Gasping for Breath

I went to a concert last night and debated about buying a band tshirt. In the end, decided it wasn't necessary and $25 stayed in my pocket.

This morning at Curves I noticed that I was building up callouses again. Last time it had to do with my work environment (freight dock) this time it's due to Curves. They have gloves there to avoid just that issue, they are nice, padded, fingerless, and only $8.95. So I went ahead and bought them since I had cash on me. Of course I decided on them after my workout so will have to wait til Monday to see how I like them.

I have $837 left on my CC that is supposed to be empty. I have been able to drop it hugely these past couple of months but that is going to be slowing down here soon. Still though, with the money I know I have coming in it will be paid off by the end of May.

Once it's paid off I'm going to charge my car shop visit to it. I don't drive my car much but the last time I had it in the shop they said my clutch was slipping and they would need a day to figure out where the issue was and what the cost would be. On the one hand, I don't drive it often. On the other, I don't want it to totally die when I really need it. Plus lately the few times I have driven it, there's been random times that whitish smoke has come out of the back and I think that needs attention too. Whatever the charge ends up being, I plan on pulling $400 out of my EF to pay on my CC and the rest will just get paid off with whatever I have extra each month like before.

Plus I have it built into my budget to transfer $75/mo automatically to the savings account I would be pulling the money out of. So building it back up is already part of my plan. We'll see when the time comes what the damage really is.

-----

And in other news...my brother called me the other day because he and his wife are switching back to Verizon Wireless. They had to go to Cingular when they moved because it was the only company that serviced the area they bought their house. But now, two years later, Verizon signal can be gotten out there and they haven't been too happy with Cingular.

At any rate, through the company he works for he gets a discount on his Verizon bill. At the bottom of the paperwork it had a place to add family members phone numbers to get the discount as well. Since my other brother and I are also on Verizon, he put our numbers down. Who knows if it will actually process but it's nice to know it's a possibility.

-----

My bus ticket thing seems to be working just fine. I currently have 21 tickets left for the month and 20 rides that I know I'll need tickets for providing I keep up with my walking home 3 days a week.

For the month of April I am experimenting. My friend opted to not continue in her work's bus pass program (they renew for free every year if they want to) so while that was the cheapest option it is no longer available.

A monthly pass for 2 zones costs $65. A bus ride one way is $1.75.

In April there are 22 work days, so 44 bus rides, totaling $77.

However, I am training to walk a half marathon in June and a walk relay in August. In doing so I am walking home three nights a week (Mon, Wed, Thurs). There are 13 nights I will be walking home in April. That leaves 31 bus rides, totaling $54.25.

They sell bus tickets in packs of 10. For April, I bought 3 10 packs at $52.50. My theory is that chances are I'll get at least one ride in from my roommate over the course of the month to negate needing 31 tickets.

Of course all this hinges on my Actually walking home three nights a week. But I'm anticipating that only having X amount of bus passes will encourage that.

Plus I can think of other ways to 'save' bus tickets. I have a chiro apt on Friday and my chiro is maybe 1.5 miles from work at most. I usually park near my chiro office and catch the bus (when I have a pass) because there's no bus service between my chiro office and home and sometimes I need to go places right after my apt. So I'm thinking I can park at the chiro office like usual. If it's early enough, walk to work. After work, jet out right at 5 and walk to the chiro. Possibly saving one or two tickets. But at the same time, if I'm cutting short time wise, I do have the tickets to use.

We'll see how this works out. I'm hoping to wind up with a couple extra tickets each month so by the time I need to go back to buying a pass, I can prolong it a little.

I don't have time for much by way of 'that internet stuff' I used to do when I had lots of free time at my old job. So posting here has mostly slacked by the wayside. I do keep up my sidebar, even if I don't post my full networthiq results every month. It's tough to balance it all out and I feel ultra behind. But I'm still chipping away at my debt!

My small student loan through Sallie Mae is paid off!! I mean, I sent them the final payment ages ago (it seems). I made it online after first looking to see what the 10 day payoff amount would be, but when I entered that amount it told me I couldn't enter more than the 5 day payoff amount so I changed it. Must have had something to do with paying it off online instead of mailing it in. At any rate, it seemed for a few weeks my account stayed at a -$0.06 from the difference between payoff amount and amount showing as current balance. But as of yesterday that is all behind me. Yipee!

Of course now I still have my $30k one at Wells Fargo but one step at a time.

In savings related news, I've decided that once each of my online savings accounts reaches $500 I am going to stop contributing to them and instead take that money I was socking away and use it to pay stuff down. I have to have the $75 auto transfer for my brick and mortar bank but I'll just transfer the money back later.

Have I mentioned, I love the place I work for? They have decided to take a look at what the employees actually want/need as far as benefits go, for health insurance and other potential perks, and look into ways to changing things.

As a result they have formed a Benefits Committee made up of a representative from each department. That representative is responsible for collecting ideas from their department and relaying to the department what went on in the meeting.

The representative for my department is ME! I asked for it and no one else wanted it so I got nominated. I'm excited. There were things brought up at the meeting that I'd thought about but forgot at spur of the moment when asked on the spot for ideas.

Whether or not thing actually change, I appreciate the time/effort my company is making into having things that are not only beneficial to the employee but also wanted/used by the employee.

I really hope we change from FSA to HSA.

I received a check on Wednesday for the difference that was missing in my check. Of course, not much by way of taxes was taken out of it but at least now I know that I am at the same rate I was getting before, which I should have been. So I went ahead and started my clothing allotment, and wound up paying a total of $400 on my credit card. Not all of that came from this extra check just I was able to add to what I had set aside previously.

In the end, I will always have something extra to pay on my debt I just won't have a clear idea of how much because....

~ I changed my transportation withholding amount last month -but I sent it off straight to the company that takes care of it instead of giving it to HR. Since HR didn't know they were to decrease my transportation amount they pulled out the full amount instead of half. My next check they won't pull out anything to compensate.

~ I want to sign up for AFLAC insurance but the information they give us isn't very clear as far as cost and such so I was waiting til the rep came to discuss options. He will be in sometime next week. That will affect my check slightly.

~ I can contribute to my 401k starting with April's check. That will affect my check starting then.

~ I get a review in March. There's a chance a raise might be involved there.

I think I'm not going to play with my withholdings this year. It's just been too confusing with my pay in general and I would rather just not have to pay again. Though I might check and see if I can just change my Fed to 2 and leave my State at 1. But it will be July before I even consider anything.

Another thing I held out from the extra check I got last week was the entry fee for a half marathon in June. There's a group at my Curves that are going to train together for it. Apparently only the first 3,000 entrants get t-shirts so the gal in charge was encouraging everyone to register online. I get her enthusiasm, this is her first event. But I could take or leave the t-shirt. Still, online is easy so I went through the motions this morning to register only to find at the end that there would be an extra fee of almost $4 for registering online. I decided to leave the fate of my t-shirt getting to the post office and will be mailing in my registration tomorrow.

Tonight is the Oscars and while I really could care less in the general scope of things, the theatre I volunteer at is the only sanctioned Oscar Night Event in the state of Oregon. I think only one non profit in each state is awarded that privilege and this is their third year in a row doing it. It's their biggest fundraiser and rather appropriate since it's the Hollywood Theatre. I will be working there tonight and it will be a lot of fun. They'll have red carpet, paparazzi, drag queens dressed up as famous people doing catty commentary as people arrive, there'll be food, drinks, raffle and silent auction prizes, and I think the coolest of all, the actual programs from the real event will be handed out to the guests. Those were delivered yesterday during our volunteer meeting. But I didn't actually see any of them. We are encouraged to dress up if we want, but we don't have to. We just can't wear jeans.

There was something odd about my paycheck this month. I could tell right away in my direct deposit amount. I did expect that taxes would be more, considering I support the payroll software my company uses and I know how it calculates taxes. But the net amount was far less than even I expected, even with an hour of overtime.

When I got to work and got my check stub I saw why. My first check in Jan showed hours worked as 86.67 (which is correct for salary hours at half a month) and an amount of 1700. My second check in Feb showed hours worked of 173.33 (which is correct for salary hours at a full month) and an amount of 3000. Now if I were to go by my first check, my second amount should have been 3400. To make matters even more confusing, at the rate I was getting from the contract place (before I went permanent) my amount for one month should have been 3200.

I emailed my boss about it and she is checking into it. I just want to know what my actual rate of pay is supposed to be. I don't see why I shouldn't expect at minimum the amount the contract place was paying me. Either way, I need to know what to expect so I can budget accordingly. By taking my clothing allowance amount out this month, I had enough to cover all bills plus have a little bit of breathing room and pay a tiny bit extra on a credit card. I guess we'll just have to see what next month holds.

Oh and my boss said I'd be getting a review in March, my official '3 months' with the company since I went permanent in January. And salary would be discussed then as well.

Over the weekend I paid off my small student loan! That makes me happy!! It also frees up a $50 payment I was making to it to be used elsewhere.

-----

This Friday I will receive my first full month check. It will be nice to see how much I'm actually receiving. Although it will change in a month or so once they actually start taking money out for my retirement. Still though I think I'm left with at least $100 extra to pay off stuff.

-----

I think I need to give myself a clothing allowance. I've been in my new job for 4 months now, and some of my clothes are showing signs of wear. Since I need to dress a little nicer I want to be prepared for spending a little more when it comes down to it. I'm considering taking that $50 that I was paying on the student loan and just setting it aside every month so that when I do need to buy clothes I have the cash for it. I rarely pay full price on anything, usually it's on sale, more often on clearance. But still things add up and with my height that adds at least $10 to the price of things no matter how much it's reduced by. Especially where pants are concerned. I don't need to buy anything now which is why I think I should start setting aside money now so I have it when I need it and don't raid savings or pull out the cc.

I'm pretty excited for Friday though, let me tell you.

I just finished my taxes and I'm not happy with the results.

For federal I am only getting back about $100 more than last year. I'm disappointed only because I left my withholdings at 1 for longer than I did the year before so I expected a little more of a refund. However at the same time I worked a side job that barely taxed me so it makes sense.

For state, ugh I owe! This is the first time (aside from when I was an independent contractor) that I've had to pay! Last year my return was only $18 so I was anticipating cutting it close once again. I did not expect to have to pay $172!

I'm going to go over it again later but if I do have to pay you can bet I won't be turning it in until I get my federal back.

Now that I'm on the tail end of this saving every extra penny because I'll need it when I transition to my new paycheck kick I have decided to change my EF.

I have three accounts that make up my EF. Two are over $400 and one is over $500. Once I get my first real full month paycheck on Feb 15 I will have a better grasp on what my real income will be and I can start putting money towards paying stuff off again.

The plan is simple...

Until each account reaches $500, at the end of the month I will pull everything over $500 out of my WF account and use it to pay down debt.

Each account (ING, Emigrant, WF) will basically maintain roughly $500 balance so after it reaches that goal, once the total between the three is more than $1600 I will pull out everything over $500 and apply it to debt at the end of every month.

ING gets $20 put in automatically every month.

Emigrant gets at least $20, sometimes more if I babysit or do a Pinecone survey, every month.

WF gets $75 auto transferred every month but that's just because it's one of the conditions for having the type of account I have.

I may suspend the transfers to the first two accounts once they reach $500 and just keep the third one going that way I'm not transferring in and back out every month. That part I have not decided yet. I like to have the habit of socking away into savings but I will still have the auto transfer set up for the third.

I happened to mention to my chiropractor that I am no longer covered under insurance and that now I am paying out of pocket. Her response was that once I get on a maintenance plan (right now I'm on a plan to fix something specific) that they will give me a discounted rate so long as I commit to coming in once a month. I was planning on doing so anyway so that's good. Plus they have like a punch card, come in for 12 months consecutively and get a free massage or something like that. I won't complain!

I also got an email from a friend who can get half price bus passes from her work. She doesn't need hers for Feb so she offered to buy it for me instead. I think it will work since right now I tell work how much to take out for my transportation costs and then just turn in a receipt showing I paid that amount. I sent in the slip today to lower the amount I'm having them take out and since she buys the pass at a store there will be an accompanying receipt that I can turn in. Even if for some reason they don't accept it, it's still a worthy savings. I don't know how many months I will be able to do that but I can change how much they take out from my pay as often as I want. It's way more flexible than my flexible spending account.

I got my first paycheck today...my first paycheck after becoming a permanent employee that is. When I first looked at my bank records I thought at first that perhaps they hadn't taken out my pre tax stuff (FSA and transportation) and the second thought was perhaps I got a raise. And the answer is....

I GOT A RAISE. Though since they were paying me through a contract company before it may still be less to them. No matter. I double checked one of my old pay stubs from my old job. I am now, after 3 months in a lower position, making $50 (gross) less per month than I was making after 10 years in a higher position. Daymn!

Net it works out even better. On my check, I'm taking home about the same as before however...I'm also having them take out $165 pre-tax for FSA and transportation allowance so technically I'm so making more than I was before.

Of course, after a couple of months my 401k will start coming out so that will make a difference but I don't care!! I'm so excited! They will match up to 3% so I just did 3%. And in June or so I'm going to change my withholdings to 2 so I don't pay as much in taxes straight up.

I so can't wait to do my taxes this year. With all the changing jobs and stuff I didn't do the change withholdings thing as much so I should actually get something back.

I found out yesterday while looking over all my paperwork to become a permanent employee that chiropractic care is not covered under my new insurance. This is sad because I am under treatment right now once a week. Because it is needed, not just wanted, I will continue it to the tune of $60/visit and save my receipts for 2008 taxes. My new work has an FSA that I could load up with money to cover the expenses but I'm a little leary of doing so with the whole spend it or loose it philosophy. I will send $50/mo into the FSA to cover my prescriptions at least. Who knows, I may wind up spending it all after all.

This month I don't need to buy any meds so I will use the $180 I budget for medical on the chiro that way I avoid charging it. I'm still doing well in the savings arena too so I may make it out unscathed when all is said and done. We'll see.

At least for the next month or two.

My work provides us with plenty of food for lunch (bread, meat, cheese, soup, fruit, crackers, chips, cookies, string cheese, etc) that I can eat at work without having to bring my own lunch. And it's all free. Of course while doing this, I potentially sacrifice calories.

But I'm heading into a lean pocketbook time while I transfer out of being contract and into being regular employee. Out of getting paid every other week and into getting paid once a month.

I think it will really help me out when it comes to budgeting money for food. The past couple times I have had money left over from the food budget. I think it could be even more if I start intentionally eating at work more often.

I'm flying to my dad's tomorrow. There's going to be soo much food. I'm a little concerned to be honest. But if I can just keep a large glass of water near me and refill it often, perhaps I won't eat as much. We'll see.

Happy Christmas everyone!

My kicker check showed up in the mail today! And it was for $541. Sweet! it will make a nice addition to my saving account.

Every two years Oregon State kicks back to the taxpayers any budget overages more than 2% that were collected. The amount they kick back varies but in the past I don't think I've gotten more than $80.

They say this may be the last kicker for a while, I'm just going to enjoy the fact that I got one this year!

I read somewhere that 1200 checks were accidentally mailed early. The date on the check was effectively post dated. The date on my check is 12/6 so I know mine wasn't one of the early ones.

Yay for money!

Somehow I forgot about my car registration. I happened to remember when I glanced at my license plate and noticed the 11/07. So Saturday I went to DEQ to have my car tested. It passed the first time! It hasn't done that the last two times so I'm definitely not complaining. Total cost, $75. For two years. So again, not complaining. Just I had forgotten to allow for it in my budget. I did have a $100 cushion in my account and I had some money in an 'envelope' for January's bus pass. Since I haven't even bought December's yet I figured I could pull from that and re-fund it later.

All told, my cushion is now down to about $54. Roommate will pay rent and her part of utilities which will bring my cushion back over $100 next week. So I am still good to go.

I do not know how I would have survived this job transition without all the work I've been doing the past year to try and build an EF and be more conscious of spending/saving.

I'm more than ready for next month's COBRA payment, a bit less than originally anticipated since Dental isn't included so I accidentally overpaid last month. I'm not entirely certain I'll be ready for the stretch between January 15 and February 15 when I'll have only two weeks worth of pay but we'll see. There's still the kicker refund to come in which will definitely help matters.

I just updated my October totals. My EF looks like it went down $100 but considering I had to pull a COBRA payment of $420 out of it, it's not really that bad. I'm still over $1000 and my dad is going to try helping me out with December's COBRA payment.

My debt did increase by a good chunk. Mainly due to buying new clothes for work, buying some furniture for the apartment, and buying plane tickets for my brother and I to go to Dad's for Christmas. I have stopped carrying my credit card in my wallet because it was too easy to just put random other little stuff on it as well. I will have that one paid back off by the time I get my tax return and my brother finishes paying off what he owes me with his tax return.

The new job is going well. As far as my budget concerns go I'm still ahead of the game. I currently have bills paid up through Nov 20th and I get another paycheck Nov 9th.

Once I get a full paycheck from work (right now I'm anticipating that being February 15th) I'll have a better idea of how I can start back into intentionally paying stuff down. Until then, I'm just saving what I already had set up in my budget to save and putting everything else to paying stuff ahead, or at least marking it as paid in my register. Plus I still have a $100 cushion that I haven't had to tap into yet.

I won't be getting paid for Thanksgiving holidays (2 days) nor Christmas (1 day) plus I'm taking Christmas Eve off so I'll have about 4 days that I won't get paid for total. Which is about $200 on each check. Fortunately it's spread out a little. So we'll see when those checks arrive how that affects things.

I found out that COBRA doesn't include dental like they thought so my actual payment is less. Which means I need to call the dentist and find out how much it is out of pocket to pay for a cleaning and possibly postpone my appointment until I have insurance again.

Got my first paycheck yesterday from the new job. It was only for 1 week though. They say it takes two pay periods for direct deposit to process. So it'll take me a couple more days to get it then deposit it.

I've paid most of the bills through the 11th of next month. I say pay and most but that's really not quite what I mean. I use Quicken and plug money in as future payments then only look at the ending balance to tell myself what I really have in the bank. That way the money is allocated. I check it every day to make sure if there's a payment I need to initiate that I do so. There's a couple of bills that I haven't paid yet, rather big ones. But I will have a full 2 week check before they're due so I'm not concerned. And I've left myself a $100 cushion instead of my usual $20 cushion as a 'just in case' buffer.

Since I don't have time to go out to the chiropractor I haven't been maxing out my medical budget. Normally I'd send that money off to the medical savings account I set up but since I'm going to be paying for COBRA I figure I'll just use that for part of it that way I don't have to drain so much out of savings.

I am still certain I'll be a'ok when all is said and done but my EF will definitely be drained. Although there's still the state kicker check, and possibly money from my dad to help out with things. Too many unknowns.

I'm still liking my job. I'm thinking about maybe asking, once I get permanently hired on, to change my schedule to come in an hour earlier. With all the food available at work I don't have to worry about packing a lunch or eating breakfast first and I shower at night now anyway because there just isn't time in the mornings. There's no reason I couldn't just get up at around the same time and catch an earlier bus. But it would make a world of difference in the evenings as I'd actually be able to exercise and stuff. We'll see when we get there though.

Just going to keep plugging along and hope I stay ahead of things. I'm really glad I have a little bit of an EF to support me through this.

I have my auto insurance set up on auto pay. It's one of those set it and forget it sort of things. Every once in a while, their system hiccups. They say I must have logged into the web site and changed my bank account information. I say, no I didn't because it just works so I don't bother even logging into their website. I'm sure they have logs that could verify that. Ugh.

I noticed it last night when balancing my bank account. Usually I'm more on top of it, and would notice it when it didn't clear after a couple days past the due date. But with the new job I've been distracted.

I called my agent, last time I got a letter from her asking why I didn't tell her I'd canceled my policy (non-payment is an automatic cancellation) and she got it all straightened out for me. This time it looks like I noticed it first. That or she figured it was the same as last time and has been trying to straighten it out before telling me it was broke. Either way....I'm annoyed at the actual company. My agent is independent, meaning she represents many companies. Unfortunately she isn't close so if I were to change companies I wouldn't have time to go over and sign new paperwork.

Hopefully she'll call back today with good news (ie that it's been fixed).

I've been at my new job for a week and a half now. Things are going pretty good. Got my last paycheck from old job on the 5th, used it to pay for all the rest of the bills for October (but only paid for food and gas for the next two weeks since I will be getting other checks in this month). I still think I'll be ok as far as money stuff goes, I won't know though til I get my first check and see what actually starts coming in.

I really don't need to grocery shop as new job offers plenty by way of food for breakfast and lunch during the week. However, I'm also trying to watch my waistline so I'm mostly bringing in my own food and just supplementing it here and there as needed. For example, I don't buy fruit anymore for my lunches because there's always a plethora of bananas and apples in the kitchen.

I should be seeing my first check, which will only be for 40 hours, next week sometime.

I reached my EF savings goal. However, until I get hired on directly I'm going to keep mad saving. I have a feeling I'm going to need it.

First day of work went well.

I have about $25k in my current employer's 401k program. It's all money I've invested, so I'm fully vested as my current employer doesn't do any matching. I was thinking about just leaving the money where it was at until I actually get hired on in 3 months and see what their plans were like. But I'm also contemplating rolling it into it's own account and just leaving it.

Any thoughts on that? Preferred companies to work with?

Tuesday Deposit.

$80 total, $60 from friend paying me back for concert ticket and $20 from my Monday night child care. All went straight into Savings. I also initiated the transfer of $100 from checking to savings today. Makes my total in savings finally well over $1000 which is good but I know it won't stay that way for long.

-----

Direct Deposit.

My checking account with Wells Fargo is only free on the condition that I have a direct deposit of at least $100/mo. My final paycheck from current job will deposit on October 5th meeting that requirement for October. I also just got the directions on how to sign up for direct deposit at the new job. It takes two pay periods for it to become active so it should be on in November and all will be well as far as my account goes. I also have an allotment that goes in from my brother who's paying me back that happens to be $100. I don't know if that counts as direct deposit or not. Still can't believe this is my last week here. I've been here over 10 years.

-----

I quit.

For a multitude of reasons, I have decided to quit my Sunday evening childcare job. It brought in $25/wk. I think I'll be ok without it as I never include it in my budget. I did it for about a year, that seems to be my limit on extra stuff. Ah well. I still have my Monday evening childcare job which brings in $20/wk.

Today was payday. It's my second to the last paycheck from my current employer.

I paid all the bills I had to. Set aside money for a trip to Seattle next weekend (I'm carpooling so pitching in a little for gas). Set aside money for next month's bus pass that I'll need for new job (friend works someplace she can get one for half price and she won't need it for October so I'll be buying it from her at a discount). Paid off the small current balance on CC2 that's normally kept empty. And had $102 left over that's earmarked for savings but won't actually transfer until next week.

My roommate and I are throwing a party this weekend. We're going shopping tonight for food and other stuff for it. I have $32 from babysitting and what was left over from food and gas last paycheck. That should be plenty, especially since we're splitting the bill and we won't be buying any alcohol.

I am so paranoid about having enough money to pay for insurance and the other half of the month's worth of pay I'll need to come up with end of January that I've decided to charge some things. Specifically my clothes for work. I will be looking for good deals and such but for the most part I just want to go shopping once and not have to worry about work clothes for a while. I'm ok with paying interest since I know that worst case, I'll pay it all off with my tax return. Which means only a couple of months. If I find that I have more than enough money saved up to cover things then I'll pay it off sooner.

My current 'work clothes' are the same as my everyday clothes. Casual, jeans, tshirts. New job is in an office building with a business casual dress code. Granted, one of the programmers was in my interview wearing cords and a tshirt but I'm not going to be working for him. I have my interview clothes (one pair of slacks, one nicer button down shirt) and possibly one other top that would be acceptable. Past that, nothing. I hate shopping for clothes, with a passion. But I need to do it. This weekend I'll start out at Value Village and Goodwill. Next I'll hit up Ross and Marshall's. After that it just depends on how much time/energy I have to take on the rest of the Maul (Old Navy, Gap, Macy's, Nordstrom's, Sears, etc). Might check in at Avenue as well since that's where I got my slacks and they fit really well, just a little pricey even if I did get them on sale.

I debated about asking my dad for help with insurance. I still might but its hard to ask him for anything even though he tells me to if I need it.

This morning I got another bt offer for 0% until 4/2008 and a 3% fee with a max of $75. That got me thinking along the lines of, should I request a check just to have as backup funds and not cash it if I don't need it?

Here's how it breaks down...

By the end of this month I will have at least $1,000 in savings. Probably more but I won't know til I get paid. Add to that $200/mo repayments from my brothers guaranteed ($100 is via allotment straight to my bank account and the other I have access to his accounts so he is sure to pay me regularly). Over the course of the next 4 months that makes an additional $800. Plus there's the kicker check I'll be getting in December. They say the median amount is $260 or so, I plugged in numbers at a website and it showed more like $500 for me but I'm not 100% sure since I can't find my state tax forms.

I know I'll have other extra cash I'm just plotting worst case scenario. I'm also making the assumption that I can pay all my regular bills with whatever pay I get.

Ok so I will have to pay for COBRA in November and December. October should be covered by what I've already paid since we pay for the next month. January I'm going to go without and just get meds at Costco. That will satisfy the continuous coverage with less than 63 days of non coverage thing so I don't have to worry about pre-existing condition stuff. That's assuming I get hired on in January as benefits would start in February. Total costs for COBRA will be about $840 for the two months.

All told, even with not getting paid for holidays since I'll be contract, and with my first month once I get hired on, having to live on a smaller paycheck as I transition from every other week to once a month, I think I'll be ok.

My student loan that I've been working like crazy to pay off tells me I don't have to make a payment til January. So I think I'm going to take them up on it. I will make monthly payments of $20 + whatever interest has accrued but not my usual $60 plus whatever extra I can scrounge up. That will help. Hopefully I won't have to resort to using my cc to pay bills. But at least I have that option.

All told, I think I'm going to hold off on the bt offer. If I can make it through this and still have $500 in my EF, I will be a happy camper. If I can make it through this without having to charge anything, even if it means draining my EF completely, I will be fine with that too.

I got a call this morning shortly after I got into work offering me the position if I was still interested. The gross amount is less than I'm making now, but the net will be comparable.

What it boils down to is, in the long run this will be the better position for me. I will actually be able to start using the degree I earned a few years ago and the potential for advancement is far greater.

Its going to cost me in the beginning. The contract place pays every two weeks and then once it rolls over to the new place then it will be once a month. But once I get on an even keel with them, all should be good.

I'm going to avoid using the credit card as much as possible, though I may charge my bus pass initially since there's no room for it in the budget just yet since I don't know what/when I'll actually be getting paid and I'll need the pass pretty much right away.

My first day of work will be October 1! I am so excited!

Not counting the need to buy more professional clothes even.

I talked with former co-worker about unused vacation time, then checked out the internet for laws. Apparently employers are not required to pay out vacation time unless it's specified in the employer policy (or whatever it's called). Yeah so it's not in our policy and I'm not sure I want to play hardball to force them to give it to me. Unfortunately I was sort of counting on having that money to pay for stuff like COBRA.

Contract work is usually paid weekly, or every other week. New job pays once a month on the 15th. I'd be contract for three months then switch to the other. Depending on how the COBRA thing works out I might be ok. But it means I'm going to not work so hard at paying stuff off and just save save save save. But budgeting for once a month pay will be interesting.

I'm going to talk to my dad and step mom and see if their offer still stands to help me out with medical stuff. Even if they could just cover one month of COBRA it would be a huge help.

Depending on when insurance would start at new place (sounded like pretty quick from what I've read) I might be able to get away with only one month of COBRA.

Of course, this is all hypothetical since I don't have the offer yet. When I spoke with former co-worker he said that one of the guys from my interview was in meetings all day on Friday. Hopefully that means they've decided to hire me. *cross fingers*

I'm jumping the gun here but I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with getting short term health insurance to bridge the gap between jobs? I'm anticipating a job offer soon and since I take medications regularly I'll want something to defray the costs and ensure that I don't have a lapse of more than 63 days of insurance coverage.

I looked at www.ehealthinsurance.com and scoped out a few plans. But all of them seem to have pre-existing condition clauses. I found this on another web site about Oregon specific health insurance: All health plans in Oregon must limit exclusion of pre-existing conditions. There are rules about what counts as a pre-existing condition and how long you must wait before a new health plan will begin to pay for care for that condition. Generally, if you join a new plan, your old coverage will be credited toward the pre-existing condition exclusion period, provided you did not have a long break in coverage.

I suppose the best thing to do would be to call. The plans I was looking at considered anything diagnosed in the past 5 years to be pre-existing but I've had health insurance/coverage for the past 9 so does that mean it doesn't count as pre-existing? Yeah, lots of questions.

I did find out that I can get COBRA to the tune of $420/mo. It's spendy but if it would be less hassle I'm almost tempted to do it. However the short-term Regency policy I was looking at was only $220 for 3 months if I paid all at once. Of course then there's a $250 deductible and then after that I pay 20% of all costs.

Ugh. I hate trying to figure this stuff out.

Edited to add: Well its not an option for me. I just called their info line and was told that if a short term insurance plan were to accept me, then yes I would be covered and the pre-existing condition thing wouldn't be an issue. However, because of my pre-existing condition they will not accept me. So that means COBRA for at least one month.

I had an interview today. It seemed to go well. Yesterday there was a panic moment when I saw the job posted at Craigslist that day. But when I was talking to them I found out they are looking to fill more than one position so that made me feel better.

Pros:

~ Growth potential. New company (NC) has 85 employees and has been growing at a rate of about 15% a year. Old company (OC) has 6 employees and hasn't had more than 9 in the past 9 years. There's no where else for me to go at OC and there's no real use of my second degree.

~ Perks. NC offers things like snacks and beverages free of charge plus breakfast on Friday mornings. Fridays they stop any real work early (though any emergencies are taken care of if they arise) and chill around the office playing poker etc. There's also a game room complete with foosball.

~ Opportunity to actually use both degrees (Accounting and Computer Science)

~ Benefits are fully paid by the employer

~ Start out with being able to earn 15 days of PTO right off the bat (only a loss of 5 vacation days from OC)

~ Ability to pay for mass transit passes with pre tax dollars.

~ Can cash out my vacation time from OC which will possibly offset any budget irregularities.

Cons:

~ Starting out will be contract to hire which means no benefits until actually hired. COBRA is $420/mo. Might have to research a short term insurance option.

~ OC is salary, contract will be hourly. Not sure what that will do to the budget.

~ Would need to update wardrobe since OC is an extremely casual environment and NC is at the least business casual.

Pay would roughly be the same. I figured out what my 'hourly' rate is and it was at the high end of their range that they were offering. With not having to pay for health benefits once I get hired (ie out of the contract which is only three months) it could actually mean more take home. Just a little bit interesting in the beginning switching from twice a month to whatever the contract pays (once a week? every other week?). Plus right now I technically get paid for something like 86.7 hours each check so yeah just will be interesting.

It is a really great opportunity, one I would jump at if offered. But the pay has to be a certain level or I can't even consider it. Though I do have a little bit of wiggle room now which is good so if need be I could go a little lower than I'm making right now just to get my foot in the door.