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Archive for March, 2017

Possible Set back on Plans

March 24th, 2017 at 03:43 pm

My house mate is in the midst of looking for a different job. Truth is I don't blame him, the company he is working for is extremely under paying him. The companies he has interviews with currently are willing to pay him almost 2 times what he is currently making to do the same type of work as he currently does.

So how does this affect me? Well he is going to be moving out. The house is currently rented by him, I have been paying around half of the monthly expenses. I will be able to take over renting the house when he moves out, if I chose to do so. When he moves out my expenses will go up something incredible. This increase will set back my debt payback schedule by a large amount, not sure I am willing to let this happen. I will be delaying my debt payback by a month more each month that I do not share the housing expense.

Choices:
Find a new person to share the house with. I am incredibly shy about this idea, it is really hard to find a good person to share with. Not saying not possible, I just hate the search process. I am not a shy person, I am scared about trying to sell my own stuff though, including trying to find someone to share my living space.

The other option is to go homeless. This option would have the benefit of increasing the amount that I could be putting towards paying off my house back home.

It is almost summer. Put all my possessions into a storage unit, Minimal cost. I could sleep on the ground during the rain free nights, sleep in my car when it rains. Colder nights(well I have lots of blankets). Troubles with idea: Have to find a fake home for when parents come(so that they don't realize I don't have a home, I will ask one of the people at church if they would play this role), this is only a few times a year. Yes, winter could be a major problem, it gets fairly cold here(still lots of blankets, and could maybe sneak my way into sleeping under my desk at work at night).

Yes, the second idea is really me being funny. Though I am seriously thinking about the idea, as I hate the idea of letting go of the budget plan I have to get rid of debt. You see the debt I have is killing me slowly. I only slept a few hours last night, because I realized I might be delayed by as much as 3 years or more on paying off my house, if I am unable to find a way to keep my expenses at the what I currently have. There is no way that I want to be away from my home for longer than I possibly need to be.

Yes, the debt is a mortgage on a house that I do not live in. Why not sell it? If I sold that house I would be debt free. If I was not having to pay for that house, I would be quitting this job and going home to be with family. See the only reason that I stay here is to pay off the debt I still owe on that house. I would be able to buy a decent house in a small town back home for the amount I have already invested in my house. Sounds nice, but really love that home and want to eventually have it paid off so that I have a nice place to live.

Short term I am sacrificing comfort, so in the future I am in a position of being able to completely relax.

Home Sick

March 20th, 2017 at 05:36 pm

No I am not physically sick.

What I am is desiring to be where my family is.

Due to the lack of jobs in my field where my family lives, I was forced to move far away from everyone I love last July. I have an excellent paying job that is allowing me to rapidly payoff my mortgage(my only debt). The question I ask myself each and every day is how long should I continue to live here. I know that the best thing I can do financially if stick this out a long as possible. My heart desires to go home constantly all the same.

I do love my job, I love what I do. Yes, this is me trying to convince myself to continue.

I am getting closer and closer to deciding to take my chances and just go home, because I miss my family something terrible. So I am trying to determine at what point will I feel secure enough to just move home.

This would definitely mean a huge drop in income, even if I got a job in my field. Yes, I am getting paid that well where here. Not because I am paid more here then a company possibly would pay me back home, rather exchange rates work in my favor, my home is in a different country.

I am considering offering my services at about 1/2 to 3/4 what I am worth, to a company back home. This would still be much more than minimum wage(which is what I was making at the job that I had previous to this one, due to lack of employment prospects in my field). This would be enough to more than cover monthly expenses, I really do not have very large monthly bills. Technically I am not allowed to do this since I am in a professional field(not ethically allowed by the professional organization to offer my services for less then my skills are worth). I was able to survive on minimum wage, due to the fact that a couple fellows are renting rooms from me. So technically I could consider doing the same type of job I was doing before this job came my way.

I started planning in my head towards a goal of moving back home in December. The parental figures would not even discuss this idea, why would you give up an job that pays so well. Yes, I am old enough to make my own decisions, but I respect my parents, and value their input on my decisions. Not that I really desire to move home in December, just that it was far enough away time wise to be able to come up with a reasonable plan of action. The truth is I don’t want to be having to live far away from everyone and everything I love for an undefined period of time, as this already feels oppressive. Planning towards the possibility is more a way to give myself mental relief from feeling trapped here.

Quite honestly this just me trying to determine what I really want, by writing out my thoughts.

Thank you for listening to me vent.

Doing Good-Feeling Bad

March 11th, 2017 at 08:27 pm

I am set up to make good progress financially this month.

-I will be getting a good size tax return. I know a number of people say try not to do this, but I kinda like it. Plus due to new job I really had no idea what deductions would be made. I plan to put 100% of this towards paying off debt(Mortgage). -This a doing good item.

-I just got a raise at work(Annual job review). They really like the work I have been doing. I normally do not look to see what I was paid when I get my first pay check of the month, this time I did, once I was told I had gotten a raise. The raise was a decent amount. The reason I don't look at my pay check right away is my expenses are all at the end of the month or very beginning and so this is the point where I balance my check book. -This a doing good item.

Actually formal job review yet to come, but I was given the heads up by one of my bosses that they had given me this raise, and that it was because they were impressed by the good job I have been doing. In fact I guess they kinda view me as the department head of sorts(from what he was saying), this is weird because there is someone else that has been there for 25 years(me less than 1 year) that my other coworker and I definitely defer to on most things. -Positively this is a doing good item.

Officially there is no department head. The reason I am viewed as being department head is that I tend to take charge and make sure things are flowing smoothly as possible, I definitely am known to keep on top of making sure things are getting done.-Doing Good
There is still a bunch I need to learn. I have forgotten a couple times lately to do a small task or two related to some projects, fortunately not things that caused big problems.(Still this is one of the things that I feel bad about.)

-I have just put another small amount of money down on my Mortgage. One extra payments worth, which reduced it by 3 weeks. I paid off 12 extra weeks worth of my Mortgage this month. -Doing Good Item.

Due to taking a trip to visit friends, 6 months worth of car insurance, renters insurance, and buying things I wanted for myself- I have spent way more money than usual this month, more than double what I normally spend on discretionary spending. Oh well, most of this stuff was needed. Maybe not trip to see friends(sure was nice to relax though).I bought close to $50 dollars worth of things for myself, no real excuse for this, still none of it was a total waste of money(or so I tell myself, lol) -The feeling bad item.

So glad to have good job

March 3rd, 2017 at 09:07 pm

I was working a minimum wage job for first half of last year. Then started a well paying professional level job in July. So in the last half of the year I made approximately 3 times the amount that I made in the first half. Boy oh boy That would be the reason I really made excellent progress on getting some of my mortgage paid off in the last 8 months.

This factoid comes from fact that I just received the income statement I needed from first company to file taxes. I already know that I am going to be getting a significant amount back,which will be going towards paying off mortgage. I am so impatient to get this money into my bank account, so that I can reduce that Mortgage, somewhat significantly.