At work yesterday our boss let us know that the store is no longer going to be open on Sundays - we extended our hours about 3 months ago, but the sales that day are so horribly low it doesn't even cover the cost of our being there. So it makes sense. I work for a non-profit, and it's no use burning up money that could be funding programs to employ us when there are no customers in the store. I'm obviously a bit sad to lose the hours - but at the same time I'm thankful to have a bit more time now that my photography is starting to pick up. It's a matter of losing about 5 hours a week. If I can use those hours productively, it'll balance out for the better in the end.
Also, I'm excited to have my Sundays back. As things have picked up, I'm finding myself needing to adjust again. When I was just running my business I had my flow. But cutting 15-20 hours out of my work-week, working on my feet on concrete has not only messed with my flow, but also my energy levels. Turns out I'm not as young as I used to be 
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Filled up my tank yesterday. Shouldn't be doing any spending today. Had my BNI presentation this morning, and it went pretty well. Finished up a proposal for a fellow member who wants me to build her a website. Would be a great project. Have two shoots in the works for the next couple of weeks and 3 one-on-one meetings scheduled. So networking is going well.
Had a meeting with another member earlier this week - a banker. He's planning to schedule a shoot as well, and I started talking with him about my student loan situation. After sending over some information, it looks like I might have some options! I have about $40k in student loans, with interests rates sitting around 9%. He said we should be able to refinance somewhere in the range of 5-7%, so that's exceptionally encouraging. Fixed rate, a balance that actually goes down every month? Pretty exciting to think about. So I'm having him run some numbers and we'll see what happens. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is the fact that when I do refinance, my "student loans" I assume turn into mere "bank loans." I'm not sure how lenders look at that, and I'm curious if that affects anything moving forward. Either way, however, it feels like cutting my interest in almost half, if possible, is the only logical decision to make there.
The conversation about my debt with DH is always a strained one, for obvious reasons. I know he's willing to cosign, etc. But he has no debt outside of an auto loan, and I don't think either of us is naive enough to dismiss the (minute) possibility of the "D-word" at some point. Obviously, neither of us wants that - but we're also realistic and understand that we just don't know what the future holds. It's really strange managing money as a married couple. I feel like it's getting better, but it's just so emotional and complicated. I have faith, though, that we'll arrive at a place that makes sense and allows us both to feel comfortable in the decision.
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No other news except that DH did finally transfer the money from his HSA to cover his dental appointment last month. So that's taken care of. Just need to start attacking some of the other items on my to-do list! Time to get to work!
Good and Bad News
January 19th, 2017 at 04:41 pm
January 19th, 2017 at 04:55 pm 1484844941
On the other hand, my husband had over $10K in credit card debt from a failed business when we married. I was aware of it, and was super focused on getting that paid off during our first year of marriage. His mother actually cosigned a loan for him prior to marriage so it wasn't all on credit cards. I never looked at it as something I shouldn't help with. If we were going to be successful and financially stable in our marriage that debt had to go. His mother was shocked when a year later we told her it was paid off and she didn't need to ever worry about that again!
January 19th, 2017 at 06:37 pm 1484851036
January 22nd, 2017 at 07:50 pm 1485114616
I don't like the d word myself, but I'm starting to wish we'd done a prenup.
Anyway, money can be such a divisive issue, even when you think you're on the same page. I'd be very leary of having *anyone* co-sign a loan for me who's not a blood relative. And that would only be due to knowing I'd pay it off, come hell or high water.
March 10th, 2017 at 09:14 am 1489137256