Dentist Update.

On Tuesday, I finally had the dreaded dentist appointment. While I'm glad I went (no more bad breath or icky plaque on my teeth), I also now have a whole bunch of dental expenses I will need to foot the bill for. I outlined my lack of dental insurance in this post in case anyone needs a refresher.

I found out that I have eight cavities, and she also recommended I have my wisdom teeth out. Now--I was really disheartened because 1) I have never had ANY cavities in my entire life until now, and 2) well...all this is going to be mega bucks! I am sure that had I gone to the dentist at all during the 2 year lapse, I could have prevented some of this.

Anyways...I feel good because I paid for the exam and cleaning in cash. It was $139. They let me decline the x-rays for now--I just had to sign a waiver that I couldn't sue for malpractice if they missed anything in my mouth not visible without them. Next month, I am having one of the cavities filled, and getting one type of x-rays done. The total cost for both procedures will be $190. I will be able to pay cash, again, if I am very frugal.

So basically--the game plan is to cash flow one cavity filling each month until they're all filled. My dentist said that it would take 6 months or more to them to get to the point of needing root canals (which would be close to $1,000 instead of $140 for a filling) so in the meantime I'm going to be super meticulous about my oral hygiene. Plus, in the summer when I'm working I could probably cash flow 2 per month. After talking to several people about my wisdom teeth, I have decided to wait until they are bothering me. Right now, they aren't. They aren't impacting other teeth and I have room in my mouth for them. They're just a nuisance for decay and stuff. Hopefully, I can put it off until after January 2010 when I'll have dental (next year I'm definitely making sure all the paperwork is done correctly!).

A definite bonus to my working toward debt freedom is that I will have the money to deal with this a little at a time. If I still owed other bills it wouldn't be possible. I'm glad I can save my teeth and not be in debt forever to my dentist! I was panicked at first, but I'm over it now. It's going to be fine. =)

Buying vs. Renting

Lately, I have been really wishing I could buy a house. The prices are so low where I live it would be an ideal time to buy. However, I don't have a down payment saved, so my hands are tied.

I played with mortgage calculators online, and if I bought a $52,000 3 bed 2 bath starter home with 20% down ($10,400) at 5.5% my mortgage would be $236/month. It sounds great considering my current rent on a one bedroom apartment is $600/month plus utilities.

However, then I got to thinking--in my apartment, if there's a maintenance issue, the landlord takes care of it. I also don't pay property taxes here. I don't have to cut the grass--which I don't know how to do, so I'd have to hire a lawn company to come out and do that for me. And, I'd want to fix up the inside of a house I bought too and that would require the help of contractors. After adding in all those expenses, I'd probably be up to $600/month again, if not more.

The moral of the story? I'll keep renting for the time being. I do want to own a house in the future, but I want to be debt free and have 20% to put down on whatever I buy when it finally happens.

Balance Transfer

After much runaround, I will be able to transfer my Discover Card balance over to another card offered by my bank. I will get 0% for 6 months on it, after which my rate will be 9.99%. I really would like to pay off the card in the next 6 months--it's going to be hard, but I will feel so free when it's all done!

Basically, my personal banker suggested this, but we couldn't do it right away because I didn't know the account number. I had cut up the card forever ago, and they wouldn't give it out over the phone. They promised to overnight me a new card, which I never got, so I called back to complain. Finally they admitted they could close the account and then give me the account number so they did that for me. I called my banker and left her a voicemail with all the information. Last night she finally called back and said that the transfer should go through soon.

At the least, all my payments will go straight to principle for the next six months. This will help immensely.

I can't wait to lose all this credit card debt so I can attack the car payment!!!

C gets back from his Army course tomorrow. The past 2 weeks really flew considering he wasn't around. We're going to make up for missing Valentine's Day this weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I am going to try to update a couple times a week from now on. Soccer tryouts started this past week, so I've had some long days at my school. ;)

My federal tax refund went into my checking account last night, so I moved it right over to savings. I am so close to having $1,000 saved for summer! My next payday is in two weeks, so I'm going to move another $250 over at that time.

I'm waiting on news ab0ut my 0% balance transfer through my bank. It was a big hassle to find out what my Discover Card account number was, because I got rid of the card a long time ago and they refuse to give out account numbers over the phone. They sent a new one "overnight" which I never got, so I called back and they wound up closing my account so they could tell me what it was. I then called my banker and left her a voice mail with the information, but she has yet to call me back. Too bad Monday is a bank holiday too (for President's Day). I'll have to call on Tuesday and follow up with all this. I'm sick of paying $30/month in finance charges.

At the rate I'm going, I should have plenty in the bank for summer--especially at the end of the season, when I get paid for coaching and also in May when my supplemental bonus comes. Then anything from working over the summer can go straight onto debt.

Like they say, slow but steady wins the race. =)

February Update.

Sorry for my lack of posts lately! My week has been somewhat chaotic, which I am about to explain.

First of all, C left for some Army training on Wednesday. He'll be back on February 19th, so I've been catching up on things like cleaning my apartment that are somewhat neglected while he's here. Haha. I do miss him though. =)

Secondly, during the week, I accepted the position as the girls soccer head coach at my school. It happened really fast, but this is going to be really good for me. I'm halting my martial arts lessons for a few months so that I can save more money, so now I have time for coaching. An added bonus is that at the end of the season, I get paid $500! So between no martial arts lessons and the $500 I'll make from this, I should have another $800 in savings by June. At the minimum! So, the coaching position has solved my second job dilemma for the time being. When the season ends, I can look for something to fill in the summer months with.

In addition to all that, I will be transferring my Discover Card balance to a 0% for six months card from my bank. That should allow me to put a huge dent in paying it off since all payments will go on the principal.

I wish my budget wasn't so out of whack this month. I probably won't be able to save much, if anything. But I'm still thankful that I won't need to add any *new* debt (except for maybe that pesky dentist appointment that's at the end of the month...sigh).

How is everyone doing for the month of February?

P.S. I also updated my sidebar at the left with the total amounts I owe. ;)