FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a debt snowflake?

A snowflake is any amount over the minimum payment due.  If you have a minimum payment of $50 and you pay $60, that’s a $10 snowflake.  (It does not mean you only have to pay $40 next time!)

Where do you find snowflakes?

Anywhere and everywhere you can!  Here are some ideas:

• Use coupons at the store, and then take the amount you saved and flake it!
• Change from the sofa cushions, the floor of your car, the sidewalk – hey, finders keepers!
• DON’T buy something and flake what you would have spent.  Skip your morning coffee and add $2 to the flake jar.  Pass by that new *whatever* you really want and flake the amount you would have spent.
• Odd jobs.  I decorate cakes.
• Bartering.  We owed a guy $400 and he needed some repairs done.  DH traded his labor to call the debt even, and when I erased it from my oh-so-detailed debt spreadsheet it was an instant snowflake!
• Sell your stuff.  Yard sales, online forums, you name it.  If it’s not nailed down and no one is sitting on it, sell it.
• Round up payments.  If you owe $62.04, pay $63.  Instant 96 cent flake!

How do you flake?

The short answer is that it’s up to you.  Me, I experience a degree of personal devastation if I can’t flake something – anything – at least once a week.  If I scrounge up change, I go home and flake it the same day I take it to the bank before I have a chance to spend it elsewhere.  Under the same theory, if I flake my coupon savings I head straight to the computer when I get home from the store and do it right then via online bill pay.

No, seriously, how do YOU flake?  ‘Cause you’re still paying late fees and overdraft fees and they don’t call ‘em idiot taxes for nothing.

Okay, here’s the deal.  We are in the red each month.  We don’t have enough regular income to cover the bills.  We don’t have credit cards (or cc bills) so our payments are all fixed in stone until the entire account is paid off.  That essentially means we need thousands of dollars before we have any relief in the monthly obligations!  Earlier this year we knocked out about 10k worth of debt and saved ourselves $175 a month.  That accounted for half our snowflakes right there!  We avoided all the fees and stuff for the first half of the year, but once that disastrous tax bill hit (see the first month of operations around here – we were up to our eyeballs in it when I started the blog) things took a turn toward difficult and we’ve struggled quite a bit since.  I’m currently “forcing”  a $400/mo flake toward the mortgage even though we can’t afford it because we can’t afford to lose the house either!

Under ideal circumstances we would NOT flake if it meant we’d have late or overdraft fees.  We just aren’t under those ideal circumstances so we are doing our best to get the “overhead” down so we can, one day, be in that wonderful little world where ends meet.  In the meantime, anything goes so watch out.  It hits the fan on a regular basis around here!

If you don’t have credit cards, what kind of bills do you have?

Loans.  Loans, loans.  Ugh!  Here’s the breakdown.

1. Mortgages (ours and my mom’s)
2. Auto loan #1
3. Auto loan #2
4. Loan secured by auto (not technically an auto loan, LOL)
5. Loan for work equipment for DH (ridiculous interest rate)
6. Loan from family members (they don’t seem to care but I’d love to be able to pay this off ASAP)
7. “Old stuff” (Miscellaneous debts that aren’t even calling anymore, but they’re still on my list)
8. Other (past due property taxes and other cost of living debts we have no control over)

And in addition to that, of course, we have living expenses like utilities, gas for the cars, groceries, etc.  Other than the grocery bill, we have NO fat in our budget.  We don’t eat beans every night so obviously we could cut down, but if DH doesn’t get steak every now and then he’ll lose his will to live.  It’s our one luxury, so we enjoy it.  =c)

What are those accounts under “monthly goals” about?

Here’s the explanation lifted from the original post.

• EF is the emergency fund.  We have a hard time keeping money in it because we always NEED the money thanks to our monthly shortage.  I’m trying to toss pennies at it and ignore the fact that it’s there.  In fact, DH told me NOT to mention it.  If we have money saved anywhere, he doesn’t want to know a thing about it.  Fine with me!
• The SF is the sinking fund for local taxes.  We have to pay quarterly real estate taxes and annual personal property (vehicle) taxes.  We’ve never done a stellar job of saving for either for the same reason we can’t seem to keep an EF – it doesn’t make sense to lose the house when we’re sitting on money we’ll need in three months!
• Taxes – We usually get a nice tax refund and use that to pad the taxes we owe on DH’s side work.  This year we are trying to save 30% of his side money to cover those taxes we’ll owe.  I don’t think we’ll actually make the 30% mark, but any attempts at saving will not fall flat.  IF we can’t cover the tax bill, we’ll have more money.  If the cushion covers the tax bill, then we’ll have a decent amount of savings.  Eventually, if we prove ourselves to be good at this, we’ll reduce our withholding so the IRS doesn’t get that free loan.  In the meantime, I’d rather give them a free loan than pay them interest when we can’t cover our bill!