Posts Tagged ‘SallieMae’
Paying Ahead, Falling Behind
Total Black: $472.38
Total Red: $269,947.64
As promised in And Again . . . , I called American Education Services, the student loan lender that I had set-up with automatic bill pay. And now I remember why I stalled for so long. Businesses don’t make it easy for you to untangle yourself from the electronic webs they weave. Keep reading . . .
Last Update On Efforts?
Total Black: $1,404.21
Total Red: $235,585.30
The monthly earnings report from Amazon.com arrived via email the other day. I haven’t earned that much. But it prompted me to think about all the various efforts to date in supplementing my income. It may not be easy finding different gigs in my new location. Keep reading . . .
A Nice Gesture
Total Black: $1,247.35
Total Red: $235,215.12
I’ve become a bit jaded with lawyers these past few years. My troubles with the Colleague and his refusal to pay me. Then there’s the landlord’s lawyers and all of their shenanigans involving my apartment and the numerous rent demands and then proceeding initiated back in October or November; although I may have been late, I always paid. No matter to them though. And we can’t forget the ol’ pals at my former law firm and how they kicked twenty of us (and many more since) to the curb because of the Great Recession. And last and least are many of the contract attorneys I’ve had to work around or even with in some cases. Not many bright and shining stars of the profession there. So today when I met with my future co-clerk here in Manhattan I was touchingly surprised. Keep reading . . .
Try With A Little Help
Total Black: $3,852.08
Total Red: $226,493.03
Total black is way up because I asked my mother for help once again. She loaned me $4,000, money which I will use to cover February’s rent and part of March as well. I paid January’s rent last week, along with late fees for January and February, but I’ve just not been able to pull the rest of February’s rent together. I’ll get paid tomorrow, and that will amount to about $1,500, but it wouldn’t be enough. And now it’s March already. And the landlord’s management company doesn’t want to accept part payments. So, it will be much easier to pay my mother back in small installments rather than pay the landlord.
Today’s post is short because I stayed home from work today due to a bad cold that hit me unexpectedly last night. So it’s even more of a blessing that I could borrow money from my mother because next week’s check will be down by at least $300 or so, the amount I would have earned today.
Wise or Unwise
Total Black: $1,551.96
Total Red: $229,283.54
Whether wise or unwise, I’ve done it: as set out in Resolutions For the New Year, one credit card will be paid off by the end of January. That leaves me with another to pay off by the end of February and then a student loan by March. And I can’t wait! As odd as it may sound, I actually can’t wait to pay bills now. Keep reading . . .
The Sound of Silence
Total Black: $2,051.97
Total Red: $230,820.71
I noticed the other day that I was feeling a bit lonely. I supposed it was just a touch of the post-holiday blues. That wasted feeling after a burst of built-up of excitement and anticipation is released. Turkey gobbled-up in under an hour even though it took nearly six to cook. Stuffing stuffed down your throat. This Thanksgiving I enjoyed anything but relaxation and comfort, so I figured that perhaps my inability to relax over the long holiday had something to do with my feeling a bit down. Keep reading . . .
More Shenanigans
Total Black: $295.48
Total Red: $231,123.38
Pay came through last night. In fact, I was still awake around 2 a.m. when it showed up in my account. I had been slowly siphoning the money in my secondary checking account, money that I had parked there for the COBRA payment to the firm. By yesterday afternoon the check still hadn’t been cashed, so I transferred the remaining money into my primary checking account to use it buy a few things, like lunch and some groceries. So last night when I saw that my paycheck had been deposited and the check still hadn’t been cashed, I quickly transferred the $399.22 (covering two months) back into the other checking account to cover it, gave a sigh of relief, and then quietly drifted off to bed. But of course, this afternoon the check showed up in my account as if it had posted on September 18th, even though I viewed my account at 2 a.m. the next day, September 19th, and the check wasn’t there. This is the kind of shit I wrote about in What Is This, Sarcasm? that makes my blood boil. I guess the new day I wrote about in A New Day Has Dawned has limits. I borrowed the money I had allocated for that check knowing full well I might incur an insufficient funds fee. And if it had presented a few days earlier, when the entire amount wasn’t in the account, I would have happily paid the $35 fee and been done with it because it would have been my fault. I’m not proud to have to play these games, but skating this close to the financial edge requires running a few risks. But it infuriates me when Bank of America rewrites history, when it moulds time to suit its purposes, and allows the check through just when enough money is in the account. What’s the chance that the check presented conveniently a day before I transferred the exact amount into my account. No, the check had not presented on September 18th. And if the bank functions on Pacific time, then the money I transferred would have hit my account in time to cover it anyway. Tomorrow I’m calling Bank of America and demanding back the $35 fee I paid today. Keep reading . . .
It Just Bugs Me
Total Black: $2,255.14
Total Red: $230,648.00
As typical of the past few months, I was awoken again this morning by the telephone ringing. The first caller was SallieMae at 8:57am. Surprisingly, however, the second caller was not. SallieMae often calls from two different telephone numbers so they effectively call you twice as often. Not sure how legal that is. But today, the second call came from the landlord’s management company. The letter I mentioned in Bring It On seems to have brought something on because within a half-hour of the landlord’s management company calling, their attorney telephoned as well. His message indicated that he’d do his best to try to get the lawsuit for non-payment of rent discontinued. Later in the day I received an email from the attorney slightly retracting that earlier message, claiming that I had said I’d be paid in full by this time and I’m not yet. He also noted that they’re “looking into” my other complaint. I replied and referenced only the financial issues and clarified that September’s rent had already been sent in, and should have been received already, and that half of October’s rent was coming. Later in the day I received another telephone call, this time from someone else with the management company, telling me that he heard I had a “problem” with the apartment and he wanted to talk to me about it. Isn’t it interesting that my “problem” all of a sudden is a concern of theirs? Keep reading . . .
Second Day of Accounting
It’s the 10th. My day of accounting. Here’s this month’s breakdown:
Total Black: $462.36
Here’s the Breakdown:
Primary Checking: $347.14
Secondary Checking $0.00
Savings $0.00
PayPal Account (Personal): $4.62
PayPal Account (Blog): $48.25
Amazon Payments Account $0.74
Mutual Funds Account: $61.61
FICO Score 565
Total Red: $228,312.70
Here’s the breakdown:
Credit Card Debt
MasterCard $5,700.00
Visa $8,005.65
Visa $5,413.38
American Express $2,448.00
Raymour & Flanagan Credit Line $5,698.98
Student Loan Debt
Federal Stafford Loans: $94,504.20
Private Student Loans: $33,986.57
Back Taxes
IRS (2007): $2,230.60
IRS (2008): $27,478.73
NY State (2008): $2,846.59
Other Loans
My mother: $40,000 (+ $8,000 she’s carrying on one of her credit cards–not added into total red).
Some progress, albeit slow. Last month my FICO score was 562. It went up by three points. My total debt seems to have done down a lot since August 10th. I think that was a mistake in my math. There hasn’t really been any significant movement on either black or red since I started this blog. Curious. Two additions to total red: I’ve added in a PayPal account for blog donations. As I noted in Getting Out of the Quicksand, I’m not touching those funds until there’s enough to pay off a bill (or until time on the project runs out). The other addition is a mutual fund account I started reinvesting with. Savings have to start somewhere. Daily posts of total red include some amount, here roughly $60, that isn’t accessible but gets tailed on the plus side of the equation. Keep reading . . .
Slow Going
Total Black: $175.62
Total Red: $228,464.16
Had a brief but short-lived drop in total red this morning. For the past few days, my bank’s software hasn’t been updating account information from SallieMae. This morning I decided to get it working. When I did, my total red dropped by roughly $4,000. “Woo-hoo,” I thought! “Progress!” See, back in 2008, I used a portion of the firm’s severance package to pay off one of my smaller private loans—approximately $1,200. I needed some feeling of accomplishment, so rather than splurge on needless goods, in a moment of clarity, I opted to pay off a debt. (Starting this blog was a similar moment. Sadly most of my life they’ve been rare.) So earlier this morning I thought perhaps this whole time some software error hadn’t updated the bank’s number to reflect that loan as paid in full. Alas, no such luck. Turned out that only two of the three remaining private loans were showing. So I deleted the account and re-added it. That time it took. Back at roughly $228K total debt. Keep reading . . .