After Pay Day

Things have been so hectic. I'm still in the middle of trying to refinance my student loan and it's extremely frustrating. Wells Fargo keeps saying the my Mom doesn't qualify for a cosigner (even though she's my current cosigner). At first we thought that Wells Fargo looking at her debt to income ratio and not considering that most of her debt comes from this particular student loan. Then, in one of my many, many delightful chats with a rep they said that Wells Fargo makes sure not to consider the loan they are currently holding against someone if all they are trying to do is refinance. My mom had already faxed in a few credit reports showing that the only outstanding debt she has is this loan. Of course I tried to explain that to them and they did their usual, "well I can't discuss this with you because you're not the cosigner" bullshit so I had to get off the phone, ring up my mom, and have her call back.

So, she calls back and gets another rep who tries to tell her all sorts of nonsense but luckily I told me mom to request a supervisory review because they were clearly being misleading. We should know if the next few days what they decide. The thing that's REALLY frustrating about all of this??? It's probably all worth nothing. All I want is a low, fixed rate. When I first started paying back this piece of shit loan I wanted a fixed rate because over the long run it's the smarter choice (and Lord knows I'm a stickler for consistency) but all they could offer me at the type was a variable rate of 8.5% versus a fixed rate of 13%. That's so freakin' ridiculous. That's credit card rate ridiculous. This time around I do qualify for a fixed rate as low as 7.49% and I would love that! All I want is to be able to plan down to the penny where my money is going, to not live in fear of this slimy, fat cat banking hiking up my rates on whatever whim they like.


What I have:
Checking: $51.12 (after rent + student loan + lots of ice cream this weekend)
Savings: $1800.41

What I Owe:
Wells Fargo Student Loan: $82,888.05
Credit Card: $58.76

During my lovely chat with Wells Fargo I also decide to cancel my auto withdraw. I'm so sick of being broke every first of the month. I end up with like 20 bucks left over so I have to rely on my credit card or dip into my savings and I hate doing that. Since I'm so ahead in payments I have some wiggle room to figure out a way to pay back a lot but not in such a way that leaves me scrambling.

Cable Savings

So I made the dreaded cable canceling call today. Luckily (or perhaps she was just doing her job properly) I got a service representative that was willing to cut me a deal. She was able to offer me the new customer service price and free DVR services (for only six months) at a rate of $83.98 a month. After 6 months $10 will be added for DVR services. Since my old bill ranged between $127 and $130 I have a total savings of around $43!! Yes, it could be better (I could have had the balls to cancel completely and discount myself from the time sucker that is my tv) but saving nearly 50 bucks a month after a simple phone call is pretty legit.

So, let's review my current stats!
Rent, water, and utilities: $736 or less a month
Texas has had an unprecedented heat wave of a 100+ temps and my utilities bill has never topped $99 so (hopefully) the max I will pay for these services is 736 bucks.

Netflix: $16.23
Gym: 17.31
Total for credit card: $33.54 (less than the $50 I guessed on my last post)

Fixed bills
Cable: $83.98
Phone: $100
Loans: $300
Total: $483.98

Subtotal=$1253.52 a month (not including food or gas). I estimated (or hoped) that I could get by with spending $200 on food and $100 on gas a month which means the final, super awesome, brand new grand total (hopefully!!!) is $1553.52 a month.

So after being more precise in my calculations and making some phone calls I have saved an estimated $59.48 a month.

It's probably pretty premature to start preening over savings I haven't seen yet but I feel that I'm on the right path to fixing my finances. Also, once I actually start getting some paychecks (and, you know, buying food) I want to possibly start selling things on Etsy. If through refurbishing furniture and selling it here in Austin and selling things on Etsy I can manage to come up with a couple extra bucks a month then I'll be in an even better spot.