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| One, two, three, four … Tell me that you love me more. Sleepless long nights; that is what my youth is for. |
A bit later than usual, but here it is: the good, the bad, and the evil.
Spending –
Not looking good, my friends. Not looking good. What has happened to our drive? What has happened to the appeal of paying down debt and saving? Clothes and food; that's what. Apparently traveling to a country where it snows in the winter means it is unacceptable to wear short sleeves and flip flops. Go figure. Hopefully we are almost to the end of that spending spree – just in time for Christmas shopping! Woo! :-/
As an aside, Mint has fixed the problem where you couldn't see last year's spending, so yay! Now I don't really have an excuse not to compare and spend less. That being said, will I? Can I? My challenge begins December 1st! I will conquer this madness! I must!
Net Income –
Keeping on, keeping on… I have one more paycheck this month, so we should stay in the green. We just have to keep spending less than we are making, and I'm not sure Mint helps us see either what we are spending or what we are making. I've heard You Need A Budget (YNAB) is a great app, but I don't want to pay for it. I guess I just need to sit down with a calculator and spreadsheet and write out our daily expenses. Life just gets so hectic sometimes that it's hard to keep up. I don't know of a better way to save money though than to do something like that. Readers, any ideas or suggestions?
Net Worth –
I usually show this, but the accounts look off. It's showing we owe almost $10,000 more in students loans than we do, and I don't approve of that being posted on the internet. How can I owe $10,000 more in student loans if I haven't gone back to school? Answer: Nelnet is a terrible company to take out student loans with. They closed my accounts and reopened them, but why? Will that affect my credit score? Is Mint just sucking at finances? … I have no idea. Maybe on my day off, Wednesday, I can re-set Mint and figure all of this out. It's possible I need to make a phone call to Nelnet or potentially question the authenticity of my credit report. If I discover any of this needs to happen, I'll be sure to report on it during my next finance check in December.
In the meantime –
• Projected credit card payoff is June 2016 (one month later than last month's projection)
• Projected loan payoff remains steady at Feb. 2023.
• Investments are only down by 1.01% (a 2% difference from last month, which is an improvement. Yay!)
• Justin and I are continuing to improve our *very good* credit scores which will make it easier to get low interest loans, credit cards, and bank rewards in the future. 800s, here we come!
And to make myself feel a little better, I must admit I was totally a frugal gotta-get-a-return-on-spending goddess this weekend. We used Discover for the 5% (doubled) cashback bonus at Macy's, Free People, and Anthropologie, used our phones to find the best price for warm winter wear for Justin, abused coupons, went through online portals (Topcashback ftw!), and even called companies to get price matches. I am trying very hard to be on top of this spending game.
In Conclusion
I hate to keep reporting all bad with finances, but I want to be honest with you and myself – not hiding from the truth. Budgeting sucks. Not spending is awful, and keeping your spending to a minimum when you have two people involved is really complicated! Why can't they always just give you the best price possible and keep the couponing, price-matching, portal shopping, and credit card using out of it! It hurts my head!
How are you doing on finances this November? Keeping ahead? Falling behind? Sick of seeing my posts where I'm not actually improving and just want to slap me silly and tell me to quit spending? Share your good news and provide me with a reason to keep working at this! Or let me know that I'm not alone at this. Either way, I'd love to hear from you!
