refinanced and in the red

I called around to a few banks looking for a lower interest rate on my car loan. I called my bank and they said they could drop it to 6.5%, down from 7%. How white of you, thank you. Here, slap the other cheek just so I can have a matched pair. Found a bank that offered me 5.75% which is the best I was able to find. So the next day I hot-footed it over there and got it all taken care of.

My payments had been $300 a month but with the new loan I stetched the term to 36 month and now have a $215/mo loan. This way I can put an extra $80 on the priciple every month since I'm already budgeted for that amount, and when things get tight, (like that have been this month) I don't have to worry about defaulting.

I was rambling on about this to Scott over the phone last week. He said he was very happy that I knew about budgets and money. His ex didn't. She had 5 or 6 jobs a year and spent a lot of money. It wasn't until after they were divorced that she called to thank him about being so anal about staying on a budget so she could spend and still come home to a warm house and dinner.

Then today I checked my balance and my online credit card payment went through a day before I expected it to, and it showed me as being $13 in the red. ACK!

So I called the bank to find out how much the overdraft charge would be. She said I'm not technially overdrawn right now, if I can make a deposit by closing time, then I will stay in the black. So I moved over $40 so I could cover the credit card payment and get groceries. And sometime between midnight tonight and Friday my paycheck will be deposited. YES!!!!!!!

And for the first time in many months I'll have a nice cushion and not worry about asking mom for more money.