I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Tell All Tuesday – When Do I Worry Edition

I will be the first to admit that I don’t know a lot about investing.  When I sat down and decided to take control of my financial future, I focused on the pressing needs of getting out of debt and fixing the course we were on right now, and other than upping our 401K contributions and moving my IRA to a company I was happier with, I didn’t do a whole lot regarding investing.  But I’ve been slowly preparing for taking another step in the investing arena – moving my kids’ college savings accounts into 529 accounts. My goal is to do so by the end of the year so that I can collect the tax advantage of doing so (my state offers a tax incentive for investing with their plan).

And after yesterday’s miserable stock market performance, I’m starting to get cold feet about doing so.  The college savings accounts currently sit in ING Direct accounts.  No, they do not earn amazing amounts of interest – but they do earn interest.  On a misguided whim this morning I looked at my IRA, and from taking the value a year ago and today, found it has lost 16% of its value in the past 12 months (I haven’t made any contributions to it in the past year).  It is hopefully a very long time until I retire, but I can’t help to feel a little depressed about it anyway.

So, I stay the course, keep on keeping on, and hope for the best.  And onward I go with the researching of the 529 accounts.  Stocks are on sale, right?  I don’t want to let fear rule my actions but I also don’t want to be the lemming to follow everyone else off the cliff.  So I sit, and think, and I have a few months left before the end of the year, anyway.

On to current money.  I haven’t paid anything new to debt this week, because I paid the two student loans last week, and will be dropping off my car payment on the way to work Friday.  So the debt numbers, for this week, haven’t changed.  I did get paid from one of my two taekwondo teaching gigs this week, but that money this month isn’t going towards debt.  I have an instructor seminar I have to attend for a certification at the end of October, and I had already designated my taekwondo income from September as well as money I had previously saved for this seminar to go towards paying for that.  It will slow down the debt elimination for next month a bit, but it is something I need to do to keep advancing my taekwondo teaching opportunities and ultimately increase my income from those endeavors.  So I planned a bit for it and I am happy to be able to fit it into our budget.  I did have $40 come in the week from taking surveys, which has been put into the debt snowflake fund, as well as my tutoring income from August (which was pretty low since summer is not a busy tutoring time).  I won’t be making another snowflake payment until next month when I pay down more of my spouse’s student loan, so I have more time to accrue something there.

I also have some teeth-related issues to attend to – I have good teeth but not so great gums.  I hardly ever have cavities, but my gums are receding, and I am going to have some aggressive treatment done to try and reverse that trend before it gets any worse.  That takes place over the course of the next two months, and will be anywhere from $300-$600 after insurance depending on how much treatment I end up having to have done.  It involves lasers, and really does not sound all that fun.  These things together mean that I probably won’t be able to kill off the student loan debt in October like I was hoping, but I am still on track to eliminate that debt by the end of 2008.

Not a lot of progress to report but we’re adapting and moving forward, albeit sometimes slowly.  As for my computer monitor, thank you to everyone who offered suggestions or monitors they aren’t using!  We are still discussing what we are going to do, but if we decide to go with a quick fix CRT replacement, we found some on Craigslist practically free.   We may upgrade to an LCD one because my spouse’s monitor is an old CRT, and even though I plan on getting a laptop in the future, my spouse could use the LCD one once I don’t need it any longer.   I’m not sure what we’re going to do yet, but we’re exploring options and figuring things out.    I’m grateful that I no longer have the contract position where I was required to have a 19″ or larger monitor, because we’d had to have bought a new one already (my spouse’s is a 17″).  We’ll see.  I’ve been harassing Dell but they aren’t looking too promising as far as replacing their defective product.  Yet, at least.

On to another productive week!