Intro + two questions

[jenett]

Hi there! Great idea (and name) for a community. I'm Jenett, and last spring I finally got the real adult-paying job to go with the Master's in Library Science (I'm the teacher librarian at an independent high school.) Before that, I was a (much less well paid) library assistant at the same school - great experience, but hard on my finances. I've lived in Minnesota for the last 10.5 years, and love it here.

- Various money decisions during my marriage + subsequent divorce were not really kind to my finances, and I spent about 4 years living on a painfully tight budget as a result.
- BUT! I'm 2 months away from paying off more than $25,000 in debt. (I still have student loan debt, but I'm a lot less worried about that one.)
- And I've now got enough money that I can look at all sorts of fun long-term planning. Yay!


Budget tracking

I'm playing with different budget programs and trying to find one I really like and update regularly.

I'm currently checking a trial of You Need A Budget - it's got a high pricetag ($60), but it builds a bunch of rules I very much like into the process, which I think might be worth it for me, especially the way it handles budgeting and tracking together, including rolling over budget amounts to the next month. Detailed review of YNAB 3 here.)

Switching to a credit union
I've got a recommendation from my former boss for a credit union focused on educators, and I'm working on setting up an appointment to talk to them. Any advice, though, on changing over to a credit union is most welcome! (Especially the part about changing over all my automatic payments without tearing my hair out, though I'll probably wait till summer break to do that.)

Replacing my car
My car is going on 11 years old, and it's time to look at replacements (sometime this summer.) I'm still undecided whether it's going to be a new car, or - more likely - a recent used car. Part of why I want to do the credit union thing now is that I'd like to see what they'll do for me re: a loan.

If you have a compact-ish sedan you're really happy with, feel free to tell me about it - my current car is a Saturn SL2, which I love, but since Saturn isn't a good option going forward, need to figure out what is. (Going carless isn't an option for me for health and other practical reasons.)

I'm at the stage where I'd like to look at buying a house in the next 2-3 years.
I currently rent, and love my landlady, but my current place is tiny (400 square feet), and places severe limits on some important things. (You can read more about my religious life over here, but the brief version is that I do in-house ritual and teaching with a small group on a regular basis, and a 8x10 foot front room just isn't ideal when all the furniture also has to be moveable for ritual.) So, a big goal of the next few years is going to be saving up a down payment.

Health fun
I'm finally coming out of a long stretch of feeling really lousy (current diagnosis is Vitamin D deficiency and subclinical hypothyroid). One of the things I've found that has helped is swimming regularly (fortunately, there's a YWCA about a mile and a half away on my route to/from work)

But I'm also looking at other things I can do for my health - everything from some cooking skills that would make eating better after work easier (I have a new crockpot but am still learning how to use it best) to looking at budgeting for body work, to making sure I budget for doctor bills.

(I have a sort of weird health insurance: my work pays for the first $1000 minus copays for medication and such, I pay for any costs between $1000 and $2500, and then the insurance kicks in again. I'm currently in that middle ground, but ideally want to end up with a nice buffer for next fiscal year in case it's needed, as right now, it's eating money that could go into savings instead, and I need to make payments in sizeable chunks after appointments.)

Health suggestions can be tricky, but I'm fine with ideas from people who assume that I've already given these issues plenty of thought. (And that there's some stuff that won't work for me that I'm not bothering to list out right now.)

Comments

[holyschist]

I'm in the process of switching to a credit union right now--I had set up the accounts last year, but only had the mental energy now to do the switching. It hasn't been so bad, aside from me being an idiot and not correctly checking the limit on the new credit card before trying to transfer the balance!

Not all credit unions are created equal--many are way, way better than banks, some are not. But the actual switch process has been really easy: set up credit union accounts, wait for all pending transactions and checks to clear with bank, close bank accounts, deposit money in credit union accounts. If you're transferring a credit card balance, the credit union will give you special checks to use--you just write the check to the bank for the full balance and a few days later it shows up on the credit union cc (just be sure, unlike me, that the balance is smaller than the credit limit).

I wish I had an idea on how to change automatic payments without tearing hair out, but I'm in process right now and it's ANNOYING. But that aside, I am feeling really good about the switch! The credit union has astronomically better interest rates, fewer and smaller fees, and better customer service (the bank blatantly did not give a shit about me as a customer, since I am not rich). Also, they were the ONLY financial institution who would give me a car loan, even with a cosigner, so <3 to them.

[holyschist]

Actually, the one thing I'd add about automatic payments: find out when you set up your accounts what account number to use for payments from your checking account. It may not be the one on the check (or on your statement).