Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

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SandiSAHM
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Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

Post by SandiSAHM »

Projections for the end of February bring us to 32.862% of goal, total. So... just shy of 5% should be added to the savings account over the course of February *IF* nothing weird happens to the plan.

I have just a little OCD, so naturally my brain says, "Hey, San - that means you'll have to save the other 67.138% in just ten short months... roughly 6.714% - at least '$$$' every month for ten months!" (my brain does this in %s and $s down to the day - adjusting for the # of days in a month - it's really aggravating. :lol:)

I remembered that at the end of March we have to pay Geico the 6-month insurance premium for the 3 vehicles / 3 drivers. Having a teenaged driver - whoo!! That's some bucks! So the end of March will join the middle of march in being no picnic to eek through. April will have to make up for March!

I might pay Geico with a cc - they don't care, there's no upcharge, it's 2% back with Citi, and defers the actual payment, shoving the hit over into April. Hmm. 2% is better than 0%, I think I'll use the card and pay it off in April.

Tracking expenses has led to plenty of no spend days - they know they have to confess for the purpose of the spreadsheet, so they don't spend!
SandiSAHM
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Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

Post by SandiSAHM »

Have to renew registration for the two newest vehicles in March, too. Along with the vacation and the 6-mo auto insurance hit. Remind me never to buy another vehicle in March :lol:

I feel sort of "hamstrung" - the friend fighting cancer through alternative methods is 1) losing the fight and 2) looking for funding to try different alternative methods. Simultaneously two kids (they're 22, not kids in the 'minors' sense but kids in the experience sense) we know who are here on visas have been invited to take a vacation from school due to one being severely depressed and not all that functional in the academic sense (not sure why the other one, they're twins, was invited to leave, until they get back to town that conversation won't be had - did she just decide to be wherever her sister is, or is she also struggling academically?) - at any rate, they've been all but abandoned stateside, I'm not sure what their visa status is if they're not actively IN school, and they've never held "real" jobs. What on earth WILL they do? They have somehow decided to lodge with someone who is not the world's best representative of how to hold down a job, not wreck vehicles routinely and how not to get evicted on a regular basis. I suppose the appeal is that she doesn't "parent" them, but she does use them as free labor. Problem is she's so far away that even trying to help them get transportation to job interviews - we're too far to help with that. Neither drives. We've poured a lot of money into their maintenance and educations, not begrudging that but wondering how, with everything else, we're going to be able to help now. Handing them money would probably just mean they'd hand it to their housemate and I don't trust her to not do something unintelligent with it.

I wish I knew more about how educational grants and scholarships work; though I'm not sure the rules would even be the same for students who are citizens of other countries whose high school diploma equivalents weren't obtained here and I'm not sure about which, if any, of the courses they've taken can have their credits transferred to another school. Or how, out of school and with no insurance, the depression can be tackled appropriately.

Why does everything have to happen at the SAME TIME?!?
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LWolfT
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Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:46 am

Re: Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

Post by LWolfT »

Sandi, I have to ask: Do these kiddos have parents (or family) that can help/are even aware of this?

I'm no expert (and someone else might be more helpful) but it sounds like they need some legal advice/research. You mention jobs ... can they even legally work under a student visa? Can you get one of them to tell you if the university gave them any kind of information/paperwork on what happens visa-wise once they leave? It would be a lot easier if you knew what the playing field looked like.

I'm sorry, it's hard with the universe dumps everything at once. And sometimes, there's only so much you can do, so don't beat yourself up.





floridacatlover
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Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 7:21 am

Re: Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

Post by floridacatlover »

Not to add more to your plate, but I agree with LWolfT that these young people need legal advice.

It’s been years, but I had a good friend here on a diplomatic visa (father a diplomat) and attending George Washington University. She dropped out and decided to just stay in the U.S. and was able to live under the radar for about two years. She had lived much of her life in the U.S. in D.C. and New York and was desperate not to go “home” to South Korea. This was a big mistake and she was deported.
SandiSAHM
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Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

Post by SandiSAHM »

LWolfT wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 8:41 am Sandi, I have to ask: Do these kiddos have parents (or family) that can help/are even aware of this?

I'm no expert (and someone else might be more helpful) but it sounds like they need some legal advice/research. You mention jobs ... can they even legally work under a student visa? Can you get one of them to tell you if the university gave them any kind of information/paperwork on what happens visa-wise once they leave? It would be a lot easier if you knew what the playing field looked like.

I'm sorry, it's hard with the universe dumps everything at once. And sometimes, there's only so much you can do, so don't beat yourself up.
They were raised solely by their mother, who saw no future for them in their native country so she up and shipped them to their father when they were barely 17 (right after they'd gotten out of high school in their country). Their father, having left all of them all before the kids were a year old, barely has anything to do with them - he doesn't even really want them in his house, which is why their current plan is to stay with a friend once they're back in the state. The guy is a fool, these are the sweetest people I've ever met - to have kids like that and not step up... It's not as though with his job he can't afford to help them, he's had no other children, he's married, has space enough for everyone.

I have the feeling they were kind of taken advantage of by the school (work-your-way through with a lot of emphasis on WORK and very little on the educational side), it's a small organization we'd warned them against signing on with, but the whole 'work through' thing is terribly appealing to people who have nothing but work to offer; they have zero $ and resources at this point. Initially they had planned, when finished, to go to work for an organization that places English-speaking teachers in a northeast Asian country (they're not Asian, it's actually much farther from 'home' for them to be in Asia than it is to be here) - but I told them, it sounds a little like indentured servitude to me... (seriously, they place teachers, but the schools don't pay the teachers, they pay the placement company, which then houses and feeds the teachers but... there's no real "income" - this is crazy, English-speaking teachers in that Asian country make bank, it's a very progressive and open place).

I'm scared for them, but they're "grown," and get a lot of "advice" from a lot of people and sorting through good and bad advice.... I fear they gravitate a bit to what sounds "easy." Naturally BAD ideas always sound easier than legit ideas.

As for their visas and info from the school, I can (and have) asked for info, but I can't demand it and I think they're feeling sort of exhausted right now, particularly the one with depression. I expect they'll not accomplish much for a while.

They can't go home - they're broke. I can pay their way home, should they choose (haven't offered, but I think seeing their Mom and getting some home cooking and familial "oomph" would be good for them, they haven't been back since being sent here), and can do a round-trip thing, but once they're there, I'm not even sure coming back here would accomplish anything, they'd still be broke, jobless, and not in school.

And really.... where they're from is my idea of paradise (clean beaches!!!), once there I can't imagine wanting to leave. Though I will concede there is little to no way "up" for younger uneducated folks. I'm not sure there's anywhere but the hospitality industry for people there even with an MBA or something. Teachers and hotel / restaurant management might fair well - when there isn't a pandemic. Everyone else?

I need to research that, too.

I'm not beating myself up, but I do kind of want to yell at people who should have been more responsible towards them. There should have been a PLAN, and funding, thought through before this all got started.
SandiSAHM
Posts: 2263
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Sandi's 2021 Planned $avings Challenge

Post by SandiSAHM »

We played "Chopped" tonight - DH and I had reached the end of our healthy food rope and, trapped in our own house by a pending snowstorm and bad roads and lacking taco shells... ended up making empanadas from GF pizza dough, veggie ground "meat" (the stuff we use to make tacos) which is also GF, some cheese, onion, salsa, refried beans... Wow. We have discovered amazing goodness :lol:

We wanted comforting warm food. Last night we did a broccoli and peppers-heavy stir fry with shirataki "rice" and that, while super low carb and nutrient-forward (and hot! - which, yesterday, was the point) wasn't exactly "filling" and we fell into the "something heavier" trap tonight. Sigh. Oh well.

We are OUT OF SALAD greens. Which is nearly unheard of, and the last time DH went to run the grocery gauntlet, there was only baby spinach, which we are also now out of. I'm having salad withdrawal!

This has likely blown my blood sugar sky high.
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