I am planning on everything being 'back to normal' in 6 months. By back to normal I mean, CC paid off again AND EF back to $1500. Not bad really all around but still longer than I'd like to take off of my regular debt reduction.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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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.

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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.