I don’t really follow Suze Orman, but I think her new advice is good advice. Now is definitely the time to start saving as much as you can, and only make the minimum payments on debt. With all the layoffs and companys that have closed, it’s scary not to have a well funded Emergency Fund. I only make the basic payments on my debt now. The rest goes to savings. I also just consolidated my student loans again. I had consolidated my original student loans when I was in college the first time. I hadn’t done anything with the new loans I had when I started school the second time. Through the consolidation, I will save an extra $40 a month. My payment is changing from $187.28 to $141.61. This is a very good thing for me.
Posts tagged Debt
Spending Report 11-30to12-7
Clothing – $19.38
Accessories - $23.50
Personal Hygiene – $7.90
Pets – $39.28
Dining out – $31.62
Soda – $7.35
Entertainment – $47.31
Fuel – $ 24.11
Office supplies – $23.83
Debt – $372.72
Cell phone – $167.62
Total – $764.63
No Spend Days – 2 (11/29 and 12/4)
Tempting Emails
J. Money over at Bugets are Sexy, wrote an interesting post yesterday. Although I can happily say that I’ve never spent $40.00 on “Bling Water,” I’ve definitely had my fair share of emails trying to get me to part with my dear sweet money. One in fact just happened today. My brother and I have a cell phone family share plan. He received an email letting us know that we could renew our contract and upgrade our phones as a “holiday special.” This sent my brother into a frenzy. He’s been wanting a new cell phone for ages now. Sadly, he’s just like me. We LOVE technology, and we love the better, faster, smarter, easier cell phones. Since I’m the primary accountholder, I have to go be the one to actually renew our contract. At first, I had no intention of getting a new phone. I haven’t had my PDA for all that long; though it is an outdated version. Then my brother’s excited frenzy started to shake my money-saving-debt-paying resolve, and I began to cave. I have been saving my coins, dollars, and any unexpected money in a wooden bank. This money started to look like the money I would use to get a new phone. So on our way we went to the local store; money in hand….
Luckily dear readers, my story has a happy ending. It turns out that the customer service representative at the store could not find the email that was sent to us about upgrading our phones. Since he couldn’t find the email, he would not be able to allow us to upgrade early. So we walked out of the store with no new phones and no new contract!!! I was ecstatic! Although my no-spending was all pure luck, it was no-spending just the same. I can happily say temptation avoided! And instead of spending my money on something I didn’t need, I ended up putting the money towards my debt. Yay for me!
Weekly Spending Report
Nov 8th – Nov 14th
Fuel – $50.10
Groceries – $143.07
Pet Items – $9.62
Utilities/Water – $173.48
Dining Out – $15.49
Gym Membership – $64.20
Newspaper Subscription – $5.42
Credit Card Debt – $22.35
Student Loans – $85.00
Total = $568.70
I went crazy at the grocery store. There’s no way I should have spent nearly $150!! That’s just unacceptable.
Updates
My Emergency Fund has now officially met goal!!! It’s total is $1144.62. This makes me very very happy. Now I’m going to start working on my Freedom Account. So far it has a total of $75.97. It should be over $100 before the end of the week. I have some money to move around. More good news, is that my only credit card balance is now $1130.00. That’s not as low as I want it to be, but it’s good. I’m sure my tax refund will be enough to cover this amount in full, but I plan to have it decreased by then. I need to get it all paid off before March 2009 or else I’ll end up paying a bunch of extra interest. And now for my final bit of good news, well maybe it’s not really good news, but one less thing I have to spend money on… My gym membership contract is up. The gym staff called me to ask me to renew my contract, but I was working. I’ve been planning to let it run out & not renew it, but I wasn’t sure if my mom was going to let her’s run out as well. After talking to her last night, we’ve decided not to renew, at least not until the spring. So there’s another $89/month that I won’t have to spend! But that also means that I really need to start working out at home. I’ve been so lazy lately. Some of it has been due to all the craziness at work, but most of it is just plain laziness. We have a perfectly good treadmill in the basement that I can start walking/running on now that it’s getting cold. I just have to find the motivation to do it.
Finding Ways To Save
I was reading an article from earlier this week, Stashing Your Cash on Yahoo Finance. The article’s author, Brett Arends, makes a good point in my opinion. I may not be as frightened by the market as he is, but I do think it’s important to stop wasting money & start stashing some away. Today, I took the time to cancel a few things that I absolutely didn’t need to be spending money one. One them being Ringback Tones. Who cares if my phone plays music when someone calls me or if it just rings? I don’t call my own phone so it’s not like I get some kind of enjoyment out of it. That’s $0.99 a month I’m wasting. Although that may not seem like much, it definitely can add up. Another thing I’ve decided to get rid of is the data package on my cell phone. Do I really need to spend $35.99 a month so I can check my email from my phone? Not really. That’s why I pay for internet at home. So I’ll be cancelling that as well. Another item I’ve gotten rid of is a credit score tracker. I was spending $7.99 a month for someone else to keep track of my credit score. I don’t need to do that. I can receive a free credit report from each of the three credit buearus once a year for free. Add just those three things up & I spent $44.97 a month on things I really don’t need. How crazy! That’s money I could be putting towards my debt or saving in my emergency fund. Next month, since my membership should be up for the year, I plan on cancelling my gym membership. I don’t use it nearly as often as I should. Plus when the weather starts to get bad, I won’t want to risk my life trying to get to the gym. That’s another $85.00 a month for me, my mom & sister. All in all, that’s almost $140 I waste on things that aren’t important! Holy cow!! I really need to get my prorities straightened out & quit spending.
Yay For Money!
Last night, while checking the mail, I was happy surprised to receive a $70.00 visa giftcard from recycling my cell phone. I was psyched!!! It only took 2 months. Instead of setting money aside from my paycheck for fuel, I’ll use part of the gift card & then the rest will go towards paying extra on my credit card debt. Soon that gets paid off, the better. Other than the gift card, nothing special came in the mail yesterday. Maybe there will be more surprises in the mail today.
This Week’s Paycheck
$797.15 – Net pay after health, dental & vision insurance; 401k & HSA contributions.
- $30.00 – Emergency Savings
- $40.00 – Vehicle Maintenance Savings
= $722.15 – Left for bills & misc.
- $141.14 – Utilities
- $187.28 – Student Loans
- $21.00 – Citibank Credit Card
- $105.00 – Parent Loans
- $31.00 – Investments
- $85.60 – Gym Memberships on Bank of America Credit Card
- $20.00 – Oil Change
= $131.13 Left Over
I think I might be going to a movie with my mother & sister Saturday night, so I should set $20.00 aside. Also, as always, I need more fuel in my vehicle. I’ll have to set another $40.00 aside for that. I will also need to set aside some money for dog food & treats. My dogs eat like they never get fed. I really need to put them on a diet.
September Debt
Here’s where my debt stands as of today:
Citibank – 1,419.82 (I consolidated my cc’s into one)
Auto Loan – 15,132.01
Student Loans – 16,795.48
Debt Consolidation & Reduction
After checking out a debt consolidation company’s website & the Better Business Bureau’s website, my dad decided to give them a call. I helped him print off all the credit card accounts that we have access to online & helped him get everything in order. My parents have two options to choose from. One that has a much lower payment per month, but will probably negatively affect their credit score. Or one that has a somewhat lower payment per month & probably won’t hurt their credit score. They’re obviously going to take the second option. This option will lower the amount they are paying now towards their debt & will help them get it paid off in 5 years. However, they will not be allowed to own any credit cards. I don’t see a problem with this, but my mom did. She thinks everyone “has” to have at least one credit card. I explained to her that no one “has” to have a credit card & there are many people who have taken the road less traveled & choose to live without one. The perfect example is NCN over at No Credit Needed. He doesn’t use credit cards & neither do a lot of people. There’s a lady that works with my aunt who doesn’t even have a debit card. I know this because back when I worked for a department store, we had this “event” we had to sell fragrance & cosmetic items for & this woman was nice enough to order a few items from me. The only problem was we needed a credit card or a debit card number to charge on the day of the event. She explained to me that she had gotten herself into some trouble with credit cards. After she got herself out of the situation she was in, she vowed never to use a credit card or debit card again. She said it was just too great of a temptation.
I think she’s right. I too sometimes get the urge to spend what I don’t have. I love cosmetics, even though most of them are not good for the enviroment, & I love electronics! I’ve had several different brands & styles of cell phones since I first got one at age 18. I have a habit of wanting to have the newest & best out there. I know I don’t really need these things, but these are some of the things that sometimes drive me to spend money I don’t have. That’s why I think it’s great that my parents won’t be able to use credit for a while. Maybe they will find out they’re much happier without the cards & choose not to get new ones when they’re able to. I would love to go back to the days when I didn’t have a credit card. It’s much easier to talk yourself out of buying something if you don’t have the money or the ability to charge it. I think once I get my credit card paid off that I will cancel all credit cards & try going without them for a while.
And since we’re talking about credit cards…
I posted earlier about my Citibank card offering a 0% interest rate on any balances I transfer until March 2009. I did go ahead & transfer my balances over. So now I only have one card with a balance!!! I can’t really consider my other accounts paid in full until the balances are paid off on the Citibank card, but at least it’s just one payment now instead of several. This should make my budgeting a little bit easier & hopefully I’ll be able to pay extra money towards it since there’s no interest. Once the credit card is gone I can focus on paying off my auto loan. That would be awesome! It’s been several years since I haven’t had to pay a car loan. That is definitely something I’m looking foward to. And I have every intention of driving my vehicle until the wheels fall off, so to speak. I don’t want to have another auto loan for a very long time!
[Edit: Asgreen over at Always The Planner has made reference to my post & has done some research about a company called Freedom Debt Relief. Thank you for the mention! 
The company that my family is using is called Amerix Corporation. They have a satisfatory rating with the BBB. ]
