How did we get here?

I had some time to reflect the other day, while I was driving around town, stressing over money. How did this happen? Why is it that every time I go to talk to Hockey Dad about money I shut down and accept the answer that it will be better in a few months? How is it that 16 months ago we had to make excuses for why we wouldn't move our large sum of money from our checking into a savings (when the tellers at the bank constantly asked us if we knew we could be making substantial interest on that sum)? And are we living beyond our means?

I have done the math and we aren't. We should be fine, so what happened? A child, that is what happened. A child, a sprinkler system, a vacation, and some more medical bills. We have great health insurance, but 10% of a large hospital bill is still over a couple $k. We have never had to think twice about getting ourselves what we wanted. But now I can't even get a soda without over thinking it. There is now daycare to pay, diapers to buy, and clothes that are constantly out grown.

And have I mentioned that I'm not crazy about my job lately? I am thankful, that's for sure. But am I making what I want? No. Am I doing what I want? Not really. Do I believe in what I'm doing? I don't really want to know the answer to that. So where does that leave us? Things need to change. I need to be home more, but we need to tackle our current financial situation first. And we are close to payoff on the credit cards. One more month, that is what I'm told. But then what? Ah, that'll be another blog...

Cycling Mom

Cycling Mom says hello to debt

Since I am also a contributor, I thought I would introduce myself and my situation. My hubby (hockey dad) and I have one adorable son (soccer son). He is one year old and the high light of our life. We have been dirt poor and well off all in the same decade. We are still young and on our 3rd home (that the bank also owns). Hockey dad works for corporate America and does well. I on the other hand, am in the non money making health field. Until recently, I loved my job. Now I love my son and want to be home more, so I am trying to make a go of a home based business.

Our debts: rough estimates until Hockey Dad and I can have an uninterrupted night.
Cars - $28,000 (2)
Boat - $16,000
House - $275,000
Credit Cards - $3,000

A substantial 401k and IRA for our age, however we have $0 for emergencies. That is the problem. Since our last move 16 months ago we have eaten through $10,000. And we need to figure out where it is going and how to get it back. So that is why I am blogging.

Getting Started . . . .

Here goes nothing.  For my first post I thought I would layout our situation and hopefully I will be able to look back and reminisce about how far along we have come in our financial situation.

I have been married 6 years and have 2 year old son and daughter due in March.
We own The bank owns a 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch style home in which we live.
DH and I both work full time and put our son in daycare full time.

We are trying to pay off our debt so that I can work part time and we don't have to put 2 kids in daycare, and we are still trying to figure out exactly how that is going to work.  We reevaluated our financial situation last summer when I realized I was pregnant again and at that point our debt stats were:

Credit Cards - $29,322.44
Car Loans - $5,465.34
Student Loans - $45,211.21
Mortgage - $149,626.99
Emergency Fund - $0 (in fact I didn't even know what this was)

The realization that hit me over the head at that point was that I wouldn't have to work very much at all if we didn't have so many debt payments obligations.  DH and I make a good living and we were paying everything on time, but we never made in progress in our debt . . . and over the past 2 years, our CC debt has gone from ~20K to 30K.  We got serious and for the past 6 months we have concentrating on changing our lifestyle and paying off our debts, concentrating on the car loans and CCs first.  We have managed to pay down about 15% so far.

I added tickers to this blog so that I could keep track of where I stand with my short term goals.

In 2010, I would like to:
#1 - Have a healthy baby, au natural.
#2 - Not incur any additional CC debt during my unpaid maternity leave.
#3 - Pay my CC and car loan debt down to 50% before the end of the year.
#4 - Get my Emergency fund balance back up to $1000

Wish me luck!

Kate