Finance

And The Sky Didn’t Fall

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

It’s no secret that I have a love/hate relationship with money.  I love spending it and hate being in debt.  These things don’t work well together–just ask the government of any state around.  There are two choices–make more or spend less or sadly in many cases you have to do both.  I am luck that we can spend less without the added pressure of earning more.

This month is coming to an end and for the first time in I don’t know how long–we have the exact amount of money in left in our account that we should.  I cannot believe it.  REALLY.  We went to a completely cash system this month for all things aside from gas–because really who wants to have to walk into the gas station when you can pay at the pump.  And we actually still have some of the cash left and money in the bank.  I am beside myself and you know what?  It was easy.

We didn’t eat out–we only went to the grocery store one time per week.  I didn’t go to Target (this might be key) except for pull-ups and dog food.  The biggest change though was thinking about not what I could spend but what I needed to buy.  I’m amazed.  Amazed.  I can’t believe it has taken me/us this long to figure out what we are doing in terms of our finances.  It’s a bit insane.

I know this is just our first month and we have a lifetime of months to make it happen this way, but a simple change makes a big difference.

I am happy.

Facing The Firing Squad

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

Life sucks sometimes.  Especially when you aren’t fully prepared for its suckiness.  I have never really hidden the fact that money is and has been a bit of a struggle.  Partly because I didn’t work for 4 years, to stay home with the kids, and because we are both spenders.  Which is not a good combination.  Ideally a couple should be a balance of a spender and a saver or even better, two savers.  I have never been good with money.  Well, I take that back. I have always been really good at spending money and I have learned over the years, that I use spending like I do food as a comfort for some deeper issue.  I’m working on it slowly and I think that I am beginning to break through.  We’ll see.

So, money is always an issue, especially since we have committed to stop using our credit cards–which was a our go to for so many things that we didn’t need and shouldn’t have bought.  But, I can’t go back, I can only go forward.  And we have created budgets and are working on a cash-only basis and seeing how that works.  It will be a long road until we are debt-free (can only dream of the day the student loans are paid off–in 2040).  We are tackling our credit cards at this point and it would certainly be easier and quicker if we weren’t sending our kids to private school.  We toss the idea around, but I cannot and will not sacrifice their education.  I will sacrifice vacations and other spending before I decide that we can’t afford to send the kids to private school.  We make enough to still be able to get out of debt in about two years with the kids in private school, if we really lock down our spending.

We had a plan and we were feeling optimistic.  Then, I filed our taxes.  This was the first year we didn’t have an adoption tax credit to use and oh yeah–I went back to work and that pushed us up a tax bracket.  We got hit with a huge tax bill, penalties for not paying enough, AMT for making too much but not enough money.  I was floored because we couldn’t come close to paying the tax bill.  I know we are grown up and I’ll be 40 this year and it is depressing to think that we didn’t have enough saved in any capacity to pay for this tax bill.  But we don’t.  We should.  We don’t.  And it makes me depressed, angry, sad, and foolish.

I had to call my mom and tell her what we owed and that we needed the money.  I am lucky to have someone to help bail me out at my age.  It sucks like you can’t even imagine.  It made me feel like a teenager again asking for extra money to go out because I spent all of mine.  She was understanding but also had some words to say that I needed to hear.  We spend our money on things that are silly and that we don’t need.  We spend too much money on the kids and buying stuff for them and we live beyond our means.  This is true and not.  We live within our means if we didn’t have debt, but we do and that just screws it all up.  We think about how much money we can spend as opposed to how much money we could save, etc.  We need a new outlook and to make a severe money mindset change.  Hubs and I make too much money for this to be the case and it is time that I start to respect myself more to realize that money can’t buy me anything that I feel my life is missing and that just because I want something doesn’t mean I get to buy it.

I am trying to teach that to my kids, but how can I expect them to learn it, if I haven’t?  Life sucks sometimes.  But, I’m an adult who is a year away from finishing her PhD.  It’s time I got my shit together and started behaving like it and not like a spoiled little child.

Facing Reality When Reality Bites

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

I lost the job to someone who had more background teaching the courses that the position was for.  I know it should make me feel better that I was qualified and I interviewed well.  But it doesn’t.  The job market sucks right now–even for teachers.  Especially for teachers of English in a city that has 6 colleges that pump out new teachers each year.  I was optimistic for a period of time, until I realized that a lot of the openings listed were not actual openings but only perceived openings.  Many districts have begun hiring teachers on one-year contracts and so each year those positions come up again as open–even though there was a teacher who was in the position last  year and is probably re-interviewing for the position again.  It’s frustrating when you look at a situation and it looks promising–lots of openings etc, and then the openings tend to be simple formalities.  UGH!

I know I should feel okay that I at least have my part time job at the college teaching and that if I teach two classes each semester it will cover our portion of Noah’s school.  But I really want to get back to full-time teaching and the market is so tight and there are so many new teachers who need jobs as well as the teachers from the disticts that are cutting jobs due to lack of $$$. 

I will keep applying and keep pounding the pavement and looking for jobs in all the places I can and use all the connections I have.  I am at least happy that hubby got a small raise this year and that his employer–Wells Fargo–posted a profit for the first quarter of the year.  His job is certainly one less thing I need to worry about.

Economics 101–How I Have Failed

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 5 Comments

Time for some randomness.  I am still job hunting and I absolutely hate it.  I want a job now and I am ready to get hired.  I have had a few interviews with a few districts–two with one district and one with two others.  I know that this is just the beginning of the interview season and that it really picks up in April but I am starting to start to freak out. 

We didn’t get as much financial aid for Noah’s school as I would like, so that means I need to get a job if Noah is going to go to school.  This gets me back to the whole being in debt trap.  We have debt–it was the price we paid for me not working and staying home with the kids.  We didn’t scrimp like we should have in order to make sure we were not spending more than we were making.  Part of it was an underestimate of what kids cost–just so you know they really are expensive.  We are in debt and it sucks.  I hate it and it takes a huge portion of Bill’s income every month to service.  I want a job to help us get out of debt and I want to make sure we begin to shrink the debt.  But, we have to be willing to sacrifice and thus far we haven’t been able to do that. 

UGH!  I am sorry for all the complaining, but sometimes it just hits me and I have somethings that are important and I need to make sure that they happen.  It is just a matter of priorities and I have to get them straight–which is certainly something that we haven’t been able to do.  I need to get a handle on it and soon. 

Did I mention that I need a job–not just for money but for sanity.  I am tempted to attempt to get a job teaching summer school this summer to make some extra money–maybe I could teach a class this summer at the community college–I’ll have to look into that.  Money is important.

We Did Our Best To Stimulate The Economy

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

this weekend.  We had a weekend spending spree to rival all middle class spending sprees.  It was great. 

The weekend started early on Friday when we dropped the kids at the grandparents house at 5pm.  I was pleasantly pleased to find out that the kiddos would be spedning the night.  This was the first time that both kids had stayed at my dad and bonus mom’s house.  It has been just over 7 months since Zoë came home and since we had a night to ourselves completly.  It was the best Valentine’s day present ever. 

We don’t celebrate Valentine’s day per se.  We celebrate the 13th and I am happy to say that 10 years ago on the 13th of February my wonderful husband presented me with a beautiful dark sapphire and diamond ring and asked me to be his wife.  It was great and wonderful.  This year on the 13th, I was presented with beautiful sapphire encrusted hoop earrings.  We had a great dinner at one of our favorite restaurants–it’s a chain sad to say but still completely awesome. 

We slept in on Saturday–until nearly 9am.  I know crazy.  We then went to breakfast and shopping for a new bedroom set.  We found a great deal on a 3-piece bedroom set and also purchased 2 night stands and an additional dresser.  Then we went to the new Casino in town and ate lunch at the Burger Bar–where I had the best burger that I have had in a very long time–since I worked here in the 90’s. 

The spending did not stop there.  We had to buy new bed linens to match the first bedroom set either of us have ever owned.  We bought new curtains and we finished painting our bathroom.  It looks great.  I’ll have to post before and after pictures when we are completly finished.