September Financial Roundup

My hiatus from blogging stressed me out. I tried to pretend that I was enjoying myself, but it was less like a vacation, and more like I stopped brushing my teeth for two weeks.

Here's to good financial hygiene!

Nobody at work is talking about the upcoming headcount reduction. The details are slowly eeking out, but it's pretty quiet. We have a month to mull things over. If I get canned, right now it looks like I will get two months of regular pay, and then another two-weeks of compensation, plus my year-end bonus, and I don't know what that's gauged at. My group recently had an analyst move out who hasn't been back filled, and that will count towards the general bloodletting. It will likely mean they won't take anyone else from our group, but nothing is certain.

I normally get my monthly finance update out on the 15th, and I know this is a couple of weeks late. I was depressed that I slipped this month, however, and I didn't want to talk about my money issues. Before I get to the bad, here's some good news:

I am officially done with my old landlord!

He gave me my entire deposit back! Well, he didn't give me the required interest, but that was only $5. He sent me a letter detailing everything that he intended to take off my deposit (as I expected, it was the entire amount, plus a bill for other "damages"), but he decided not to, out of "the goodness of his heart." I would show you the actual letter, but I gave in to a childish impulse and burned it after I cashed the check. However, his return of my deposit had nothing to do with the "goodness of his heart," it was because I went on the offensive before I moved out. He had an agent (a friend) come and review the house upon move-out, and I made the agent sign off on the below document (click to expand):

With this letter, my landlord received a copy of Minnesota's rent laws, an explanation of the applicable portions of the law concerning what a landlord can deduct from a deposit (from FindLaw.com), and an email from an attorney from Home Line, which (from their site), "provides free legal... services so that tenants throughout Minnesota can solve their own rental housing problems."

I knew that my landlord would try to keep the deposit, so by having his agent sign this, I tied his hands as best I could. I'm surprised it worked, however. I felt like a complete jerk going to this extreme, but now, with everything in the past, I feel really good. My biggest lesson was to avoid situations of this nature, but because my hand was forced, in retrospect I'm glad that I was firm. It went against all my instincts, but it was a great life lesson.

That said...

September Financial Roundup!

Ug. I put a lot of money on the old credit cards. I paid much of it off this week (with my paycheck and returned deposit), but I didn't have the money to cover the $200 car repair. I'll finish paying that next month, and also continue to advance on my debt. It was a disappointment, but last month was crazy. I had to buy a lot to get the apartment up and running, I had a friend's wedding and mandatory bachelor/bachelorette party (we all went out together), and the car repair.

I was able to defer paying my school loans (interest free) because I started school, which helped. In the below snapshot of my finances, you'll see a new row called "BOA TUITION FLOAT." This is tuition that's on my BOA card at 0%, that my company will cover, if I still have a job in a few months. If not, I don't know. I'll start to think of that in a few weeks.

My company won't cover the "fees" that school charges, so I I need to add an additional $115 to the mix. That means my BOA card, which has a 0% APR, is now at $3750. Arg.

Here's the damage:



Oh well. Lifes not all roses. I'll talk about my next financial steps in the days to come.