My Goal is to have in between $3000 and $4000 in the bank on 7/1/08 so I want to ask

[AccountAnalyzer]

What should I do now in my current situation? I have $1000 in my savings and my cable, Gas, and electric bill total up to $660. So should I lower my account and pay the money I owe to my bills in full and start over from $500 or do I just continue to save and send partial each month?

[Seeker]

What should I do now in my current situation? I have $1000 in my savings and my cable, Gas, and electric bill total up to $660. So should I lower my account and pay the money I owe to my bills in full and start over from $500 or do I just continue to save and send partial each month?

What interest rate are you paying to carry forward your balance month-to-month?

What interest rate are you earning on your savings?

If your interest rate on savings is lower than the interest you are paying to carry forward, then you should probably pay off your bills.

Do you have an income?

Do you have a budget?

And do you have an Emergency Fund setup?

[AccountAnalyzer]

What interest rate are you paying to carry forward your balance month-to-month?

What interest rate are you earning on your savings?

If your interest rate on savings is lower than the interest you are paying to carry forward, then you should probably pay off your bills.

Do you have an income?

Do you have a budget?

And do you have an Emergency Fund setup?

The $1000 is my Emergency Fund setup

[disneysteve]

I just want to be clear. Are you saying that you haven't been paying your cable, gas and electric bills in full every month? If so, I don't care what the interest rate is. You are living WAY beyond your means if you can't stay current on your utility bills and you certainly can't afford cable right now (no, cable is not a utility - it is a luxury item). Pay those bills off, cancel the cable and get yourself on a budget that fits your income.

If I've misread this and I'm not properly understanding your question, I apologize. Please clear it up for me.

[AccountAnalyzer]

I just want to be clear. Are you saying that you haven't been paying your cable, gas and electric bills in full every month? If so, I don't care what the interest rate is. You are living WAY beyond your means if you can't stay current on your utility bills and you certainly can't afford cable right now (no, cable is not a utility - it is a luxury item). Pay those bills off, cancel the cable and get yourself on a budget that fits your income.

If I've misread this and I'm not properly understanding your question, I apologize. Please clear it up for me.

Yeah I think I need to start but I just wanted to get my emergency account over $2000 again and then pay the bills out of my regular pay check. Most people I know don't pay utility bills in full every month because they want to buy something for theirself. But in my case I have the mone but don';t want my emergency account to fall to $400

[Aleta]

Without knowing more, it's difficult to give you advice. First of all, we need to know if you are married, any children, live with someone, or alone. If you have a job, do you contribute to your 401K plan at work?

First, you have to list your income. Next, list all of your expenses. List any savings that you contribute to. Subtract your expenses from your income and see what your net left over is. Unless you have some kind of spending plan, you'll never know where you are. Also, you need to list any debts and the ones that are behind.

After you have done this, you will have to look at your expenses to see what you can cut down on or to cut out for now in order to get yourself back on track.

I know that everyone is hearing about an emergency fund now but that isn't about having money there for unpaid bills.

You will have to elaborate more in order to get better feedback.

[disneysteve]

Most people I know don't pay utility bills in full every month because they want to buy something for theirself.

What an incredibly sad statement. Not that I find it hard to believe, unfortunately, but - wow. That is a HUGE problem. If people can't even pay for their basic needs, they are in serious, serious trouble.

I know that everyone is hearing about an emergency fund now but that isn't about having money there for unpaid bills.

And you can't build up your EF by letting bills go unpaid. That makes no sense at all.

Pay off the bills - period. And from now on, continue to pay all of your bills in full each and every month and pay them on time. If you don't have enough money available to do this, then you need to reduce your bills and/or increase your income. There is no other solution. You can't keep living at a deficit.

[AccountAnalyzer]

What an incredibly sad statement. Not that I find it hard to believe, unfortunately, but - wow. That is a HUGE problem. If people can't even pay for their basic needs, they are in serious, serious trouble.

And you can't build up your EF by letting bills go unpaid. That makes no sense at all.

Pay off the bills - period. And from now on, continue to pay all of your bills in full each and every month and pay them on time. If you don't have enough money available to do this, then you need to reduce your bills and/or increase your income. There is no other solution. You can't keep living at a deficit.

That makes sense, out of the 3 bills I will pay off the Gas bill in Full. Don't want to do all three at one time. Maybe on the 1st of April I can pay off in full another bill and repeat the same in May.

[nanamom]

Planning how to pay off the bills is a great start, but it is equally important that you get on a budget so that you don't have to use your emergency fund for utilities in the future. I think everyone on here would encourage you to have an EF. However pay the bills first and if there isn't money left after you do that. then you need to find other ways of making that happen, maybe another job, or selling something, or cutting down spending, or canceling cable (not a utility as someone already said). There are lots of ways mentioned on other threads I'm sure.

[AccountAnalyzer]

Planning how to pay off the bills is a great start, but it is equally important that you get on a budget so that you don't have to use your emergency fund for utilities in the future. I think everyone on here would encourage you to have an EF. However pay the bills first and if there isn't money left after you do that. then you need to find other ways of making that happen, maybe another job, or selling something, or cutting down spending, or canceling cable (not a utility as someone already said). There are lots of ways mentioned on other threads I'm sure.

Yeah I agree, The emergency Fund is not for paying bills, I just decided to do it now so that I can save more money 2 months from now when the bills are much lower. I decided to take $300 from my EF and pay some bills and I get paid in 2 weeks and can just push iback to $1300 and from there pay all bills from my primary account

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Most people I know don't pay utility bills in full every month because they want to buy something for theirself. But in my case I have the mone but don';t want my emergency account to fall to $400

Don't do what most people around you are doing if what they are doing is not paying what they owe so that they can spend the money to buy something for themselves. Those people are never going to drag themselves out of poverty. They live crappy lives and you want to live better than that.

Start living better by paying for what you took. You already took the utilities and cable, so pay for it. Then start to get ahead by no longer buying anything that you do not pay for the day you buy it. With your utilities, pay them the day the bill comes.

Cut back on your spending to build up your savings. There are probably things you can cut back on. Beer? Cut back some and out the money in your savings account. Cable? Cancel it and put the money in your savings. I don't know how you live your life, so I can't know exactly where you can cut back to save some money to put into your emergency savings. But you should be able to see it.

The other thing you can do to get some emergency savings is to get another part time job and put all the earnings into savings--after paying your bills.

If an emergency came along-- like, if you lost your job, what would you use the emergency savings for? Wouldn't it be for paying your bills? So if you cannot pay your bills now, shouldn't you be using that emergency fund? Pay your bills and _save_ by cutting out the extras and by getting more employment or better paying employment in order to build up an emergency savings fund.

And one last comment. 99% of us do pay our utility bills. Every single one of them. On time. Move away from people who set such a bad example, if you need to. Learn to live differently than you have been if you want to be more secure and successful in your finances.

[disneysteve]

That makes sense, out of the 3 bills I will pay off the Gas bill in Full. Don't want to do all three at one time.

Why not?!? What possible reason is there to not pay your bills when you already have the cash sitting in your account? Take the money out and pay your bills. Get that out of the way. You can't really move forward with a financial plan while unpaid bills are outstanding.

Once the bills are paid, then do what we've all suggested. Take an item by item look at your current spending. Figure out where you can cut back. Maybe you need to cancel cable. Maybe you just need to cut back to the basic package. Perhaps some changes to your food budget - less eating out, more cooking from scratch. Fewer brand names and more store brands. Without seeing your current expenses, we can't give specific advice, but if you review your spending for a month, you can then break it down into Wants and Needs. Trim back or eliminate things on the Wants list. You can't eliminate the Needs but you can often cut back on them.

[AccountAnalyzer]

Why not?!? What possible reason is there to not pay your bills when you already have the cash sitting in your account? Take the money out and pay your bills. Get that out of the way. You can't really move forward with a financial plan while unpaid bills are outstanding.

Once the bills are paid, then do what we've all suggested. Take an item by item look at your current spending. Figure out where you can cut back. Maybe you need to cancel cable. Maybe you just need to cut back to the basic package. Perhaps some changes to your food budget - less eating out, more cooking from scratch. Fewer brand names and more store brands. Without seeing your current expenses, we can't give specific advice, but if you review your spending for a month, you can then break it down into Wants and Needs. Trim back or eliminate things on the Wants list. You can't eliminate the Needs but you can often cut back on them.

Well I like to leave a little money around for FUN but I think I can knock out two Bills. The Electric is $275 and Gas is $130 so that's $405 I will knock off my Bills and won't have to worry about paying those bills again until mid april.

[disneysteve]

Well I like to leave a little money around for FUN

You can't afford fun when you are $600 behind in paying your bills.

I'm curious. How much is your monthly cable bill? Not the outstanding amount but the actual monthly charge.

[AccountAnalyzer]

You can't afford fun when you are $600 behind in paying your bills.

I'm curious. How much is your monthly cable bill? Not the outstanding amount but the actual monthly charge.

$160 but with the Sports package it was $205 the last 3 months