Women in Red Racers - South Region

[redracerris]

Woohoo, I'm here too, until we find a permanent home. Merry late Christmas to everyone!

[swordguy]

SwordGuy here.

I'm glad I had time to check back in before the old board went away. I would have missed you gals!

[swordguy]

I was doing a quick scan of the posts for the last few weeks and noticed someone received a bum check from a bummette.

Two funny stories on how to deal with this.

One of my squires lent rent money to someone until her next payday. Her payday came and went and she hadn't paid him back. He needed the money (broke the first rule of lending to friends - don't lend money you can't lose!) and asked her for it. She had decided that a brand, new, nifty outfit was way more important to her than paying him back on time. She wrote him a check she knew was bad.

He cashed it and it bounced. So, he waited until her next payday, went to her bank, and cashed the check in person. She ended up bouncing a bunch of checks and having to pay all those fees. Sweet!

The other one is about my grandfather, a farmer in a small town in the south. There was a family in town that had all the money, their family owned the mill. The folks running the mill were 3rd generation wealthy in a small town, which meant they had always had things their own way and had never had to work for it. They overspent and started bouncing checks they wrote to pay for the grain.

My grandfather knew enough people in town to realize what was going on. They had, say, $9800 in the bank and wrote a bunch of $10000 checks to people. Each one looked like a harmless mistake, but it was a deliberate ploy to avoid paying.

He took the check, which had bounced, to the bank in person. He asked how much money the folks had in their account. "I can't tell you that," said the teller.

He asked whether there was enough in it to cash the check because he didn't want it to bounce again. There wasn't.

He thought for a moment, then asked "If I were to deposit $100, would there be enough in the account to cash the check?"

There was a long pause, then a smile. "Nooooo...," she replied.

"$200?"

"Yes..."

He deposited the $200 and then cashed the check for $10,000.

"Ok,

[suzwantstobefree]

Yeah! Sword Guy found us!!!! I would have really missed your stories - bummette, hehehehehheheh.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas. I am really looking forward to the New Year, the new board, and to continue on my road to financial freedom.

[suzwantstobefree]

BTW - we are getting a reduction in our social security tax starting on Jan 1, 2011. This is really a good opportunity for all of us - we are getting an additional 2% in our paychecks. Since this is a windfall, I am going to try to use it wisely and increase my 401K by the 2%. What are all of you going to do?

Also, it is a really wise decision to work on your taxes ASAP. If you receive a refund, then you are having too much taxes withheld and that could mean more money going towards your debt throughout the year. I have got everything gathered and ready to go to the accountant as soon as I get the remainder of my tax documents. If I get a refund again this year, I am decreasing my tax withholding again!

Food for thought anyway!!!

[forwardwego]

SwordGuy, what a clever grandfather!!
Suz, yep i'm all gathered up with a little bit of summarizing to do, a few statements to come in, and off to the accountant. an estimated shows refund of $1100 if there is a "making work pay" credit or $300 if not, so we're pretty close there and we may bump the withholding back up a bit.

[suzwantstobefree]

My withholding gets a little complicated due to the rental house, but a great job if you have between $300 and $1100 back! No sense in giving the gov an interest free loan! You could always increase your w/h tax and keep the same paycheck by using the extra 2% we are getting in FICA savings!

Work is about to get really busy for me - end of the year is hard on accountants so I am really looking forward to one more 4 day work week before all HECK breaks loose.

Have a great week - you all!!!

[aintnoeasywayout]

Well, i have found the new board. I don't consider myself too technologically savvy, so I hope my future updates post okay. Happy belated holidays to everyone, Merry Christmas, and I hope everyone has a Happy and Healthy New Year!

[redracerris]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that two percent...hmm. Now I'll have to do some recalculations. YEA extra money towards debt.

[suzwantstobefree]

Well today I had to go to Walmart, my least favorite store, at a time when it isn't a lot of fun to be in Walmart - lunch time.

It was 29 degrees here in Florida this morning and I washed my hair as usual only to find out my hair dryer died!!! So I got my hair as dry as I could with my towel and the remaining life in my hair dryer and then went to work, partially wet.

And of course while I am there, I end up getting kitty litter and some other things. It was an expensive lunch hour.

[forwardwego]

Suzsorry you had to go to walmart since it's undesireable for you. personally find "super-sized" stores unpleasant...hey thanks for the info & input on the idea for withholding. Thinking i will do that, then when i set up the race to pay off our vehicle loans later into 2011, i'll trim withholding back again and apply the "found" $ to that race.

[swordguy]

I missed the 2% SS tax cut. That will come in handy to pay off the loans early!

Have a happy new year!

[suzwantstobefree]

Getting ready to use my brand new hair dryer

I really have to get on track starting on January 1st. I spent more than I should have this last month!

Have a great day everyone! It is cold here in Central Florida - 32 degrees - brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[redracerris]

I like how the South region is the most talkative on the new threads. I'm still really bummed about the msn boards shutting us down.

I'm excited for this Saturday because DH and I will be celebrating our two year anniversary. We're renting a marriot hotel that has a pool and hot tub, going to a movie and dinner. I'm really excited. This is all thanks to his Mom sending us some money for Christmas!

Plus, I have a little extra money to put an extra $89 towards SL1!

Suz How does the new hair dryer work?

And I dislike this site not using standard html. I had to modify it to find out that they us [] instead of <>. grr.

[suzwantstobefree]

The new hair dryer is great! It took no time at all to dry my thick hair.

The anniversary weekend sounds so fabulous. Have fun - and best of all, you are celebrating, not spending any money, and still paying a little extra towards your Student Loan!

[speechchick71]

Suz how did you become a 3 star member? I think I'm a little jealous!

The bad check bummee was me...but the bummette did end up having money in the account. I had my bank put a hold on the check but they told me that the hold would be removed when the check cleared. I don't know if the check didn't clear once but did a second time or if it cleared on the first try but the hold didn't get removed. Either way, it cleared and I don't have to have her arrested with a felony charge and then sued for 3x the amount of the check. You have a very smart grandfather, Swordguy!

I worked for 5 days in a nursing home and know that THAT is not the setting for me. They work you HARD with the expectation of 90% productivity. Most days I was scheduled for almost 7.5 hours of therapy in my 8 hour day! I have an informal interview with a hospital in the area on Friday but I don't know if I even want to work when this contract is done. I might just stay home with my parents and maybe do some side jobs.

I'm hoping my next update puts me in the under $5500 club! If all goes well, I could be debt free in about 6 weeks! Wahoo!

[suzwantstobefree]

The bad check bummee was me...but the bummette did end up having money in the account.

I knew it was you - but didn't Sword guy coin the phrase?

I imagine it would be really hard to work in a nursing home - my Mom did as I was growing up and it was hard watching. It was difficult seeing all those people with no one who really loved them or visited them (with some exceptions). It was as if they were just waiting to die.

Whatever you decide to do, isn't it nice that you have a lot of choices since your debt is completely under control? I feel like I have no choices since I am stuck with the rental home and a lot of debt

[suzwantstobefree]

Suz how did you become a 3 star member? I think I'm a little jealous!

I think it is because I have made over 100 posts. I have been sick so I have posted a lot out of boredom!!!! Some of the other boards are kind of interesting and well some are just fun.

[nasagreen]

Ugh- I hate updating in December...our cc always goes up. I looked at my running spreadsheet and we just can't control ourselves around the holidays! To top it off, my insurance doesn't cover ultrasounds/medical for anything till we hit our 1500 deductible, then we go to paying 20% until we hit 5k. I recommend (if you're going to start trying to get pregnant) to try to do it all in one calendar year.

Boo hoo.

Also, we have to spend $350 of DH's FSA money on OTC meds and other stuff by Friday. That actually could be plenty of fun.

[redruby]

I'm hear. This is a lot like the Baby Center boards. Maybe we can learn from them. I'm so thankful that we have somewhere to go. WIRR is one of the TOP message boards on MSN what the heck???

[nasagreen]

This is just a test for a table.

Index	5 sma	15 sma	50 sma
dji	10530	10468	10278
sp500	1125	1116	1095
compx	2289	2246	2176
ndx	1875	1836	1782

[table]
[tr][td] Index [/td][td] [b]5 sma[/b] [/td][td] [b]15 sma[/b] [/td][td] [b]50 sma[/b] [/td][/tr]
[tr]
[td] dji [/td][td] 10530 [/td][td] 10468 [/td][td] 10278 [/td][/tr]
[tr]
[td] sp500 [/td][td] 1125 [/td][td] 1116 [/td][td] 1095 [/td][/tr]
[tr]
[td] compx [/td][td] 2289 [/td][td] 2246 [/td][td] 2176 [/td][/tr]
[tr]
[td] ndx [/td][td] 1875 [/td][td] 1836 [/td][td] 1782 [/td][/tr]
[tr]
[/table]


State	Capital
Florida	Tallahassee
Ohio	Columbus
Georgia	Atlanta
Massachusetts	Boston

[table]
[tr][td] State [/td][td] Capital [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Florida [/td][td] Tallahassee [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Ohio [/td][td] Columbus [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Georgia [/td][td] Atlanta [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Massachusetts [/td][td] Boston [/td][/tr]
[/table]

Ok, I figured it out. This page has a great post on how to do this:
notmsnmoney.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=startinvesting&action=display&thread=179
Note that for his post, he is using these "<>" but proboards likes "[]". I posted the code for each table beneath each of them.

[CarolinaKat]

Nasa: That's a funny table

Red Ruby: AWESOME icon

[nasagreen]

Update test:

Date	Nov/18/10	Dec/10/10
Ameriquest CC	0	0
Elite Rewards CC	5716.33	5659.33
Citi CC - DH	0	263.12
Citi CC - Mine	4436.84	4501.26
US Airways CC	754.2	1658.28
Stafford Direct - Mine	16151.6	15876.69
Sallie Mae - Mine	37424.42	37344.09
Truck - DH	26295.93	25678.4
Car - Mine	0	0
Perkins Loan - Mine	4672.75	4672.75
Sallie Mae - DH	11659.6	11385.69
Career Starter Loan - Mine	0	0
Direct Loan - Mine	0	0
Total Debt	107111.67	107039.61
	Total Paid	37332.08
	% Paid	25.85831059
	Difference	-72.06

So, not too bad. What I did was I created another sheet from my excel sheet I'm using to hold all my updates. Then I put the following in the first column:

[tr][td] .... etc

I copied and pasted all the values for Date, then one for each account in the next column.
Then the middle columns have this:
[\td][td]
in each row.
Then I copied and pasted all the values for each account for both the past month and current month.
The last column has this:
[\td][\tr]
in each row.

Here is this sample code:

[table]
[tr][td] Date [/td][td] Nov/18/10 [/td][td] Dec/10/10 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Ameriquest CC [/td][td] 0 [/td][td] 0 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Elite Rewards CC [/td][td] 5716.33 [/td][td] 5659.33 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Citi CC - DH [/td][td] 0 [/td][td] 263.12 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Citi CC - Mine [/td][td] 4436.84 [/td][td] 4501.26 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] US Airways CC [/td][td] 754.2 [/td][td] 1658.28 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Stafford Direct - Mine [/td][td] 16151.6 [/td][td] 15876.69 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Sallie Mae - Mine [/td][td] 37424.42 [/td][td] 37344.09 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Truck - DH [/td][td] 26295.93 [/td][td] 25678.4 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Car - Mine [/td][td] 0 [/td][td] 0 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Perkins Loan - Mine [/td][td] 4672.75 [/td][td] 4672.75 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Sallie Mae - DH [/td][td] 11659.6 [/td][td] 11385.69 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Career Starter Loan - Mine [/td][td] 0 [/td][td] 0 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Direct Loan - Mine [/td][td] 0 [/td][td] 0 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] Total Debt [/td][td] 107111.67 [/td][td] 107039.61 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] [/td][td] Total Paid [/td][td] 37332.08 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] [/td][td] % Paid [/td][td] 25.85831059 [/td][/tr]
[tr][td] [/td][td] Difference [/td][td] -72.06 [/td][/tr]
[/table]


Some people are trying to create an automatic sheet in excel, which would be nice, but after you set this up, all you really have to do is copy the past month's data from what you already have in excel and the current month's data into their two columns, and then cut and paste the whole selection of this silly, wonky code into the message box on proboards and it does the rest. So I probably will just use this. You can do this in word, excel, notepad, anything on a computer so don't be afraid to try. The worst that would happen is that it wouldn't do anything at all ;D

[jdnstl]

nasa - that looks so pretty...but i'll try to copy & paste from my word doc & if it works stick to that. yeah, i have to do the calculations myself but hopefully it'll ward off old-timers for a little longer.

[nasagreen]

jdnstl - you can do this in word too...just using the table functions and inserting the [][] bracket stuff as columns in between all of your data. it will work the same way, and then you can keep a-calculatin' ... heck you can do this in notepad. all the proboards cares about is that you have the stuff in the brackets in the right place. if you have trouble, just message me and i can help with that if you would like.

[ridmydebt]

when r we going to start posting updates on here?

[suzwantstobefree]

Today I took down the payroll checks for my general manager to sign. He looked at mine and said - do you always get this much? I am on salary and it hasn't changed since the beginning of the year when I adjusted taxes and 401K. Made me think (on my way home) is he trying to tell me I make too much??? BTW - his was 9 times great then mine!!!!!

[redruby]

Name	Starting	12/31/2010
Big Truck	54,880.78	51,138.89
Car Loan	32,323.71	29385.19
Chase 1	5,700.00	14,485.59
Discover1	14,098.66	11932.19
Student Loan	7,228.67	6,996.99
Chase 2	9,790.13	6,617.93
Car Loan	6,718.85	6,515.11
Pick-up	7,077.39	6,064.22
Discover 2	4,585.00	4,196.00
Capital One	2,041.00	0.00	12.03.10
Hospital	583.85	0.00	11.14.10
GM Card	1,305.03	0.00	10.24.10
GM CARD 2	166.97	0.00	10.15.10
BOA	13,144.70	0.00	2009
ATV	1,917.27	0.00	2009
Unicorn	1,809.29	0.00	2009
HD	357.84	0.00	2009
Dental	143.60	0.00	2009
Totals	163,872.74	137,332.11	26,540.63
EF	1003
Red Ruby	Dec/31/2010	$137,332.11	(1/21/2010 $163,872.74) S561

[suzwantstobefree]

Looks good Red Ruby. Guess I am going to have to try to figure it out this weekend!

[ridmydebt]

I can't figure out how to do the tables