Archive results for “April 2007f 2007”
On this page you will find the search results for the search term that you queried.
Rammit over at I Will Teach You to Be Rich asked his readers to share a story about their debt.
So far, there are over 70 stories and most are multiple paragraphs.
I haven’t had a chance to read through all of them. I was so excited to see so many stories that I had to share on here as quickly as I could.
A while ago when were hit with a pretty good snowstorm and I mentioned that when they happen we save money. I received the following comment from Elizabeth:
“I’m interested that bad weather keeps you from spending money. I live in NYC, and I think people order in more when the weather is bad. In my case, I could stay home tonight and rustle up something from my kitchen cabinets, or I could order in (that always comes to $20 with tip) or I could literally go across the street to the grocery store that’s open from 7:00 a.m. to 11PM. Not to mention there are 24 hour Korean markets just three blocks away, and I’m also sleepy. For some reason, a Starbucks or a Dunkin Donuts coffee at this moment is more tempting than coffee I make myself.
Food is *always* where I spend more than I plan, and this city is all about making it easy for you to spend. I’m going to make coffee and see if being more awake keeps me from ordering in.”
If I lived in NYC the bad weather probably wouldn’t help us save money. There are many conveniences there that I do not have where I live. I’ve never even been in a Starbucks or a Dunkin Donuts and the closest Starbucks is over two hours away. I guess you could say that I have fewer temptations where I live 
It’s very true that we could order in for food, but in our case the only places that deliver are the pizza places. One of them doesn’t have very good pizza and the other one has good pizza but it does a doozy on your stomach so we do not eat it often.
I often think that location plays a big part in spending money. When we lived in a bigger city for a brief period of time, I went to quite a few stores and spent a lot of money easily. Now that we have less of a selection of stores, we don’t spend as much. And when the weather is icky outside, it’s not as easy to go shopping on a whim when you have two feet of snow to shovel out of the driveway 
It took me a little while to get all of the information to complete March’s income and expense report. I was able to find all of the receipts I needed, but I couldn’t find the last paystub my husband received for his temporary job. The net effect is basically the same because the income in my report is gross income and I have an expense for the taxes withheld. I will revise the numbers once he receives another paystub which should be Friday. Yay!
So, here is March’s spending. As always, my comments are below.
Income: The gross income for March was still fairly strong, but lower than February. I see February’s income, and it makes me want to try to have a goal of making that much per month because if we made that much every month our debt would be paid off way ahead of schedule.
Auto:Insurance: I have been thinking about possibly taking off the collision and comprehensive coverage on our car. That would save us quite a bit of money per month. Seeing as our car is still worth around $5,000 – I’ll hold off for a little while longer and keep the extra coverage.
Cigarettes: The spending for cigarettes is down. It is still the monkey on my back to get rid of!! But, that’s something I am going to tackle over at Blogging Away Fat.
Donations: I’ll be the first to admit that we do not give all that much monetarily. Slowly, I am trying to give more to causes that I believe in. A reader’s debt story reminded me that I should make another contribution to Modest Needs so I did.
Finance Charges: Finance charges are still under $100, which is great. In June I lose the 0% offer on one of my cards and who knows what my rate will be after that (probably around 16%). Nothing real promising has come my way in terms of transfering that balance to a new card. We’ll see.
Food: Lots of money going out for groceries in March. I can’t help but think it’s because we spent so little (compared to previous months) in February. Perhaps we normalize at around $400/month. We’ll have to see. I am planning to get some coupons for the products we normally use (so far, I’m batting 100% for writing and getting coupons!). Dining is going down, though, and that is awesome.
Gifts Given: March is a month of birthdays for us, mine as well as my mom’s. Giving gifts has always been a spot for overspending for me.
Household: The household category holds many things related to house and home.
The biggest spending here was for furniture. My husband’s computer chair broke and he had been using the rocking chair from our living room. That broke as well after a few months so we went to Walmart and bought a new chair and guess what? You guess it…it broke too. He’s being stubborn and living with the broken chair for a while. No more chairs from Walmart.
Interest Expense: This is the cost of interest for our mortgage and school loans. Not pretty. Once our credit cards are paid off we will definitely be paying off some of our student loans.
Medical: Here’s the new big expense. Our health insurance policy that we pay out-of-pocket. I do have the next bill, and it raised to $800 every two months because my husband and I are both 30 now. Yuk. The Medical:Other category is for everything else like over the counter medicines, bandaids and the like.
Taxes: This category takes into consideration all taxes paid from income, as well as sales taxes and property taxes. There’s not too much that can be done here.
Utlities: No, I didn’t go crazy and get a mega cellphone plan LOL. I decided to get a yearly plan for our Tracfone instead of paying every other month for a recharge card. So, the $106 is for the entire year. Breaking it down, it is a savings of approximately $21/year.
Electric isn’t the greatest but our Gas wasn’t too bad. The water bill actually went up due to a rate increase. Month and month again, we have never went over the minimum water usage level. So, we cannot decrease that bill any more than it is.
FINAL THOUGHTS
March wasn’t that bad of a month. My husband still had income from his temporary job which was nice (by the way, just this week he did receive a few more hours after weeks of nothing). I hope he continues to get some hours for a little while at least.
I think what I am going to do when I have time is look at the first quarter of this year and compare to last year. If I do, and I see anything interesting I will post it on here.
Oh, and I receive this question often…Where is my mortgage? My mortgage payment is $323/month and it includes a payment towards principal on my mortgage as well as interest and the amount that goes to escrow to pay taxes and insurance. I track my finances like a business so the only thing you will see on these expense reports is the interest expense. Since my mortgage is young, we pay a lot in interest right now. The rest of the payment goes towards the asset account (escrow) and the liability account (mortgage). Changes in the escrow and mortgage show up in my Net Worth Report.
As always, I welcome questions/comments.
A producer at CNN asked me if I would be willing to post a little announcement on here. They are looking for a couple to interview about debt. If you are interested, email or give a call to the number below.
“Greetings,
I am working on a story about couples in debt (some have not completely disclosed the amount of debt to their partners). It is a tough subject for everyone, but one we think is very important for our viewers. I would like to interview a spouse or couple (married or unmarried) about their debt challenges. If he or she do not feel comfortable appearing on camera, we can maintain anonymity by shooting the interview in silhouette. Thank you very much.
Ronni Berke
CNN Senior Producer
Ronni.berke@turner.com
(212) 275-7654 office
(917) 716-3158 cell”
I received the following email from a reader who wished to stay anonymous. Even though I talk a lot about getting to the point of being debt-free, it’s always nice to hear the story of those who have basically made it.
“I too owed quite a bit of money on not one but two credit cards, about $22,000 to be exact. I noticed that even if I paid the minimum every month on each credit card I never saw any major debt eliminating results. So what I did for a time, knowing that I was a committed payer to the credit card companies was to call the credit card company from time to time and always was able to negotiate a reduction in the interest owed on the amounts. At least, the credit card companies were willing to work with me. I optioned to increase the amount of money to pay out at the billing period. In other words, I began to pay more than the minimum for a couple of months.
Mind you my method was not based on any scientific fact just based on the notion of what if. By the way, all this time that I was making all of these payments the credit cards were in the possession of the local garbage dump. The minute I got a credit card. I mutilated it beyond recognition. One more thing that I forgot to mention earlier I also authorized the bank to directly deposit the required amount for payment to the credit cards thus avoiding any late fees or penalties incurred with late payments. The next thing that I did was to look at the credit card interest rates and decided to consolidate the credit cards into one. Now why didn’t I do that in the first place you may have asked. One financial immaturity and two not really knowing that most of the money that I had forwarded to the credit card companies was going mostly towards those darn high interests.
I just happened to start a new job that paid slightly more than I had been making. But the best thing of all the new company had a credit union. Well now, here is where I got savvy. The first thing that I did was to get a part-time job that I worked at one day a week. The next thing that I did after I got the part time job was to have the money from the part time job direct deposited into the credit union. I also gave myself specific instructions not to touch the credit union money for any reason for a period of about two years. By the time I had been employed at that company with access to a credit union I had whittled the credit card amount to about $10,000. This was, of course, without any outside intervention other than a lot of saving and self-control.
Gee! One fine day I get this notice in the mail telling me that the credit union offered a credit card with zero percent interest for a period of six months. I had been saving money into the credit union account for almost two years. Oh! by the way another fine little detail that I forgot to add, I had also asked that a small part of my regular 40 hour work week pay-check go to the credit union as well, about $200 a month to be exact.
So now to put the simple math equation in motion. The part time job paid me a little over $200 a month and I had asked for my employer to put aside $200 a month from my regular job. All totaled to about $400 per month on the side untouched. By the time I transferred the credit card amount to the no interest bearing account I owed about $8,000. But I had an monetary ammunition garrison of about $9800.
Now instead of paying all in one lump sum I felt that it would be best if I established some sort of good standing with the credit union and credit card company. And of course I did not want to pay all of the money out and not any left for an emergency. When the first credit card statement came from the credit union it asked for $22. I transferred $1,000 & some months I gave $500 others I gave $750. With in the 6 months offered interest free I had paid all that I owed. At the current moment I owe again about $800 but now I still sufficient assets to pay what I owe in one shot. I have also limited my credit card spending to to no more than $1000.”
Congrats are in order to this reader who has managed to really pay off some debt. The method used isn’t one that I’ve ever read in a book, but it worked (if you remember, I’m a believer in taking things from here and there and making a plan that works for you). This reader had a plan and self-control and made the debt go away.
UPDATE: Blogging Away Fat has been shut down.
It’s been 14 months since I started Blogging Away Debt. In that time, blogging about our finances has really helped us to get motivated to pay off our debt and get our financial house in order. There is also the therapeutic factor of being able to discuss our finances openly. It feels good, because our debt is no longer our dirty little secret.
Since things have gone so well with blogging about our debt and keeping motivated, I decided to start a blog that will help another aspect of my life…weight loss. I’ve always struggled with weight and it is affecting my health. It’s time to do something about it.
Just like we are learning better financial habits, I need to learn better eating and exercising habits. I’ve often said that I am looking to make lifestyle changes that will affect our financial well-being forever. I can say the same for my weight loss. While it would be great to lose a whole bunch of weight quickly, that will not be my goal. I want a longer, healthier life and that means changing my eating habits and lifestyle.
So, without further ado, I am introducing
Blogging Away Fat – My Journey to a Healthier Life
If interested, feel free to stop on by over there as well
I’ve been working on our amended tax returns and I have to say…I can’t barely even look at them anymore! Even though it could mean that I’d have to pay more in taxes, I think I’d be all for making income taxes simpler. Put amount from line 4 in line 11. Then add 10 and 11. Multiply the greater of line 4 or line 10 by 0.15 and put in line 12. Ugh.
In any case, I know now how much we owe except for any penalties and interest for our federal return. The damage right now is less than $3,000 for both the federal and the state. To pay our state I will pull from our savings account. The federal I am still figuring out what to do about going into a payment plan. I have the form to do it, I need to read it again when my mind isn’t so jumbled.
For tonight, though…I call it a night. It has been a very rough weekend after a very rough week.
Site search
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
