Thursday, April 3, 2008

Day 81 and one of my kids is no longer a teen today!

Wow, today is Serenity's 20th birthday! I don't know how she got so grown up! So I only have two teenagers left, and as Tasha reminded me, in a year and six days, I'll just have one teenager left when Josh turns 20. Thanks for the reminder, Tasha!

Well, the credit counseling company called back yesterday afternoon and they wanted payments of $364 a month for 4 years, $48 a month (13%) of which would be their fee, so only $316 would be actually going towards the debt. Oh, and there was a one time fee of $75 when you start. Our FPU cd-rom has a financial calculator on it that you can use to figure up payments and if the interest rates stay the same as they are now and we were able to pay $360 a month towards the debts, we could have them paid off in 4 years anyway. So for now, we are going to make the payments that we can each month, I'm going to shoot for a total of $300 a month between the six credit cards, and hope that once we get some regular payments under our belt that they will work with us on dropping interest rates. Pray for us that we have made the right decision.

My van's oil light was coming on and it hadn't even been 3000 miles since I got the oil changed, so I called the mechanic to change the oil and take a look. Well, something was leaking (and I'm drawing a blank now on what it was called), but it sounded like the parts and labor wouldn't be more than $150ish. So that will be another dent in the EF, but what a blessing that we have it! Thank goodness we didn't drive the van to Norman to see Serenity last weekend. That would have been really bad. But I just had a feeling that it wasn't a good idea.

Tom's car goes in Monday for the repairs from the fender bender last week. He'll be getting a rental to drive. Hope he gets something cool and then lets me borrow it. LOL!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that you made the right decision. I have been on the other side of those credit counselors. and I don't like the way they operate. They call themselves "non-profit", but they are definately in it for the money! I think that the credit card companies will be more willing to work with you after a few months of regular payments.

Mom Thumb said...

Non-profit my . . . oh, never mind. It IS weird when one of your kids isn't a teen anymore. I can't believe Curtis will be 23 in June, when did THAT happen?