Getting back up

I've been living in denial, I've racked up debt on my American Express card, and I'm not happy about it. I worked so hard and did so well to pay it all off, but I continued to use it. For a while, I was doing really well that when I would buy something I would pay it right off. Things got a bit out of hand. 

The reason I even kept this card is because I use it for work, and then I'm reimbursed. Unfortunately, I have this credit card number memorized and have for many years. I've become more fashion conscious, and look at websites such as Pinterest, Poshmark, Zappos, Nordstrom, and anything of the like. Those are dangerous!!  It has been really bad on me financially, but I look damn cute!  

I have decided that I'm going to get myself out of this hole again.  Yes, I do have money saved and could pay the debt off, but honestly I don't want to. I feel like I need to punish myself, and pay for it slowly out of every single paycheck, as a reminder of how much less money I have on a regular basis because I didn't control myself. It might feel like someone paid off my debt if I take the money out of my savings, and there would be no lesson learned; my brain needs to be retrained. 

So, here we go again!

Good news and bad news

It has now been three months since I sold my old car and I've been driving my new car. You can't even imagine how excited I was when I received a phone call two hours after I listed my old car that somebody was interested in it and I sold it to that person within one week!

Now I'm in the process of selling another car that I've had for a very long time that is nothing but clutter in the driveway! There has been a lot of interest in it but nobody has shown me the money. I really can't wait until it sells.

My new car is doing great, I love it, but it sure is an expensive upkeep! For instance, I just had an oil change done and it and it cost me $125! The good thing about that is it only needs to have an oil change every 17,000 miles. You can be sure I'll be saving my pennies for that one, as well as other maintenance that will be required.

Now I have to be honest. I haven't been doing too well on my money management which is really upsetting to me. I really need to get myself back in gear and pay American Express down :(

I have kept the card around because I use it for work, but unfortunately I also have the card number memorized and use it whenever I shop online forgetting to pay it back.

I've done it before, and I can do it again. It's just going to take me a little bit of time, that's all.

Hope you're all having a great holiday and a very happy and safe New Year!

Tis the season!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!!! Yesterday was a great time with family. I also received a very generous money gift from my employer, but have yet to decide if I will use the entire amount towards my debt repayment. Although I know it would be the smart option, I feel like I should get myself "a little something." :)

Whirlwind

The last two weeks or so have been so busy, it's all a blur! The move is complete, and I've been keeping up with the job and ebay. I got sick during the move which was really uncool...because I had to keep on going in order to stay on schedule.

I did miss some work, but I REALLY needed to. Of course, I kept on pushing myself, even being sick, which didn't help the matter.

Anyhow, I'm better now.

One thing that made me feel good was knowing that even though I was missing work, my financial situation would be ok. My bills would not fall behind, because I only have one debt left. In the past, I would have forced myself to go to work to make the money...no good. This time I felt at ease...and that, is priceless!

I've updated my sidebar with the new total of $10,28x.xx. It's true, I've paid about $1,200 in the last three weeks...unbelievable! I never would have imagined that I could pay that much off in such a short amount of time!

If you are on a journey similar to mine...keep at it! You'll get there on step at a time!

Thought I did it...

Finally...I balanced my checkbook. I don't do this as often as I should but I know that I have money in there, I just never know how much there is. It's complicated, people owe me, I pay my mom's bills after she gives me the cash among other things, and it's hard to keep track of it all sometimes.

So...I had to do it because I knew I had SOME money and I'm so close to paying off my car. After I made all the calculations and figured how much money I need for food and car insurance before my next paycheck, I realized I had about $350 extra.

What does this mean?

I have the money to pay off my car!!!

So... I did!!! Or so I thought.

I looked at the balance, made a transfer and went to look at the $0.00 balance, but instead it said $0.05. Hmmm??? Oh yeah, a day's worth of interest on the balance I had.

My car isn't paid off yet.

I could make another transfer to my account, but instead I think I will go to the bank tomorrow and tell them I want to pay off my car. Then I can find out how to get the title for it.

So now, all the extra money I make goes to AMEX...my last debt!!!

Listening to Dave Ramsey and hearing callers stories has really kept me motivated in this journey. It was just what I needed and I found him at a good time...early this year when I started paying things off. If I remember correctly, I was driving to the Post Office to take some ebay packages when I heard him on AM radio. Around that same time, my local bank was offering a free trial subscription to mytotalmoneymakeover.com for a few months so I signed up.

Really, I don't know which of the two came first. Doesn't matter...I'm just glad I found him to keep me going!

Under $500 owed on my car

As mentioned in my last post, my direct deposit came through and I have paid $380 to my car loan. This leaves me with a balance of $393!

I have officially knocked out half of my starting debt (mid-January 2009) in just over 9 months! -- Can I eliminate the other half in the same amount of time?

All for now :)

And another car post....and a dead camera

I'm up and it's late...one thing I am thinking of is, "Wow, I can't believe I'm about half way there from when I started in January...and my car is really about to be mine!"

I'm amazed...I thought I would be one year early in paying my car off, but really, it's two years! My loan is not due to be paid of until September 2011!

In the morning, my direct deposited paycheck should be in my bank account and I will be able to pay a nice chunk of money to the bank. -- My sidebar is currently not updated, the real amount is $773.xx and not $997.xx since I paid a bit more in the last couple of days. I'll update it after this post.

On another note, my camera died. I need it. My ebay needs it. I'll have to get a new one and I can't wait much longer. Do people still use film cameras? I'm too impatient for them...and what if you took a bad picture with old school film and you didn't know it until it was developed??? No thanks.

Final countdown for car!

I've reached the thousand dollar mark, $997 to be exact, for the balance of my car!! I'm so excited and plan to have it paid off by mid October.

Today I made a payment of $200 and tomorrow will probably add another $65 or so.

Now, if my ebay will stay steady (or increase) and I get to keep housesitting...and keep my job...my last debt, AMEX, will be paid off next year!

Home again

I'm back home from housesitting which is nice, but I was so exhausted yesterday from going, going and going some more.

Today I paid another $210 to my car loan which brings it down to $1197. In a couple more days I will be paying another $200, I just set up a PayPal transfer to my bank account for ebay stuff that sold and it will take two days to reach my bank account. After that payment, I will owe less than one thoudsand dollars!!!

It's hard to believe that if I would have just stayed focused long ago, I could have been out of debt by now. I have tried, but obviously not hard enough. Everytime I got a part time job, I swore the extra income would go to my debt but had a hard time sticking to it.

Now...I guess I am just so sick of debt that I can't stand to NOT pay the loans down. I can't wait to be free from owing...

Amazed

I honestly can't believe that I have been able to pay off almost $10,000 so far this year and that I have just over $14,000 to go! It truly is amazing to me. However, I can't help but think that if I didn't have any debts, this could have been money saved.

Today is payday so I paid a little more towards my car, $270.00. This brings my balance to $2,992.xx. It's such a great feeling to get paid, and after making the payment, see the balance get smaller.

And...a bigger step

The goal date to pay off my car mentioned in my last post has been changed to October. See, I had just over $1,000 in a savings account (not my emergency fund) that I didn't want to touch, BUT...it was making less interest than what I was paying on my car loan by about 4%. I know this isn't much, but after thinking of how stupid it was to keep this money aside when I could pay off my car sooner, I did it.

Today I called my bank and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi, I'd like to make a transfer from my savings to my car loan.

Her: Ok, do you want to transfer the amount of your next payment?

Me: No, I want to transfer all that is available, I believe it is about $1,065. I'm trying to pay off my car loan early.

Her: Sure, do you want to close this account?

Me: No, keep it open.

Her: Ok, it's done.

Me: Great, thanks so much!

Her: Yup........(hung up)

Wow...really? She probably has a giant car loan and mounds of debt and was mad that I am trying to do something about mine. -- Should have dealt with my branch manager but didn't want to bother her.

Anyhow, this is done, I owe $3,435 on my car and am excited!

:) Going to update my sidebar now....

Tiny steps to a paid off car

I just made an extra payment to my car loan. I had planned on paying $250 out of this paycheck but $180 of it comes out of my bank account automatically in a few days. Therefore, I paid the difference of $70 ... $48.50 of it went to the principal and $21.50 went to interest.

Knowing that this is my next debt to pay off, I keep crunching numbers and figuring when it will be paid off. I'm such a number nerd. I think I can pay off my car loan by November which is about 10 months before the bank's scheduled pay off date!

BUT...this could also be set back if my dentist bill is high :( I'll know soon.

Changed plan of attack!

Nearly two months have gone by since I last posted, but I am still on the get out of debt wagon! I've been doing well so far and have killed over $6,000 of my debt which is so exciting!

A few of my goals / plans have changed since then. Last month I did well on ebay and with the help of other funds I had available, paid off Capital One 2. This is the card that was only charging me 3.99% interest and that I had planned to pay off last due to the low rate. I decided that I just wanted it gone...and when they charged me a $39 yearly fee, that was it! I called them and asked them if they would remove the fee if I paid off my account and closed it. They agreed.

Funny thing though, you know when you try to cancel a credit card they do just about anything to keep you? Well, the man I talked to didn't even try. When he asked me why I wanted to close the account I just told him that I wanted to get rid of all my credit cards. No questions asked...and I was so thankful for that.

Now, all I have left are: Personal Loan, Car and American Express. I will pay them off in that order. In fact, I noticed my last post said that I would have the personal loan paid off by December of this year...that has changed. I now plan to pay it off by August/September!!! Next to be attacked is my car which will be paid off maybe by April/May 2010. The loan schedule shows it to be paid if full by Sept. 2011 so I'll be pretty early on that one. Last will be AMEX which could take me until December 2010 and hopefully not longer than that!

It feels so great to know that I only owe on one credit card and my total debts are only three! I can't wait to be FREE!

So close!

I can't believe that my Capital One 1 balance is $182! I'll have it paid off so soon!

Capital One Opt Out

I received two Capital One important notice forms in the mail today, one for each of my cards. They are notifyng me that the terms on one of my cards (Capital One 1) is changing. My APR will be 17.9%! Also, the default rate and cash advance rate are changing.

The form states that I can opt out by closing my account which is perfectly fine with me. I plan to pay both my Capital One accounts off and closing them anyway.

The notice I received for my Capital One 2 card only states that they will be chaning my default rate. It is strange to me that they only chose to change the one thing on this account. I know (think) I'm in a locked rate for the balance I owe them at 3.99% which was a special transfer rate they gave me a while back.

None of this really matters with my Capital One 1 account since my estimated pay off date for them is the first week of May...if all goes as planned. I'll keep my fingers crossed!

Once Capital One 1 is paid off, I think I'll focus on AMEX for a while since the interest rate is 4% higher than Capital One 2 and I owe them about $10,000 more than Capital One 2.

Is this Opt Out thing a blessing in disguise???

WF is Paid Off!

Yesterday I went to WF bank and paid the account off. If I did my math right I have a negative balance of approximately $20! I'm waiting for some online payments to go through and also a few charges.

I'm so happy that I won't be giving them any of my hard earned money for interest anymore :)

I still plan to use this card but only for things I can turn around and make a payment for, like food, cell phone payments, internet, car insurance, etc. because I am on their reward program and want to turn in the points for $$$ cash $$$! This money can be used toward another debt.

BTW, I made a payment to Capital One 1 to bring the balance to $900.

More food

I went grocery shopping for some things today and spent $25.09 on food and $4.80 on marked down "girl stuff" which was really cheap for three boxes. Of the $25.09 for food, $2.50 will be returned to me, it was the cereal that is free after rebate. I also bought a Glade candle for $2.80 which I don't NEED per say, but I do need it.

I'm using up my grocery budget pretty quickly. I need to be smarter about how I spend my money to stay within my $150 budget for the month.

On the plus side of things, my BF paid me $100 that he owed me so I'm going to pay WF as soon as I can get this into my checking account.

Sold stuff

Yesterday I sold some things to my aunt for a total of $25 and made $14 profit. Since I now have some extra cash, I paid another $20 to the Furniture Store so my balance is $70.xx! I'm so close, it will be paid off next week!!! •••Update: The bill just came and with interest, I owe $73.97•••

I did spend money yesterday on my BF on food and soda, about $5. I'm sure he'll pay me back :)

Furniture Store is under $100!

I'm so excited that I am now under $100 owed to the Furniture Store! I just paid another $40 that was in my bank account from PayPal (ebay). My balance is $90.63 so I will have it paid off really soon and then can work on my WF card.

Today's PayPal deposits

Today I had a deposit in one of my bank accounts from PayPal of $46.xx. I decided to put $10 towards oil / oil change for my car and $15.00 towards contacts since the next time I get them I will need to buy two boxes. This leaves me with around $20 to pay something.

In my other, secondary checking account, I had a deposit of $28.xx come through from PayPal. With this money I paid $9.00 (there was some change in my account) to the Furniture Store and $20 to AMEX. So, combining the $9 from this account and the $20 left over from my primary checking account, I paid $29 towards my Furniture Store account since that is the first I want to be paid off.

Tomorrow I should have another $40.xx from PayPal, but since it has been slow on ebay, the days that follow won't have any deposits :(