card debt forever - looking at those papers from 2005 was just a reminder of how far we've come, and what we can do together. This is going to sound so sappy.... but that box we shredded really did have so many memories. There was a credit card statement with a $75 charge to Boston's, which is a fancy pizzeria that had opened about 2 months before we left Terre Haute. We ended up going there with some friends the night before we left Terre Haute to drive to Maryland.

There was the charge for $630 for new Jeep Wrangler doors, since when we got to Maryland, Ryan's Jeep wouldn't pass inspection without some new doors. And one from Kohl's for $200 which I distintly remember was for new work clothes when I got my first real job. It's amazing how much of our lives rovolved around our credit.

To be fair, I also found a paystub from when Ryan first started working here in Maryland. At that point, I didn't have a job and we were living off his salary and our credit cards. And then I found my first few paystubs from the job I had prior to the job I have now. I was working for $9 an hour. I have no idea how we survived, but we obviously did (due to our high credit limits, i suppose).

And after looking through everything and shredding it up, I realized that I had been holidng on to those records because they were our life. In black and white, they showed us where we've been, what we've done, and how far we've come from that point. We laughed about how stupid we were back then, and how we had no idea what was in store for us. We've shared a bank account now for 6 years, and have only been married for about a year and a half. We had such trust in each other, even though we had no idea what direction we were heading in, or how we were going to get there. And we still don't know what the future has in store for us.... but (as we staw yesterday), getting there is the fun part.

Who knew an afternoon of shredding paper would have me more in love with my husband?

On keeping up with the Jones'.

I don't think I've ever hesitated to admit that our current debt situation is the direct result of keeping up with the Jones'. I wanted $78 Express jeans in college, so I bought them. As a direct result, my ass looked fabulous and my credit card wore a little thin.

We got our act together in August 2006, and have been diligently paying on our debts for the past 41 months. As of today, we have 14 months worth of payments to go but the plan at our nest is to double up on payments and be done by our second wedding anniversary.

November, people. We will be done paying off all of our stupidity in less than a year. The second (and third) jobs, random eBay listings, and nights spent in will all be worth it in 2010. We will be consumer debt free. And now that we're so close to the end, I can almost feel it.... all I want to do is send every spare penny to our debts. I bet we could get it paid off by August. Maybe if I pick up extra mall shifts... maybe we could be done earlier.

BUT.

But that doesn't mean that I don't want new jeans. And that I don't want to go out on fancy dinner dates with my husband. Or treat him to good seats at a baseball game on his birthday.

Right now, my current struggle is finding a balance between paying on our debt and living our lives in a way that counts. Of course I'd love to be debt free now. I'd love to see my paycheck be deposited and not immediately send it out. I'd love to sit on a little chunk of savings and spend a few weeks excitedly deciding where we want to go on vacation (Australia). But that would mean working a second job 4 nights a week and not getting home until 10:30pm. That would mean sitting in our house on the weekends, turning down invitations to go out with friends, and general miserableness in our house.

I guess I'm not ready to put it all on the line to be debt free this instant. I've revised our budget to give us some more wiggle room and for once it's not to keep up with the Jones' (because I could give a shit about what they're doing).

Our budget's new wiggle room is due to the fact that I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, and what would Ryan have to think about? All the nights I spent working at the mall?

No thank you.

So tonight I'm putting in my two weeks at the mall. Bye bye, new clothes; hello cooking dinner with my husband more than 2x a week. I think it's a fair trade off. We're on track for a big November celebration, but we're being smart about savings and making sure that we've got extra funds around for a variety of things. And best of all, we have awesome seats at the Orioles v. Yankess game on my husband's birthday.

Did we make the right choice? I don't know. But I feel good about it, and that's what counts.

Adventures in eBaying.

Remember way back in the day (I'm talking early 2000's) when eBay was the new hotness and everyone was buying/selling all kinds of crap?

Apparently people are still doing that.

This past week I sold a Coach day planner (of which I was regifted, and in turn, sold) and I'm in the process of selling the leftover favors from my wedding. And I sold two paperback books on Half.com, which is apparently eBay's little sister. Between everything, I have a tidy little sum of money coming in to my PayPal account!

I totally wish I had an extra iPod laying around to sell... those things seem to be going like hotcakes (where did that expression come from?), even though they've been out for so long. But you know what you don't see a ton of anymore on eBay? Uggs. The classic tall Uggs. The kind every college age girl wears with denim mini skirts (you know you did it. I did.)

And that reminds me of a good story. Let me tell you about the acquisition of my first pair of Uggs.

Uggs were the total hotness in like 2002. Obviously I needed a pair. Unfortunately, Nordstrom was sold out, Macy's didn't carry them yet, and I didn't realize you could order them from the UggAustralia website.

Fortunately, everyone and their mother was selling a pair of Uggs on eBay. My own mother (was not selling Uggs on eBay) offered to purchase a pair of Uggs for me as my Christmas gift that year. Seeing as they weren't available in the store, and I needed them that minute, I hopped on the computer and let my fingers do the shopping. I followed dozens of pairs of size 8 tall Uggs. I watched the final selling prices. I carefully plotted my course of action.

And one day I saw a pair of the exact Uggs I wanted, with just 2 days left of bidding. I watched those fleece-lined boots like a hawk, until there were just 6 hours left on the auction. They weren't NEAR the price that some of the others were going for, so I figured this was just meant to be.

So I clicked.

And when the confirmation screen came up, I clicked again.

But instead of telling me I was the new high bidder, it told me that I was the proud new owner of the Uggs.... for $475. I had clicked BUY IT NOW. Holy Hell, I just about died when I saw that, because, as you know, there's no "take backs" on Buy It Now.

I believe I told my mom I won them for $200 (which was the highest she was willing to go) and I obviously paid the difference. How? I have no idea. It possibly went on my credit card and my mom gave me cash? There is a very real possibility that I am still paying off those damn Uggs. I sort of want to throw up a little when I think about it.

Needless to say, I've been wearing those damn Uggs for the past 8 years and they are damn near falling apart. I am positive I got my money's worth. I also do not do a lot of eBay purchasing any more, as I get a bit click happy.

Anyone else buy something for more than they bargained? Or am I the only idiot? And do not even try to tell me you didn't have a pair of Uggs, because I know you did.

New Ticker

We're in the home stretch of paying off our CCCS accounts, so I made up a cute little ticker to keep track of our progress towards becoming debt free. You can check it out waaaay down at the bottom of the blog, under the anniversary countdown. I'll update it after each month's payments (Ryan and I have seperate accounts, but I've lumped them together into one ticker).

I started it with the total due as of November 2009 and included November and December's payment (of 12.9% of the total due). I'll update it monthly and am throwing a HUGE party when this mess is finally paid off.

Keep me motivated, because some days I really just want to die.

D-E-B-T: The Follow Up

After I put myself out there a few days ago, I wasn't too sure what to expect. No one really likes to talk about their debt, and some people really frown on others' debt. I'll be the first one to tell you I did dumb things. Some people do drugs and some people rent out their body like a cheap motel room. I ran up some credit card debt. Was it smart? Not really. But what's done is done, and I currently have all of my brain cells and never feel awkward answering the slew of questions they ask you before you donate blood, so I guess I turned out ok.

You live and you learn, and then you pay for it. And if you're really lucky, your story can inspire others to make a change.

I wrote that post because I am not ashamed of our debt (that ship sailed way back when we tallied everything up and realized our credit card debt was equal to one year at a prestigious private college).... I'm proud we're doing something about it. I want to say Thank You to the three lovely ladies that left comments for me, congratulating us on our accomplishment. I want to say Good Luck to Grace. I want to say There IS a light at the end of the tunnel to the follower who emailed me with her story. And I want to say Thanks for thinking of me to Gussy, who spent some time on Gchat with me, brainstorming some ways I could cut down on our household expenses.

I'm trying to figure out how I can put a little chart of debt on my blog without putting up numbers (Ryan would kill me)... encouragement is strong motivation and now that we're in the home stretch, I could use all of the encouragement you ladies are willing to put out there! In the mean time, feel free to email me (blessthisnest (at) gmail.com) with any questions you have about our debt, how we got into it, and how we're getting out of it.

D-E-B-T: A True Story

I have randomly mentioned (more than once, I believe) that my husband and I weren't so good with our (lack of) dollars back in the day. A long time ago, back when we were in college, it seemed normal to buy $80 jeans at the Express and $45 tees at Abercrombie (I will not even mention that I lived in Abercrombie in college) while working 10 hours a week on campus making $8/hour. Ryan apparently thought it was ok to put bar tabs on a Discover card (I will not even mention that this was a weekly occurrence) and thanks to Visa, he had quite an impressive DVD collection. This was all ok, though, because after college we were going to get real jobs with real paychecks, right?

Wrong. We both went to grad school.

People will tell you to go to grad school and just get a graduate assistantship - you can go to grad school for free! So we did. And now, I am here to tell you that while your graduate assistantship may come with free tuition, the rest of it is hardly free. There are student fees to pay, plus those things that people like to call "Living Expenses": rent, utilities, food. You know, the basics. And while these things were free in college (ie your parents paid for it), they are not free in grad school. So you think you will pay for these Living Expenses with your GA stipend... and then you find out that your stipend literally covers just rent. Barely.

This, my friend, can leave you in a pile of debt. And then the thinking goes like this:

Well, I have a bunch of credit card debt from college, so what's a little more, right? After all, I'm going to get a good job when I'm done with grad school, so whatever.

And all of a sudden you have twice as much credit card debt as you used to have. And this is where it gets tricky, because if you have, say $4,000 worth of credit card debt, what's another couple hundred? And when you live 6 hours from your boyfriend and only get to see him every 5-6 weeks, of course you want to go out to dinner and not order in pizza in his crappy grad school apartment. And of course you want to go home (13 hours by car) for Christmas and you want to buy each other wonderful (ie expensive) Christmas presents. And this all goes on your credit card because you don't have any money (stipend = joke) or time to work (because grad school + graduate assistantship = full time job) to make more money. But no worries, because you obviously will graduate, and full time jobs = lots of money.

And next thing you know, you have D-E-B-T. The kind that you don't want to talk about to anyone because that much debt is just embarrassing. And so you don't. And it just sits there, collecting interest. All this is bad enough, and then you kind of realize that it's not just you that has this terrible debt.... it's your boyfriend, too. And then you feel puke-ish 24/7, but you know that there is still time to get rid of this before it's Too Late (you know, when you want to get married and stuff).

And all of a sudden the minimum payment on your credit card is $267. And then you total up all of your credit cards and you realize you are sending out hundreds of dollars worth of minimum payments and you aren't making any real progress and start to feel puke-ish all the time and it never goes away and you are positive you'll never be able to afford a wedding and you'll never have kids and your life will be consumed by these minimum payments that are really a sick joke designed to squeeze your windpipe shut every time you log into your Capital One site and see the total balance.

Then I realized that I could feel puke-ish all the time (somehow this did not result in any weight loss... I still question my ability to eat through any disaster) or I could do something about it. So I did research. A ton. For like a month all I did was look for ways to get myself out of this black hole that we created for ourselves.

And I found Consumer Credit Counseling Service. Ryan and I made an appointment, and we were so nervous - Would this ruin our credit score? What if we had to buy something and we didn't have any money? How long would it take?

The credit counselor we spoke with was the sweetest lady. She asked us to explain why we were there (too much debt, no hope of paying it off), and she just listened. She didn't berate us or tell us how stupid we had been. She then explained the program and how it could help us. She gave us hope. She made us cut up our cards and told us we wouldn't be able to open up new ones. She said that we'd find other ways to pay for things that we needed (um, cash?) and that if we couldn't afford it, we probably didn't need it. She said that if we made our payments every single month, we'd be out of debt in 5 years instead of the 30 it would have taken if we just closed our cards and paid the minimums ourselves. That was in August 2006.

Three years later, we are married and coming up on our first anniversary. We're still in the program and according to my calculations, we're going to finish a year early... we've got our sight set on August 2010 and plan on being debt free from there on out.

I tell you all of this because at one point, I really didn't know what we were going to do. I imagine I'm not the only one who used their credit cards a bit too freely, and CCCS was the right choice for us (even though I was scared to admit it). Then I came across this article on Suze Orman's website (I am thrilled Suze agrees with me on this one) and thought maybe someone might be able to benefit from it.

Tomorrow's post will be less terrible; I promise.

Catching Up

As I've mentioned, I have a real job (Job #1) and a part-time job (Job #2). This week's schedule has been INSANE - work 9am till 10pm every day. As in Monday to Friday. As in I am dead tired and it's only Wednesday.

It's also really interfering with my weight loss plan (and dinner at home with my husband). I'm supposed to be going to the gym every morning, but that hasn't happened yet and I highly dought it's going to happen tomorrow or Friday (because I'd rather spend that half hour in the morning in a nice half asleep, half away state snuggled with my husband). I guess that whole thing has sort of taken a back seat to the rest of what's going on around here; #1 on the list is getting rid of our credit card debt (ok, and snuggling with my husband).

We have a lot of credit card debt (I liked expensive jeans in college) and we're really paying for it now. Thankfully, NONE of this debt is from our wedding (which was fabulous).... but I still want to kill myself all the same every month when my paycheck is deposited and goes right out the door to our various cards. But as of today, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I'll post our stats tomorrow, and I'm hoping you'll hold me accountable..... because we need it.