Layout:
Home > Next month will bring alot of change

Next month will bring alot of change

December 30th, 2012 at 01:09 am

As the year ends, I find myself in a state of total uncertainty. As you know, my wife has that mass in her skull. The Dr. doesn't think it is cancer but he has not ruled it out yet eithor. She will have an MRI the 2nd week of Janurary so hopefully, we will know whether it's cancer, something else that requires medical treatment or old scar tissue. At the same time, my contract ends Monday. I get one more full paycheck next week and then a 1 day paycheck for the 31st. After that, no more income from me. Luckily she works so we will have something coming in. I do have about 3k that I had put into a 401k while on this contact so that will give us a little breathing room. If we burn through that, the bike will be sold. I owe 4500 on it but I should be able to sell it for 11-12k. It will suck being a biker and MC member with no bike!!!!! (acutally I would take a leave on absence from my club). (yes I know alot of you who comment here are not fans of the bike, so you may win yet!)

Job hunting during the holidays suck. I have applied to about 100 or so jobs / contracts. About 20 of my apps were to jobs that are in my speciality, the rest were really longshots. Stuff I could do as they are related to my field but not really my niche. I have had positive response on a few but the holidays are slowing the process down. There is 1 company local to me who wants a long term sys admin / tech project manager. They told me that the interview I did with them went great but it will not be til after the new year until any next steps happen. I interviewed with them 3 weeks ago. I also had a 1st interview with a New England based company that would let me work remotely. I don't have that much of a warm fuzzy about them as they keep telling me that the IT director will be calling me soon for the 2nd interview. They have told me that every week for the past 4 weeks. The next option is another long term sys admin / tech project manager job in Nashville. Nashville would be ok as we are origionally from Atlanta so we still have alot of friends and family in Atlanta. Nashville is only 4hrs away. I have an interview with the hiring manager on Wens. Next option is for a 1 yr contact in Houston. I would let my family stay in Fl, and I would be in Houston most of the time with some remote work from home. It is only a 1 yr gig but the pay is literaly 2x the other 3 jobs. Finally, I spoke to a head hunter yesterday about a 4 month contract in Chicago. This would consist of staying up there for a month or so and then doing the majority of the work from home. The pay is about the same as the Houston contact. I also expect some call backs on some of the other apps I put in over the past few weeks. A bunch of them were out of state to places that I really don't want to move to (Like back to DC). I am really hoping that the one down here in Fl or the one that will let me be 100% remote come though. I don't want to get into a desperate spot where I have to jump on the 1st offer and miss one of the better opportunities by a few days.

We went to the hospital finance office last week. It wasn't nearly as bad as expected. In addition to my med insurance, we also had a supplimential that pays 1500 a day when hospitalized. They were supposed to pay us directly but somehow my wife signed it over to them. That is good and bad. The bad is that I could use the extra 4500 now, the good is that it covered the co-pay from my health insurance so we don't have a hospital bill and may actually get a few thousand back. We will have have the bills from the Doctors etc but they shouldn't be too bad.

We don't know yet what the MRI will cost. She is however covered under her job's health insurance as of 1/1 which is alot better than mine. I think it's 80% with 0 deductable. Not sure how having 2 insurances work so I don't know if mine will pick up the rest. Eithor way it won't be too bad. Now if she has to have brain surgery, that will be another story.

Ok, finally on to finances. When I started this blog in Oct, I had about 36k in debt or things that I needed to take care of. (not including the car payment). I was 2 months behind on my mortgage, 1 month behind on all utilites, owed the IRS 6k, a month behind on the car etc. During the past 3 months, I paid off 8500 of the debt. As of now, all utilities are current, I paid 1 of my late mortgage payment and had them spread out the other one so I am now current on the mortgage. We paid 3k to the IRS so the end is in sight on that. We did all of the required maintenance on the vehichles (there are still a few things we should do but they aren't critical), We paid off about 1/2 of the outstanding medical bills and took care of the $300 in car registration fees we owed Va from last year. We have been averageing about $2800 per month in debt reduction. Sadly with me becoming unemployed, we are going to lose alot of that progress.

I am really hoping that I get a job within the first 2 weeks of Janurary. The only real quandry is money. I am used to very high pay as I have been based out of the DC area the past few years and doing consulting work. I was lucky to get the contract down here in Fl for a New York based company (meaning I made DC/ NY wages while enjoying the Fl COL). The work from home, Local and the Nashville job all pay about 60-70% of what I normally make. With my wife working full time (provided her MRI is good), we can live comfortably on our salaries but knocking out our remaining liabilities will be difficult. (the biggest montly is the IRS which is 900 a month but I only have 4 more payments). The houston and chicago contacts pay a bit more than I normally make so we would be able to knock off some more debt but of course me living in a hotel or extended stay would eat into that, not to mention being away from home. But even with the living out of state, we still would be better off financially with the houston or chicago money, they pay that much more!.

Even though I have all this going on and I am stressing over all of this, the one thing that will have the most impact is the MRI result. To be honest, we have been living as if it doesn't exist, meaning we haven't discussed what we would do if comes back as cancer. We mentally decided to stay positive on that subject or else we would be walking around being paranoid and depressed (as if the job / money doesn't F*ck with me enough). So bottom line, the next few weeks will be very interesting and alot of change is coming to our lives, we just have no idea what the change will be and when it will be. Stay tuned as January will bring alot of answers.

4 Responses to “Next month will bring alot of change”

  1. Wink Says:
    1356833426

    Wow Bikerjohn, you certainly have a LOT going on. I felt overwhelmed just reading this. First and foremost, I hope that your wife will be OK. I will bet that soon after the New Year you will be employed and that you don't lose ground on all the great financial progress you have made, and hopefully you can keep that bike! Good luck with everything.

  2. creditcardfree Says:
    1356834327

    You have done a great job recently getting back on track. Wishing you and your wife good health for the new year!

  3. Momma and the boys living on budget Says:
    1356874160

    John I wish you and the wife the best. You have gotten back on track. Good luck with the job search hopefully right after the holidays you can find a job.

  4. Jerry Says:
    1356979030

    Good luck with everything as you lead into 2013, you definitely have a ton of stuff going on. That is a huge deal that you have the supplemental insurance to help out with things. Here's hoping for a clean bill of health for your wife in the coming year.
    Jerry

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]