I almost did it but bad luck saved me.

In previous posts I talked about my bad habits with finances.  I would worry about how low funds were and would choose not to pay a bill to make sure we had some cash reserve.  

I almost did that last night.  When going over the budget I had one of those mini anxiety attacks that we wouldn’t have enough money. 

On a whim of very bad judgment, I logged onto my cable account and took off the auto-pay.  In my mind I freed up $133.00 until my next paycheck.  Unfortunately, it seems I setup auto-pay earlier than the due date because within an hour I received an email from Cable Company thanking me for my payment.

I am glad that happened.  I need to break these financial habits NOW!  This particular habit was a huge contributor to my recent debt.  I am still stressed about money, but the worst to happen is we go a few days without cigarettes. We won’t die without cigarettes and we need to start relying on our vapor pens anyway.

On a final note, we were denied the subsidy increase for DS2.  I am pissed but I don’t have the emotional energy or physical time to appeal this. DW stepped up and is going to fight this.

I hating fighting for an increase because I feel judged by those who feel foster parents do it for the money. The increase is essentially to relieve some of the financial burden of raising a high needs child so that we can maintain placement.

I would use the monthly increase to cover the cost of repairing the huge hole he put in the wall on Saturday, to replace the dryer door he ripped off a few weeks ago, to replace the brand new mattress he urinated all over (he took of the protector and pissed on it several times in anger), and to rent a carpet cleaner (ours broke) to carpet clean his room as he started now pissing on the floor in the middle of the night. 

I would use it to replace the drawers in the kitchen he stomped on, repair the dent he put in the wall frame in his old bedroom and maybe even purchase a small piece offering to a neighbor so he will start allowing his kids to play with mine after the cricket bat on the side of the head incident (care of DS2). 

After those repairs, the monthly increase would go to recover some of the average of 25-35% of income I lose each month due to appointments, behaviors and meetings surrounding DS2 special needs.

I know the state budget is tight, I get it.  But his experienced social worker tells me that we put up with more than even a foster home specializing in high needs kids would take. If he fails out of our home he will most likely be institutionalized.  That validates for me that, YES, this is just as hard as it feels.  The stress of raising him is EXTREME and the more it impacts us financially the harder it is to justify to DW and the rest of our family why we should continue having him in our home.  Wish us luck.



Taxes and New Budget

Nothing all too exciting happening at the House of Sense…..Well, actually a lots is happening but not much in the financial sense. 

I shed a tear when I got the mail on Thursday and saw my tax refund paperwork. 

We were short on postage by $0.27 cents because there is additional fee if the thickness of your envelope is over ¼ inch.  So the clock for refund is reset starting 03/06/2015.

If the 7 week turn around on paper returns is true and we don’t get held up due to adoption paperwork, we could expect our return on April 24^th.  

Knowing my luck with the IRS, I am giving it until the end of May before I start calling and complaining. I will be stalking the “Where’s my refund” website on 3/27 though.

DW called the IRS to get an update on our 2013 refund status. The lady on the phone couldn’t even confirm that they got our updated tax information the end of January.  She just told DW to call back in 2 weeks.  DW was in tears because we need those funds so we can get things rolling for MIL.  So frustrating!!

March budget is going smoothly so far.  While I made a lot of changes to our budget this month it is still a trial run. It makes me anxious that I am off. We have no emergency fund/savings to rely on if I was wrong and I want to avoid EVER having to use a pay day loan store again. 

How was your weekend? 



BIG DREAMS

While I think weekly therapy is incredibly important for some of my kiddo’s wellbeing, I am relieved that DS2’s therapy was cancelled today.  My to-do list today is massive, so it is nice I can free up a few hours. 

I have a good talk with DW about how to proceed with my MIL.  DW doesn’t deal with stress or high emotion well, so it was a tough talk but I think we know where to start.  DW expressed a desire to move into the house once we move MIL to an assisted living home.  There are several things we have to work out before we can even determine that would be an option, but it got me thinking.  The mortgage is comparable to what we pay now, so we could easily assume payments but what happens when MIL passes.  I fear we wouldn’t qualify for the amount needed to buy the home for what is owed.   I did some google searching and a federal law passed in 1982 states that when someone inherits a property with an existing mortgage they do not need to refinance.  They just notify the bank that they are living on the property, that they will continue making payments and then have their names placed on the deed.

So the idea is out there. Over the next month, as I weed through MIL’s paperwork, I should find out if this idea is even feasible.  Once we got the house cleaned up, it would be perfect size for our family.  I would be working from home and DW would be commuting opposite of traffic. It is in the best school district in the state and is only a few miles away from the two specialty schools I am looking into for DS2.  I need to stop daydreaming…



Other Expenses

Today is payday!!

Do you know what I love even more than getting paid?  I love entering those numbers into my budget/spending worksheet. I am such a dork. 

This is the official start of our new budget cycle, so I was able to order some much needed items online.  Pre-sense, I never budgets for ‘other’ items.  I just squeezed them in whenever we had an influx of cash.  This meant that sometimes we didn’t have the money on items we needed and went without.  

One of these items was Dinovite for my dogs.  This stuff is like magic and within weeks my dogs’ hotspots would vanish, their hair would start growing back and chronic ear infections disappeared.  I could only afford a 6 week supply at a time, and low and behold 6 weeks later I couldn’t find the $50.00 to order more so my poor dogs would suffer. 

I can’t even begin to explain the relief it is to have been able to purchase the 6 week supply today. And to know that it is budgeted for me to continue ordering this so they never have to go without.  Eventually I will be at a place where I can order a 90 day supply ($130.00), but I am not quite there yet.

I now don’t need to panic when DS1’s school asks for headphones for a school project.  Family birthday parties don’t make my stomach churn when I think of the expense of birthday gifts.  I can even plan a day at the museum with my Dad and a few of my kids without getting heart palpitations.  Who knew planning ahead can be so empowering. 



MIL

My MIL (DW’s mom) isn’t doing very well.  We talked it over with BIL (DW’s older brother) and my MIL and we are going to become MIL’s medical and financial power of attorneys (POA).  DW doesn’t handle stress very well and when I noticed how hard the preliminary conversations were on her; I offered to be added to the POA paperwork to help as much as I can.

The scope of all the work that will need to be done to get MIL’s financial and medical house in order is overwhelming.  DW got her head for finances from her parents so I am scared the mess I will find once I get my hands on all debts, incomes and investments.  We have debts to calculate and settle (I fear we might have to do a bankruptcy), inpatient and outpatient facilities to find, finding her a home near us that fit within her small social security payment, and the house. 

The house is what is concerning me the most right now.  She currently has roommates so we have figure out what they are paying and if they are willing to stay in the home when MIL moves out and until we sell.  The condition of the house is horrible.  We have to completely redo all the carpets and repaint the interior walls. We also have to address the outside of the house which is currently pepto pink, NO JOKE.   The only thing going for us is that this home is in a HIGHLY desirable area of the state so finding a buyer shouldn’t be hard even if we sold it as is.  The problem is that I have no idea what is owed on the house and with MIL’s recent refinance we may have to put money into repairs just to sale it for what she owes. 

I know I am getting myself worked up with little information. I need to take it one step at a time.  We have our attorney going over the POA paperwork, we reached out to a few realtor friends to help with the house,  we found am inpatient medical facility who takes MIL’s insurance so we can start working on the most severe of her medical issues and DW has a phone call into MIL’s Doctor for 33 years to get some information on MIL’s health. 

BREATHE…………



March

We have $25.00 in the bank account and 2 days until payday.  DW is getting anxious but I feel we will do just fine.  I can’t admit to feeling so confident all along.  Yesterday, while pulling into the gas station, I had a small panic attack that the $15.00 I had budgeted for gas wouldn’t last me as long as I needed.  I nearly pulled out my credit card to fill my tank up but sense kicked in and I pulled out my debit card instead.   I think once I have actual money in savings and the e-fund my financial anxiety will calm down.

Here is our March Budget

		BUDGET	ACTUAL			BUDGET	ACTUAL			BUDGET
leftover	5-Mar	$0.00	$0.00	DW	20-Mar	$1,271.08	$0.00		Food	$900.00
Carmel	6-Mar	$693.00	$0.00	Other	23-Mar	$1,513.00	$0.00		Allow	$250.00
DW	5-Mar	$1,271.08	$0.00	Carmel	20-Mar	$825.00	$0.00		Gas	$310.00
Other	6-Mar	$2,054.89	$0.00			$3,609.08	$0.00		Savings	$350.00
		$4,018.97	$0.00						Other	$250.00
									E-Fund	$0.00
					Insur	$131.10			TOTAL	$2,060.00
	Rent	$2,100.00			Daycare	$530.00
	Daycare	$530.00			Dis Loan	$558.20			Total	$2,059.66
	Netflix	$13.13			Vonage	$20.14			Leftover	($0.34)
	FIOS	$133.39			Capital	$75.00
	Loan	$230.00			Car	$285.28
	PSE	$114.86			Cell	$147.76
		$3,121.38	$0.00		PUD	$230.40
					Dis Card	$163.00
	TO PAY	$3,121.38			Water	$203.19
	REMAIN	$897.59			XBOX	$10.94
					Med Bill	$92.00
						$2,447.01	$0.00
					TO PAY	$2,447.01
					REMAIN	$1,162.07

 

Updates about this month’s budget:

-          The Grocery and Other fund have gone up to fit our family’s needs.  The other fund will be a huge resource for those expenses that come up such as school expenses, birthday parties, prescriptions, animal care, etc. 

-          The $230.00 loan payment is to pay off our payday loan we got mid last month. I am hoping to never have to use those again.  I made sure the mileage reimbursement form was moved to income for the second part of the month so we won’t get ourselves in that mess again.

-          The medical bill is the total we owed for DW’s medical emergency last month, sans prescription costs.  I love my health insurance.

I feel confident that we should be able to meet this month’s budget with minimal issues.  I am much more practical about what we spend and how to allocate the funds.  Not shown on this version of the budget is how much we can spend in each category for food/gas/allowance/other.  If I stick within those ranges we should be okay.



Good, Bad, Ugly and Funny Take 2

Let's get straight to it:

GOOD:

- Taxes are in the mail. Looking forward to the $8,800 refund.

- 3 days till the end of pay cycle and we have $56 after bills go through.  We are low on gas and cigarettes so it will be a tight few days,

- We passed our foster care inspection with flying colors. Woot Woot!

- received a $100.00 gift card for a local restaurant. We took the whole family out to dinner for the first time in 1.5 years. They got antsy the last 15 minutes while we were trying to figure out the bill but I still consider it a huge success. To give you perspective, the last time we tired to all go out as a family, the kids started going crazy and before we were even seated we decided to order to go. If you new us IRL you would know our bar for crazy is pretty high.

Bad:

- I ended up spending $10.00 on tip for our dinner out cause the waiter couldn't figure out how to take it off the gift card. We spend that amount for a homemade dinner so it was a wash.

- Summer camp is expensive!! I won't have the money for it until the tax refund so we are missing out on early enrollment discounts and we have the chance of sessions getting full. DW said we should put the small deposit down but I refuse to spend money until we have it. With all the complications we had with 2013 taxes and I am not going to risk not getting our refund in a timely manner and then having to pay for a camp we can't afford or risk losing our deposit.

Ugly:

- Due to several appointments and behavior issues at school with DS2, I missed a LOT a lot of work this pay period. My upcoming paycheck will be about $250.00 short.

- with the income loss and medical bills I will not be contributing any money to the e-fund in March and predictions look like I won't be in April either. That makes me nervous.

Funny:
- It has been a tough week and I am grumpy, so nothing funny comes to mind .