Happy Thanksgiving!

I wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving! Be safe, don't eat too much and don't drink and drive. Things I'm thankful for: health, family, job and everything else in life. I am happy and I look forward to the future, hopefully I can pay off all my debts.

I also wanted to let my readers know we don't be doing any shopping on Friday. We plan to stay home and relax. Best Buy does have a 55 inch LCD TV I really want but I will continue to say NO, college football is much better and chaper alternative on Friday.

Enjoy the holidays!

HS

Expensive T-Mobile Bill

I got a text message this morning from T-Mobile that my phone bill for November was ready. When I logged to see the balance, I was shocked! $269!! Apparently the spouse talked well over our 1000 minutes that we carry in our plan. I'm guessing they charged me .40 or .50 per minute extra. Either way, this one hurts:



So I called customer support after my lunch break and spoke to the sales rep. He said I would lose my old plan, 1000 minutes for $69.99 if I was to make changes. Since I don't ever want to see a bill over $200, we agreed on this new plan below:



Everything is unlimited for $179.99, both lines can talk, text, and browse the web 24/7. We don't have to worry about any fees and I can still take advantage of my corporate discount. I'm hoping that brings the bill down to $160 per month. Since we don't have a house phone I can justify paying that much. Internet plans on any carrier average around $30 per line and unlimited texting another $20 or so. I think this is a good deal. The great thing about T-Mobile is I can tether the 3G signal to my laptops using Bluetooth at no extra cost, basically Internet anywhere.

Now if I could only find someone to talk to, my minute count last month was 21.

HS

Home Budget

This is my first attempt to create a budget. Some readers have asked me what our bills are or what are monthly payments are. I'm hoping this will answer some of the questions and help me to better manage the money coming in each month. We have never really used a budget I usually just go by paychecks. Below is the breakdown of the bills, the left side is the first two weeks usually the 1st of the month until the 15th and the right side is the other two weeks:

The M1 and M2 values are the mortgage, we have a 80/20 loan. We also have Sallie Mae living with us, that's the wife's student loan. I still need to add credit card payments, gas and groceries. I don't understand how people do envelopes, that seems to be more work. We usually end the month with close to $200 left in our account so at least we are not living paycheck to paycheck but the credit cards do tend to get abused. We probably need to adjust our lifestyle a bit, that probably means no more golf or trips to the mall.

Also, no totals yet... this is a work in progress.

HS

Look Who's Back

DEBT IS BACK! Credit card debt moved back in to our house. I know, our lifestyle is to blame but we need to focus on paying this down. I'm I worried? No, we been here before. When I started this blog I had close to $16,000 balance on credit cards alone so the numbers you see below don't worry me one bit.

Discover Card:


Citi Forward:



Like I said, we can pay this off. We've been there and done that in the past we were 'Credit Card Debt Free' on April 4, 2009:

http://www.ourdebtblog.com/2009/04/were-debt-free.html

Wish me luck as I pay down these balances, it won't be fun.

HS