Women in Red Racers - Midwest Region

[coachsgirl0825]

I've been lurking for about 3 years now and since I'm finally done with school, I'm ready to take the plunge. So here it goes:

Name 1/5/2011
Maurices $480.75
AES2 $5,384.11
AES1 $5,925.69
NFCU $6,545.56
Dept. of Ed $11,740.60
SCU $16,987.30

Total $47,064.01

coachsgirl0825: 1/5/11 $47,064.01 (1/5/11 $47,064.01 MU7)

Hope I did that line right. Oh, and I'm in Illinois. So excited that I'm finally going to do this!

[Pants]

This also has no numbers but the formatting is there. Let me know if it makes sense!
BIG SHOUTOUT and much karma to TurboThumper for her spreadsheet!!

Attachments:

Debt Tracker2.xlsx.jpg (16.66 KB)

[chelsea727]

Welcome coachsgirl!! These boards are amazing ;D

[Kelly1977]

Thanks everyone for the nice words. I will hang on, just not feeling like it right now. I forgot that $600 from this week's check was also going to buy a half of beef. My mom is paying me for half of it, but that will be in 2 weeks. I know it will all work out right. Just seems like I spent a lot of money lately (doesn't just seem-I did!). DH birthday was yesterday, Christmas was last week, plus everything else.
DH doesn't spend that much, but when we are together, especially after months of just having every other weekend to do something together, we tend to go overboard. We went to Red Robin for lunch today and then played Super Mario while I did laundry. So, that was fun and not too expensive. I think I needed it.

[mommax4]

chicg do you get a match with your 401K at work? If so, what I've gleaned from reading YM is that you should make your 401K first (up to the company match), then max the Roth ($5,000), then go back and up the 401K to the max (as funds allow).

Whether to do more in a Roth 401K vs. a regular 401K is a bit trickier to determine. One consideration is what tax bracket to you expect to be in when you retire (higher or lower than where you are now). If lower, do the Roth, if higher, do the regular. Another consideration (for the one through the company vs outside company) is what kinds of funds are available? If you have crappy choices with your company, an outside Roth makes more sense. That takes a lot more time/effort to figure out because it's company specific. That's really all I know about Roth/Roth401K/401K. Hope that helps a little bit though.

[cherit]

Ladies,
I know this is a money board, but we all seem to kind of add personal stuff in here, so I have a dilemna. A friend came to me this morning and asked me about a situation she is in. She has been dating this guy for 7 or 8 months. Pretty much living together, but he still has his house. Anyway, her bf is friends with a girl he used to see for "booty calls." The girl called him the other night at about 11 o'clock and of course he was at my friends house. Word from a reliable source is that she was calling for another booty call. My friend has tried to tell her bf this makes her uncomfortable, but he says it is innocent. She is asking me for advice. My advice is that since he claims he loves the friend and wants to be with her forever, that he needs to address the situation, and stop the friendship. Am I wrong in advising this? My friend has said that he will talk to this girl, but not when she is around. He will answer her calls when he is alone or at work, but not if they are together. What do you guys think? If I am out of line posting this let me know and I will delete it. Thanks.

[Bank of Mom]

Bank of Mom Closed: 1/5/2011 $12,960.92 (11/20/08 $48,587 M680)

UPDATE	Start	Last Month Update	Current Update
	11/20/2008	12/22/2010	1/5/2011
CC 4571 4-30-09	$2,855.00	$0.00	$0.00
CC 1915 BT-USB	$21,207.00	$0.00	$0.00
USB 60 mo 7-14-10		$0.00	$0.00
USB Life 10-22-10		$0.00	$0.00
Fed Loan 1	$8,140.00	$6,791.55	$6,791.55
Fed Loan 2	$6,266.00	$4,962.42	$4,962.42
Fed Loan 3	$10,119.00	$1,866.25	$1,206.95
Total	$48,587.00	$13,620.22	$12,960.92

Paid since Last Month	$659.30
Total Amt Pd	$35,626.08
Total % Pd	73.32%

Monthly % Paid 11/20/2008	$271.34
% Paid Last Month	$50.97

It worked!!

[keepinthefaith]

Much kudos (and Karma) to Kewee as well...I believe she's the one who originally came up with the code for the spreadsheet. Turbo adapted it to excel, which is helpful, too. Thanks, ladies!

[chicg]

Cherit - you're so sweet, I don't think your question was out of line! Speaking from experience, and I think I have a pretty liberal view, I absolutely think your friend's BF should stop speaking to the booty call. Female friendships are one thing (although lets face it, most male/female friendships fizzle when one is in a relationship unless all 3 are friends) but when it's physical like that, the only reason to keep in touch is if you plan to keep the physical part available. It's too much temptation for him, introduces jealousy and it's not respectful to her. Most always those situations don't change, it's rare that you'd have a friend who you call for advice AND are involved with physically and you can just instantly turn the physical off but keep the friendship part. Her boyfriend has a right to say no, that he wants to keep being friends with her but I think that's a big indication that he's not committed to your friend and she may have to make the decision to live with that or let him go. I do think there are some cases where old flames can turn out to be friends but I'm only 33 and I don't call guys at 11pm just to chat! If it's causing your friend stress, BF should be kind enough to tell the other girl that he's in a relationship and can't be in touch right now.
coachsgirl - welcome! Glad you decided to join and I think the fact that you've been lurking shows that your head is already in the right place and you'll be really successful with this!

[chicg]

Thank you everyone that was invovled in making the excel spreadsheet available! I saved the file and will try on my next update. (my next not-so-good update as apparently I'm still spendy, I checked my balance thinking I had around $400 and it was only $94! Good thing I get paid Friday, but that money is already spoken for, ugh!)

[chelsea727]

Cherit- - You are not out of line at all. I figure if it was me in that situation, I definitely wouldn't like my bf talking to someone that he was in a booty call situation with.. It's one thing if you've been friends with the person forever but if she's still calling him for booty calls late at night, it seems suspicious. She should ask her bf how he would feel if roles were reversed. If he refuses to de-friend her then maybe he should invite her out with a group of people so your friend can see if she's a shady girl who is trying to take her man, or if she is a good person and there's nothing to worry about. She will definitely be able to pick up on that.

[tkdblkbelt28]

So here's testing the new table, this is just my last update so no changes yet.

UPDATE	12/30/2009	10/18/2010	12/13/2010
Sallie Mae 1	$21,678.06	$0.00	$0.00
Car	$11,058.17	$8,588.64	$7,150.79
Misc	$3,819.98	$2,603.74	$0.00
Sallie Mae 2	$112,992.79	$112,992.79	$119,369.74
AES 1	$31,137.80	$31,073.97	$31,073.97
AES 2	$29,423.76	$29,423.76	$29,423.76
Xpress	$11,583.48	$11,583.48	$11,583.48
Discover SL	$25,327.84	$25,327.84	$25,327.84
Total	$247,021.88

[/b][/TD] [TD] $221,594.22 [/TD] [TD] $223,929.58 [/TD] [/TR]
[TR] [TD] Diff Last Post [/TD] [TD] ($2,335.36) [/b][/TD] [TD]
[TR] [TD] Total Amt Pd [/TD] [TD] $23,092.30 [/b][/TD] [TD]
[TR] [TD] Total % Pd [/TD] [TD] 9.35% [/TD] [TD]
[/TABLE]

Looks like it works! ;D

[Kelly1977]

I also want to thank everyone involved in getting the tables set up. I will try them soon.
One reason I am stressed over finances, is I feel lost again, like before I began. Something I notice that I used to do (and have started doing again) is using avoidance. Like not wanting to do spreadsheets or look at the CC I put the vacation on. Of course, that only leads to snowballing the wrong way. Since it feels so overwhelming and all over the place, I made a Goal List that I will complete by Jan 14. This includes making an updated ING savings for 2011, a 2 month budget, looking at and dealing with the actual costs of the vacation, making my spreadsheets back, doing my WIRR update that I am overdue on, and *sigh* weighing myself. I am certain I am at my highest point ever and would like to lose anything I can by my vacation. So, I have to start somewhere.
This will force me to jump back into the game (both financial and weightloss) and face them head-on. I feel better having a list and a time frame to complete them. In fact, when I log off here I am going to look at the CC statement for the vacation and then I will probably start planning what savings I need for ING for the year.
I actually felt a whole lot better earlier when I posted exactly what I was feeling and *confessed*. Maybe I needed to spell it out to myself. Ok, I also like this smiley.
Also, have any of you ever checked out walletpop dot com? I like it, has a lot of financial articles and calculators and the like.

[cherit]

Thanks for the replies ladies. I appreciate it. I asked her if she had asked him about it and he informed her that the girl "respects" him too much to be calling for that reason. I will talk to her tonight and tell her what we all think!! Thanks so much for replying. On a side note, I know the girl, and would have to say that she is not too respectful or respectable either for that matter. Not a good situation. Friend did ask if the situation was reversed how he would feel, and he said he trusts her, and that it would not really bother him. However, I don't buy that.

[tkdblkbelt28]

I am going to follow the great example of my fellow racers and post my 2011 goals to help keep me accountable. These are in no particular order as they are all very important.

1. Create end of life documents.
2. Create a list of all debt/financial info for quick and easy access to estate executor or DH if I pass.
3. Create a usable budget.
4. Use the budget every month!
5. Get total debt below $200k.
6. Be at 140 pounds by my 30th bday in July!
7. Finish our upstairs into 2 bedrooms.

Thanks to earlier advice from you lovely ladies I have accomplished number 3, of course #4 is the hard part . I also did #2, I realized that if I died DH would probably lose the house, not because I don't have enough life insurance but because he would have no idea who or what to pay! (This is his fault as he likes to use the hands off approach to finances, but at least I have him on board with the budget now!)

[bengaltigers]

testing from last update...

UPDATE	10/26/2010	11/23/2010	12/20/2010	Diff Last Post	Total Diff
JCP	275.15	179.09	179.09	-	96.06
NFM	4,093.36	3,823.36	3,553.36	270.00	540.00
BofA	12,487.59	12,301.41	12,114.73	186.68	372.86
Chase	923.97	740.13	653.08	87.05	270.89
USAA	5,842.82	5,805.24	5,900.81	(95.57)	(57.99)
WF	5,743.01	5,667.99	5,618.41	49.58	124.60
Auto	14,203.13	13,814.44	13,423.80	390.64	779.33
Loan	735.29	542.95	348.60	194.35	386.69
Total	44,304.32	42,874.61	41,791.88	1,082.73	2,512.44

bengaltigers_ne 12/20/10 $41,791.88 (10/26/10 $44304.32 MU631)

[bengaltigers]

wow... that was easy!! thank you everyone for the spreadsheet!!! now i just have to copy this into my "normal" spreadsheet...

[chicg]

mommax3 - thanks for the 401K advice. I do get a match to 5% which is where my 401K contributions are at, and I do 3% to ROTH 401K. I do think I need to take greater advantage of ROTH now for the tax purposes, I'm just confused by it all! My company actually has great 401K options, almost too many for me. People would recommend putting as much as possible to my ROTH 401K since there isn't the $5K limit, but I don't know I can do that much anyhow!
tkdblkblt - wow, you have good goals. End of life documents aren't fun but I realized with my dad getting sick how important all that stuff is.
Cherit - haha, typical guy response. Booty calls are not about respect! 11pm is pretty late to call in my opinion unless very important. Plus, it's not his friends's job to monitor his moral character, that's his job. I don't think it's her fault if she keeps calling if he sends signals that he is available to be called. It's easy to place blame on "the other girl" but usually girls are only after a man when they receive signs that man can be taken. After 8 months, your friend would know if this woman is a dear friend to him. I hope it works out for her, I really don't like to tell guys/girls that they can't have friends of the opposite sex but I've seen too many guys cave to temptation with old flings.

[ivanabgrn]

Ok, so here is a picture of my baby Amy, which no, she's not so much of a baby anymore. She'll be 4 in a few weeks. I also had to make it my Avatar since it's my favorite picture EVER of her!

Attachments:

[chicg]

One more post!
Kelly - try not to beat yourself up too much! I've been battling weight loss for my WHOLE life. I've always been active and I don't eat that poorly! It breaks my heart when I see Biggest Loser and these people say they've never used a treadmill and here I am working out 6 days/week and I'm nearly the same size as them and I lose nothing. I'm probably going to give Weight Watchers another try soon, I'm running out of wiggle room in the budget though. That said, when you're ready to get on the scale, remember that's the hardest part. Even if you try to make one healthier change a day, it's better then none. Here's a website I love, the recipes have WW points if you count, are healthy and husband-approved and often pretty simple yet look fancy. www dot skinnytaste dot com. I know how hard weight loss is, I hope this helps.

[cherit]

chicg,
That is why I asked everybodys input on this before I talk to her. I have been cheated on more than once, and wanted to make sure that that wasn't affecting what I say to her. I am really bothered by the fact that he will talk to this girl when my friend isn't around, but not when she is. Kinda makes ya wonder huh???

[seriousthistime]

Ditto to what everyone has said in the past two pages. My comments, in no particular order:

I joined WW before Christmas. As a result, I gained 1.6 pounds over the holidays, which would have been 5 pounds if I hadn't joined AND I think most of that gain was because my first weigh-in was first thing in the a.m. where the second one, three weeks later, was after work. So I am now re-ignited on the program and going gangbusters to lose more. My only really successful weight loss program ever was unintended (extreme stress during divorce) and I don't want to do that again! The new WW program is great! Zero points for fruit! Gotta love that.

Kelly, we all get burned out and melt down. I see you are racing your mortgage and all kinds of other stuff. Have you thought about just racing a few debts at a time? I have a mortgage, HELOC, and even other CC's that I am not racing yet. It's a bit of a twist on Dave Ramsey, but dividing my debt into manageable bites works for me. And I do indeed get burned out but then when I see how much I pay into my snowball and think how nice it would be to free up all that money and spend it on what I want, or save it, or whatever, my energy is renewed.

[seriousthistime]

More comments:

Re: the booty call, if a guy doesn't want to be bothered taking calls from someone who used to be a booty call, he will not take the calls. Maybe he wants the flattery of being wanted by two women. Think -- if some for some reason some male former booty call started calling you at 11 p.m., knowing that you were in a relationship, and you ARE happily in a relationship, WHY would you take that call? You either intend to follow through, you think you might follow through, or your ego needs the boost. My attitude might be different if their work schedules made 11 p.m. a reasonable time to call.

I got Turbo's spreadsheet. I will now set out to plug in some numbers and post them.

[seriousthistime]

]UPDATE 1/12/08 1/5/11 Paid off
Chase 1 23,406.00 4,267.00 19,139.00
Chase 2 19,617.00 13,532.00 6,085.00
Cap 1 13,132.00 0.00 13,132.00
Choice 1,523.00 0.00 1,523.00
Chase 3 3,707.00 0.00 3,707.00
Car 431.00 0.00 431.00
TOTAL 61,816.00 17,799.00 44,017.00

Serious this time, 1/5/11, $17,799 (1/12/08, $61,816, M47, M1026)

[seriousthistime]

Obviously it didn't work. I guess I need to read the directions more carefully.

[shopaholic814]

KeWee: Sorry I didn't give you credit for the original spreadsheet, I missed that post. THANK YOU FOR GETTING THE BALL ROLLING FOR ALL OF US!! ;D

[Minnesotagirl7]

coachsgirl0825- Welcome!!

[Minnesotagirl7]

Update!

Minnesotagirl7: 1/6/11 $22,535 (3/18/09 $53,165 M838)

Still turtling along. I'm hoping to step it up around September - fingers crossed!!

ETA
I'm going to try this slick new table that was so graciously provided...

	3/18/2009	12/6/2010	1/6/1011
Citi #1	$4,400	$0	$0
Chase	$15,265	$0	$0
GM Card	$13,990	$8,825	$8,560
Citi #2	$19,510	$14,225	$13,975
Total	$53,165	$23,050	$22,535
Diff Last Post	$515
Total Amt Pd	$30,630
Total % Pd	57.6%

[urdoingit]

Posting my last update:

Ur_doing_it: 12/10/10 $2,321.14 (7/22/09 $21,197.96 M1045)

Name 8/11/2009 12/10/2010 Change
Ford $2,633.35 0 ($2,633.35)
Electro $7,173.75 0 ($7,173.75)
Cap 1 $10,549.43 $2,321.14 ($8,228.29)
Totals $20,356.53 $2,321.14 ($18,035.39)
Percent Paid Off 89.05%

[urdoingit]

This is my current update:
Ur_doing_it: 1/7/2011 $1,637.14 (7/22/09 $21,197.96 M1045)

UPDATE

8/11/2009

12/10/2010

1/7/2011 [TR] [TD] Ford

$2,633.35

0

0 [TR] [TD] Electro

$7,173.75

0

0 [TR] [TD] Cap 1

$10,549.43

$2,321.14

$1,637.14 [TR] [TD] Total

$20,356.53

[/b][/TD] [TD] $2,321.14 [/TD] [TD] $1,637.14
[TR] [TD] Total Amt Pd [/TD] [TD] $684.00 [/b][/TD] [TD]
[TR] [TD] Total % Pd [/TD] [TD] 89.05% [/TD] [TD]
[/TABLE]