The settlement check arrived yesterday and I decided on the following:
- Save the HOA and mortgage payment
- Pay my tithes
- Round up my savings to $17,000
- Round up my car fund to $1000
- The rest will be used for the kitchen, anything left over goes to the EF.
I am going with the bare minimum on the kitchen. I really wanted taller cabinets but at this time I need to be realistic, taller cabinets aren't a must it's a want, and costs a lot more. The cabinets are a must, just not the size, they're falling off the hinges. I was going to replace them during the holidays but since the valves gave out, as well as the refrigerator, I decided to just go ahead and do it.
Home Depot has a credit card offer. I decided to apply, it's no interest for six months on purchases. I plan to purchase the cabinets, and whatever the total amount is, transfer that money to the home improvement account to make monthly payments. Total will be divided by six, so if the cabinets are $2,000 each month I will pay, $333.33.
When I land another gig before the six months, I'm speaking it, I'll just pay in full and take the money saved and either pay the student loan or throw it at EF, this is all contingent upon what happens with the student loan forgiveness or interest-free extension. However, if there is no new gig, and I don't think this will be the case, I'll make the payments for six months interest-free since I would have already set the money aside.
A client that I worked with in the past picked me back up so for about two months I'll have some income coming in, about $4k a month for two months. This money I'm using for the bare minimums (e.g. Mortgage, water, electric) and saving the rest. The good thing is I got my household bills down to about $1500 a month, including the mortgage. It's true what they say, pay off your debt! It makes a huge difference, coming up with $1500 a month is a lot easier than $3000.
In addition to the part-time gig, I also picked up a few more articles that pay about $100 an article, these cover my grocery and household cleaning items.
I'll continue to look for contracts and full-time work but I'm praying for contracts only.
Oh one more thing, thank you to Lots of Ideas, DW, and all those who read my blog. You all are amazing. You provide such sound advice. I'll be checking those SS future payments and figuring out what I need to do.
I'm not sure who told me on one of my investment posts to focus on index funds, ut i did. I had been following VTI and took the plunge to pick up a few shares, not much because I couldn't afford a lot but a few. It was a fund that I was watching for some time anyway, and when things took a dive i remembed the commen about index funds and jumped on it. I'm glad to report that VTI is doing extremely well. I know it will have its ups and downs but over the last week, I've seen positive gainsand. I have to laugh who would have thought that six months ago I’d be using the language “positive gains”. Lol.
I can't wait to be able to start back contributing more than the $100 a month to my IRA, I got my eyes on another fund, that's been doing great.
Thank you all for your help and support.
May 28th, 2022 at 12:22 pm 1653740532
I like to display things on top of my cabinets, so I never wanted ones that go all the way to the ceiling…I have accumulated a lot of stuff on my journey through life and I like the pretty stuff on display. Maybe when you empty yours for replacement, see if you have ‘show off’ things?
Do you have experience with HR recruiting? Even though I am not looking for a job, I still get email listing from Indeed for temporary and part time jobs, and I have seen several lately looking for help in that area - and they are usually remote work. If you’ve never used their site, it might be worth checking out.
May 28th, 2022 at 02:37 pm 1653748673
I'm already on Indeed, it's one of my favorite job boards. I do get alerts, for director, VP roles etc . Talent Acquisition is my least favorite discipline of HR, it's gotten worst in this job market. I'm actually good at it but I hate it and try to stay far away. When I run a department I always bring in a TA.
May 28th, 2022 at 11:20 pm 1653780031
When I was working, I used to do a lot of first level screening for other people - the people who were so drowning in work they couldn’t find time to hire anyone to help them. I very much enjoyed the talking to people part of it, but I didn’t have to track all the regulatory stuff to make sure we were recruiting fairly. I started with resume review and ended with ‘here are the two you should interview.’ Doing that built up a lot of good will for me because the people who got hired knew I had got them in the door, and I was pretty good at finding people who worked well in our somewhat crazy environment,
it’s nice that you have the skill because sometimes to get where we want, we have to do jobs we really don’t like.
What I love about Indeed is the jobs I see that I never even knew existed. I often recommend to those starting out without a direction to put in some criteria and see what JB some up. Then look at the required skills and think about how to get them. My favorite was a job for the State Fish and Games where you drove around checking on bridges and streams and fish. Great job for someone who doesn’t want to be chained to a desk or deal with people!
June 2nd, 2022 at 09:57 am 1654163829