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Murphy's First Visit after Plan B

July 31st, 2009 at 12:27 pm

My oldest needs braces after all.

Meanwhile, yesterday I received a check from my CC for a balance transfer off or cash advance for 1.99% till November 2010 with a 3% transfer fee.

Here is what I have coming up:

$144 for four extractions for my daughter
$352 initially for the braces, then payments of $72 for 8 months
$2037 for 2 graduate degree courses for my master's
$150 (estimated) for books

This all happens to be in a month that I have 3 cavities (old cavities but the silver fillings are deteriorating) filled & I have to buy the three kids their back-to-school stuff and clothes. I alloted $213 for my dental work, and $270 for the kids' school stuff out of our budget. The stuff listed above was what I didn't have left in the budget (I.e., ran out of money).

Looks like we're shopping at Target and the clearance rack for new clothes. I just hope the $270 will be enough. Last year we spent $300 on clothes alone for them for back-to-school.

I looked in my wallet yesterday and completely forgot I had $50 in there. Imagine the pleasant surprise I had. That money, in conjunction with my birthday money (last Sunday), I have $100 in cash not in my EF.

I also have $1000 in my EF. Not quite enough to cover everything.

I'm thinking about taking that convenience check and using it to pay my tuition and books. Then using the EF & the $100 to pay for my oldest daughter's braces.

September's goal according to DR will be working on refunding that EF, then using whatever other money we can find to pay down the debt.

Action Steps I've already taken have been to call my university yesterday & confirm that I am canceling my student loans. May sound silly to put my tuition on a CC vs student loans, but my SL would be at 6.8% - not 1.99% and I know I'll have it paid off by November of 2010. We should be CC free by February 2011

The one thing about all this house stuff going wrong this year... it just means to me there is less likely to go wrong next year that isn't covered by warranty. We replumbed the rental... you can only do that so many times & it has a 25 year warranty. Same with the HVAC we had to replace, that has a 10 year warranty. The only thing left to do on the rental structurally would be the roof & that is still good for a few years.

We had to get new windows cause ours were leaking, they have a lifetime warranty too.

So really, all the stuff that did go wrong this year - in the end isn't all THAT bad, the bright side is that is that much less I have to worry about in the future. Meanwhile, going on DR's plan will hopefully keep us from having to go into debt again when stuff like that happens again.

BTW - According to DR's plan... and after doing projections for our budget, we should be debt free (except our mortgages on the rental & our house) in February 2013. So 3 1/2 years away. That is allowing us $200/mo of "wiggle room" in case something comes up so we don't have to use our EF and letting the kids buy lunch 1/2 of the time & planning for our 18 month old to go to preschool in 2011.

2 Responses to “Murphy's First Visit after Plan B”

  1. creditcardfree Says:
    1249048995

    My daughter will be getting braces this next month, too. I hope to find out next week what my costs will be.

  2. frugaltexan75 Says:
    1249096240

    Ambitious Saver,

    You may already be aware of this ... but just in case:

    When you use one of those "convenience checks" it acts like you are taking a cash advance on your cc. So, I can say with 99.9% certainty, that if you use one, it won't be charged at 1.99% rate. Not only that, when you make payments to your credit card, they will put your payments towards the balance being charge the lower interest rate before the Cash Advance amount.

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