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Archive for March, 2016

Payment, taxes, rambling

March 11th, 2016 at 06:40 pm

The student loan payment went through, bringing the new balance on the high interest loan to $7767.98. Looking back, when I started this blog in May the total was $13,671.78. I would have liked to see this closer to the $5000s, but the rational part of my brain knows that continuing Roth contributions instead of throwing every extra penny at debt repayment makes more sense in the long-term.

Filed federal and state taxes today. The amount of loan interest paid this year bumped up my refund, so hey, silver lining!

Other frugal things: Used a 10% off coupon code for the online tax prep website (which is only $13 to start with, including filing state and federal), drank free coffee this morning at work and ate breakfast and lunch at home (half-day). Yesterday I hit snooze too many times and didn't bring a lunch, but had a delicious spicy noodle bowl from the convenience store for $1.69 and tea from my teabag stash. The weather is beautiful today, so I have the windows open airing out the apartment and expect great improvement in the electricity bill! I'm also drying some laundry on the drying rack. Finally, I ordered a year's supply of contacts, which is more upfront but carries the lowest cost per lens. This was out-of-pocket because my vision plan only pays toward contacts OR glasses each year, and my current glasses need to be replaced. I tried to remember the last time and realized it was before freshman year of college! I almost never wear them, but feel like I should have an emergency pair that I'd feel safe driving with if necessary. Now that I have a current prescription, I'll need to shop around for the best deal on frames.

Checking in

March 9th, 2016 at 12:24 am

Now that life has temporarily slowed down I've been catching up on some financial housekeeping. I recently found a little cache of savings from years ago, $74.28, and will apply it to debt. I received some long awaited reimbursement for travel expenses and have earmarked $500 of that for loan repayment also. Finally, I confirmed that the February student loan autopay was never taken out of my account because they put it into temporary forebearance while the IBR paperwork was processing. That's budgeted for, so will send that in as well (386). Altogether that's $960.28 for the high interest loan.

I managed not to spend any discretionary money today, though I did pay some planned bills. Over the weekend I spent some money on potluck dinner with friends I haven’t seen in a long time (worth it!). While I roadtripped home from that visit I stocked up on staple groceries and toiletries in the distant land of Reasonable Cost-of-Living, which should save money overall this month. I'll need to order more contact lenses, but that comes from a catch-all "recurring expenses" budget category.

Haven't done taxes yet- waiting for one last transaction to process so I'll have an accurate retirement contribution figure for the year (was told this should only take three business days). I don't expect a refund, but will hopefully not owe money.