Monday, December 14, 2009

Baptist Bill

So a while ago I posted about Charlotte's hospital bill that I THOUGHT had a zero balance, and has since come back to haunt me. Being almost $10,000 we were really freaked out about it. I filled out the financial assistance forms and TODAY we got a letter saying that we received assistance and that her bill has a zero-balance!! :-D. This makes me so so so happy. It is a big relief off of our chests and now I feel much more happy about paying extra on my hospital from her birth. So, we will start doing that. I will be so happy to have that paid off because then we only have my student loans and those seem much more manageable.

I think that the letter gave us a much needed feeling of hope and that we can do this and even though it may be a while, it will feel AMAZING to have our debt paid off!!

We are one tiny, little step closer. Yay!

Oh and one more thing, Dave Ramsey is doing a "25 days of Christmas" thing or something, where he has a giveaway every day. So far I have seen products, $1000 (for a mini-efund or to help someone) and today is $5000. So as much as I DON'T want to tell you about it because we could use it so badly, I thought I would share :). Just go to his website www.daveramsey.com and you will see it.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Our Debt-updated Sept. 2009

Our Debt: **We are not including this crazy hospital bill thing that is going on**

$2616.32 - Hospital Bill MIN: $100/month
$3426.95 - MS&T Student Loans (Anna's student loan) MIN: $32.97--was $40 and the school changed who they did the loan through.
$5145.80 - Direct Loans (Anna's Student Loan) MIN: $63.30
$10950.03 - MOHELA (Anna's Student Loan) MIN: $131.18

Total Debt: $22,139.10

Total paid off: $13,332.63!! (More than the last amount because we have paid debt on the above bills, just haven't paid them off completely.)

Another Loan Down!

We paid off another loan!! It was the last of Phil's student loans, so his education is completely paid for, yaay!

So, we have paid off a grand total of $11,946.02 since January 2008. We also paid for our wedding!! It feels good to look at the number that big, however we did get a tax return of almost $5k, which really helped out a lot. I have no idea what will happen this time around, I hope that we'll get something!

The next goal is to pay off the hospital bill! It WILL be paid off in January at the latest because that is when Phil gets an extra check, and we should be able to pay off more than enough to cover what the extra check won't pay. So, there is just over $2600 on that one!!

We also haven't heard a lot about the big hospital bill, that was just under $10k. Hopefully the most we will have to pay on that one is $1200. They had us fill out a financial request form, so I'm crossing my fingers that it will all be written off. I guess we will find out!

I'm going to update what we owe here too. I just have to find the current balances on everything.

Friday, September 4, 2009

My mom made a good point yetserday... concerning that hospital bill thing. That "agreed upon rate" between the hospital and the insurance company, is/should be between the hospital and the insurance company... not what I have to pay, she thinks the hospital is just giving me a load of crap. And that that rate is what the insurance company agrees to pay the hospital, and that they can't negotiate what I am to pay them. So I guess I'm ready to start talking to the insurance company Tuesday and see what I can figure out. I just wish someone else could do all the talking, I hate dealing with crap... and stupid people (to be blunt). So I really hope that is right. That stupid hospital is not going to get more than what is right, and that is $1200. (Is that a bad way to look at things? ha)

Thursday, September 3, 2009

One more thing!

I found someone down here who is also doing Dave Ramsey! She is actually the person who recruited me for Pampered Chef and it was great to talk to someone going through the same things we are!! But she is ALMOST done! Only about $2k left!! I am so jealous. She is looking forward to calling in and screaming "WE'RE DEBT FREE!!"

I can't wait to do that... someday.

Update!

I know it has been forever!!

Not a lot has been going on since we paid off the Credit Card. It is such a HUGE relief to have it gone though! We are slowly chipping away at Phil's last student loan which is right at $800. It has been so frustrating because we would have had enough money to have had it paid off if pesky little MURPHY hadn't shown up! I swear he has shown up the past few months, meaning we are sitting here stuck making minimum payments (or a tiny bit more). The good news? We haven't had to touch the e-fund!!!!!! (Just not able to put money towards our snowball). But I think we are putting this on hold... see below.

I also started working part-time selling Pampered Chef. This started a few days ago, and I'm stoked. I am hoping to make an extra $750/month to put towards our Debt Snowball!! If it doesn't work out, I guess I'll be stuck finding a job at Wal-Mart or something, but its not forever!! I am ready to get this debt paid off.

Oh and Baptist Hospital (where we had Charlotte) decided to bill us almost $10k! Basically, the bill totaled to $1800, insurance paid $600, which left us with $1200. But the "agreed upon rate" was about $9800, and since the insurance only paid $600, they now want to bill us $9200! I am trying really hard to not go CRAZY. I mean how REDICLIOUS is that? If I didn't have insurance, I would only owe $1800, but with insurance, I now owe them $9200? It was really crappy insurance to begin with (student health insurance) and we did NOT expect to get pregnant, hence the crappy insurance. So I'm HOPING that we can settle that one for $1200... do you think that is doable? We were going to save up as much as we can in the next month or so (while talking to them to keep them off our backs) and offer them $1200 to pay in full. Anyone think it will work? I keep trying to hint at settling somehow and they just say "well fill out the financial aid thing" but I really DON'T think that a $9200 bill is going to get much help when my hubby makes $46k? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! I feel like we just paid off about $10k since college, and now its back!!! The thought just makes me want to cry :(. Oh and this bill came out of nowhere, we hadn't heard ANYTHING from them for a year!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

No More Credit Card!! :-)

We did it, we paid off the credit card!! I wrote the check and am dropping it in the mail today. It feels GREAT to have it paid off, no more credit cards!! I'll be very happy to get that "paid in full" statement, hopefully soon.

Next, Phil's student loan (which we'll get most of taken care of this month and the rest next month), then the hospital bill. We're still sticking with the goal of getting those all paid off by the end of December. That means we'll only have my student loans, which are a lot, but doable. And if anything happens, we can put a hold on student loans.

I can't wait to redo the debt snowball calculator. I feel like we will have made a lot of progress this year, paying off about 10k since we started in January. We also moved during that time, which put the snowball on hold for a while.

YAAAY US!