WOO!

Yes. It has been ages since I have posted anything. But things have been busy, and I have been lazy. But I had to take 30 seconds to slam out a quick post to say...

I JUST MAILED MY LAST PAYMENT FOR MY 2008 FEDERAL TAXES!!!

Thank god that is done! It has been way too long. And it will be nice to have that extra $250/month as a cushion.

So, yeah. WOO!

Surprise money! YAY!!!!

I just got a letter in the mail from the IRS. I assumed that they were telling me that they credited my $150 refund to my 2008 tax balance. I was partly right.

Turns out, I missed a credit on my 1040. So, not only did they credit the $150 refund that I had calculated, they also credited an additional $400 to the 2008 balance! So that is an extra $400, which takes another 2 months off how long it will take me to pay back. So, I now have a $1095 balance, which I can get paid off in only four more payments. Holy crap! It feels good to see the end.

Of course the extra money that I would have for not making tax payments is going to go elsewhere and not to fun, frivolous stuff. But it still feels good.

2009 Taxes

Holy SHIT! I log in to Blogger and see that the last time that I posted anything was Feb 1! Well, I am a loser.

Anyway, this is (for once) a good post. I had been putting off doing my 2009 taxes for a long time. I knew that it was not going to be as bad as in the past, because taxes were withheld for the full year for the first time since being at this job. But still, I was gun shy.

Well, tonight, I bit the bullet and did my taxes. And -- drumroll please -- I actually do NOT owe any taxes to anyone!! That frakking god!

I am not getting massive refunds, but not owing is such a wonderful feeling. I will be getting $118 back from the state and $150.20 from Federal. The mild downside to this is that I do still owe 2008 taxes (UGH). So, my Federal refund is going to pay for that directly, so I wont actually see any of that money. But every little bit helps in paying off those pesky 2008 taxes.

So, hells yeah for not owing more taxes!!

2009 Goals

Wow. Back-to-back posts. Dont have a stroke.

After posting that last entry, I was reading through it, and the list of my goals caught my eye. Being 2010 now, I think that it would be appropriate to comment on how things went, and of course, judge myself for failing to get things done...

Short Term Goals: Jan 1, 2010
- Increase savings account to $1,500. FAIL (6.5%). OUCH! There is only $97.29 in my savings account! Well, that sucks. I really need to get back to work on that savings account.
- Start & Get Vet/Emergency Savings to $400. FAIL (63%). I have $251.30 in the Vet savings account. It is not $400, but there is money there. But still, I feel sad that the cats have more money in their account than I have in mine.
- Pay down credit card debt to $6,000 (pay $4,400). FAIL (93%) I did not quite get the credit card debt down to $6000, but now the total is only $6478.79. And I did pay a total of $4081.23, which is better than I thought it would be going into this post.
- Pay down CitiLoan by $2,700. WIN (115%). WOO! This one I did good, but I also think I was setting the goal too low, as $2700 is paying the minimum each month.
- Pay off Capital One ($409.96). WIN (100%). Although, technically I did not pay it off by Jan 1. It was paid off by Feb 1, which is good enough for me.

Mid Term Goals: Apr 15, 2010
- Pay All Federal 2008 Taxes ($3,905). FAIL (51%). Federal taxes are not paid off yet. But I have taken a nice sized chunk of out them. But it is not quite April 15 yet. Here is hoping that I can really get this done. Although, I did manage to pay $2000 to the IRS between August 2009 and February 2010. Maybe at this rate, I will get this done by the summer.
- Pay All State 2008 Taxes ($1,319). WIN (100%) I mailed my last state tax payment in October 2009. WOO!

Okay, so actually looking at things in better detail (which forced me out of bed to the other computer where the Quicken info is), I am not as bad off as I thought I was. I am nowhere near where I want/need to be, but I have accomplished some of my goals and made some nice progress on others. Really, my biggest FAIL is the savings account. And I need to remember not to use the credit card that I can use. Simply keep paying on it. That is hard, but I should be able to do it.

But now, I am off to bed.

This is not a catch or creative title.

Yes, before you say anything... I realize that I have fallen off the face of the earth for a few months. It happens. Im sorry. Moving on.

I had hoped to get motivated enough to do my taxes this weekend, but alas, Ally McBeal DVDs and my couch won out over the 1040.

Sidenote: WOW. Finding that link made me very glad that I bought this DVD set when I did. At $129, it came in under my Three Cents per Minute Rule. Now, it is listed on Amazon for $182.49! Good job, Okturn!

Anyway, I have mentioned before that one of my good friends at work was fired last fall. Well, recently he found a new job. Unfortunately (for me, fortunately for him), his new job is in another state. Inspired by my moving road trip with SS4BC, he asked me to help him move, which will entail driving down with him and his wife and then flying back home on my own. His new job is giving him $2500 for moving expenses, which is awesome! I talked with him today about being concerned about expenses on the road trip, and he said that the new job would reimburse him for stuff up to the $2500. And until that second, I had not thought that was how that would work. In my mind, they gave him $2500. Hmm.

Of course, being as self-centered as I am, I turned this inward and became worried that when I find a job, I am not going to have the money to pay for the move up front. UGH. Seriously, right now, my big financial concern is scraping together enough cash for a plane ticket and rental car for getting to a conference in March for work. I will get reimbursed for the travel, but I have to pay for it all up front.

Basically, I need to be saving a lot more than I am now. Sadly, I have not put money into my savings account in months. Winter is expensive in New England. My utility bills were about double (maybe triple, but I dont know the numbers off the top of my head right now) what they are in the summer, because of the damn heat.

Anyway, my savings amounts to a measly $300ish right now. Really not enough for any type of emergency, except for an emergency trip to the grocery store. It makes me mad that, once again, I have fallen out of habit with one of my projects (here being this blog and diligently managing my money). The irony is not lost on me that when I stopped regularly writing in the blog is when I stopped paying attention to my money and really have no extra anywhere.

Really, my fear now is that I am going to find the perfect awesome position somewhere next year and not be able to afford to move to the new job. How stupid is that? Anyway, this has lit a mild fire under my lazy ass to get back into financial shape. And get myself to where I am not scared of my account balances.

The upshot of this spring is that with any luck I wont owe any taxes for 2009, and there may even be a small refund (which will go directly to my outstanding 2008 tax balance). The 2008 taxes will get paid off by this summer, or I will have to kill myself. And once that is done, the $250-400/month that I was paying the IRS can go into savings, and I may be able to breathe again. I have yet to actually sit down and figure out if that is actually numerically possible. But I hope to get to my taxes this week, and I will write a post all about that. And hopefully, I will have some updated goals for 2010 and perhaps some updated status bars.

**sigh**

I must be more proactive and less reactive. But really, I want to be less terrified about the future, so that I can actually start looking for a job and get out of this hell hole.

Holy CRAP! It HAS been a long time.

So yeah. Things in real life get in the way of the internet, and I really have been neglecting my blog for way too long.

Anyway, I was just poking my head out to say that I have FINALLY made my last payment for my 2008 State Taxes. OMG that took a long time to take care of. I still have the Federal taxes to deal with, but now I can add the amount I was paying to state to the amount that I am paying the Feds each month. And hopefully, that will be finished that much sooner.

Other things have been pretty much status quo in the financial department of the DelMoniq house. And I guess that is okay. I am still slowly paying things off and trying my hardest not to accumulate more debt.

Thinking about stuff.

Yeah, I know that thinking usually gets me in trouble. Mainly because I tend to dwell on things and get all mopey and depressed, just ask my brother. All this work drama has me worried and stressed out, and it has brought about all the old feelings from my former, emotionally abusive boss and how it was when I got fired from that job.

Financially, I have to work. I wish that werent the case (dont we all). But honestly, if were told in my meeting with the boss on Wednesday that I would have to leave in two weeks... I would be royally frakked! I have less than $1000 in my combined savings accounts--not even enough for the next month of rent. The logical, reasonable part of me realizes that chances of me getting fired are slim, but the rest of me knows that there is now a non-zero chance of getting fired.

The boss has told me in the past that I was safe in my position and that I didnt have anything to worry about. [quote]Other people will leave before you do,[/quote] she said. But that was then, and this is now. She said just several weeks ago, when we first learned that the one grant didnt get funded, that no one should worry about his/her job at group meeting in front of everyone. A month later, my good friend is out of a job (and kicked out of school).

She has unwittingly (or perhaps purposefully) and irreversibly altered the mood/state of the lab. Everyone is worried about his/her job. Whether she intended to or not, she has ushered in a regime of fear. This is how my former boss ran his lab. Constantly being told that if you dont produce and publish on his time frame, you will be out.

I find myself forced to consider contingency plans. What would I do? semi-continuously reverberates in my mind. So, what would I do? I would need to find another job, ASAP. However, could I? Four years, one paper, fired for not producing results. Does NOT look good! Top that with the fact that this is my second postdoc position, and I was fired from the first one for...not producing results! Im unemployable -- with the notable exception that I know that SS4BC would hire me if she were running her own lab, but thats a minimum of two years off.

So, what would I do? The only thing I could do, I guess. Sell as much of my shit as I can, rent a truck, and shack up with my parents. Of course, without income, I would be in deep shit to the government for my taxes, and I would default on my loans. None of that will do good things to my credit rating. I would have to find some sort of job close to where my parents are and scrimp and save and figure out what to do.

So, what do I do now? I frakking work my ass off trying my frakking hardest to produce results so as NOT to get fired. And this situation has me frakking scared. I know from experience that this is not a good position to be in with a boss. I have a plan to get shit done, but I have no idea if the boss will agree with my plan. I have a plan to show her what is getting done, but is this going to be enough? How do you convince a boss NOT to fire you when your science isnt working? That is a question that had plagued me for a long time that I was sure I was past.

But I guess not. I just hope to gods that my plans work and that the outlook after Wednesdays meeting is better. Because right now, I am terrified.

New Goals

I finally got off my ass tonight after work to sit down and work on my finances. As depressing as it is, it does feel good to reassess the situation and get some goals in place for the next 9 months.

First off, my Quicken file for my checking account does not match what BofA says online that my balance should be. I have no idea what's missing, but there's money there. Luckily, I took out $275 cash from my checking account back when that whole debit card drama was going on. This was supposed to be cash for visiting a friend of mine in the city (who was there on a business trip), but those plans fell through (kinda luckily). So, I've been using that cash for just about all my purchases for the past couple of weeks. I do plan to print out my transactions since my last statement and double check the Quicken tomorrow.

Basically, I revamped my goals for the next 9 months tonight. There are now two sets of goals (short term and mid term). Short term goals are for the end of this year: getting my savings accounts beefed up and paying down credit cards and loans. The mid term goals are paying off my taxes (both state and Federal) before April 15, 2010. I'm well on my way for the state taxes. Federal is going to take a lot out of me to get it done, but I know that I can do it. The big pull on the Federal taxes is going to be filing my 2009 return as soon as I can. If I'm going to get a refund, all of that will go to paying down my 2008 balance. But, I was able to get myself onto a payment plan, so I'm hoping that will get all this finished sooner.

Of course, the MAJOR goal here would be to live within my $100 per week without using any credit cards and still working towards these new goals. I'm sure that it'll be tough, but I'm used to tough. Really, I just need to get off my ass and motivate myself actually to do this. I think I can.

2008 Taxes UGH.

Due to circumstances that are mostly my fault (and will be blogged about in future posts), I owe big time money to the government (both Federal and state). I had been putting off dealing with it, because it just depresses me to think about how much money this is that I don't have. But since I got another notice from Uncle Sam the other day and today is payday, I figured better do it now.

I owe (including most recent penalties and fees)...

Federal: $3,876.88
State: $1,185.43

Yes, ouch. Big time.

Anyway, a while back, I got a horrid piece of junk mail from Capital One that promised that I could get a credit card with no interest for a year. So, on a lark, I figured that I could pay a big chunk of the debt to the government that way, and pay off the card no interest before June 2010 (one year later). So, I applied online, hoping that they'd tell me what the credit limit would be and that I could accept or decline. Unfortunately, there was no such thing. And about a week later, I got a card in the mail saying that I had a $500 limit.

Well, crap. The limit isn't really enough to pay anyone in full. So, I put it off to the side and didn't think about it.

Tonight, I figured that I'd spend the $400+ in my savings on the taxes to get the ball rolling. I looked online at the Federal website, and I saw that I was eligible for a monthly payment plan. So, I signed up for that and promised to pay $250/month (I'll probably send more), until it's done. It also says that if I am eligible for a refund for 2009 that they'll apply the refund to my balance instead of sending a refund. That will be nice, since now that taxes are being withheld (they weren't before), I'll probably be getting a small refund. So, Federal is taken care of, for now. My first payment is due in August.

As for state, no such luck. So, I went online and paid $400 on the Capital One card (for a $9.96 fee), and I used their bill to mail them a check for an additional $350, which is coming from my savings. This should bring my balance down to $435.43. That's way more manageable.

It's going to suck major ass not being able to put much money in savings, but I was only putting money in savings now to pay the taxes later. So, it evens out. Plus, I'll be reducing fees by paying the state taxes off in the next few months. And I know that I just increased my credit card debt some, but it's interest free for a year, and I can pay off the $410 in a year (well, 11 months). And I'm not going to use the card for anything else. It's already in the drawer in the kitchen and not in my wallet.

And this has been way too much dealing with money for one night. I need some Toaster Strudel.

What to do with $1,000?

So, I got $1,000 from my parents to help cover the vet costs. So, where's the question? Use the $1000 to pay the vet bill. But here's my conundrum...

(1) The vet bill is $1176.26 that is on a credit card that is only usable at the vet and is interest free for 3 months.

(2) I owe a total of about $5000 in state and federal taxes for 2008.

(3) There's only about $330 in my savings account.

So, what should I do?

(a) Pay the vet bill in full and have a net loss of $176.26 in my accounts.

(b) Use the money to pay part of my taxes right now, which would reduce fees and penalties that would be accrued over the rest of the year.

(c) Put the money in savings to gain a bit of interest until I eventually use it to pay the taxes at the end of the year.

I can kind of see the up-sides and down-sides to each option. Of course, no matter what option I pick, I need to tell my mother (when she asks) that the money did go to the vet bill. But she has no clue of my overall financial status. I think that right now, I'm leaning toward paying the state taxes with this money. The state tax has the lower amount owed, and with this money and what's in savings now, I could probably pay the whole thing in July. This would mean ZERO penalties and fees from the state of CT, but no payment to federal.

Hmm. I, of course, welcome opinions and additional options. I just deposited the check today, so I'm going to have to wait a few days anyway to make a final decision on this money. I just wish that things weren't so complicated right now.

It's Monday... Where'd my money go?

I was too tired last night to write this post. But now I'm home, watching The Young & the Restless (my newest addiction), and ready to pour over my spending from the last six days. Due to my busy weekend, last week's Sunday post was postponed to Tuesday. So, this is only covering from last Tuesday through today.

June 16 - 22, 2009

$9.13 - 7-11 - Yeah, it was a shitty week, so yesterday, I went out and got some cigarettes. UGH. I wish that Toaster Strudel was my only vice.

$7 - Cappuccinos - Friday's comfort lunch of pancakes. YUM!

$32.11 - Target - Target is a wonderful store that has the power to SUCK money out of me. They were having a great DVD sale. (Major League for $3.98 and House Season 4 for $18.99! I couldn't say no.) The rest was groceries, which did include the best Toaster Strudel of them all Strawberry & Cream Cheese.

$6.65 - Dunkin Donuts - Bagels for lab meeting. It's the tradition that the person presenting at the meeting in the morning buys breakfast for everyone. Seeing as how I only present about four times each year, it's not too bad.

$7.47 - The Little Store - Snacks and drinks at work. Sigh. I need to stop doing this.

$13.96 - Krispy Kreme - Donuts for lab meeting. I drive way out of my way to get Krispy Kremes for the meeting instead of walking the 1/2 block to Dunkin Donuts, because Dunkin Donuts is the spawn of Satan. Plus, everyone gets Dunkin Donuts; it's nice to mix it up. (Krispy Kremes are WAY better.)

$8 - Groceries

$14.29 - 7-11 - Yes, the shitty week required more cigarettes that I would like (ideally, none).

$84.42 - City Tax - UGH. It's once a year, and it always surprises me. But it's based off the value of my car, since my car is a POS, it could have been a lot worse.

$1176.26 - Vet Bill

+ $55.36 - Surprise settlement money

+ $1000 - A gift from my mother to help defray the vet costs.

Now for the cash...

Starting Cash: $3

$35 - Cash withdrawl
$10 - Thursday Lunch (me and a friend to whom I owed a lunch)
$6 - Monday Lunch
$7 - Coffee at Target ($6.31, but the change went in the change bucket)

TOTAL CASH IN: $38
TOTAL CASH OUT: $23

Cash left over = $15
Actual cash left over = $14

Just remembered I gave Lyndsey $1 for a lottery ticket. So, WOO! Balanced.

TOTAL MONEY SPENT THIS WEEK: $1,394.29 Of course, this is far from a usual week. But there are places were I could have definitely spent less money. And thank my parents so much for that extra $1000 to cover most of the vet costs.

Additionally this week, I blogged about this when it happened, but it's worth mentioning again here. I opened a new ING savings account with $20 for future vet costs for my surviving cat.

Also, my Amazon Prime membership was up for renewal. Since I'm curbing my spending all over the place, I decided that I'd be spending less at Amazon in general, so I wouldn't use the Prime as much. I canceled the membership and put the $79 that I would have spent to renew the membership into my savings account. It's a win-win that will hopefully pay off in the long run.

An interesting day at the mail box.

So, I was planning on making some of my posts that I'm behind on tonight after I take care of some things. But I was so excited about the mail, that I had to share this before I did anything else.

At first I was worried, because I saw two envelopes from some random lawyerly sounding place. I immediately jumped to worry and dread, because I'm a very nervous and high-strung person. I opened the first one and this is what it read...

Dear Consumer:

The Federal Trade Commission...filed a lawsuit against...(long list of names). The complaint charged that the defendants were billing consumers without authorization for alleged visits to websites. Consumers saw charges on their credit card bills under the names...(long list of names). The defendants bought access to lists from a bank that provided the account numbers for more than 3 million valid Visa and MasterCard credit cards. Rather than use the lists to confirm that potential customers had valid cards, the defendants debited the cards for web site services the cardholder had never used.

The unauthorized charges were incurred by you many years ago, and you may no longer have the credit card that was charged. The enclosed check is your share of the funds collected.

...(more details that are irrelevant here).

At the bottom is attached a check for $27.68! And I got two identical letters! That's $55.36! And that's totally awesome. The sad thing is that I probably never noticed the unauthorized charges way back when. I had really bad habits, and even though I was scraping by to pay the minimums each month, I never took the time to look over statements too carefully. So now, I get a little extra money this month!

Unfortunately, this is canceled out by a third piece of mail. A statement from the city for 2008 taxes for $84.42. Luckily, the tax is based off of the value of your car, and I drive a piece of crap. So, the tax could be a LOT worse. And I have these mana from heaven checks to help offset the tax. So I'm only out $29.06 instead of the whole $84.42.

Plus, I got a late birthday present DVD from a friend, so it really was a banner day of mail today. Hopefully, I'll be able to get to some more posting tonight. I still did to do the "Where'd my money go?" and "History of My World Part III" posts. Fingers crossed that that actually happens tonight.

Some Goals for 2009

If you noticed over the past hour or so, I've been updating the Strudel Trackers with some actual numbers and goals. For 2009 the goals are all about debt of some form or another.

I have four sources of debt right now. Credit Card, Student Loan, CitiLoan, and my 2008 Taxes.

Basically, the student loan is inconsequential in the long run. It's a huge loan (more on this in the coming days), and my monthly payment is only $105.66. As long as I pay it each month... no problem.

Credit Cards: A topic to be discussed in more detail in future "History of My World" posts, since it is a prevailing theme in the horrors of my financial past. Currently, I'm down to only two credit cards only one of which I can actually use. The Mastercard is closed and being automatically paid every month. The CitiCard used to be that way until a while ago when my "good payment history" allowed them to open it again. As of January 2008 statements I owed a total of $10,394.74. WAY down from past highs (again, more later), but still high. Upon looking at what I typically pay each month, I've set the goal to pay a total of just under $4,400 in 2009 to get the total debt down to $6,000. After paying the June bills, my total balance is now $9,694.69. So, I've paid $700.05 so far in 2009, and for the first time in a long time, my total balance is down to four digits! Go me!

The CitiLoan: The reason behind this loan is ridiculous and worth of more discussion in future posts, but the short version is at the end of 2007, I took out a $7,500 personal loan from Citibank. At the end of 2008, I restructured the loan to get roughly another $1000 from Citibank. I can't find a current statement, so I don't know what the total balance is right now. But this loan seriously damaged my finances. So, a goal for 2009 is to pay this down. I hate that I had to take out this loan, but there were no other options at the time. My minimum monthly payment is $217.19, so the goal for 2009 is to keep that up and pay off roughly $2,700 of this loan. Since I've paid for six months, I'm half way there.

My 2008 Taxes: This is another horrible situation that I've found myself in. Okay that's putting myself in a passive position, which isn't the case. We'll talk a lot about the taxes and the horrors of being blessed with an NIH fellowship. But for now, just accept that I owe roughly $5,000 in taxes to both Federal and the state of Connecticut. The goal for 2009 is to pay my taxes, which for the most part is going to involve frugality and throwing every spare dollar and penny I get into my savings account in hopes of getting it all taken care of by the December 31 deadline. In the grand scheme of tax evasion, I'm small potatoes, but the idea of prison does not sound good to me at all. Basically, my savings account is what I paid into it on Sunday, so there's a long way to go on this one. The goal for 2009 is to get $6,000 to pay the taxes and start rebuilding the savings account for what it's actually for--saving money.

There's one more goal. It's not entirely financial, but it does involve money. I need to quit smoking (again). Another thread throughout my history, and there definitely will be more on this later. But smoking is gross, addictive, expensive, and can kill me, so it's got to go. I'm going to start this month, so I'm hoping to get this kicked over the summer. Part of this blog will be about that as well.

So, there you have it. My 2009 goals: pay down debt, quit smoking, and don't go to prison.