Well I began this blog at the end of May, and by that point there was no way I was going to be able to complete my monthly goal of a $100 bonus payment and $350 into savings. This month is a whole different story! As of today I sent in our first $100 payment to Sallie Mae. They have upgraded their site once again so now when you send an extra payment it asks you which loan to apply it to AND it asks whether you want to apply it to the principal or next month's payment! This cuts out the extra step of having to send an email explaining how to apply the bonus payment! Woo-hoo!
As of today I have also put $200 into savings. I will have to put the last $150 into saving over the next couple of weeks.The good news is that our paychecks alternate, so we end up getting paid every single Friday. That leaves us with 1 more check from Jason's job, and 2 more checks from my job this month. My checks are nowhere near what Jason's are, but the extra $200-300 every other week is a huge help in this project! We also lucked out this week and I managed to work several night jobs and on Jason's days off, so we ended up only needing the babysitter for 1 day, which means we paid $20 for this weeks babysitting instead of $100.
I also work for an incentive based company, so I am evaluated on the 7th and 13th week of every quarter to see if I am reaching the next level of goals. If I am, I will be bumped up a pay grade instantly. Unfortunately, I started working in the 7th week of the quarter so there wasn't really a chance to get bumped up then. However, in the last 4 weeks I have consistently improved on my numbers, and have been rewarded with a small bonus on my first full paycheck as well as a lot of extra hours. I have been asked to pick up several extra jobs in the upcoming weeks, and have been placed on a committed full time team. I have also been working 1-on-1 with a training supervisor the last couple of nights because my manager believes that if I can ramp up quickly enough I will be eligible to jump 2 pay grades instead of just 1! That means a $1.50/hr raise instead of just $.50 for the first pay raise. Considering this is an hourly job on the lower end of the pay scale, this is a massive raise. My last hourly job where I got a raise, the raise was only $.13 and it came after a year of work. I am super excited about the potential to set even higher goals for paying off our loans!!!
On the downside, I am completely exhausted. Between cleaning and getting ready to move, the extra hours at work, full time school and Logan there has been very little sit-down time. I have a few friends who are considering going back to school and are unsure of how to juggle family/school/work all at once. The key is using your time effectively and knowing your limits. Last semester I took too many classes and ended up not doing very well in 2 of them (read: complete failure). This semester I dropped back down to only 3 classes. I take my text books with me to work and do my assigned reading on my 10 minute breaks and 30 minute lunch break. I come home and hang out with Logan and do house stuff, and then as soon as Logan goes to bed, I get online and start doing my other assignments. It is hard to stay on top of things, but I have also lowered my expectations for school a little bit. As it is frequently put to me "What do you call a med student who graduates last in his class?" A: A Doctor. I don't shoot for straight A's. I don't have the time or energy to be a perfectionist in school at this point. As long as I am making some progress towards graduating I am happy. I don't need to take 18 credits in a semester to make it happen.
So this is my update so far. I will update my graphs and whatnot as soon as the payment has been posted to the loans. I will have to adjust our savings back down because we will have to pay July rent in 2 places, so instead of having $750 + $200 we will only have the $200 that I just put in, which sets us back a little bit on the savings goal, BUT since my job is looking like it might bring in a lot more money than I initially planned for, we may come out ahead!
Have you set monthly goals? Have you figured out a budget?
No comments:
Post a Comment