My latest electric bill was only $11.14 for 50kwh of electricity. My gas bill was $84.72 which was larger than I expected. I keep my thermostat low but my apartment is poorly insulated and drafted. My furnace looks to be quite old and is probably not very efficient. For now I have to have gas since I can’t do without heat. Sometime in April or May though I will once again cancel my gas service. Next time I move I’ll make sure the place has electric heat.
Month: December 2007
Private Student Loan Paid Off
I just sent a payment of $507.99 to Wells Fargo to pay off my private student loan. Now my highest interest loan is my Grad Plus loan at 8.25%. I probably won’t pay anything more on my student loans until I finish school. My plan for my extra money now is to max out my Roth IRA. Since this is my last month of working before returning to school I need to contribute all I can now.
November Expenses
Here is a breakdown of my expenses for November.
|
Household |
$437.02 |
|
Utilities |
$82.79 |
|
Transportation |
$300.35 |
|
Food |
$101.72 |
|
Entertainment |
$155 |
|
Medical/Dental |
$122 |
|
Student Loans |
$500 |
|
Total |
$1698.88 |
Medical/Dental should go down this month because I won’t have a dentist appointment. Transportation should be down this month because November’s total includes paying for six months of insurance. Student loans will be up because I’m paying off my private student loan. Everything else should remain roughly the same.
Balance Transfer Finally Fixed
Last month I decided to transfer the balance of my private student loan from Wells Fargo to Capital One to take advantage of a low-interest balance transfer offer. It was only going to save me a few dollars in interest but since it would only take a couple minutes online I decided to go ahead and do it. That ended up being a mistake. The payment from Capital One never showed up at Wells Fargo. I had to spend several hours on the phone to get it straightened out. Capital One has told me that they are stopping payment on the check they sent and will credit my account. I’m hoping that they actually do this.
Dealing with Capital One has been a PITA. I’ve had to spend 20-30 minutes on hold or more every time I called them. Then when I do finally get through to a representative they can’t help me and have to connect me with an account manager. This means another 20-30 minutes. Every time I have called them they are experiencing unusually high call volume. If you have unusually high call volume every day wouldn’t that make it normal call volume? Capital One is my oldest credit card so I don’t want to cancel it but I may not use it anymore.
Wells Fargo has been much better to deal with. I can get through to a person in just a few minutes and they actually seem to know what they are doing.
Before I do another balance transfer I’ll have to consider if the risk of it being screwed up is worth the potential reward in savings.
November Savings/Debt Repayment Percentage
My savings/debt payment percentage for November was only 24%. This is because my balance transfer of my student loan from Wells Fargo to Capital One was screwed up. I have about $500 slated for debt payment from November that I carried over to this month. I don’t want to make any more payments until the balance transfer is straightened out. I should be able to completely pay my student loan off this month and make my goal of 50% of my income going to savings and debt payment.