Hmm

Hmm..I just realized something the other day. In the past few months, i have gotten a brand new card for all of my credit cards. I cut them all up a few years ago to help reduce debt. But now that im upside down with my budget, it seems like they all sent me a new one so i can spend, spend, spend. I have to be careful here. I cant cut them up, since most likely i will be needing them. Also, i got my tax return yesterday. $5600. So i immediately paid my car insurance as it is due today at midnight. That was $640, but since i had $300 already in the account, only $340 was used. But, i need to pay off my Macy card from the suit i bought for my grandmother's funeral, so there goes that $340. SO basically i have $5000 left. I need to have enough to get me through June, at $800 a month(from previous post), that's $3200. That leaves $1800, which i will add to savings for when i move out. Financial disaster is still imminent, but since my return was higher than i expected, i have prolonged the inevitable.

The Problem

Okay, here is all of my monthly bills as promised. Right off the bat you can clearly see the problem. My monthly expenses exceed my income by over $1000. I have managed so far by playing "shell games" with my expenses. On a side note real quick, i want to point out that the items marked "Not being paid", are bills in my wife's name, or soon to be ex wife i should say. Now, back to my shell games. One part of the shell games are the credit cards and the food cost. Separate, they are about $800. But, by buying food on the credit cards, and then shift my food budget to my credit cards, i lower my monthly bills by about $300 a month. That leaves $700. And this is what is finally going to be a problem this month. Typically what i have done in the past to overcome this, is take my income tax return, deposit it in a separate account, and pay two or three bills this way. What i did last year, was pay the two car loans and the 300 student loan out of this account. As you are doing the math, thats a yearly total of about 9600. I do not get that much back in taxes. Last year i got lucky. I took my tax return, invested it, and a month later took it back out 300% richer due to a sure thing. This year, i wont be able to do that. My tax return is going to be $5600. Out of the $5600, i have to pay 600 for car ins. Yes, its marked as a monthly bill, but i have not paid it in the past few months due to issues with getting all the bills paid. That brings down my tax return to 5000. I also need to pay my garbage bill which is 6 months past due, thats about another $100, $4900 left. My goal is to move out(im still living with my ex) by the end of june, so 800 * 4 = 3200. i will deposit that into my account for those three bills, and the remaining i will put into savings. I will discuss in a later post why its not going to bills or pay down bills, as i have a reason for this.

My Monthly Pay: $2000

My Bills:
Satellite TV................... 60
Cell Phone..................... 120
Car Insurance.................. 115
Food........................... 500
Electric Company............... 150
Student Loan................... 50
Student Loan................... 0 (other) Not being paid
Land line Phone/Internet....... 96
Student Loan................... 120
Student Loan................... 60
Medical Bills.................. 50
Student Loan................... 300
Credit Card.................... 55 (Capital One)
Credit Card.................... 0 (Bank of America)
Credit Card.................... 130 (Sears)
Credit Card.................... 150 (PNC)
Credit Card.................... 0 (Capital One,other) Not being paid
Credit Card.................... 0 (Discover, other) Not being paid
Credit Card.................... 0 (Citibank, other) Not begin paid
Credit Card.................... 0 (Macys)
Credit Card.................... 160 (Pool)
Mortgage....................... 510
Car Loan....................... 300
Car Loan....................... 200
Garbage........................ 15
Gas for car.................... 60

Total.......................... 3201

Bills

Well, i had to pay some bills yesterday. Of course there was not enough to go around. It came down to that i had to decide between car insurance, food, or a credit card. Obviously i did not have enough for all. Let me break it down:

My Pay: $1000

My Bills:
Satellite TV................... 60
Cell Phone..................... 120
Car Insurance.................. 115
Food........................... 150
Electric Company............... 150
Student Loan................... 50
Land line Phone/Internet....... 96
Student Loan................... 120
Student Loan................... 60
Medical Bills.................. 50

Total.......................... 971

In reality, this would be perfect. But Another bill that i just started paying on is a credit card. That bill is $175 a month. Obviously from above, there is no room for that, so i have to get creative. The $50 student loan can be paid later as they have a good grace period before its reported to the credit bureau. The Car insurance is paid every 6 months, and is actually due this Friday, but i am anticipating i will be getting my tax refund then, which i can pay for the 6 months worth of car insurance. So, by delaying the $50 student loan, and the car insurance, i freed up enough to pay the credit card. May ask what i am going to do with the tax refund, i have a plan for that which i will write about when i get it.

First Post...

This is my first post. Basically, the purpose of my blog, is to figure out my way from almost certain financial destruction to financial success. In a few months i will be running out of funds to pay my monthly bills, and i must do something now, cause when i run out of funds, not even bankruptcy will be able to help due to the type of bills i will have. I will get more into my situation in my following post. This post is just to get things set up.