January Debt Reduction Update

Well, it's been a month since I officially resolved to get serious about this debt.  In the grand scheme of it all, I suppose I'm doing alright.  I'm not adding any charges to my credit cards, and really I have too little available credit to do any damage even if I wanted to.  I was able to make a $300 payment on one of my maxed accounts this month---it's still over the limit and that amount wasn't even the total minimum payment, but everything I put towards my debt is progress.

Before, my strategy was to pay the closed and maxed accounts because I wanted a continuous decline in my debt.  In other words, I didn't want to clear out some credit on my usable cards, only to run the balance back up when I need gas or feel tempted to get fast food.  Know what I mean?

The downside is that this month I've had to borrow money from my family for gas and expenses I didn't budget properly for.   I've never had to ask anyone for anything and even though I always pay back, I don't like being that person.  So this time I'm allocating some of my money toward my available cards so that I can pay the miscellaneous if need be.

So in short, the good news is that my closed account is now below its credit limit. Also, I can only remember buying fast food three times since the end of December.

The bad news is that I wasn't able to pay as much this month as I had wanted.  We all know how something comes up just when you think you are getting ahead.  This month I got a bonus at work and as soon as it went in my bank account I had to use it for a car repair.

And remember I mentioned earlier about how flighty I can be when it comes to new hobbies....well yeah.  I tried to get into making jewelry, with the hopes of learning how to do it well and selling it eventually.  Another hobby bites the dust!  I spent at least $150 on that, which obviously couldve been put toward my debt.  It turned out not to be my thing, but I wouldn't have known had I not tried.  If you don't know what you're good at you have to see what sticks.

Other than that, I have really fallen off my goal to take my lunch to work.  It feels like it's been a long time since I've done that, but it's actually only been about two weeks where I've been just eating in the cafeteria like old times.   I really need to get back on board.  My plan to drink water instead of buying sodas fell by the wayside but it really is my fault because I've been buying sodas for the house and when I drink them, I don't want water.  I need to go cold turkey....and it would do me some good because I've been noticing some split ends in my hair again.

I went to the grocery store today and spent over $100....basically not caring how much I spent.  But I guess the good thing is that I have food to take to work.

I would go through and give the grand total of my debt as of now, but it would only depress me so maybe next time.  Hopefully I can do better this month.  Being aware is half the battle.

Financial Crunches: Progress, Failures and Near Misses

It's been a little while since I've updated the progress on my endeavor to pay off my current debt.  I haven't put anything more toward the credit card balance (I have a mortgage to pay) but I can talk a little about the lifestyle changes I've been trying to make to reach my goal.

1. Getting rid of cable:  This is a semi-fail.  I wanted to totally give up my cable service so that I could put that money towards my debt. I actually have been without it for this whole week but I decided to turn it back on because 1) I'm really bored at home without it and 2) I couldn't find anywhere to watch my regular shows online.  I got the free trial with Netflix but I think I'm going to cancel that.  I enjoyed watching the two available seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race earlier this week, but among their huge selection of movies, television programs and independent films, I found myself uninterested in much of their offering.  I'm just not much of a movie girl.  I like talk shows, court shows and reality TV and Netflix doesn't offer any of that.

So yeah, I just turned my cable back on tonight--but the good news is that I changed my programming package to the least expensive.  But you know what's even better?  I worried about missing out on the few shows I watch on the higher channels, but I checked and saw that the basic plan DOES include those few channels I watch occasionally.  So I think that's so awesome because even though I reduced my plan, I'm not missing out on the channels I watched before as I expected.  But it also means that I've been paying to have channels I don't watch for a long time. 

2. Grocery Shopping and Eating In:  Everyday last week I took my lunch to work.  I made three casseroles.  Between snacking on them after work and my family partaking when they visited, I had nothing for this past week--the second week.  In other words, I ran out of food to cook and I did eat in the cafeteria at work.  Yeah I could've gone hard and popped open some canned beets and tuna to take to work, but I guess I didn't wanna.  At least I only spent half of what I normally would have in the cafeteria.

But now I know that I need to increase my grocery budget if I want to eat in house between paychecks.  And also the more I build up my cupboards, I won't have to repurchase some things like flour or rice.

I have to say that I'm really excited about learning to cook and eating the product of my work.  I was so proud of myself this week because my lunch was better than anything available in the cafeteria I'd have been paying $5 to eat.  I may have said before that my culinary confidence has been pretty low because everything I cook usually turns out to be inedible, which is why I stopped wasting money on such attempts.

But I am so amped to grocery shop tomorrow and cook up the batch of recipes I have planned for the next two weeks.  Hopefully now I am getting a better idea of how much I really need and what will last.   

3. Selling on Ebay:  I put up my Insanity workout DVD set for sale on Ebay.  The auction ends tomorrow and the price is up to $31.  I think I'll get around $40 for it.  So yay!

4.  Hobbies-The Waiting Money Pit:  I almost did something totally counterproductive to what I'm trying to accomplish here.  In one of my previous posts I mentioned how flighty I can be when it comes to new interests.

So while on Ebay I came across handmade beads.  That led me to research how people actually make them.  Hmm.  If I can learn to do the same thing I can make beads too and sell them and make money to pay off my debts.  Good idea, right?   So I watched a few lampwork videos and read through some glass art discussion boards over the past couple days.  I decided I would read and gather information until my next pay day when I'd go ahead and buy the necessary equipment to do this.   Today I decided that I won't dip my toe into this one.  Lampwork doesn't require a whole lot, but the essentials are expensive if you want to have quality things that you won't grow out of too soon.  I really did want to try my hand at it, but I can see myself being unable to get the hang of this and putting it to the side and wasting money.   And then, what if I learn, but don't get good enough to sell?  Again, a waste.

This was definitely a near-miss but I'm glad I took the time to research, evaluate things and refocus on my goal before acting impulsively.

Well, till next time.  I'll take the little money I get from Ebay and put it on this debt.  Every little bit helps.  

My First Week Settling Into My Debt Diet

For the first time I started bringing my own lunch with me to work this week.  I like this new habit because of course, I'm not spending my money in the cafeteria or on fast food everyday.  And also (surprisingly enough), the dishes I've made have been more satisfying than the selection in the cafeteria anyway.   Seriously the cafeteria has noticeably fallen off of their quality game.

Another thing is that I think I'm gaining confidence with my cooking.  I never really tried to cook my own stuff to take to work because it just wasn't worth the effort.  The food would be jacked up and I'd throw it all out, wasting money.  But someone must have sprinkled some fairy dust on me this time around because my casseroles were pretty awesome.  My family ate half of it. 

So I felt really proud and I think I could possibly become pretty good at cooking as I learn new recipes , and maybe I'll even enjoy it.  All the while keeping some money in my pocket.

About the getting rid of cable thing.....Right now my cable is disabled.  I've been watching Netflix for the past couple days, but I don't think I can give up my TV totally.  If only there were a place to watch regular tv shows on the internet.  Yes, I've searched, but those sites are rinkety dinky and they only have a limited selection.  I need someplace to watch episodes of shows by the day and I don't think I can find that.

And like I said before, the television is my entertainment unless I want to sit up in this computer chair for hours at a time.   I was thinking maybe I could let go of TV and buy an Xbox or Wii, but I thought against that because then I'd be spending $150 a month on games. 

As planned, I think I will downgrade to the basic cable package and save about $20.

For three days in a row, I've kept the heat down to 68 degrees and used my electric blanket.  I have it turned on now only because my family was here earlier. 

Also, I've worked more overtime than ever the past few weeks so my check should look nicer than usual. 

Debt, you're going down!

My Electric Blanket Will Cut My Power and Gas Bills

During the spring and summer months my gas bill is very low--just $10.  I think that's just a maintenance type fee because the only thing that uses gas in my house is the central heating.  When the weather turns cold my gas bill comes to life, increasing along with my electricity bill, too. 

My first winter in my house, I used my electric blanket to keep warm most of the time, only turning up the heat when my family came to visit.  Otherwise I kept the setting down to about 69 degrees, so it rarely kicked on, but kept the house from getting to freezing temperatures.  This really kept my bills low.  It's just me up in here, so as long as I had my electric blanket over me, I kept warm.  That is, until I had to get up and go to the bathroom.  But that's a small price to pay compared to a large power bill. 

I'm just reminded of this, so I am going to dig out the plug to my blanket and turn the heat down tonight.

In a Good Place to Get The Debt Under Control

There's probably not a bad time to try to start tackling debt, but I think the timing is right for me to finally get serious.

First of all I don't have any credit to blow if I wanted, so there's no where to go but down.

And as I take inventory of my lifestyle, I see that I have much of what I need already.  Like I was saying in another post,  I spend more time on the computer than I do watching television.  I used to need the higher cable channels to watch House Hunters and reality shows on VH1 but most those shows don't interest me anymore.  My playlist consists of stuff that airs on the basic channels so I'm seriously considering doing away with my cable service.

Then another couple things I used to splurge on is hair products. I've finally found a routine and set of products that work for my hair and I imagine that they can last me a long time. Also, before I even thought about this debt reduction plan, I have been washing my hair once a month instead of weekly.  I know some may find this disgusting, but it works for my hair type.  It also means that I won't have to spend money on shampoo and conditioner for several months.

For the past 6 months or so, I've been a serious homebody.  It's not as if I did anything before, but I'm actually realizing that I don't care to go anywhere or do much.  Which would explain why I don't really have any concern about buying clothes and shoes. My current wardrobe is scant and bummy, besides my work clothes.  I really do need clothes, but then again, I don't.   So it's a good thing that I don't care about going places right now because then I would need to upgrade and fill in my apparel.

These are a few reasons why the timing to focus on my debt is pretty nice. Really, there's not a lot for me to cut out.  I don't drink or smoke.  I don't have magazine subscriptions or a gym membership to cancel.  There's not much for me to fix besides cooking at home and possibly dropping my cable.  And avoiding buying things when my credit balance decreases, of course.

Prank on Debt Collector. Somebody's Got to do it.

When I was 19 years old I applied and interviewed with a collections company.  I didn't really have a huge understanding of what collections involved, but I needed a job and I was glad to get a call back.  I didn't get the job (I'm a poor interviewee) but looking back I'm so glad I didn't. 

At that point I felt like I had blown my chance at college and that I needed to get a job and stick with it.  I had no plans to go back to school because I had been there and done that.  I feel that if I had landed a job I would probably still be working there and hating it. 

And how depressing would it be to work in collections for years?  I know I would hate it.  Your job is basically to hassle people who don't want to talk to you and ruin their day.   And it's kind of sad because these collections agents are just doing their jobs.

But I found this video where this guy turns the tables on a collector that calls him. Not hilarious, but kind of amusing.

He says: "...but they're eating people!"
She says: "...well this debt is going to eat up your credit report if you don't take care of it."

Compounding Strategy for Paying Minimum Credit Card Payments

Everyone knows that if you pay only the minimum payment every month on a static credit card balance, it could take years to pay off.

The guy in the following video says that if you use a compounding technique to pay the minimum payments, you can pay off a $5000 credit card balance in five years instead of twenty-five years.

His suggestion is to divide the minimum payment in half, and then halve one of the halves to get two quarters.  You would then pay each payment weekly for the first three weeks of the month.

He uses an minimum payment balance of $100.  Divide $100 by 2.  That's $50.  Now divide $50 in half--that's $25.   So you now have three amounts of $50, $25, $25.  He instructs to pay the $50 the first week of the month, $25 the second week, and $25 the third week. 

I'd think you'd have to be about a month ahead to do this because when I don't pay the full minimum when it's due they count it as late.   Also, I don't think I could do this because I'd likely find other ways to spend the money before time to pay for the next week. 

But this may be a good idea to try if you have the discipline and know that all you can afford to squeeze out is a minimum payment.