I don't want to talk about the recent personal issues in my life but I do want to blog a finance update.

All my April auctions have ended. I do have a few that will end next Friday which is technically still April but since I count Saturdays (the day I ship) I will consider those the first week of May.

I had a person pay $38.50 for a 2 disc cd. I had another person pay $18.50 for a 1 disc cd. Who knew that the random collection of old cartoon soundtracks I had in my basement gathering dust was this valuable?

Anyway, the grand total for April wound up being...

$495.62

Best month yet. I am $138 away from my $6000 savings goal. Then I am going to hold off on aggresive saving and get toward aggresive debt payment. That 12K loan will be gone in no time.

Prior to December of 2009, I had no savings. I literally had $0 cash. Now I have almost $6000. I am excited.

I also still have over $840 in checking and all my expenses for the month have been paid. I get another paycheck April 30. So that $840 is basically checking account buffer for now. Once I pay everything due the first two weeks of May, I'll probably make a transfer of $138 to savings.

It would be nice if just once something in my life could go right.

I am being forced to move now. There goes my entire savings. I was so happy that I saved up $3000 this year to start my savings, finally and now almost all of it will be gone.

My plan was to stay where I was until at least the end of this year, paying only $400 to live with my roommate. My roommate owns the house. But lately, we have not been getting along, to the point that I am afraid to go home out of fear of being yelled at. Yesterday he flipped out and called me vulgar names because I took a shower in the morning instead of at night like I usually do. Today I slept in a bit so I could avoid running into him and then he barged into my room and demanded to know when I was getting up because he needed to take a shower. Then he yelled at me because I wouldn't clean up his dog's vomit (I would have but I was running late…)

The dog used to be both of ours, but then just his when I decided I'd be moving before the dog passed away. I love the dog but it was decided after my own dog died and after I decided to move before the end of the dogs natural life that the dog would do best living in a big house, with my roommate when I eventually moved to a smaller place.

My roommate no longer wants my fiance to stay over on weekends (which I understand) and since my fiance lives with noisy people (which I can't be around--see my prior blog) and a bunch of cats which I am deathly allergic to, I can not go to his house ever. Last time (the only time) I tried I stopped breathing. It was horrible. Roommate has said that he will literally call the police the next time fiance is over for more than a day and have him removed. Um? Not sure if that is even legal.

I should point out when fiance is over, we almost never leave my room. We eat our meals on an enclosed porch so as not to bother my roommate in the kitchen. We only cook after roommate is done. My fiance does the dishes, dusts, vaccums, and generally does more cleaning around the house than myself or my roommate combined. Because of my noise issues, we do not make any noise like loud tvs, music etc.

I have to move alone. This is hard because I can’t be in a noisy area. My earplugs only control so much. I was okay living with a roommate I knew but moving in with strangers is not something I can handle.

Fiance can't move with me. Not for at least 3 to 5 years. He has no money and is chained to a worthless house that he can't even attempt to sell for (at least) 3 years because of a lawsuit attached to it. He won't walk away from it (even though financial advisors have told him that is really the best/only option in his case) because he doesn't want to hurt his brothers (they co-own). He's tried to rent his room but no one wants it. It's basically like we're not even planning a life together and I have to do everything by myself anyway. We hope his house & the lawsuit will be behind us within 5 years so we can start our life together. We are 33 & 36. A five year wait is hard at our ages but there is no other choice.

If I take another roommate, chances are that roommate will be even less tolerant of him being there on weekends.

So my rent will double, probably more than double, in less than a month. I will need to use almost all of my savings for 1st, last, security. The absolute cheapest, suitable 1BR apartment I have seen so far costs $750. It is in a town where my auto insurance will go up $47 a month. It is a longer commute. I will also have to look into paying more for heat and electric (currently my utility is $139 for gas only) and I will have to pay for at least internet to continue my ebay business. The average 1BR apartment I have seen runs between $800-$900 for a decent, safe area.

I do not know what to do. I already work out of the house between 6:30 AM - 7:00 PM (taking commute time into account). This job pays me just under 50K a year in MA. I work my Ebay stuff between 7:30-10:00 pm 2 or 3 nights a week. I handle packing/ shipping for Ebay Saturdays between 9:00-12 AM. I make about $400 a month with this. Taking an after-work job would be tough because I get home so late. I suppose I could try to take another job in the city but I likely would not get home those nights until 11 PM, and it would cost me to commute to the city on weekends.

My average bi-weekly paycheck that I can count on is $1221. So $2442/mo. I can generally count on no less than $200/mo for Ebay though it's not guaranteed. So far this year, it's been $400+ each month but there will obviously be months when I run out of stuff to sell. So I call my income $2642 for now.

My current bills (in order of due date) are:
$105 / parking
$400 / rent
$139 / gas
$227 / car
$288/ loan
$15 / prescription
$90.10 / insurance (combo renters/auto)
$75 / misc bills that pop up (medical/excise tax/car repair etc.)

This comes to $1339.10 ($1340) per month. Before food and gas. I don't drive my car except for to work. I eat mac & cheese & ramen. I don't buy clothes or wants. I don't go out.

I only have $1100 or so left over after these bills with my GUARANTEED income. $1300 left over with my almost certain Ebay added in.

Using only my guaranteed income, if I were to suddenly have to pay $800 for rent, and let's assume $300 for gas/electric/internet and ran out of stuff to sell on Ebay, I would be left with only $539 for gas/food/savings. I would have next to nothing for savings or e-fund.

OMG. What do I do?

I posted earlier that my total for March was $387. Well, I made an extra $46 tonight.

$433 is my total. Best month yet since I started keeping track.

One year ago, I was over $25,000 in debt, primarily from a vetrinary surgery I wish I hadn't paid for (the dog died anyway) and extremely foolish car repair for a vehicle I no longer have.

A year later, I am down to $12,500 total debt and a credit score in the upper 700's. Extra work, hard work, and giving up most of my personal belongings got me out of trouble.

I am focused 100% of my finances at this point in my life. Nothing else matters right now. Nothing else can matter. I am already middle aged and have very little to show for my life. So right now, the focus is building my bank account up.

I have no one to help me and I believe strongly that people need to make their own life. Alone.

You can't count on anyone to help you financially in life but yourself.

I think there was a time when I was younger that I thought my wealthy parents would help me. Well, they bought my younger brother a house, car, remodeling, home theater etc. and lavish him with expensive gifts. I am given nothing. Reality hit hard a few years ago that I would not get the same treatment as my brother and I began really focusing on making my own way.

There was a time I thought one day I'd get married and two incomes would be better than one. But it turned out, when I got engaged, that was anything but true and I was looking at not only supporting myself, but supporting another person on my income as well. It hurt like hell, but I decided to be logical and hold off.

You can not count on anyone.

I will never turn to the government to assist me either. For the rest of my life, money and security will be my main focus and I have never been happier. I feel like I am on the right path.

$12,500 on a personal loan that will be gone in 2 years and I am currently able to save close to $1000 a month. Someday, I hope to be able to move to a cheaper area and buy a house with mostly cash.

As my debt and savings go up, I will update here and tell how I did it.