Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

This is a long post about money. My money, specifically.

I don’t read my horoscope regularly, but it pops up on Yahoo every day and I happened to glance at it earlier today:

You may be on solid ground right now in terms of money, but it would not hurt you to conserve a little bit more. Cut back on some of your excessive spending and get more aggressive in your savings plan — and if you don’t have a savings plan, you might want to get on that today. Ditch your credit cards for a while — they make it way too easy to spend way too much! You work too hard for every penny to let even one of them slip out of your fingers without a fight.

It’s an amusing coincidence, because just this morning we went to the bank to take care of some business. Business involving paying off credit cards and getting pre-approved for an auto loan.

We actually took out a loan to consolidate our debt. Actually I took it out, because I have a good credit score but Darren has no credit at all, so the interest rate is better without him. Anyway, the debt isn’t terribly high, but the interest rates on the cards are ridiculous. Consolidating them onto a loan with less than half the interest rate, plus a smaller monthly minimum payment, is going to save us an absurd amount of money in the long run- especially since we’ll be able to make payments much higher than the minimum. Once the payments go through to the card companies we are straight-up closing those credit accounts. SO OVER IT. Incidentally, paying off the CCs is on my 30 by 30 list. Nice.

As far as the car thing goes, we’ll see what happens. We’ve set a maximum allowance for a purchase price but I’m aiming to spend well under that. I obviously don’t want to take on more debt when we’re trying to get rid of it, but actually with everything else we’re doing, plus having payed off a couple loans this summer (two student loans left to go! One of them is 15 years away from repayment though) we’re not going to be paying any more in bills than we do now. Likely even less, depending on what we end up paying for le car. Plus our stupid old van eats gas like crazy, so saving money with a more fuel-efficient vehicle, which of course is what we’re looking for, is a big win. Andplusalso it’ll be a joint loan so Darren can finally build some friggin’ credit.

So that’s that. We’re also doing a lot of non-spending of extra money in general. I mean we spent plenty on vacation because of course we did, we saved for it for months, but now that’s over. Less dining out, less nights at the bar, less unnecessary shopping. Less Caribou, DARREN. More saving. That’s the goal. We want to go on more vacations, and maybe buy a house someday, so we’re making some choices now that will lead to fun things in the future. The downside is it sometimes affects how I kick it with buddies, but we’re all pretty excellent at making our own fun. Hello, toga party tonight?

I’m kind of excited about this, actually.

This is the part where I totally plug our new bank. We recently left Wells Fargo and joined Affinity Plus, a credit union based in Minnesota. It’s a non-profit, and everything is wonderfully straightforward. I researched a lot of CUs for a pretty long time before I made the choice (I wear the pants in the family, I guess? Everything was thoroughly discussed but the legwork was all me) Their employees are trained in every area of the business which has been so helpful. They want their customers to succeed and that has been very clear to me in every interaction I’ve had with them. Plus there are so many little things that are awesome. Participation rewards, for example. plus they have a program called Stash Your Cash, where your debit card purchases are rounded up to the nearest dollar, and the extra amount is deposited into your savings account. We’ve only been with them about a month, but it’s been a very good month. I’d recommend them to anyone. Bonus: the fellow we worked with today noticed Darren’s extensive customer service background and let him know that Affinity Plus is hiring like crazy, and said to use him as a reference if he was interested. He even gave some interview tips. Cool!

All this to say that my horoscope today was bizarrely accurate. Well played.

Hold on, I just need to whine about money for a second.

I’m having a little dilemma in regards to my second job. Kate knows- I spent a bit of time last night emphatically encouraging her to not get one.

Basically, I just don’t know if my time is worth the money.

It brings home about $100 a week, at most. Lately it’s been less because I’ve been hella sick (oh, my strep totally came back, by the way. I’m medicated this time). Has the extra money been useful? Of course. Of course it has, and that’s why this is a problem. The cash is useful, especially in the last two or three weeks wherein we have been going out way too much. But I just hate it so much. I want my time back. My precious weekends (I’ve been making an effort to get at least one weekend day off, which helps, but still doesn’t feel like enough)!

Logical solution: stick to the damn budget we created forever ago. Blamo, problem solved. I should modify said budget to allow for X amount of entertainment dollars (bar nights, dinner out, etc) and when that money is gone, it’s gone. Learning to say no would also be helpful. No we are not going to the bar with you, we are staying home for Netflix and popcorn!

That said, even if we manage to accomplish that successfully (god, we are the worst), that doesn’t negate the fact that the extra money is nice. We have a credit card to pay off, and every little bit helps. Darren and I are sitting in the same boat here. There are big parts of both of us that want me to quit Macy’s, because it eats up a lot of my time and is making me crazy. But we both recognize the benefit as well. On the other hand, the debt is not huge. We can pay it off without the added money. It’s just, extra dollars = quicker repayment. Obviously.

The other thing is, Darren’s job is a long-term temp assignment. Could he be hired on in this position permanently? Yes. But there’s no guarantee. There’s no specific end date either, so who the hell knows. Maybe he’d be able to get unemployment, hopefully he’d get another assignment or a permanent job quickly, but either way would there be enough income? There are just so many uncertainties and I’m a giant worrier so the end result is me going batshit because I don’t know what to do.

I have a loose plan right now, and that is as follows: take the job day by day, with a definite end time of late May regardless of financial standing. I’m not spending all summer working non-stop, that’s for damn sure. Barring potential disaster, of course. Ideally I will be done sooner, but I’m just going to see what happens. Work on budgeting, spend a little more money on groceries rather than going out whenever we’re bored with what’s in the fridge. What else can we do? Nothing but get our shit together and be responsible adults. I mean really.

The good news is, we don’t owe taxes this year. Not federally, at least. Getting some money back even, which we can put into savings because oh yeah, the car’s transmission is going and goddamn that thing just costs us so much money we really just need to replace it (seriously, ever since we got it, something breaks right before Christmas and we have to spend several hundred dollars on that rather than Christmas presents. But it was free!). On top of everything else. Adulthood is so. Much. Fun.

Mkay. Rant over!

I’m going to end on something happy: the weather is supposed to be decent for the next couple of days, so I am wearing a cute skirt today – with leggings – and it is delightful. Yay!

You get a good job with good pay and you’re okay

First, someone on Callboard linked to this post from Runner’s World today and it felt extremely appropriate. Not just for me, but all the people in this city (and country, holy crap) dealing with tornado aftermath in the mist of whatever else is going on in their lives.

Second, I need to confess something. I’m normally pretty decent at money management but sometimes I make mistakes. Darren sucks at the management part but is good about actually watching our bank account. Sometime in the last couple weeks we went overboard and now we have no spending money left for the next few days until I get paid. I mean, we have enough for the dog food and toilet paper that needs to be purchased today, but y’know. But even after payday it’s going to be tight because, y’know, rent and stuff, plus D doesn’t get paid until the week after.

So! I’m going to [try very hard to] completely avoid spending any extra money for at least the month of June. June is going to be the test month, with it’s lack of holidays and no current plans. I’m not going to buy myself lunches or new lipstick or nail polish or clearance shirts from Target (okay… maybe no promises on that last one, but only if they’re under $7). I’m not going to let Darren talk me into dinners out. Expensive nights at the bar will become a bottle of something from the liquor store. And when we go to the store for dog food, we’re not going to walk out with dog food plus deli wraps plus a couple bags of chips.

Seriously. After June we can assess, and make a permanent plan from there. If we want to build up our savings and pay off debt (Suze Orman says you should pay off student loan debt first, Dave Ramsey says you should start with the smallest and work your way up. I think I’mma go his route), eventually replace our car and one day buy a friggin’ house, we need to actually take the necessary steps in doing so. Go effing figure. Bonus: we happen to be meeting with a financial planner on Saturday.

I think now that I’ve put this all out there, I can pretend I have an adoring public holding me accountable. I keep saying me, but I mean us. Team Baxter.

Whew. After all that, I do have one more item of note. Thanks to Kate, I cannot get this song out of my head. Enjoy!