Sure, the markets are having a fit, which makes it painful to look at our retirement accounts. Except that we aren’t planning on touching them for many years, so eh. Feel a little bad for the baby boomers inching up on retirement, but really, not much. Yes, I know that schadenfreude isn’t exactly a positive emotion or anything, but many of them have defined their lives by excess so they shouldn’t be surprised when it comes around to bite ‘em. A little frugality isn’t perhaps a terrible thing.

photo credit: missdesigndiva

Meanwhile our politicians are tripping over themselves trying to do, well, I don’t really know. Looks like they are hellbent on trying to find a way to spend my son’s future income in an effort to stave off what will be an admittedly painful correction. Personally, being a free market kind of guy, I say go ahead and let it correct. But I am probably missing the big picture.

That said, at least in our household, things are certainly not flying off track. In fact, despite the supposed tightening of the credit market, we just received notice that one of our credit cards has substantially increased it’s limit. Thanks, but we really don’t need it. We won’t mention that to the government, because they may just decide they need that as well!

We did a decent job of killing off more debt this month. Broke well past the $1000 mark. And honestly are still living quite comfortably even with that kind of progress. We could probably introduce a little more pain and get the ball rolling a little faster. But that’s a budgeting issue, not a reporting one.

I’ve been having a lot of fun recently with my side business, and it’s beginning to really take off. Right now it is not adding any to our debt attack plan, as I am stockpiling cash right now in anticipation of further expansion. The holidays are rapidly approaching, and I have a feeling I’ll be spending a fair amount on advertising soon!

Oh, and oops, I will take a cue from Wall Street and restate some debt. I misread a medical bill statement and understated that debt by around $800. Where’s my bailout?

Oh, and that they were now offering the incredible rate of 3.75% on a CD…

Which just reminded me that I want out of HSBC-land. I only log into the account once or twice a month, either to deposit my monthly non-monthly bills money (ala something like 1/12th of our property taxes or 1/6th of our car insurance payment) or, if when it becomes time to pay one of those irregular bills, to withdraw what was set aside. And each and every time, I’m annoyed by their login process. On two occasions now, I’ve had to waste my time calling them up and plead to let me back into my account after screwing up the login a few times in a row.

If I truly value my time, just one call to restore my account after a login foul up will easily kills a few years in extra interest beyond what I can get elsewhere. It’s just not worth it to trade that five bucks or so a year extra my irregular bill fund earns at HSBC with the simplicity that is ING Direct (where I keep my side business money partitioned away from our ‘regular’ money).

So I just opened another sub account at ING, and in a few days, I can remove one more bank from my Financial Institutions I Have Accounts With list.

When I screw up, I get slapped. And deservedly so.

However, when a really big corporation screws up, I - as well as my children, who will be paying for this crap long after we’re gone unless the government realizes that out-of-control debt stays exactly that - again get slapped.

The lesson? Either be very very big, or be very small. The middle class? Fuggit about ‘em…

photo credit: StreetFly JZ

As expected, we suffered a little setback in debt reduction progress this month when a batch of medical bills arrived. And just as expected, there is no such thing as a cheap medical procedure, so of course we maxed out my wife’s portion of the deductible. Since the deductible on the plan I get through work is fairly high, well, likewise our final bill.

The first obvious lesson is that going without health insurance in this day and age is a sure route to financial ruin. I’m not thrilled with a fairly large bill, but it could have been far larger had we been without coverage!

And since health insurance was forefront in our minds, the wife and I decided to do a little comparison shopping to see what it would cost to get a decent policy on our own. One with perhaps a better deductible. Maybe look into a HSA to get a little tax advantage. That sort of thing.

We used the health coverage comparison engine at eHealthInsurance to look into a pretty broad range of policies. One things was obvious from the get go: we could — assuming we qualify for the plans, of course — get health insurance for a heck of a lot cheaper than what my employer is currently paying on us. Especially after an upcoming rate increase goes into effect.

I broached the subject of dropping us from the group coverage and instead getting a salary increase on par with the plan’s premium with my employer, and he certainly didn’t rule the idea out. So yesterday we submitted an application to see if we could qualify for one of the mid-range plans that meets our needs, halves our deductible(!), and qualifies as an HSA plan to boot.

Anyway, enough rambling for today. On to the raw numbers:

I agree that 30 days late is late — one day is not late!

Has our education system gotten so poor that we cannot even grasp simple words like late anymore?

late: Coming, occurring, or remaining after the correct, usual, or expected time; delayed

photo credit: Renegade98

With our own government muddling our minds by telling us that a loan is a credit via the recently passed Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, is it any wonder that Americans seem a bit economically challenged? Oh, sure, at least it’s an interest free loan, but as long as you have to pay it back, it sure is not a credit to this taxpayer.

And yes, I know you could play a little arbitrage and come out with a little extra coin in the end. But you and I both know that the majority of people taking advantage of this are not going to be doing that. They are going to be blowing it on some other thing they cannot really afford but for this $7,500 advance from the government. And then in a couple years they will discover they owe that money back, and be further in the hole than before. Could you please explain the logic in helping those with debt problems by giving them extra debt? All while sacking everyone — including future generations — with a little more debt via a nice little boost to the deficit? (Oh, that’s right, this isn’t a helping hand for citizens — it is for the banks.)

On a personal note, I am so looking forward to answering the inevitable client questions from those who take advantage of this as to why they need to pay an additional $500 in taxes, every year, for the next 15 years…

I propose a new law:

Congress shall enact no new spending legislation during an election year.

photo credit: ToniVC

Summer has finally made itself fully known, and walking outside is like walking into a sauna. Which is fine if I wanted a sauna, but not so fine if I just wanted to go for a walk. So, what better time to break out ye’ olde spreadsheet and see what kind of progress was made in killing off debt last month?

Summer always seem to be a little more expensive for us than other times of the year. After all, when it’s snowing and 7 degrees, we are perfectly content not wandering much and just staying warm inside here at home.

But it being a beautiful summer, we felt like wandering a bit. We made our annual pilgrimage to my extended family reunion, and decided to take a couple extra days to see my wife’s brother nearby while we were in the area. We did do a budget for the vacation, but it being one of those things we didn’t regularly budget for in the past (otherwise known as everything), we didn’t end up budgeting enough. A couple extra meals out, a few too many trips to the coffee shop, some random spending, and the bottom line showed us a couple hundred overspent.

I was a little disappointed, but wasn’t extraordinarily bothered by it. My wife? Borderline stroke. I had no idea how deeply the get-out-of-debt bug I brought home had bitten her! A few serious conversations about our goals and progress and such, and she relaxed a bit while also imbuing in me a little extra motivation to kick a few things into higher gear…

photo credit: Daveybot

Spring ends, summer begins, more debt goes to the great beyond. Isn’t it a wonderful thing?

Yet another month of incremental debt killing. While I could have boosted the damage done to the final tally a bit by using returns from my expanding online marketing side business, right now I’m comfortable using the funds to reinvest in what’s been working. Maybe next month I’ll throw the excess at the debt, but for now having the ability to use the play I have in that side business’s cash flow to experiment has proven useful.

Likewise, I’m sure we could have trimmed more, but going over our spending versus the budget it looks like we did a little comfort spending in June. In the end, it is just money, and we needed a little cheering up more than we needed to knock a couple hundred more off the total, so c’est la vie. Speaking of, we are still waiting to hear on medical bills associated with our loss. Since we have a pretty substantial deductible, unless medical procedures have gotten cheap all of a sudden, the ol’ total is almost certainly going to suffer a brief reversal soon.

Anyway, for those into specifics, here ya’ go:

photo credit: PhotoA.nl

Despite the ominous sounding headline I threw up there, the financial front of our little family ended the month making decent forward progress. Oh, sure, I would have loved to knock another few thousand a month off that total. And with our little stimulus payment (my apologies future generations!) coming in, I thought we might just have the chance to bite of a bigger chunk.

Some more good news: My little sis did manage to get herself hitched. To a guy I really like. And looked absolutely ecstatic the whole time. And while our gift spending was out of the ordinary monthly range, the wedding was no surprise and we had budgeted for that spending. So it made almost no dent finance-wise. And hey, it’s my little sister. I’m absolutely thrilled that she’s thrilled.

Looking good at knocking off that chunk so far! But alas, Murphy had other ideas. At least he had the good graces to wait to show up until we had a bit of extra coin around.

We’ve been working on growing our little family for several months without luck, until early last month when my wife shared a little good news with me one evening. Several visits to our wonderful doc later, and alas, it was not meant to be this time around. Whether at seven weeks or seven months, irregardless of how great anything else went, this type of loss makes for a rotten month.

Here’s to a better June!

photo credit: ninanoelan

Looking at the final tally, it appears we had a bit of a slowdown this month. Which I’m going to blame entirely on my sister, of course. You see, she is getting married in a few weeks, so of course she needed a bridal shower and all that jazz. Which, being my little sister, I didn’t necessarily nudge the host — being my wife — to go cheap on the party favors and drinks and such. C’est la vie. It’s my little sister after all, and this will hopefully be the only wedding she ever has!

Which, of course, means that we’ll probably see a little more slowing this month. Have another gift to get, have to make myself presentable and such, etc. etc. At least I won’t be making a cross country flight or drive for this one!

Anyway, on to the raw numbers. Just a steady chipping away, though there has been some news on the property we’re trying to unload, but that’s a story for another day.