Getting ready for 2016 and the Unexpected

I’m a planner, ever since I started paying bills back in 2003, I’ve done the best I could to plan for the unexpected, some time it works, most time it doesn’t. Today I was looking at 2016 and what I should expect, the normal stuff like Comcast, Gas & Electric, AT&T, 3 vehicle payments and my house payment; they come every month like clock work. It’s the other bills that don’t come every month that can surprise you; my water bill comes quarterly, February is HOA fees, March & September is Life insurance. After years of using the same spread sheet, I wanted to make a new one, something a little more flexible for me; as I was just about finished, I thought of one other Bill that comes along when you least expect it too or just plain don’t want it too; the dreaded MVA.

           Now in Maryland we pay this every 2 years, so it’s kinda easy to forget about, only problem is, it’s expensive, trucks\SUV are $187.00, cars are $128.00 and motorcycles are $104.00; so when one of these come in the mail you just want to sit in the corner and cry “why me, why do I have to pay this”. So I figured I had at least one vehicle due in 2016 for sure, a little research and low and behold, 4 out of the 5 vehicles I have are due, DAMN IT, 1 SUV, 2 cars, 1 motorcycle, to the tune of $547.00. Least I won’t be surprised when they come in the mail, but I sure was when I figured it out this morning; I’m still in the corner crying.    

Due Dates:

            I have one Credit Card, it’s the Discover It card, one reason I like this card is because it shows me my FICO score when the statement comes, I have really good score, then in only a month my score fell 50 points, and I had know idea why at the time. It took me 2 months to figure out why and it was only because my wife and daughter wanted new iPhones; We have been with our current cell phone company for about 5 years or so, paid the bill on time every month, never missed a payment, never even late with payment, so when my wife informed me that she couldn’t get a phone because the current bill wasn’t paid. I was like WTF!!!, I’ve never been late, it’s not due till the 9^th, it’s only the 5^th, I still have 4 days left. Unknown to me is that AT&T changed to dues date to the 2^nd of the month about 2 months before this; thanks for tell me AT&T, way to go. Now if I had looked at the bills a little more carefully, or just even look at the bill to begin with, I would have saw this, maybe, maybe not. I get email from my bank and it tells me how much it is and I go to Bill Pay, punch in the amount and day I want it paid, and all is well in my little world. So now I look at all the due dates on all my bills before I pay them just to make sure, and my FICO score is going back up, not as fast as it came down, but up is better then down in this case. Paying bills on time accounts for 35% of your FICO score, and that’s a lot; so check those due dates.

Update on ENB

Been a while since I’ve post anything, so let me get you up to speed with what’s been going on in  Everyday Normal Bill (ENB). So I couldn’t talk myself out of not getting a new Mustang, I bought that at the end of February, I traded in my Scion FR-S, payments are a $100.00 dollars a month more, so now I am car poor. I bought a new camera body this year,(Canon 7D Mark II) my other one was 10 years old, and broke, felt like the it was time to trade up, I’ve almost got that paid for, and I won’t put another dime on my Discover IT card unless it’s an emergency, lesson learned, I hate paying interest. Going to start posting more, that’s one of my goals for 2016; along with save more money and a lot of other things a talk about later. Every thing is going pretty smooth right now with my checking account, which is a good thing for a change. 

R&B Day at work

Today is R&B day at work, meaning Raises and Christmas Bonuses; I got a really nice raise this year, which I am so thankful for. I feel lucky to have a great job doing something I love; and to get paid well for it just makes it all the better. My Christmas bonus equals one weeks pay, but our HR department always take out for the insurance and 401k and pretty much everything, so while its still nice to get, it could be better. My last check of the year won’t have insurance taken out because the divide up over 26 pays, the last check is 27 because of the bonus; stupid right.

Today was also Bill day, had to pay 2 car payments ($1410.00) BG&E ($226.62) and Asshole Comcast ($196.66), so while I had $2951.86 go in, I had $1833.28 come out; glad it was R&B day today. 

Christmas is almost here

Well Black Friday is over and there is only 15 days left to blow as much money on Christmas that you can beg, barrow or steal; I personally haven’t spend a dime yet. I really only have to buy for my wife, seems easy enough, been married to her for almost 30 years; but she’s the hardest person in the world to buy for, because all she does is work. Enough about Christmas, as you might be able to tell, I’m not a fan of it.

This time a year gets me thinking about next year and looking at where all my money went this year and hope that it doesn't go there again net year, I spent $17095.76 this year that I don’t think I need to spend next year. Things I know I’m not going to need are, lawnmower, snow blower($2199.49), hot water heater($1461.98), wash machine($951.47), tune up on the truck($793.54), IRS($900), new furniture($2904.05), vet bills(904.35) and a lot of other small things that add up.

So if I can get through this month with out going broke, next year might shape up to be pretty nice, just have to keep telling myself I don’t need that new Mustang. 

Feeling bad sucks

When I started writing this blog I wasn't feeling a 100%, then I just got worse to the point you just don’t feel like doing anything. This is a far cry from my norm, I’m normally a healthy person; this feeling bad lasted from the beginning of September to November 7^th. I saw 3 different Doctors, I had test run and everything came back normal. As suddenly as it started in September, I woke up on November 8^th and felt better. It was like I was never sick.

I have Crohn’s disease, my Crohns is not bad compared to some I know with it, but I have it and I deal with it through medication. It wasn't until I as feeling better that I realized why I was sick for 10 weeks, it was because of my Crohns; when I get stressed out about something is when it seems to get bad, only this time I had some other things going on that I didn't realize that's what it was. The thing that stressed me was paying my car insurance.

My car insurance is $3733.14 a year, yeah that’s a lot, but I insure 5 cars and 3 of them have full coverage on them. In July I got an email from my insurance company letting me know what my premium was going to be and due on October 10^th. So I set to planning how I would pay it. I had it all planned out; had enough to pay it, everything was looking good. 

My water heater went up 3 days after vacation cost me $1436.00, then the heater in the hot tub went up, another $270.00; so there went my extra cash. I end up taking $1200.00 dollars out of savings to pay it all off at once. But the stress from figure out how to pay it and the thought of paying it monthly made me sick. I will know better next year, because feeling bad sucks. 

Weekly wrap up

I feel like I spent a little to much this week, and I’ll explain each one or should I say I’ll to justify each one, some are pretty normal. Monday I order a pair of shoe from Amazon, needed some casuals for the weekend, tired of wearing sneakers, I’m not that young anymore; damn hurt to say. Tuesday I hit the ATM for $120.00, half went to pay for 3 weeks of bowling, the other half went to pay for 4 bags of corn, and a bail of hay; the hay was for my rabbit, the corn is to feed the deer in the winter. Wednesday had to pick up a prescription from Walgreen's and today I paid the water bill; here’s the break down.

 

Amazon		$51.67
Fast Cash		$120.00
Walgreen's		$35.00
City of Westminster		$194.87
Total Spent		$401.54

Today is my wife’s pay day and she deposits $600.00 dollars ever pay in to my\our account; this money goes to help pay the bills. I’ll explain more about his and hers checking accounts later on, right now I'll just it works for us,