I feel like a Cylon

**mek42** · 04-22-2010, 06:48 PM

I have a plan. My balance sheet (liabilities) is complete. I also drew up a weekly budget / statement of cash flows (budgeted vs. actual expenditures) and started projecting it forward by a month.

I'm going to be laid off before the end of August. If I last until the end of August, I think we can get just about all of our >20% interest cards paid off before the ax falls.

Having also almost finished reading, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People," my prayerful hope is that I find the strength and wisdom to avoid poor choices if I get laid off significantly earlier than the end of August.

It is exciting to budget. Empowering. Anyhow, I need to go pull drums off the parts car tonight in order to not spend about $150 this weekend. Thanks for all the support, encouragement and words of wisdom I've seen so far!

**Imarachne** · 04-22-2010, 07:25 PM

Keep it up--sounds like you have planned your work and worked your plan !!

**daughter of pearl** · 04-22-2010, 07:58 PM

You can do this. You're plan is solid, and if unexpected things happen, you will be able to adjust to accommodate.

I love Rabbi Kushner's books. He is so wise. I just finished reading "How Good Do I Have to Be?" about guilt and forgiveness.

**mek42** · 04-22-2010, 08:40 PM

Well, I got the tires off, and it doesn't look like the parts car drums are any good. Maybe I can have them do the inspection with the snows for good tread, replace the drums if needed and maybe only get two new summer tires and keep the two best of the bald tires if needed. Given that I am just starting the plan, is safety (my wife's DD* and she has 120 mile round trip commute) important enough to supplement budgeted repair amount by $100 or so from the baby EF that is currently at about $600?

*DD = daily driver

**mek42** · 04-22-2010, 08:43 PM

Aha! I just remembered that we are selling our extra washing machine for $100 this Saturday. I just might squeak through without touching the EF and have all four tires and rear brakes safest possible.

**a.nonymous** · 04-24-2010, 05:30 AM

Do you have a new job lined up?
Do you have accessible savings apart from the $600 BEF?

If not, Dave would recommend to stash cash (war chest) instead of reducing debt. Then, once you've secured a new job, take the money to pay off debt. Just pay the minimums if you can afford it and still build up your pile of cash, otherwise, I'd strongly consider not paying CCs in order to build up enough of a security blanket.

**mek42** · 04-24-2010, 08:38 AM

We can survive on unemployment benefits - the snowball slows to a crawl, but we can survive without generating debt. If absolutely needed, I have about $3k principle sitting uninvested in my Roth as a reserve, but it needs to be a do I shoot myself or tap the Roth kind of crisis before I touch that money. On the other hand, I've been keeping $2k or more of the Roth as cash just in case for a couple months now.

Paying off some high interest debts will increase our net cash flow since we won't have those payments. Even if we need to slow down the snowball, we'll be better off than we are now. Also, this is my first time using a written budget. It is important to me emotionally to get a sense of accomplishment by paying some of the high interest cards off. I want that to help give me strength to not get depressed and stupid for when times are lean by necessity, not choice.