Layout:
Home > Archive: September, 2013

Archive for September, 2013

Received a Competitive Raise!

September 28th, 2013 at 07:48 pm

Last week, my team lead let me know that they were giving me a pay increase to remain a competitive salary. It was increased $4,500!

My current position is one of experience in a newly designed compliance area. Hiring and training in this position is time consuming and expensive. If you remember, I was just hired in April.

There are other companies attempting to build departments like mine and to entice us to not jump ship (which I wasn't considering), they authorized a salary increase.

To think, this time last year, I was making a whole $19,000 less than I am today. In my excitement, the first thing I did was redo a budget to increase my snowball/savings!

When I changed jobs, I increased medical savings, and my grocery and entertainment expenses a bit. So with this increase, I am now saving over $1000 per month which will go towards savings and debt.

My pay also went from 24 times a month to 26, so those 2 extra paychecks will go towards debt/savings as well!

Once my fiancée and I hit our Wedding savings goals, all of the funds will go towards debt! SO excited!

Best Laid Plans

September 3rd, 2013 at 04:43 pm

SO many financial things going on in the last few weeks. First, in preparation for the refinance, it was a flurry of finding, faxing and mailing documents left & right. I also was finishing moving some investments to comply with a legal/work requirement for my fiancé’s place of business (not thrilled with it, but it’s done). That required several phone calls, faxes and overnight/certified mail delivery.
Thirdly, I was dealing with purchasing a course for work and getting the paperwork in to be reimbursed quickly.

In the midst of this, I paid $740.16 in medical bills. Oh the fun!

So August was a busy month and I looked forward to all the financial stress to be over. Until I found out on Wednesday that the lovely people handling my refinance screwed up and did not obtain all the information that the underwriter needed, so they could not complete the refinance by the 31st. I freaked. All that time, money and mental stress – for nothing. I am waiting for the new numbers today. I bought the house in October, so each year at this time, my escrow funds are paid out appropriately. This and any rate changes, will change the numbers. If they will not honor the rate offered last month, then I will be looking elsewhere.

Yesterday, I went through all my piles of paperwork and purged and organized. It made me feel in control of something  I am really happy to have that taken care of!

I am off work today too. I really just wanted a mental health day. I was able to sleep in. My fiancé has his late night tonight, so he slept in too. He won’t be home until after 7 tonight, so I have the whole place to myself for a lot of hours. I planned on doing practically nothing. But plans always go awry!

I ran to the store to get a few groceries and a free Redbox movie for tonight (Pain & Gain). I used change and a few loose dollars, which was nice. I came home & started the dishwasher and luckily heard it start to overflow! Someone, nobody will be named, did not run the garbage disposal after cleaning up dinner last night and it backed up, causing the dishwasher to overflow. I had to basically take apart the kitchen to dry everything out. Oh the joys.

I am also doing laundry (although a nap is in my future!) Planning on hanging on drying racks on the deck though! I love doing that 

Financially, going forward, I will be dealing with a few more medical bills, starting to study for my CAMS exam, working on the refinance and getting wedding details/expenses nailed down!