tammys-path-to-the-black

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

So This Is It..

I have read many blogs over the years that have abruptly ended. No goodbye, no explanation as to why they had decided to stop writing. And I always told myself that if I were to ever stop writing this blog I’d write a farewell post. Unfortunately, this is it, and here is why (this is going to be a long post, be forewarned).

Shortly after having my baby I would notice odd flashes of light in my peripheral vision when I would be putting him to bed at night. I’d mentally tell myself to call the eye doctor the next morning, but in my world of diaper changes, school bus runs, making dinners, cleaning house and trying to squeeze five minutes to myself, it was easy to forget to make that phone call. Then one day mid-December, a dark curtain descended in the vision of my left eye. I panicked and immediately called the doctor. It wasn’t good news. I had a detached retina, and apparently had had one for quite a while – with those flashes being the only sign. I was scheduled for surgery the next day; however, the expectation was my vision would never be quite the same (not that it was ever that great to begin with).

Being awake for eye surgery was not the most pleasant experience I’ve ever had but it was the recovery that was the hardest part. I had to spend ten days in a “head hanging” position while a gas bubble that they had inserted into my eye braced the tear that had caused the detachment so it could heal. Basically, I had to lay on my stomach on a massage table with my head hanging over the edge so the top of my head was parallel to the floor. I was only allowed up to eat and shower, and five minutes every hour to stretch. I used that time to hold my baby who was four months old at that time (I wasn’t even allowed to pick him up myself, someone had to place him in my arms). Obviously, I was unable to take care of my children for my upside-down time so J had to take off that time. On Boxing Day I was allowed to sit up again (Yes, I had to spend Christmas upside down) and J could return back to work. We had used up most of our savings/emergency fund to cover him time off but we had survived it.

Then, since life sometimes kicks you when you’re down, J was laid off. That wiped out the rest of our savings and credit cards came to the rescue. Now J has finally gone back to work and we finally have money in the bank again but my perspective has undergone a vast change.

After two months waiting for the gas bubble in my eye to dissipate, I am finally able to see (no pun intended) how much vision I’ve retained. I have several blind spots that my doctor says are unlikely to regain their vision. I am learning to live with these missing spots, but it is a struggle. Unfortunately, having one retinal detachment puts me at a much higher risk for a second, so I’ve always got that fear hanging over me. When J went back to work and I was faced with the prospect of rebuilding the emergency fund and buckling down on the debt again I instantly felt exhausted. We’re still renovating, raising two kids and I’m dealing with the mental aspect of living with this vision loss and the fear of experiencing everything I just went through all over again one day. The thought of going back to living with only $100 a month for fun while I throw everything I have towards paying for the mistakes of my past fills me with dread. Yes, doing so is the responsible thing to do. It’s the grown-up thing to do. But when I think about all the things I want to do, all the things I want to experience with my children, while I still have the vision to see and do those things, my heart knows that paying off the debt isn’t as important to me as those things. So, it may be irresponsible. It may be ignoring my priorities. But at this point, for my mental health, and for my family’s happiness, “my path to the black” (as I’ve affectionately called my life in the red) is going to be a tad bit longer than I had originally hoped.

Having said that, all these debts hanging over us isn’t ideal either. Thankfully, there is an “easy” way out. The city where we live is undergoing a boom in the housing market, with prices soaring higher and higher every month. Coincidentally, our mortgage is up for renewal in a couple months. So, the plan is to take the equity out of our house and pay off the vast majority of our debt (yes I know we are merely moving the debt, but having one payment a month rather than countless higher interest payments is a lot less stressful). Until that point, minimum payments will rule the roost while our saving are rebuilt and our lives can be lived. I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity, and while it hasn’t happened yet I’m hoping there are no issues with our plan. Career wise, I never planned on returning to work when my maternity leave is up. I had intended on starting a home daycare; however, I no longer feel capable of taking care of as many children as I had originally intended without my full vision so I need to decide what I want to do when I “grow up.” I plan on earning a small amount of income by babysitting my nephew for a year or two and build up some savings to finance a possible return to school once I decide what exactly I want to do with my life.

So, that’s the whole story and my whole plan. I’m not sure if anyone will even read this post all the way through, so if you did, I just want to say thank you for reading. Not just this post, but any you’ve read over the years. I’m not necessarily the most “social” person on social media. I write my posts as though no one reads them. I’m not one to reach out to strangers or comment to anyone brave enough to put their life out there for others to judge; however, if I follow your blog I do faithfully read it and will continue to do so. I might start another blog on another subject one day and if I do I’ll write a post with the new name so you may hear from me again one day. Thanks again for taking the time to follow my blog. It was a tremendous help to me to know that there were mysterious strangers out there who would know if I didn’t follow through on what I said I would do, or if I made a stupid decision. I would not be where I am today (currently down $13,574.87) without you guys. And, if you take anything from my posts over these past years, please let it be this. Take care of yourself. If you ever see flashing lights in your vision or anything else strange, get it checked immediately. Your eyes are your windows to the world around you, and you only get one set.

Take care. Tammy

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

November Progress

This month I paid off $1,055.71, making my total debt $23,077.64 and total paid off $12,159.41. This puts me at 35% paid off.

Woo hoo, 1/3 of the way there!! So I don't think I'll be paying off $3,077.64 this month in order to reach the goal I set for myself at the beginning of the year, but I still think I'm kicking butt. I am still slacking at getting medical receipts sent in for reimbursement so that's my goal for December - to get all the money owed to me for that back.

In other news, my student loan now makes up 50% per cent of my debt, when I started it was 42%. Since my student loan is my lowest interest debt I like to see that percentage go up. All and all I think November was a fantastic month!

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

October Progress

This month I paid off $508.34, making my total debt $24,133.35 and total paid off $11,103.70. This puts me at 32% paid off. 

So close but I didn't make my goal in October because I used my credit card to buy some gifts and things and forgot to pay it off in time for the end of the month. Seeing as how it's almost the end of November and I'm just getting around to posting my October update, it's easy to see that debt repayment has been moved to the back burner a tad. But now I'm getting back on track and hoping to end 2016 on a positive note - finance wise!

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

September Progress

This month I paid off $592.21, making my total debt $24,641.69 and total paid off $10,595.36. This puts me at 30% paid off. 

Nothing to report for last month, really. Spending money is difficult when you hardly leave the house so I was pretty successful at avoiding any expensive purchases.

So in order to reach my goal that I set last month I’ll have to pay off $1,150.32 this month. We shall see if I can pull it off.

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

August Progress

This month I paid off $1,041,93, making my total debt $25,233.90 and total paid off $10,003.15. This puts me at 28% paid off. 

Holy crap, I’ve paid off ten grand in less than two years!! I’m feeling pretty awesome about that! This month was a good month because... I had a baby this month!! Finally got that kid outta me and it turns out that my baby savings did have a couple extra hundred bucks I didn’t need so I was able to throw some extra cash on my credit card. I could have saved that money for future baby related purchases, but I know myself well enough to know that if I have money for something, I will spend it even if I don’t need to. So on my credit card it went.

Now that I’ve hit ten grand I suppose my next little goal is for when I’ve reached one third of the way there, and the exact number I’ll need to have paid off by that point is $11,745.68 (or $1,742.53 more than I’ve already paid off). And seeing as how this month was such a good month I’m going to be super unrealistic and set a goal for the end of October to reach it. There are a couple of things that need to happen before than in order to it to happen but if everything that can go right does go right I’m going to say it’s entirely possible. Here’s to forward progress!!

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

July Progress

This month I paid off $339.20, making my total debt $26,275.83 and total paid off $8,961.22. This puts me at 25% paid off.

Woo hoo! One quarter of the way there!! I actually could have done better this month but held off on paying bills with my last paycheque from work since I’m not sure when I will start getting paid my maternity benefits and would rather be safe than sorry. Once I finally start getting payments I’ll be able to put any of the extra money I’ve saved right on my credit card. Since the balance on it has been pretty stagnant lately I think that would be the kick in the ass I need to start getting back on track.

On a personal note, I’ve been of work now for a little over two weeks but still no baby. Due date is the 13th so still lots of time, but all the baby supplies have been taken care of at this point so now it’s just a matter of finishing the new bedroom (just started drywall so still lots of work needed).

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

June Progress

This month I paid off $167.58, making my total debt $26,615.03 and total paid off $8,622.02. This puts me at 24% paid off.

Or should I say I continue to be at 24% paid off? Yes I sucked big time at paying off debt this month. The year is officially half over and I’ve only paid off $2,169.52 so far. That leaves the goal I set for myself for 2016 so so far away I have trouble even pretending it’s possible. But priorities have shifted and now the focus is on getting ready for the baby and our renovations are going really well right now, and I’m still moving in the right direction even if it’s at a snail’s pace. I’m hoping July will look better but a lot of that depends on when my maternity benefits kick in. I have a week and a half left of work and then I get a blissful year off. I cannot wait!!

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

May Progress

This month I paid off $163.44, making my total debt $26,782.61 and total paid off $8,454.44. This puts me at 24% paid off.

So, with the exception of the month where I actually put myself further in debt, this has been the crappiest month since I started this little blog. What happened? A little bit of everything. I attended 2 bridal showers and 1 baby shower (which I helped throw), I took my mom out for mother's day, and I let my pregnancy cravings take precedence over my finances. I made some poor choices and I'm getting worried that I'm starting to lose interest in this whole journey. Today I realised it's been over a month since I checked up on my favourite finance blogs, because now when I have ten minutes to mindlessly browse the internet I'm looking up baby and pregnancy stuff instead.

My focus shifted without my noticing. Between that and the debt we're taking on in order to add a third bedroom in our house to make room for the baby it's like I've given up.

Now don't worry, this isn't a good-bye post or anything like that. Just another part of this long, long trip to freedom from debt. I'm refocussing and taking care of business in June. First off, I need to rebuild my car maintenance fund because my car decided to be a huge arsehole this month, currently I have $211.55 and I need to build it back up to $400. On a positive note, my baby savings fund has surpassed $1,000 and is now a healthy $1,106.07. I have six weeks left of work and have started to accumulate as much free baby stuff as I can manage. Most of the big stuff is now out of the way, and my baby shower is this Saturday here's hoping I can cross a few more things off the list of needs.

Here's hoping that next month I have a happier update to report. I should be reaching 25% paid off by then so maybe I'll have a little one-quarter-way-there party for myself.

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

April Progress

This month I paid off $364.43, making my total debt $26,946.05 and total paid off $8,291.00. This puts me at 23% paid off.

I knew April wasn't going to be the greatest month; however I am happy to break 8 grand paid off. May isn't looking much better between Mother's Day and a baby shower I helped throw for my sister-in-law; but I do think it would be a real nice boost to reach 25% paid off. Even though I haven't sat down and planned out my bills yet I've set that goal tentatively for myself since it's been a while since I've set a monthly goal.

In other news, thanks to my tax return I've reached my savings goal for my car insurance, and my baby savings fund has now reached over $850. Between all my savings categories (baby savings, car insurance, car maintenance and Christmas shopping) there's several thousand dollars sitting in my savings account and I can't help but daydream about throwing the whole lot onto my VISA card. But daydreams are all I can allow that thought to be right now, although I may be able to spare some of the baby savings once my EI kicks in assuming my vacation pay from work combined my the return of my daycare deposit equal as much as I'm hoping they will. Not counting my chickens though.

I did set a massive goal for this year and judging by the first third of the year it's little more than a pipe dream. But I haven't given up on myself yet as nothing is impossible until you decide it is so who knows where I'll be once December rolls around?

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

March Progress

This month I paid off $536.17, making my total debt $27,310.48 and total paid off $7,926.39. This puts me at 22% paid off.

A decent month for sure. My baby savings fund has passed $600, and I've started talking to people for hand-me-downs. It certainly would be nice if between those and the baby shower they're throwing for me I didn't need to use much of my baby savings and possibly instead make a big debt payment with it instead.

In not so great news, J and I have to take on some new debt because we have decided to remodel the basement in order to add a third bedroom to our house. Seeing as this is going to add value to our house I don't see this as bad debt but rather necessary debt. That being said, the loan itself will be in J's name and since I only track the debt in my own name on here so my numbers won't change.

I'm already perceiving April to be a not so great month as far as my progress will be going; however there's always a chance I'll be pleasantly surprised. No matter what I'm going to break 8 grand paid off so that's a reason to celebrate!

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

February Progress

This month I paid off $326.94, making my total debt $27,846.65 and total paid off $7,390.42. This puts me at 21% paid off.

This month wasn't my best month. A combination of the winter blues and a terrible cold lead me to spend a lot more money than I would have liked. I also have a lot of money tied up in Chiropractor's appointments while I wait for my benefits companies to reimburse me (waiting for the reports from mine before I can submit them through J's ends up taking a lot of time but as long as I get it back, to pay for the next appointment, I can deal). I decided it was time to go back since my last pregnancy made my scoliosis much worse - I figured to try and stop that from happening this time around.

My baby fund is slowly growing, but I also bought my maternity clothes this month so I didn't stretch out all my regular clothes so I'm a little behind. But on the plus side, my vacation pay is looking really nice already so I don't think I'll have to save quite as much money for the 2 week period before EI kicks in. I swear this blog won't turn into "Tammy's Pregnancy Blog" but unfortunately so many financial decisions are tied into it right now.

Even though this month wasn't as nice as I hoped I am loving the look of my total debt graph as the "paid off" red section slowly creeps closer to being a one-quarter-sized pie. Maybe when it does I'll celebrate by eating a quarter of a pie?

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

January Progress

This month I paid off $610.86, making my total debt $28,173.59 and total paid off $7,063.46. This puts me at 20% paid off.

Hurray for reaching 20% paid off - one fifth of the way there!! Also, I have saved up $1,575 towards my car insurance for this year (by putting aside most of the money from an extra paycheque last month and my unused vacation pay from last year; I'm hoping my tax return will cover the rest of it). I also have made a bit of start on my baby savings. So not too shabby for the start of 2016! :-)

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

2016 Goals

Here it is, a new year, clean slate and so on and so forth. And my goals for this year are a tad different because I had some exciting news in November. It seems that my family of three (plus the dog and the fish, lol) will soon be a family of four! So obviously that changes some things.

Savings goals:

Gifts – Instead of paying for random birthday/baby shower/bridal shower/etc. gifts with my regular paycheques and just saving for Xmas as I did this year I’ve decided to put away $60/paycheque for all gifts this year. Total to be saved/spent over the year: $1560 (or thereabouts) Car Insurance – I won’t find out how much my premiums will be for 2016 but the elephant tells me they’ll probably be high. My car insurance actually went down by over a thousand dollars last year but I don’t want to rely on anything like that this year so I’m planning on saving pretty much the exact amount I paid last year which was (okay this is disgusting, I know) just over $2,800 so that’s how much I’m saving. Anything (if there is anything) that I don’t have to put to car insurance will either go on my credit card or towards the next savings category. Baby Savings – So here in lovely Canada you are entitled to 52 weeks of maternity leave at 55% of your regular income; however the first 2 weeks are unpaid. Seeing as how daycare for two kids is more than the 45% of the income I’d be missing, I’m taking the full year. So I need to save up enough to pay myself for those two unpaid weeks and also some for baby supplies, maternity clothes, etc. I’m hoping to do everything on the cheap, so my goal for this is $1,750 by August (when this little one is meant to arrive) which is hopefully at lot more than I’ll need.

Now, on to my debt payoff goal (AKA the only goal that really matters) So without really knowing how much money I’m going to be making for the second half of the year it’s fairly hard to make a prediction. So I’m not going to lie and say this number has any sort of basis on anything other than “it would be nice but probably impossible” but why not shoot for the stars. And so, my goal for 2016 is to get below $20,000!!! Since my current debt is $28,784.55 I would need to pay off at least $8,784.56 this year which is almost exactly $3,000 more than I paid off last year ($3,000.25). In fact it’s $291.29 more than I spent on my debt and interest combined last year!! But there you have it. I haven’t had debt below 20 grand since I was a f*cking teenager and that’s how I want to end this year (I wouldn’t mind also fitting in the same size clothes as when I was a teenager but I won’t get ahead of myself – Candice if you’re reading this I know you think I was too skinny as a teenager, but don’t worry it won’t happen anyway). That being said I’d have to pay off $732.05/month to reach that goal which would mean every month would have to be as good as December which was my best month all last year, so it’s going to take some creativity. Especially when I’m done working.

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

2015 Progress

My goal for this year was to pay off at least $6,500. That didn’t include the tiny bit I paid off in 2014, so even though I have paid off $6,452.50 total, only $5,784.31 was during 2015 so I actually fell short by $715.69. And you know what? That’s okay. It’s great even. Fact is, if I had set an easy goal I wouldn’t have fought as hard to reach it. And to be honest, my personal numbers are only one way of looking at my debt numbers.

As I’ve said before, this blog only tracks my personal debt. J obviously has debt of his own, so when I set out my goals I said:  “Since I don’t track J’s debt on here, and he’ll pay off at least what I pay off, our family goal is well over $13,000, which sounds much more impressive.” Now, even though I never blog on here about how much debt he has or any of the intimate details of his financial information, I feel he wouldn’t mind if I let you know how we did as a family. So, drumroll please… as a unit we’ve paid off $17,587.73!!! And that’s not even including the mortgage!

Anyway, back to my (alone) debt. Here are some boring statistics that I find incredibly interesting: Total paid off - $5,784.31 Average monthly payoff - $482.03 Best Month – December, $841.63 paid off Worst Month – November, $81.30 further in debt Total Interest Paid - $2,709.96 (ouch) Average monthly interest - $225.83 Total spent on debt this year (payoff + interest) - $8,494.27 (double ouch)

I think’s it’s also important to note that in January my total interest paid was $292.90 and in December it was $180.47 which means in 12 months I managed to bring my monthly interest payments down by $112.43 (by using balance transfer offers and simply paying things down). And now here it is, 2016 and I’m getting ready to make my goals for this year. Again, not going to play it safe, going to pick a goal that will take some work to reach.

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

December Progress

This month I paid off $841.63, making my total debt $28,784.55 and total paid off $6,452.50. This puts me at 18% paid off.

My goal for this month was to pay off at least $750 so I believe I’m allowed to say I f*cking killed it!! And, I still have a little money left over in my Christmas fund!! I know right? Check me out! This was my absolute best month of the year so it feels great to finish off 2015 on a high note, especially after the disaster that was last month. I have another post to sum up the year coming shortly. Yay me!!

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

December Goal

Yay December! I can't wait to start making some more progress and dust myself off after November. I really need to make some huge gains this month so when it came time to set a goal I went big. Bigger than any other month this year. My goal for December is to pay off at least $750! It'll be tight, I'll have to stick to my Xmas budget (which is a much smaller number than I normally spend), but I need to do this.

If I do I still won't make my goal for 2015. But I'll be below $28,000 which will be awesome. I think hitting it hard this month will make me so much more optimistic when it comes time to setting my 2016 goals (which I'm very excited to do - believe me).

[tammys-path-to-the-black]

November "Progress"

This month I paid off.. nothing... In fact, my debt went up by $81.30, making my total debt $29,626.18 and total paid off $5,610.87. This puts me at 16% paid off.

I already wrote my post about how this happened so I'm not going to re-hash it. All I know is I don't want to let this happen again. I want to finish off this year with a good December and start out 2016 fresh.