by Matt Fildes
Good afternoon everybody!
Thanks to everybody for commenting on how they spend their typical Valentine’s Day on last week’s post.
For this V-day I budgeted $52 for a pair of concert tickets to go see a band (Milky Chance) that both me and the GF really like. The concert itself isn’t until April, so my plan was to get a hotel room and dinner for us that night- I would have paid for this as her birthday gift, which happens to be around the time of the concert.
Well…it turns out the night of the concert is her last final exam and group presentation for one of her graduate classes. So unfortunately, it didn’t work out as I had planned. I’m going to sell the tickets (the concert is already sold out, so I should get face value for them) and plan on using that money to do a small weekend trip in April to a B&B we both really like (which has been less than $150 for the room and dinner when we stayed there before). Not the idea I originally planned, but still something she seems really excited for.
For my gifts (v-day and b-day combined), I got some very sweet (and inexpensive) items that I love but never buy for self- a bag of beef jerky, sour patch kids, gold fish crackers and ‘coupons’ (20 minute massage, 3 hours of uninterrupted guitar playing, etc…) which really made my day. And Sunday I got to spend all day doing whatever I wanted (played guitar, played with the dogs, nap) while she did all the chores normally assigned to me. It was wonderful. Despite what she paid for the gifts (couldn’t have been more than $20) I couldn’t have asked for more.
Edit- Here’s my card that she made (I wanted to show everyone):
Edit- Here’s the homemade bag she made:
Ok, so on to my financials! I finally took the juicer back and received store credit! (Edit- I asked for store credit but the amount showed back up in my checking account!)
Here’s what my monthly budget looks like so far this month:
My electric bill for this month ended being $11.04 less than expected, which was nice. The misc costs is a total of the concert tickets ($52.00) and my EZ-Pass bill ($25.00, I don’t have a line for this since it’s so irregular. I only get charged when my balance drops to below $10.oo and it automatically refills to $35.00 from my checking account, maybe once every 3-4 months).
My slush fund total increased by $9.00, to 0 out my checking account, to a balance of:
Slush Fund: $2,587.78
Here’s my debt totals to date:
| Loan Name | Interest Rate | Original Balance- May '09 | Current Balance | Total Paid Off |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sallie Mae 01 | 5.25 | $27,837.24 | $24,462.48 | $3,374.76 |
| Sallie Mae 02 | 4.75 | $22,197.02 | $19,189.15 | $3,007.87 |
| Sallie Mae 03 | 7.75 | $20,692.10 | $655.99 | $20,036.11 |
| Sallie Mae 04 | 5.75 | $10,350.18 | $7,723.61 | $2,226.57 |
| Sallie Mae 05 | 5.25 | $6,096.03 | $5,356.99 | $739.04 |
| Sallie Mae 06 & 07 | 4.75 | $6,415.09 | $0.00 | $6,415.09 |
| Sallie Mae- DOE 01 | 5.25 | $5,000.00 | $0.00 | $5,000.00 |
| Sallie Mae- DOE 02 | 5.25 | $3,000.00 | $0.00 | $3,000.00 |
| AES | 6.8 | $9,000.00 | $0.00 | $9,000.00 |
| TOTALS | $110,587.66 | $57,338.22 | $53,249.44 |
I was able to pay $653.46 onto the balance of my smallest student loan, bringing that to a balance of $1,153.01. I should have this paid off in only 2 more weeks! To think, this was the loan that scared me the most (balance plus interest rate) not 1 year ago.
Your Valentine’s Day sounds great – sorry the concert didn’t work out but, what can you do, life happens! We don’t normally do anything but my husband, without my knowing, got into my craft stuff and made me a card with all my stamps, paper, markers, fancy scissors, etc. I swear it looks like a 3 year old made it but it is the nicest card I have ever gotten in my life 🙂 Of course I didn’t tell HIM it looked like a 3 year old made it 🙂 He’s so sweet.
It is so nice to see someone so young planning for their future and trying to save money – could you please talk to my children, obviously what I say has made NO impression on them!!!!
Haha that’s funny. Homemade gifts are the best.
Well… I wish I were saving money. That’s my ultimate goal once I pay off my student loans. The crazy thing is I have the opposite tendencies as my parents. My dad isn’t bad when it comes to saving/spending money, but my mother spends it faster than it comes in. I see a future debt post with this.
W00t! for getting the student loan paid off. Sometimes admitting to the “elephant in the room” makes it much more easier to tackle
Speaking of valentines day – I did the same thing for my BF – handmade card, 15 days of events that we can do together (back messages, watching his anime movies, etc) to help strengthen our relationship. So far, I haven’t spend anything on it yet – he hasn’t reached the dinner and dessert is on me, but I don’t plan on spending a lot on them when he does!
Thanks! It took me awhile to open up about the students loans- it was a big embarrassment of mine for a looooong time. But now that’s it’s out in the open to not only everyone on here, but friends and family and for the most part everyone has been really supportive.
What’s next? Sallie Mae 4?
No #5- I’m going lowest to highest balance.
I love your positive attitude and frugal mind set – you are really killing those debts! Can’t wait to see another “0” balance on your debt chart!!!
Thanks Den! I can’t wait either 🙂
That was a sweet holiday all around! I’m glad you guys worked out a way to do this well and frugally 🙂
Congratulations also on your debt payment. Rocking it. Can I make one small request? Since only ten rows show on those charts, and you only have one row (the totals) on “page 2,” can you combine the two paid-off Sallie Mae loans on a single line? It would be nice to see everything at once.
Thanks! And no problem on the request- done.