American Education Services.

I just got off the phone with AES.  I thought since I have this guy on the phone I can do something to bring my account up to date since I have been making payments on it. Oddly enough these people do not notice this when calling you numerous times during the week. So I asked them are they receiving my payments? Oh sure it shows you made the last one on the Jan 22, 2014! Ok find good you are getting paid! I was a few months behind so I figure I"ll take the opportunity to do something about this. I asked can that pass due payment be put on the end of my loan so then I'll be up to date and I'm making regular payments. Sure no problem. I agree to the terms, make sure they will send me something about this and then they are going to transfer me to another division about my pass due account? Well no answer and the original guy gets back to me and says there is nothing they can do for me because I have a delinquent account from 1996! Hello WHAT???? Now I bought a house around that year. I had to go though my credit report and take care of any past due account or provide proof that they was paid before we could get a mortgage on my house. I know we paid off all our student loans. Both my husband and I did. It was a good moment in our lives at that time to get them out of our hair. (I should of remember that before jumping into the nasty student loan ocean again) So I know I do not have any old loans. And that was 20 years ago! Like in that time what happen?? Now I have no proof that I paid these loans, nothing showing I ever had them in the first place. What the heck??? We was debt free at one point, I know I got us there, it was a good time in our lives. We was poor as shit but only had the utilities to pay. So where did this past due loan come from and now I wonder can I get rid of it. I"m not paying it I know that much. I said to the guy what do I owe now and he told me. I said I'm making payments on the current loans that is it. Now this is something I need to watch so they do not come back on me and try to collect this.  

A new development in this stuff. As if this is not hard enough they try to pull out a loan that is over 20 years old and paid off and wants to collect on it. Bull shit that is I tell you.

This weekend has been cold and snowing. Its a crazy kind of weekend where if you do not have to leave the house then its best to just stay put.

I decided it would be best to tackle a project or two since I was staying in. Getting rid of clutter and cleaning up the place to move forward to bigger and better things in life. And one can not create, make extra money, and work on a budget with a bunch of clutter around and a dirty house. Because if your home is cluttered and dirty all you end up doing is looking at it and wishing you had more time to clean it up now. Except its impossible to do it all at once unless you had a team of people to come and help. I would say 99% of us do not have a team of people.

I made myself a goal and a promise for this year. To get my home back in order so that I can later work on either getting a second job or get an etsy shop going, sell more on ebay or all 3. I know myself well enough that I can not do any of the above until I get rid of the clutter that has taken over my home. I can not function any more than I am now. And if my time is taken up by another job or at home work then I have to do something about the clutter in order to keep myself sane.

The first thing is to clean a corner out. My husband had stuff tossed there also so we both went at it and cleaned it all out. It took all of 1/2 hr to get it done. Crazy I know but that one spot is clean of clutter and its so much nicer walking past it now.

The second thing is I cleaned my stove inside and out. Took the door apart and cleaned the glass and took the drawers out and cleaned those. I might want to cook more with a clean oven to put food in.

So two things that have been nagging at me for quite awhile is done now. Next weekend I'll work on something else. By spring I think I can have my home back in order and easier to take care of.

I also sat or rather talked with my husband about what we have to spend this week. Its not always easy to talk to your spouse about this stuff when they are used to one just taking care of the bills. But I did and we both understand what is left to spend. A small mile stone on the budget front. But this one small step was not as hard as I thought and I hope to do this ever week so that we are on the same page. Then I can move forward on paying off the debt. It does feel good to have a small plan in place for once.

Although I was more or less snowed in a lot of accomplished. I was reminded of the days where we was more tight with our money and more frugal. I remember its not all that bad, sometimes it was even fun.

Inspired by other people

To keep my motivation up and going because quite frankly its hard right now to keep a positive frame of mind with all this debt I go in search of inspiration. Reading how other people get out of debt. Oddly enough Dave Rasmey's name comes up in all kinds of blogs. I just might break down and find a class and take it. Until then my goal is to find his books and read them. And find any information online also. Because it seems like his method works and I want something that is going to work.

Until then I came across this blog post. That one time we paid off our house  Now this family was younger than I was. But they had a goal and kept to it. What inspired me was that even though they did not have much money they would dyi on a small budget. Small as 25.00 at times. That is right up my ally! Because at times I only have 20.00 or so to do something with. And right now we are thinking about putting in a floor. So its a project we are going to save up for. And its going to be on the smallest amount we can afford. Its not like we are going to sell the house. We need it fixed up for us and if it works then that is how its going to be. I made up my mind that is how it is and that is that.

So there is hope out there in the universe.

I did discover a little something I can do. As silly as this seems and I came upon this idea quite by accident. When reviewing my bank statement on line and discovered something of error on well mine or my husband's part and it was not good either. I was trying to look on the screen and figure out where money was going, from where for what and on and on. I finally printed out this past months statement. I"m able to write on the paper where the money went. A aha moment. I have to sit down with the husband and we need to talk about this budget thing and get on the same page with each other. I can show him where I"m spending money and where he is spending money and how much we each end up spending. Since I do the bills I get it in my head there is so much in the account and pay the bills. He has not clue what is being paid and well hits the atm any time he needs money. Not good at all. So when we get a moment when we are both not tired and can talk in a calm manner we are going to look over this. Hopefully this weekend. So that we can see what is going on.

I"m determined to make this work one way or another. I am getting back into my coupons. I'm no crazy coupon lady but what I do find for a good price and we use it I pick up several. Right now I have about 3 or 4 months of dish detergent stocked up. :) So I will not buy any more until its .50cents or less, I have 4 months of StayFree stocked up. Those was 1.00 so I'll stock up on those when they are 1.00 again hopefully before I run out. lol. And other little things like that. We are small family so I do not need a stock pile the size of a room or a garage to keep us going. And I like that I'm not paying out a lot of money for cleaning stuff, and soaps and shampoos and what not. So its a start and once I get going again I will see the savings start to add up again. But it takes work like anything else.

So get inspired by someone. It will give you a boost to keep going on your own goals. It might be hard at first but do believe it will get easier as time goes on. And there are rewards as each bill gets paid off.

New report on Sallie Mae. Interesting read.

Here is an interesting read. http://www.studentloanborrowerassistance.org/wp-content/uploads/File/report-sallie-mae-saga.pdf

Its a long one so grab a hot cup of coffee and sit back and take a look. I myself do not know what to make of this. I sense a bit of hope in all the documents. But I do wonder if there will ever be a solution or a way out from under these loans. We can only hope. Until then I have a date later this week to fill out the income based repayment forms and see where that takes me. And still looking into other ways to make extra money. So far nothing is looking good. But I only just  begun.

A little article with good advise

I took a good look at my loans and I'm working on my game plan. In this article it explains how you can pay down those loans in a shorter period of time. And its just what I was thinking too. There is hope for me in this. If I can make it work. Like I said before and I'll keep saying this is going to take work. Its a job. Treat it like one.

Kick back grab a cup of something to enjoy and read. http://www.dailyworth.com/posts/427-Smash-Student-Loan-Debt

Taking a good hard look at your loans.

I finally got into the online web site of one of my loans though the American Education Services. For some reason I was locked out of my account and after much emailing and complaining they finally let me back in. I might of forgotten my user name and pass word. But it was not a simple request to have it all reset. So keep in mind write down your user names and pass words and keep them in a file easy to find so this does not happen to you. Its not easy to have them open up again and your loan information is trapped in internet jail.

I got in and found I have 2 loans though AES. And I am behind a few months too. Not good. But I did start making payments so that is good but not good since I am behind. I see I have 2 loans also. And it seems they take my payment and split it up between the two. Now this does not do much in paying down each loan when you are behind. So I will have to bit the bullet and call them and have this straighten out somehow. 

Looking at these two loans one is only for 265.00 the other 3508.00 right now. This is just 2 loans out of the many I ended up taking out and did not realize it until it was too late. Yes it can happen even to the best of people. To get back to what I am saying. I see a smaller more manageable loan here. 265.00 They only put something like 3.00 toward that loan. That is not nearly enough to do anything in any amount of time. It will take 11 years to get this paid off. Yea not a good option. So while I"m on the phone with the nice people at AES I am going to find out how I can extra payments just toward that loan. Or if I can pay it off just by it self somehow. That would eliminate that one loan off my credit report too. So that is the plan. I'll let you know how it pans out. 

But if I pick up an extra job. Sell enough on ebay or how ever I earn extra income this small thing can work if I do not get some kind of weird run around from the AES about how they can not figure out how to do this. I"m not sure how hard it work be to write a check for that amount and tell them to pay off that loan. But I have dealt with these people before and sometimes it can take 2 or 3 different people to figure out this task. 

For now this is my goal. I"m going to look though the list of other loans though Sallie Mae and pick out the smaller ones and see if its possible to do the same thing. Its easier to pay off the smaller loans then to try to tackle all of them at once as much as possible. At least that is my thinking and logic. We all are looking at one huge number on these loans. I think we should break it down to more manageable numbers for now. 

The only way to find out is it try it and see what happens right? 

Budget Help.

Its a new year and I am looking around to how to make a budget. I got my calendar, took a look at my bills, looked up my student loans and know what our income is. I need to get a detailed list of house hold expenses like grocery, gas, utilities, medications and entertainment. 

One guy I hear of is Dave Ramsey. I came across this free down load http://www.daveramsey.com/blog/free-download-budgeting-guide/    A simple guide to tell me where to start and what to do now. 

Dave Ramsey's method is simply pay off the smallest debt first and work your way up to the biggest debt. There is a few things in there along the way but in the simplest form this is his method. The idea is that when each bill is paid off its motivation to move onto the next one. Taking the amount you paid on the first loan and use it toward the next and so on. I have in a way tried this method before and it does work if you stick to it. But like I said there is more to his method as well. Since I do not have the extra money to purchase his books and DVD I'll be looking for you tube video's and online articles to read up on too see if what he suggest further on will help me get out of this student loan debt asap. 

I love Pintrest!!! What does Pintrest have to do with debt?? I made a board with money saving tips and budget ideas! I can refer back to them when I want. And I do like to read things then go back and look further into what the suggestions are or refresh my memory. So here is the link. http://www.pinterest.com/buster3/money/  Feel free to look me up and I"ll be adding to this board when I see anything of interest.  

When you do not know where to turn find an expert. That is why I looked up Dave Ramsey today. I know of one past due cable bill that I want to pay off this month. So it will be a start toward those student loans in the near future! How to tackle a loan that you know you can not make the monthly payment is scary. Its not impossible but scary. Nothing it impossible. Like I said before when selling stuff on Ebay and Amazon it takes work. The same is true when it comes to these loans. It is going to take work to get them paid off before I"m retired.