Financial Security

Those two words financial and security have never been two things combined I thought were ever in my path. That was the past, today I do know they are but I need to do a lot of work.

I found with the stresses in life right now I'm not necessarily reverting to my old ways, however... I'm not exactly financially healthy right now either. I may not be rushing out to shop till I drop but I still made some costly mistakes. This is a learning curve though, I learned I need to watch more than just shopping, using extra gas to go somewhere (even somewhere free), and just plain ole not preparing for upcoming expenses (ie. kiddos softball expenses which I underestimated by a long shot).

So, with that said I'm making a very conscience effort to try and blog more often even through the time crunch and stress. This is what I need to make time for and no excuses. I am not going to be doing WWYD Wednesdays mostly because I don't want to put a specific day I have to post a specific something as I don't need to add to my work load at the moment, but also because I was having trouble coming up with more scenarios. So I decided that I am going to start writing ideas as they come to me and when I have a list of them, I'll start them back up again. Maybe when I have writers block about that I'll find a new 'segment' to replace it but I want that planned out too. Organization is what it is all about, really everything important in life. Organization is also something that I was never good at.

With organization in mind, I have two days off this week but they are not my normal days. I will take one of the days to organize at least one of my closets at home. This needs to be done, I need to find ways to organize things and the practice will be good. Also, I need to get ready for a garage sale and I can't even begin to go down to my storage cage in the basement until I organize. On the same front I'm organizing at work too, I'm cleaning up the tech library and organizing it to fit company needs and customer needs as well as creating a safer/healthier work environment.

Wish me luck and please cross your fingers I don't get lost somewhere in the abyss of a closet ha!

Even when you change your past will still haunt you for some time.

So I shouldn't have posted in more than one place that I haven't overdrawn my account since starting to make healthier financial decisions because I did it in two separate accounts now. Well the first one is my fault the second one is sort of but sort of not too.

The first one I overdrew because I accidentally used the wrong card. I have since wrote on the back the 'name' of the account so I don't do that again. I have two checking accounts at one bank and one is for bills the other is for 'spending' right now it is for groceries, entertainment, gas for the car....

So I used the bill one and there was not enough money in there, they took from my savings to cover it but there wasn't enough money there either so I over drafted plus there is a $10 fee if the bank transfers your money and an overdraft fee as well as a daily fee for the overdraft UGH!!

So far $133 overdrawn YIKES!! Just in that account. I need to sit down and talk to them and see what can be waived, I'm going to explain the situation and hope that I get someone nice to help me out a bit. I'm also going to point out that when you get your card(s) in the mail it doesn't include even the name of the account (primary, secondary, student, free checking... nothing) so it is a bit confusing. It can't hurt to ask and try.

The next one is I must have had my checks somewhere in my old checking account, where I'm still getting my direct deposit, and then distributing the money myself until I know I have what is needed where figured out to a science, because someone stole two checks. Now that account is overdrawn, I'm still waiting on the copy of the check so I can make a dispute and a police report. In the mean time my account is overdrawn and I have no money. For the first time in ages I had to borrow some money from my mom (which makes me feel like total crap) for gas in my car. She had $20. If push comes to shove I may have to figure out a way to work on Thursday as I'm not sure I have enough gas.

I will be closing this bank account because they are being total jerks. For instance there is a $28 fee to stop payment on any checks. If you do an investigation and see my checks were indeed stolen I think it would be good customer service to waive this fee but not so. I will give them another chance to waive this fee but I find it absurd to pay and I have spoken to other bank employees for other banks and they all say their banks would waive that fee in this case.

There are other consequences here as well... I have major tooth pain and a slight fever, which likely means infection. I have no cash to go to the dentist. I'm not borrowing the money for that, I do get paid Friday after all. My flex spending is frozen right now because they are disputing something or another that has me quite confused. I can submit a bill I've paid but not use my flex spending card (I get a debit type card so it can come right out of there right away and I don't have to wait for reimbursement).

See I have no money because I got paid on Friday and by Friday evening this is what happened I hadn't had a chance to transfer any of the money. I have stopped my direct deposit for now, I'll just have to cash my check the old fashioned way. I also saw I had other overdraft/bounced fees in the account from a few days before when the check tried to clear the first time. So they've tried this check twice now. I looked in my check book and sure enough the check trying to clear and the next check are missing. I had mandatory inspection and repairs recently by the city (not my complex) that I wasn't home for not sure if it could have happened then or what. There is no one really in my home but my checkbook has been coming to work with me the past 2 weeks since I needed the routing number and it has been in my work bag so I guess there is a slight possibility there too.

Photo By: og2t**brzegowiec

Overspending

I've blogged about my overspending last week and reflected on it. This week I'm feeling the pain of that overspending. I'm broke!

I hate that feeling and it brings back all the old anxiety.

I've long had bills that are in collections and I've never done much about them. I always took a head in the sand approach and I can see how that didn't work for me in a positive direction. That is what this blog is for.

I've ordered my credit reports and I'm calling for the bills I've thrown out (note the head in the sand approach). I'm making some very tough decisions, some I feel are a must but it has me conflicted. Some I knew I should have done a long time ago. I made a mess.

This past week though I was able to see something different because I have been blogging and that is that this head in the sand approach needed to stop, the whole thing just has to let up. It causes me stress and that causes health problems. I'm still young and can overcome all of it and be financially successful. Again, this is why I started this blog to become responsible with financial decisions and become what I know I can be. I have goals I plan on posting about this week, I want to see those goals actually happen and in order to do that I can't just blog about it but I have to take action. I blogged about that at the beginning of this month; it was here. My first step is to create my goals and actually work on them as well as creating a sidebar with those nifty markers that show progress (note to self: find out how in the world you do those, THIS week).

I'm making a very difficult financial decision at the moment and I will blog about them when those decisions are fully made. Whatever decision I do make the turn around is near. I have an appointment Thursday so expect an update by the latest early next week as to what I decided to do about my finances.

Accountability was my number one goal for this blog so I'm holding some accountability here and doing what I need to do.

Photo By: Examiner Carmen Gage Ackert

Why this blog?

Evaluating your finances is never an easy task. I get lost easily and it is emotional for me as well. I have hit "rock bottom" too many times to count and decided its time to dig myself out and become fiscally healthy.

My blog name came from my friend Angela, I hope to provide her the link and she'll frequent here. She's a smart lady!

I have been reading plenty of financial blogs and my favorite financial blogs are on my blog roll. I'll likely end up adding my other favorite blogs I follow because I love them all for different reasons not all financial. I'll work on separating the two lists so readers can see right away what is what.

My financial life has always been a mess. At one time I had a special bank account that allowed you to overdraw up to $500 with only one fee and I lived like this week to week. I also during this time took out various payday loans to stay afloat. Thankfully I got out of that! I have faced the fact that my diagnosis of ADD as a child was probably correct and one of the reasons I have never been good with finances. Finances require organization something I lack in but hope to strive for with this blog. I'll track everything I can think of and post and blog. The blog will be about finances, frugality and my life as a fiscal fussbudget. The blog is my journey into being financially healthy as well as my financial past, present and future. What that all means to me fully is yet to be discovered but watch the blog to hear all about it when I do.

I have dreams of buying a home one day, having an emergency fund, being debt free, being able to live comfortably without financial worry. If I want to accomplish these dreams I need to do something about it all, so this blog was born. I hope to hold myself accountable as well as grow with this blog. I will post my mistakes and my victories in hopes we all learn from them, helpful tips I find which help me or have helped others, among many other items. The ideas are there, now I must do something with them.

I hope that this blog will provide help to others as well as myself.

Photo By: Money Cubby