Financial Update

For those of you that have been keeping tabs on what I've been writing here, this topic should be familiar. Otherwise, suffice it to say that I've come into a bit of a windfall in the past couple of months from several separate sources. If you would like to review those details, you can feel free to review my prior posts entitled "Signed on the dotted line..." and "Mine, All Mine - Officially"

Well, all of the windfall has completed its journey in reaching us. This money has also finished its destination in being spent. As I have previously posted, my car is paid off. Well, in addition to my car, Angel's car is in the clear as well as my teeth. Yes, my teeth. Right before the wedding, I had some pretty extensive dental work done and took out a line of credit to make payment to the dentist.

Suffice it to say, we have quite a bit of extra money available on a monthly basis due to this debt clearing sweep. Unfortunately, the desired outcome of this activity was not immediately realized. My expectations from clearing these bills was to have additional money to clear out our debt on my credit cards that I have in my name for a home improvement, getting my car fixed, buying our house, and expenses from the wedding. Well, an underestimated debt came due. Angel's student loans.

Her loans came due in April. We had a enough money available at that time to make what we thought was the payment amount, a hefty $500. To get thru May and June, we used our economic stimulus check from the government. Then, to make matters worse, the previously assumed monthly payment of $500 was incorrect. We were later notified that it would be in the $725 ballpark. Well, right now, that is just not working properly into our budget. Therefore, we have since requested a forbearance for her student loans.

At this point, you may be asking, why get the forbearance? Well, student loans are a long term debt and they generally have a relatively low interest rate. While we can theoretically afford to make the payments to her loan and maintain the rest of our bills in a satisfactory status (according to the creditors); I find this to be a problem. To take our windfall and maintain our financial status quo is troubling to me. Therefore, the time we are seeking in forbearance will be used to pay down our other debts. Will it be long enough to pay them all down? I don't know, but I know that it will be enough time for two out of the three.

As it stands today, we have a 6 month forbearance with the ability to extend for 6 more near the end of this period. I desperately hope that in this first 6 month block of time that Angel will not only graduate from school, but also find a job in her field to accommodate the payment for her student loan. However, as always, time will be the dictator that will eventually reveal if these recent moves have been the right one or if we're just pissing in the wind.