Archive results for “August 2006f 2006”
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For the 50th edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction, it finds itself back to the originator of the Carnival, MightyBargainHunter.com. Make sure you check it out!
Quick note, I’m hosting the Festival of Frugality tomorrow, so if you are a blogger and want to participate – please get your entries in. Are you as nervous as I am? LOL.
A reader asked me a question, “Your situation is similar to mine, in that my husband trusts me 100% to take care of our finances – and he supports me, but sometimes he rebels against the tightening of our financial belts in order to pay off debt – how do you combat that, or does it even happen in your house???”
Probably the hardest point for me with our debt reduction was when I told my husband he couldn’t spend any money for a while because we didn’t have money in our checking account (I was overly agressive with paying debt) and I actually had to put groceries on the credit card. He looked right at me, and said “How can we be so broke?” I could see that his spirit was breaking right there, and I knew I had to make some changes to what I was doing. For this to really work, we have to be on the same page.
The little argument that we had lead to some compromising. He, at the time, was quitting his job and we decided that he would keep working for a while longer. We also made a bigger purchase that my husband really wanted to make (our inflatable kayaks which have been a lot of fun). A little bit later, we also spent some money to buy a game that he really wanted as well as a bass guitar that I have been missing for some years.
It means we spent almost $500 on things we really didn’t need since starting our journey in February. Sure, it could have gone towards our debt. But if we did that, and lost our overall steam…it would have cost us a lot more in the long run.
I believe that much about debt reduction is about the psychological aspect of it. For us, having certain designated periods where we would technically “splurge” to buy things we really want helps to keep the feeling of not spending money to enjoy life at bay. I have found that these splurges are best when they are planned, you still budget for them and you pay with cash. Being able to pay for our splurges with cash (after so many years of just doing it with credit cards) felt pretty awesome.
Every relationship will be different, and it takes a bit of investigate work as well as trial and error to find the perfect balance needed to satisfy both partners. But, if you already have a common goal of getting out of debt, the rest may fall into place with a few heart-to-heart talks and some compromising.
Thank you JLP from All Financial Matters for naming me the blog of the week. I am very honored.
As JLP mentioned, probably the best place to start to learn a little bit more about me and what I am doing is to visit my about me page. I am pretty darn determined to get rid of our debt and I hope I am giving others a great look over my shoulder as to what we are doing such as reducing interest rates and saving money.
This blog is basically my financial diary, with one twist…I’m letting everyone read it.
Comments and questions are always welcomed and thank you for stopping by 
I was reading through my blog and I realized that I have a real big habit of saying “my” debt instead of “our” debt. Sometimes I say “our” but for the most part, it seems like I am trying to just discuss myself. I also use “I” instead of “We” a lot.
While our debt is a family affair, my husband is not a very financial person. I am the analytical one and he is the creative one. He isn’t interested in looking at our finances and he trusts me 100% to make sure things are taken care of. So, besides running a few ideas by him – the whole debt-reduction process is sort of my thing.
Just thought I would clear up any confusion in case anyone was wondering.
It was so tempting. Nice and cold Mountain Dews were sitting in the fridge and they stared at me every time I opened the door. Even though my head was hurting and I knew a drink would help ease the pain…I reached for the water every time.
It’s been a tough week, but I made it!! I gave up the caffeine
The headaches are gone and I am almost on a normal schedule. It’s funny, because at first I had no energy at all but slowly it’s coming back and I would almost say I feel more energetic. It’s weird.
Cigarettes are next on the list of things to quit, but I’m going to give myself at least a month to “normalize” and to map out my game plan. Am I going to use nicotine gum? Am I going to go cold turkey? Am I going to methodically cut down till I’m at zero cigarettes a day?
I still have more thinking to do on that one, and it probably is best to quit when winter is here. It is not fun going outside in a blizzard when it’s below zero out (I do not smoke in my house). I natually smoke a little less in the winter because of the inconvenience of getting all bundled up so it would be an ideal time to quit.
Still pumping myself up for quitting the cigarettes…
I paid an additional $300 towards our credit cards today and our credit card debt is now down to $28,310.  Of course I would love to see the balance below $28,000 by the end of the month, but I’m pretty sure I can’t wing that unless I sell a few things and quick. I just don’t have the spare time at the moment to sell things (I wanted so bad to have a garage sale but it didn’t happen).  This winter I may try eBay to sell some of my son’s old toys (hey – anyone want a V-Tech video game system for kids? lol).
Next month will probably be a rough month in terms of our finances. We have some repairs that MUST be done before the snow flies. And where I live the first snow is usually in October so next month is ideal. The repairs will probably run $600-800. I don’t have the money yet for it, but with our next paychecks we will. I try to set aside $850 extra a month to go towards the credit cards. The repairs will have to come out of that.Â
It will help tremendously that I will have some income from my blog at the end of next month.  I’m not sure yet how much that will be, but all of it will go towards reducing debt.  A thank you to all of my sponsors and to my readers for that
Speaking of income, at the end of this month expect to see some changes with my reports. I will be including income as well as our expenses. I will discontinue the “How Much I Make” post because it really isn’t accurate enough for looking at things on a monthly basis.Â
It can be hard sometimes to explain exactly what I’m doing, so if at any time you have questions, feel free to ask.Â
Oh, and I’m doing some housekeeping on my blog to try to make things a little easier to locate and to make navigation easier. Please pardon my dust for the next few days
I’ve seen a few other blogs highlighting blogs, and I thought it would be neat to do it as well. It’s a great way to share with others the blogs that I find interesting and it lets you get to know me a little better in the process. While they will not always be finance related, I hope you’ll check them out and maybe you’ll like them too.
The first blog I am going to highlight is one I have been following for about 7 months now. I love seeing this woman’s work and I love the way she is so very honest in her writing.Â
She goes by the name Snoo and she is from the UK. Her blog name is Delineation Me (make sure you check out the right hand side for an explanation of the title). She is a very talented photographer and she shares her work on her blog.Â
Here are some of my favorite pictures that she has shared so far:
This one has to be seen to be believed. It’s just so neat!Â
Then there are pics like this that make you feel like you are standing right there.Â
Being from the US, some of the pics of the UK are just astonishing. I don’t really travel, but her pics show the beauty of her area.Â
Lastly, she also has a mighty cute hamster.
Snoo, always looking forward to more beautiful pics from you
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About This Site
My Debt
- Original Debt: $97,293.06
- Paid: $1,927.89
- Remaining: $95,365.17
- Emergency Fund: $1100
- Broken Down
- Line of Credit 2: $0.00
- Line of Credit 1: $0.00
- Credit Card 1: $0.00
- Credit Card 2: $245.00
- Credit Card 3: $405.00
- Credit Card 6: $1,785.00
- Credit Card 7: $2,381.17
- Consolidation Loan: $11,000.00
- Credit Card 10: $14,519.00
- Auto Loan 1: $16,093.00
- Credit Card 11: $23,873.00
- Auto Loan 2: $25,064.00
Finance Blogging Buddies
- Beachgirl’s Budget Blog
- Becoming and Staying Debt Free
- Boston Gals Open Wallet
- Debt Free Hispanic
- Debt Kid
- Debt Reduction 101
- Dual Income No Kids
- Everybody Loves Your Money
- Financial Hack
- Free Money Finance
- From the Brink of Bankruptcy
- Generation X Finance
- GRACEful Retirement
- Grad Money Matters
- It’s Your Money
- Josephsangl.com
- Kick Debt’s Butt
- Lazy Man and Money
- Low Income Life
- Make Love Not Debt
- Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge
- Mighty Bargain Hunter
- Money, Matter and More Musings
- My 1st Million at 33
- No Credit Needed
- One Million and Beyond
- Personal Finance Advice
- pfblogs.org
