I haven’t written about my finances here lately. But here is the latest.
Husband began a new job that pays quite well (to us, its probably not much to others). I reduced my hours at work and was bring in about $600 net per month for the past few months, so I’ve been living off of my husband. I feel guilty when I cannot chip in half of everything…
So we’ve been paying down his student loan, and I began paying down my unsubsidized student loan as interest has begun accruing. Since both of us expect to pay down a large chunk of student loan debts, we changed our withholding using the IRS calculator.
I also opened up a retirement account with fidelity for my husband, because at nearly 35 he hasn’t contributed any money toward a retirement account. He has a decent amount of savings (considering the fact that we’ve been in school forever). Luckily, his new job also gave him the option to use fidelity for pretax retirement contributions. So right now, 10% of his every gross paycheck goes into fidelity pretax, and I contribute an additional $200 twice a month into a roth ira account.
Additionally, I’ve paid off my line of credit which was used to fund summer school. I also am now on a “pay it in full” schedule with my one credit card that gives me cash back. All other cards are at $0 balance. For example I opened some store credit cards to get coupons or free shipping (such as with LL Bean). I may close all cards but one just so I can get rid of all the agreements I keep in file. I dislike clutter. Even neatly filed paperwork.
In about 20 days I will begin working full time so I am looking forward to being able to pay for stuff myself and paying down my student loan and increasing my retirement contributions and savings. I can’t wait.
