I’ve been trying to “take care of priorities” for the last 24 hours. Here is a log I kept on my notepad as I was working (this is a quick-n-dirty post, please pardon the grammar / spelling)

Monday (yesterday)

1. woke up late because I was up late last night responding to emails, installing a plug-in on the blog that will blip out bad words and taking care of stuff like faxing back short sale package for Burdett and New Mexico
2. Duane calls me around 1pm and he asked me if I’m taking care of priorities (talking to lenders about a plan), I said No while telling him what I was doing, he got upset with me and asked me why he should work with me if I’m not handling my side of the deal and not “calling the lenders and making amends”. I thanked him for his patience with me and I told him I will hang up the phone and get to work on handling debt right away
3. stopped writing a big blog entry and put up something quick saying that I need to handle priorities and also asked for help with moderation
4. checked all 11 G’s credit card accounts online and updated all unsecured accounts on balance sheet (local and online)
5. also updated payment bank account on G’s accounts since I closed the old bank, so I can be ready to pay her bills as soon as possible
6. also changed most of G’s accounts to have electronic statement delivery to cut down on mail
7. also requested that I be added as authorized user on 8 of G’s accounts, received authorization on 5 so far. This will allow me to take care of payments and negotiate on her behalf
8. talked to one of G’s cards and asked if we can get the interest rate lowered from 30% down to something reasonable. The rate is so how because we’ve been late before (less than 30 days late) and this is the default rate. They said normally the rate gets brought back down automatically after 9 months of on-time payments. I asked if we can get it down lower sooner. He said that we need to bring the card current (it is a month behind) first and then we can talk about it.
9. gave G my ATM card and helped her pay tuition online for the semester at Sierra College $382.00 and her cell phone bill which was 2 months past due $150.37
10. talked to G about finding a way to downgrade our cell phone bills (hers 75/mo, mine 200/mo) or consolidating them back to a family plan like we used to have to save money, we agreed that I will look into it
11. G stoped doing her homework for a minute and asked me if I finished paying her minimum payments yet like I promised a month ago or she going to get a 30 day late on her FICO? I told her I haven’t been on top of it like I promised but at the same time I really didn’t have the money to pay all of them, so I paid one of them the one that was the most behind. She got upset at my handling of finances and I got upset too at the whole situation.
12. went back up to my office, slammed the door and sorted hand-written notes, business cards and January receipts for later processing

Tuesday morning (today)

1. wakeup at 5:00 with G but actually get up at 6am to join her for breakfast and see her off to school
2. take a shower, get dressed for success and go to the office to get back to taking care of priorities
3. installed and setup Microsoft Money so I can start tracking my income and expenses
4. try to setup electronic download of transactions but MS Money is giving me problems, will have to try later and/or call tech support, for now will do manual entries
5. open a stack of approximately 45 pieces of mail
6. found offer letter for Roadside assistance, decided to order it for $52/year to save money in case we get stuck or lock our keys
7. check auto insurance policy to make sure its current, not due till March
8. paid a small collection bill $40.80 to get it out of the way
9. sent payment for final utility bill for Modest property for $41.40 to get it out of G’s name
10. in the mail found W2 from the month that I worked at my job last January before I quit to become a “real estate mogul” and also 1098 mortgage statements. I put all those into a seperate TAXES file so I can prepare everything for my CPA appointment which I rescheduled to February 14th to give me more time
11. also found a Notice of Sale for the New Mexico property scheduled for February 14th at 12:30PM… uh oh… need to call Rio Rancho realtor and see if he reduced the price to 469 yet and if we are getting any offers so we can submit a shortsale packet and try to stop foreclosure
12. this reminds me that the Rio Rancho NM realtor told me some guy asked him about redeeming my property. My realtor had no clue about this “redemption” so he told the guy to send me an email with what he wants to do. I remember seeing the email, I need to go and read that email and research into “redemption”. As far as I know, in some states, assuming in New Mexico, the homewoner can redeem aka buy back the property for a certain amount of time after foreclosure. I’m wondering what this investor guy exactly wants to do with my redemption rights. Something to look into. HOwever, I told my realtor to tell the guy to put in an offer on the property instead so that we can do a short sale and avoid foreclosure instead of letting it foreclose and trying to redeem it.
13. also found a letter in the mail from somebody who wants to buy my MORTGAGE and then arrange for some kind of payments with me that I would be comfortable with… hmm… interesting… I put it aside for further investigation
14. found a letter from the Utah lender saying that the mortgage is 1800 pas due and if they don’t get that payment they can start foreclosure after 30 days… man I really need to finish taking care of that issue… I put the notice aside for further action
15. found American Express credit card offer “pre-approved”… I quickly throw it into my shredder before more damage can be done
16. threw away and or shredded the trash and filed stuff that I am keeping for records
17. look through bills to see what I am going to pay today consider the money I have
18. paid 400.36 for my cell phone for last 2 months, to bring the account current
19. paid 110.19 cable internet bill for last 2 months to bring it current
20. setup automatic payments for cable internet so I don’t have to worry about this pesky bill, I just have to make sure there is always money in the account
21. check my property bills and choose to ignore for now
22. setup internet access bill to be delivered electronically to cut down on mail time
23. wondering if internet access and my cell phone bill is tax deductible since I need both to do business and how much of it is deductible? I make a note to ask about this when I see my CPA
24. Check for property bills in G’s name
25. found a City of Modesto final bill for 392.32.. don’t have enough money for this right now, will try to pay next time I get another statement
26. found Rocky Mountain Power final bill for Utah property… what?? We’ve been paying for power on that property all this time?? I hope the buyers are happy they got a free ride. The closing bill is only 33.93 so I write a check and put it aside for mailing later today.
27. found Sacramento Water district bill for 267.23. This one will have to wait until later too along with the other bills that are in my name.
28. enter all the bills I just paid into MS Money
29. manually download a file from my bank for all the transactions for January and import into MS Money so I have a complete picture of my new personal account
30. went through and sorted/categorized all the 32 downloaded transactions, referring to receipts that I set aside for more clearity
31. with all mail and transactions sorted I feel a certain sense of accomplishment… even though this is the kind of work that I want to eventually outsource, for now G is busy with school and I will be the one doing it. I WANT to do it actually because it gives me a sense of control over the finances and a feeling of staying on top of things. I used to be very good with accounting for every single penny spent back when I used to live on my own before we got married. Then during the last couple of years that we’ve been married the “accounting” role has been sort of on G but then I tried to take it from her unsuccessfully a couple of times. Now I’m taking on myself for sure and want to do a good job of it… even if this kind of stuff is not up my alley as far as personality goes, its still good thing to learn to do, to take care of my finances.
32. Ok so… I now have an account balance of $252.21
33. how am I going to pay G’s credit cards and save her from getting 30 days late mark? What about my credit cards? Need to think of a plan.
34. oops, almost forgot, G’s asked me to check on the status of our health insurance auto-draft. Since I closed the account where it used to draw from we don’t want to be stuck with no health coverage, do we? I checked it and looks like there is one payment past due and next one to be drafted on Feb 5th. I updated the bank draft info online but it wasn’t clear when the payment would be made. So I called to find out. I found out that my account is actually current and the next draft will happen on Feb 5th from my new bank that I jus entered online. So I made note to make sure I have 162 by Feb 5th for the next draft.
35. It’s 12:40 PM now

So I basically have nothing left in my account to pay rent and next month’s bills. I don’t really have a stable job and I don’t know exactly how I will be supporting myself next month.

Here are the updated figures on my unsecured debt from my balance sheet:

• Wife: $26,319 balance and 2,391 due to bring everything current. Payments are almost 30 days late or possibly even more than 30 (hopefully not)
• Me: $148,402.08 balance and 8,390 due to bring current. Payments are way late and 2 of the accounts have already been closed so I have to make arragnements for payment or settlement with collections.

Questions/thoughts for you guys:

• What is my next move with my unsecured debt? Get a stable job? Ok. As a condition for Duane to be sponsoring me he wants me to negotiate with my lenders and work out some kind of a repayment plan. Ok, I will try to do that next… but what exactly am I going to ask for in my negotiations?
• I did try calling a couple of my credit cards so far and they are giving me two options: 1) bring the account current and resume payments or 2) make a minimum payment and keep it from going further but the account would still be in-default. The problem is that when I call them they are asking me what I can do per month. I really don’t know because I don’t know what I have coming in monthly. Say if I had a job paying me 4500/mo, I can subtract my living expenses of say 3000 and have 1500 left over for debt repayment plans. I can then tell the lenders that I have 1500 and I need to spread that amount across ALL of them. But thats not enough to start paying even the MINIMUM payment! I would need a much higher income per month to get into some kind of a repayment plan.
• Aside from getting a stable job ASAP, does anybody else have any ideas on how to handle this debt and finding a way to float it?

Also, thank you to those who volunteered to help me moderate comments on this blog and help me start brining a positive and supportive feel to this place. I will be talking with each one of your and selecting a couple of people to help me.

Even though the moderation is a bit slow right now, feel free to share your thoughts on my debt situation, we’ll get you moderated soon… Thanks guys.