Debt Archives - Page 45 of 47 - Making Sense Of Cents

New Car Costs

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 25 Comments

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The BF bought a new (old) car on Friday. We paid $2,800 in cash for it. It’s worth more than what he bought it for and as he was looking for Jeeps, he found that the same year and mileage usually went for around $5,000.

However, lots of maintenance was needed and the Jeep belonged to his friend, so he got a good deal. Him and his dad are going to do all of the maintenance for less then $100, so it’s a pretty good deal.

We didn’t want payments on a new car. So we opted for cash instead.

He also sold his old car just a couple of hours later. We kind of regret selling it though because it still had a lot of life in it, but oh well. It’s gone and it would’ve just sat in our driveway, and we also don’t need to have 4 cars for just the 2 of us.

He bought a white Jeep Wrangler that’s in good condition. He’s been doing maintenance this weekend and will continue doing the rest of the car maintenance next weekend. The one thing I hate about the Jeep is that it gets HORRIBLE gas mileage. His last car got an average of 29 mpg, whereas the Jeep only gets 17 or 18. Luckily the BF’s job is only around 5 miles away, so the increase in our gas budget won’t be that much.

He’s happy too, so I’m not upset either. He is so in love with his Jeep that it makes me laugh. We sold his old car for the EXACT same price that we bought it for 2.5 years ago. So that’s quite a deal. We also didn’t have any repair costs for the car for the whole 2 years, so it’s like we had the car for free. So now I felt like he deserved something better, and he’s also been pretty happy all weekend.

His insurance went up slightly, but not too much. His insurance is now around $76 a month instead of around $34, but that’s only because we added a $500 deductible for it. We’re only going to keep this deductible on it until he gets used to driving a stick shift, since this is something pretty new to him. But after that, his insurance will drop back down to around $40 because he will just have liability on the Jeep.

Yes I would have loved to buy a car that got better gas mileage and one that I could drive as well (stick shifts scare the heck out of me), but he loves it and it was super cheap.

So altogether I’m guessing this car will add a little less than $100 to our monthly budget. But in a couple of months it’ll just be around $60 to $70 extra each month. Which I don’t think is too bad considering that we don’t have a car payment for it. What do you think? It was probably not a great idea to buy a gas guzzler, but oh well.

What car problems have you had lately? Any car costs added to your budget lately?

A couple of other questions. Does gas mileage play a big factor into what car you end up buying? What factors trump others: gas mileage, the miles on the car, value, luxury, 4 door or 2 door, etc?

Ways that we could continue to cut our budget

Last Updated: July 18, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 40 Comments

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I’m starting to feel better, but still not the greatest. It’s Mardi Gras weekend so I need to start feeling better so that I can celebrate. If it gives you any clue as to where I live (some of you already know), but where I live we have the second largest Mardi Gras in the U.S. (besides New Orleans of course). So everyone goes out and has fun, but I don’t know if I feel like spending a ton of money (heated tents with unlimited beer and food is $100 a person) and freezing to death outside.

Anyways, recently I talked about how much we’ve cut our budget. I also said that I would post about other ways we could cut back, and it took a little longer than I thought, but here’s the post! I know you all were hurting while waiting for this (I’m joking of course). These aren’t all things that I would do, but it’s nice to see the value of everything. And also if we ever had financial problems, then we could easily cut these things. [Read more…]

Newlywed Finances

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 13 Comments

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I hope everyone is having a great day! It’s finally Wednesday, which means it’s the last day of classes for the week for me. Feels great! Anyways…

Brittany from brittanydawn is posting for me today.

Hey! I’m Brittany! I’ve been married for almost 2 months now. I can’t believe it’s been that long! It seems like just yesterday I was worried about music and thinking about the menu amidst a million other wedding related things. I can’t say I miss that too much right now! I loved planning my wedding, but it’s so nice to not have all that stress anymore. [Read more…]

I want my student loans to be GONE

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 34 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Over at Girl with the Red Balloon, she announced that she just recently paid off the rest of her loans, and she’s now completely debt free! Go over there and congratulate her. I honestly can’t stop thinking about this, because I bet this is such a great feeling. I am extremely jealous, but I know I am close (ok I am not close when it comes to my mortgage though).

She talks about how she did some extreme things to save money and pay off debt faster, such as eating very cheaply. But she was also super determined in paying off all of her loans. I’ve always admired how determined she was with the whole process, and I wish I would buckle down more and do this.

I do wish I would’ve graduated without debt. I worked full-time in high school and while in college I worked full-time the entire time as well. I also had to live on my own due to my dad passing and this ate up a significant amount of the money that I made. I also had to (and I still am) support my mom and help her with bills. I did manage to pay off around half of my tuition bill each semester, so of course I would have more loans. The university I went to was around $30K a year (without room and board) and I also am attending an MBA program right now, so I’m not too down about being around $33K in debt for student loans when I have 2 business undergraduate degrees and I’m about to have my MBA as well. [Read more…]

Analyzing My Job and What matters to you?

Last Updated: December 7, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 39 Comments

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Happy Tuesday everyone! Hopefully this week isn’t going too slow for you. I don’t have too much planned today except for the normal work and then boring classes.

I thought I’d join in with the others who have participated in From Shopping to Saving’s How to Analyze Your Job. It’s a very good way to look at your job and how you perceive it. Below I marked in red what I thought was important to me. I also thought this post would be interesting because I’ve noticed that a lot of readers and bloggers are currently looking for a new job. This might help steer you into the direction that you want to be in.

Here is a direct quote from her post:

“Here are the 7 factors that we like to take a look at to analyze our job as a whole. Work is not something that we all love to do but it’s something that pays for what we really want to do. Some of us are fortunate to have work that we do enjoy wholeheartedly and would possibly do for free, but sadly I’m not one of those people. “

My Job:

Salary – What are all of the benefits of your job? This includes salary, insurance, pensions, etc.
- My salary is pretty good, especially for the Midwest. Of course it would be on more average if I lived in an area such as LA or NYC, but it’s pretty decent around here. I also get bonuses, a retirement plan, free health insurance and other benefits. I would say that I’m pretty good in this area.
Job Duties – What do you do? Is it difficult?
- I enjoy what I do. Of course I would rather be laying on a beach and get paid for that, but I’m not a VS model, so that’s not possible. My job can be difficult at times but it’s something I enjoy doing and the time passes pretty quickly. I work mainly independently and I like that.
Location/Commute – How is the drive? Is it really long? Horrible? Are there other ways you can commute?
- The location is good. It’s in a nice suburb and only less than 15 miles from my house. I cannot take public transportation there (unless I want to spend around 2.5 hours on a bus). I don’t pay for parking and it’s located near a bunch of other places to eat and things to do.
Co-workers – Do you like the people you work with? How are your work relationships?
- I enjoy the people that I work with. I work at a pretty small firm, and we all get along. This is much different than a retail environment, where everyone is really catty.
Atmosphere – How stressful is your job? How is your workplace?
- The atmosphere is pretty nice at my work. Not too crazy. Pretty quiet and relaxing also.I listed to Pandora all day at work so that’s pretty nice too.
Flexibility – Can you take a day off easily? Or is your boss/employer one of those people who denies all vacation requests?
- I don’t have to clock in. It’s pretty easy to take off. I just have to put my name on the calendar. My boss pretty much lets me take off whenever unless it’s during a busy time of the work season.
Advancement – Is it easy to get a promotion, or are you stuck?
- There is definitely a path for advancement in my position. I was hired and told I was on a path for management/VP/President. So they flat out told me this in the interview.

If you couldn’t tell, I like my job. My job is pretty stable and reliable. I work in a very specialized area in the financial services industry as well, and there will always be demand for what we do, so I’m not too worried about our services and business tanking.

How does your job compare?

A lot of people would say that money is the #1 motivator for when they look at a job. I would say that a combination of happiness, money, stability (especially stability), benefits and opportunity for advancement.

I know many people who work at a certain big billion dollar company in my city and they all hate their jobs. It all started out nice because the money was very attractive for them, but they are terrified everyday that they might lose their job and the environment is very hostile. Would you work in an environment where you would trade your sanity and happiness for money?

I don’t think I could. I am a person who likes stability and I enjoy not having to worry everyday about whether or not I will have a job the next day. I try my hardest at my job and of course I expect at least not to lose my dignity everyday as with the example in the above.

I also have some friends who I think are being entirely too picky. Some graduated awhile ago and are still waiting for the perfect job and still haven’t found anything. I believe you need to gain some sort of experience instead of just waiting around. Not many jobs are going to score a 100% for you. Yes yes I know, I’m probably a depressing person and I’m sure there are many people out there who love their jobs, but I’m just being realistic in my point of view.

Are you currently searching for a job? What are some things that you are looking for in a job? What’s one thing you would not trade?

Some Frugal (and expensive) Date Ideas

Last Updated: November 18, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 35 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Today is Friday! I’m finally feeling better. Having the stomach flu is the worst and I hated it so much. It was miserable having to work for 9 hours and then going to class for another 4.5 hours this week. 2 weeks down, 13 to go? I think that’s right. Like I’ve said, I have to miss the last 1-2 weeks of classes for work, so I’m not sure how much I have left really.

Anyways, me and the BF have been really lazy lately. We have been staying home a lot (and sleeping a lot). There is really no excuse for this except that I hate the cold and really don’t want to step a single foot outside. Once the weather gets better, there are tons of things that we like to do.

We really need to stop being lazy though! Of course we like to save money when we do things also. What are some frugal date ideas that you have? Below is a list of things that we like to do or would like to do.

Some date ideas:

Try new restaurants. We love using Restaurant.com certificates because we can try new restaurants without spending a ton of money. If you sign up for their e-mail list, you usually get e-mails a couple times a month for 80% or 90% off their certificates. So this means that I often buy these certificates for around $2. Since you usually only have to spend $10 to use the $25 certificate, that means that we get around $35 worth of food for only $12 (plus tip). But that’s a good deal! There are a lot of restaurants that we go to a lot that are on there also.
Have a picnic. We love going to the park and having a picnic, we haven’t done this in awhile. Last time we did this, we rode our mopeds (yes we have mopeds, and yes they are fun) and a photographer actually took our pictures for the newspaper (or at least that’s what he said)! This is relatively cheap and a lot of fun. Usually there are interesting people and we can people watch also.
Go skiing. Haven’t done this yet, but if it gets cold this weekend, then we plan on doing this finally! It’s expensive though, I looked up prices and it’ll be around $100 each for equipment rental and everything.
Order/make lots of food, watch scary movies, and stay in.
Go to the zoo. For some reason, the zoo always seems like a fun idea, UNTIL I get there and I want to leave. Parking is always horrible and it’s always hot. But, I do love going! The zoo where we live is free, so this is always fun! Parking is free also (they have paid parking but I don’t mind walking 1-2 minutes and park).
Take a weekend vacation. We’ve done this a couple of times. What we’ll do is take that Friday off and make it a 3 day weekend. Last year we went to Miami for the weekend. It was fun, but it was hard to pack in the flights, travel and everything into 3 short days.
Go to the movies. We don’t go to the movies a lot (because it’s like $13 a person and because I always fall asleep at the theater), but we do have $50 on a movie gift card, so we plan on using it soon. Nothing too good has been out lately though, but I’m definitely seeing The Vow with Channing when it comes out next month! Who else is excited for that?
Hike. We have a lot of hiking trails around us, and we finally went hiking a couple of months ago on the trail near our house. It was fun and interesting for us. FREE
Drive around. I know this isn’t eco-or-pocket-friendly, but the BF likes to drive around, and I like just sitting in the passenger seat. It’s relaxing. And we just talk about nothing and everything.
Look at the stars. The BF’s grandma has a lot of land, so sometimes we will drive all the way out there and lay out a blanket and just relax. It’s nice and very pretty.
Shooting range. We go shooting at least twice a month. It’s fun, but very expensive.
Hot air balloon. Haven’t done this yet, but would like to. I’m a little afraid right now though since there was an accident last month where everyone died. I’m not sure how much this cost? Maybe $150 a person? More? I don’t know…
Sky Diving. Haven’t done this yet, but would like to. He doesn’t see the need to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, yet he will do tons of scary things that I don’t get. I plan on going with his friend this spring, so this isn’t much of a date idea, but maybe the BF will join. This will be around $200 just for me when I do this in the Spring. I also want to get pictures from it, and that’s around an extra $75.
Paddle boat. Downtown there is a little man-made canal thing (yes I know I sound so smart) and you can paddle boat, get a canoe or a kayak. It’s a lot of fun, really pretty and pretty cheap. Only around $15 an hour (but they don’t really make sure that you’ve only been gone for an hour).

What do you guys like to do? Any new ideas?

P.S. Don’t forget to Follow me on twitter!

A little info about the BF and how we handle the cash money

Last Updated: May 31, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 50 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I don’t talk too much about the BF on my blog, but I’d like to. A lot of you said that you don’t mind that I blog anonymously, but that you’d love it if I shared more information about my life. I’ve never really said too much about the BF, I just tend to throw those letters around, but none of you really know anything about him. So you guys are lucky, today you will learn about him and how we handle our money.

A little information about the BF:

The picture above is of him when we went to San Juan last year
He’ll be 23 in about 2 weeks (does anyone have any present ideas for him?)
He has a new habit pretty much everyday. And he’s obsessive about them. Whether it’s cars, guns, motorcycles, he goes absolutely insane and will read everything about it until I want to run away
Before last year, he had NEVER been on an airplane, but I definitely changed that last year once I had time for vacations
He comes from a GREAT family, and his family is the best thing ever
He’s very clean
He’s a workout maniac
He loves to drink tons of milk and it makes me want to barf
I tend to talk in my sleep (and it tends to scare him) and he will have long conversations with me because he thinks it’s hilarious
He eventually wants to graduate and have a career with something involving the environment and scientific sustainability research
Hmmm I’m obviously horrible at describing him so now I will resort to the physical (since I obviously don’t show pictures yet, I will describe him). He’s around 6’1″, blonde hair, blue eyes (can’t tell in the picture of course).

Now for some information about our relationship. We’ve been together almost 6 years, and we’ve lived together for almost 5 years. Yes, that means that we moved in together right after high school. We’ve lived in a total of 4 places (I think, I might be forgetting) and we bought our house at the age of 20.

Most would say that we’re crazy. But it worked for us. We also have joint accounts (nothing is separate). This doesn’t bother me though. After all of the problems that money brought in my family, I guess that caused me to not to get upset about money and relationships. And yes, most people will say that we are crazy since we live like this and are not married, but it doesn’t bother me (mainly because I don’t see how being married or not really affects us). This mainly has to do with the way I saw my parent’s marriage shrivel up as I grew up. I hope I don’t offend anyone with my thoughts above.

I’ve made a post on this before, but how does everyone else handle their finances? Joint accounts, separate, separate and joint? What do you think would work best for you? Tell me!

This leads me to the next little fact about us: Our lives are kind of similar to Erika’s. I also have a bigger salary than the BF, and because of the field I’m in, I most likely always will. I don’t see anything wrong with this. And I don’t understand why some people do think there is something wrong with this. We actually have had some people criticize him/us for that. Do you make more than your significant other? What do you think?

We are not married, we’re not in a rush for that and don’t want to go into debt for a wedding. We do plan on doing that soon (I know, not romantic since we’ve talked about it). Now don’t get me wrong, I definitely want to get married, but with school and work, I don’t have time to plan a wedding. I actually cannot wait until I can plan my own wedding. I’m having a blast planning my friends wedding. She similar to me and my BF. They’ve been together for 12 years (since they were 14, and yes they are high school sweethearts too), but because of schooling, she has her PhD from an Ivy League school, and so does he, so they never had time until now to get married. Looks like we’ll be on the same path as them 🙂

We’re high school sweethearts (Awwww right?) and I love him a whole lot of course. He’s very wonderful and we have a blast together. He’s someone that I can complain to (even though I know he’s not always listening), he listens about problems with my mom, he is actually nice to my mom, he was there for me when my dad passed, he’s my best friend!

Well, that’s all I can think of for now. Do you have any questions for me?