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Who am I? Where am I? What am I?

October 10th, 2006 at 04:43 pm

Boy, do I sound confused!

At any rate, I am a late-20-something-married-just-bought-my-first-house type, and as a result I suffer from the typical affliction of most everyone else my age: stagnent CC debt accrued in college, student loans, poor credit, yadda yadda. The good news is I have a budget and something close to a plan. The bad news is DH is a spender, not a saver, so the road is not going to be smooth. Hopefully, that's where everyone here will come in handy!

My general financial stats. Some are good & some are not-so-good:
- DH and I both trashed our credit when we were young and dumb and irresponsible and all that jazz.
- When I withdrew from school I never got closing paperwork/payment info for my stuent loan, which therefore went into default. GAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!
+/- Payments are being made on said student loan, but they are too small for my taste.
+ DH & I both work full time and net well above the average for our area
+ Our house payment is about 11% of our monthly gross income.
- We got shafted on our interst rate for the mortgage.
+ Mortgage company doesn't require PMI nor does it escrow property taxes or insurance, so I can save that money myself and earn interest on it.
+ We paid well below market/appraised price for our home, and can refinance after 1 yr w/ my credit union at about 5% with only a $50 fee
+/- My car was about to suffer impending doom and require 2-5k worth of repairs, so I traded it in and financed a car for the first time. BTW it's a 2005, I won't buy a new car. Payments are within budget, there is factory and extended warranty coverage, gas mileage is fantastic, but the interest rate BITES.

I'm here because a) I want to save and invest b) I'm making progress in some areas but may need some encouragement in others c) DH doesn't quite 'get' what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. He thinks we make good money and should be able to buy whatever we want...

Anywho, I look forward to beinga part of such an active and informative community. I've been reading the boards for a while, so I feel like I already know some of you!