Archive results for “April 2009f 2009”

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Life After Credit Card Debt – Starting on Our Next Journey

Today will be the last day that I regularly write on here. I will be visiting time to time and you’ll probably see my name in the comments. I will be posting at least once a month, on the last Friday of the month. If something big happens and I’d like to post before the end of the month, I will also post those updates on a Friday. Don’t forget, you can always subscribe to this blog’s feed in your feed reader, or you can receive daily updates in your inbox. All of my posts from this point forward will start with “Life After Credit Card Debt” so you can easily tell which posts are my updates.

Since this is my last regular post, I have a few “administrative” things to mention…

For those who have their $25 ING Savings Referral links posted, please continue to send an email when they get used. I am still monitoring and taking care of the list until it is finished. If you are thinking of opening a savings account, the deal at ING is still a good one. You get a $25 bonus when you open an account with $250. You will also help a reader since they get $10. Please see the ING Savings Account Referral page for self-serve links.

I can still be reached by using the contact form. All you need to do is mention that the email is for me and it will be forwarded to me. I’ve received quite a few emails the past few years and if any of you would like to give an update on how you are doing, I’d still love to hear them! Or if you are looking to vent, I am here for that too

The “how we did it” recap post is still in progress. I will post when it is finished.

I will be tracking my Net Worth using my NetWorthIQ profile. The information will be condensed since I won’t be breaking down every detail, but you can see how we are doing overall. Here is the link to my profile. If you are a member over there, you can also leave comments and send messages. It’s a pretty neat online program.

This is not a goodbye since I will still be blogging on here – it just won’t be as often. But I will be around in the comments supporting Beks as she works to pay off her debt and I’ll be stopping by some of your blogs as well since I am way behind with my blog reading.

With that, I’ll see you with the next update

Posted by Tricia on April 30, 2009 at 9:45 PM in Life After Credit Card Debt | 10 Comments »
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Answers to Your Questions…Part 2

Yesterday I answered a few of your questions the other day, and here are the rest…

Jaime asks:
I remember at one point you were going to give more details about your side business. I’ve always wondered what you are doing and how it is going. I love it when you say things seem to be going well with it, and I just want so much more information about it!

If you care to share that is!

The thing about our side business is that it is in such a small niche. That prevents me from giving more details then the generic ones I have given. I tell a few more details in response to Anonymous Reader’s question below.

Sharon asks:
Hi Tricia, I’m curious if you’ll continue to become totally debt-free at the same intensity as you did with becoming credit card debt-free.

Also, what do you do for your regular paying job?

And last, once you’re totally debt free, do you want to stay and live in the same area where you are now? I think you’ve commented before that you’d like to be closer to family but couldn’t afford to right now. I love when you talk about buying your future “cabin”. Congrats on all you’ve accomplished!!!

Now that we have paid off our credit card debt, our rate of debt reduction will slow down. There is some spending we’d like to do in regards to our home. We’ve put off a few repairs so we had more money to put towards our credit cards. We are also going to concentrate on filling many baskets (see this post for more info). For my regular paying job, I’d rather not say what that is.

We do love where we live. We fought hard to live here and make it work. I do miss my family like you wouldn’t believe. The goal is to have a lifestyle and income that would allow us to travel more to visit them.

Thanks for the congrats!

Jim asks:
What do you focus on now?

Many, many things LOL. I detailed them in this post (written after your question).

Anonymous Reader asks:
It might be helpful to share a few details of the business – how you selected the idea/product, how long it took you to set it up, what it cost to set up, how much revenue it has generated and when, and how much you net from it now. If you see the business as replacing one or both of you job incomes in the future, how much revenue and net profit you expect from the business and how long until you make the change?

You seemed to accelerate the debt repayment when your husband went to work full time. Would you share some of the income info and how you used tha additional income?

Finally, you still have student loans and a mortgage. I think your mortgage is around $35,000, but I can’t recall if you ever said how much the two of you have in student loans. What is your debt repayment plan for the remaining debt and how much do you have left to pay? How do you anticipate paying for your son’s education – will you advise him to take on student loans?

I have really enjoyed reading your blog and watching your ideas and attitudes evolve over the last several years. The quotes from your son demonstate how much you have changed. I hope you will continue to update your readers on your progress in paying off the remaining debt and increasing your income.

With our business, it was the result of finding a small niche that needed products we could provide. It took a lot of our time to set-up due to laying down the infrastructure and creating products. But it didn’t cost much to get the ball rolling (less than $3K). It is forecasted that the business profit will surpass my husband’s income next year.

All of our income from various sources went towards our expenses and the extra went towards debt and savings. An exception would be the capital that we initially invested in our business.

As of right now our student loans are roughly $29K. Our mortgage is at $33.5K. The plan is to concentrate on our mortgage and pay extra money towards that (I gave some reasonings in my responses to questions yesterday). For our son, I mentioned some time ago that he will not have money given to him for college. I have changed my perspective on that a little bit. He may have some help, but he has to work towards it as well. We will not advise him against student loans, since they may be necessary depending on where he goes to college (if he chooses to go). But he will understand the full ramifications of what taking one out means and I hope everything we teach him the next 10 years will prepare him for making sound financial decisions.

I am glad you have enjoyed reading my posts. I will still be writing on here although not on a regular basis and I will give more details about that tomorrow.

Thank you everyone for your questions!

Posted by Tricia on April 29, 2009 at 10:54 PM in About Me, General Personal Finance | 4 Comments »
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Spilling The Financial Beans

I know this sounds funny but…

I’m a very private person. Stop laughing. I’m serious.

I don’t mind sharing things with all of you but when it comes to sharing things with family… my lips are sealed.

I haven’t exactly shared our financial situation with Chris’ grandparents. You know, the ones who told us not to get in debt?

They are lovely people but… I didn’t want them to look at me and nod their heads in shame – that or wish their beloved grandson hadn’t married this credit card addicted hoodlum.

I was lucky enough to dine with them recently and I talked about everything… except money of course.

‘Lovely weather lately huh?’

‘How are you feeling these days?’

I breathed a sigh of relief as we dropped them off at their home and started to say goodbye…

Until my husband sat down and started talking about…

M-O-N-E-Y.

I wanted to strangle him. It was as if he were telling my dog loving mother that we had a history of puppy killing.

I can’t necessarily blame him. He’s excited about our financial plan and he’s proud of our progress but…

I’m not going to lie, I considered jumping across the table to tackle him to silence.

I wanted to scream out and defend myself. I wanted to say, ‘I’m not a shoe or purse gal… I just like vacationing… and remodeled bathrooms… and buying your grandson TV’s… and the smell of new cars!’ But I realized…

It didn’t matter. I had still done exactly what they had told us not to do. It didn’t matter why.

There was a long uncomfortable silence before his grandpa asked about our plans and offered suggestions on how to pay things off faster.

I could feel his disappointment.

If nothing else, it reminded me of the importance of what we’re doing and ignited yet another fire under my butt to stretch myself more.

Tell someone about your financial situation. Tell someone you know will ask you about it. Tell someone… knowing full well it will annoy you. That annoyance may be the motivation you need.

Posted by Beks on April 29, 2009 at 4:04 AM in Money & Relationships | 6 Comments »
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Answers to Your Questions…Part 1

Thank you to everyone who asked a question in my post over the weekend. There were some great questions in there. I’m answering a few today and the answers to the rest will follow tomorrow.

Pat asks:
Hi, Tricia. I wondered what you felt were the 3 most important things you did to have more money to put toward your debt? I also wonder what you feel is the best route to take to make more money in order to pay off debt faster? Thanks!

P.S. I’m a stay-at-home mom and have already cut back on groceries, no cable, cars are older and have been paid off for a while. We eat at home and the kids/husband brown bag lunches.

There were so many things that we did that contributed to the extra money to put towards our debt. Boy, it’s hard to think of three that were the most important since I think everything came into play. By golly, you stumped me LOL. So, I’m going to modify your question a bit and list three things that I think were helpful that most people could try.

Stopped going to stores as often. I can look back our spending (pre-debt reduction) and see debit card charges almost every day of the week. We went to the store way too often to pick up a few things. It all adds up so quickly and most of the times things were purchased that we didn’t need. Stores are very good at encouraging impulse buys. By curbing our frequent visits to the store and replacing them with thought out occasional visits, it cut our spending.

Decided that stuff is stuff. We had too much stuff and most of it didn’t serve a purpose. Our multiple garage sales really showed that. I haven’t missed anything that we sold. With that in mind, I really think about something before we purchase it and make sure it will get used and if we really need it.

Tracked our finances. We use financial software to do it, but you can also do it with pencil and paper. The important thing is to keep yourself accountable for your spending and to add up all of those receipts. Tracking your finances also is helpful to get an idea of how much you can pay towards your debt since you will have a better understanding of your finances overall.

As for making more money to pay off debt faster, if you can, look to your current employer first. Can you get a raise? Can you work overtime? If that’s not possible, can you get another job? I say that hesitantly because you do have to be careful. For me, I am an emotional shopper and when I get stressed I think about some retail therapy. The last thing you want to do is find yourself going on a shopping binge or deteriorating your health to the point where money doesn’t matter. You can try to push yourself, but find a healthy balance.

Regarding your P.S., if you haven’t already, make sure you check out WAHM.com forums. I’ve found a few work at home jobs there

L asks:
I was wondering how old your son was? You talk about him a lot and he sounds adorable.
And….WHOO HOOO on paying off the credit cards!!!!!

Thanks for the Whoo Hoo! Our son is approaching eight years old, although sometimes it seems like 14 LOL.

Marie asks:
I’m wondering if your student loans bother you and if you could tell us what % they’re at for some context. Are you going to accelerate your payment on these or are you content to pay as agreed.

We have no consumer debt no car loans even, just a mortgage and student loans. Our student loans don’t bother DH but they drive me crazy – all are below 2% interest though.

Good question Marie. To think of it, I’m not sure if I even noted the interest rate on our student loans at all on here. They are all a little over 5% right now. While I’m not happy about the student loans, I do like that we can deduct the interest on our tax returns. We are unable to do that with our mortgage. We are not planning on paying extra right now but I will be looking into changing the payment plan. We are currently on a graduated plan which gave us a longer payment term and a lower monthly payment. I still need to dig into that, though.

Maria asks:
Hi Tricia, I have a question for you- I’ve noticed that there are certain times in the month when you are able to pull out extra money for debt reduction and or savings but how do you determine when that time is? Is it more towards the end of the month when all of the monthly expenses are paid or at the beginning? What is your cash flow like? Do you keep a few dollars in your checking account? How does that work? Thank you in advance.

I know how much we can pay off at any given time since I project cash flow in real time. It’s hard to explain, but I have three months of future regular expenses (overestimated) and income (underestimated) entered into our financial software. I can see by entering a transaction exactly what a payment of $500 would do to our future cash flow. If I see us going into the red anytime in the next three months we scale back the payment. If I see a healthy balance, I increase the amount. I tried to keep a buffer in our checking account for anything I may have missed (filling the car with gas, urgent trip to store for medicine, etc.) but for the most part we ran things really close. I do plan on keeping a better buffer in our account going forward. We had some very close calls over the past three years.

Debt Free Dan asks:
Now that you are credit card debt-free, what remaining debts do you have and what do you plan to do about them?

What are your future plans for credit/credit cards? Are you going to swear off of them or keep them around “just in case”?

We still have our mortgage debt and our student loan debt. Our plan is to pay extra towards our mortgage right now. It has the highest balance and we are unable to deduct the interest on our taxes. We can deduct interest for our student loans. There were also other things that contributed to that decision as well.

We are not going to swear off our credit cards. In fact, we have been using one for purchases to earn cash back. But we have rules in place, like never charging when we do not have money in our checking account to turn around and pay it immediately. We will also keep them around “just in case” at least through the shaky economic situation the US is currently in. After things look brighter, we will start closing some cards.

Michelle asks:
I have only been reading for the last 6 months or so. So what I would really like to know is all of the strategies you used to eliminate your debt – and to be as specific as possible. A kind of “how I did it” post. Love your blog. It’s already been a big help.

I’m glad my blog has been helpful to you As for that post you are looking for, it is in the works! I wrote way too much the past three years – but I’m almost done with a recap post. Here are links to the recap posts for 2006 and 2007.

More answers will be coming tomorrow! I also did an interview at Ask Mr. Credit Card in case you would like to read the questions and answers over there.

Posted by Tricia on April 28, 2009 at 10:40 PM in About Me, General Personal Finance | 9 Comments »
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Life Went Back to Normal…

Our pizza party to celebrate our debt payoff went well on Saturday. I can’t say the same for the morning after. That pizza tasted so good (take out), but it hurt so bad LOL. The heartburn was enough for me to declare that we are definitely going back to making our own pizza.

I thought I would feel a little different after paying off our debt. Like maybe I would want to kick my feet up for a while. You know, take some deep breaths and relax a little. Instead, things are back to normal. We went to the grocery store and still searched for the deals. We are still working our jobs and working on our business.

I think my sights have already shifted from our debt to everything else we need to take care of financially. We have a lot yet to do. Here’s what our list looks like so far:

Increase Emergency Fund to $10,000
Start Saving for a Car
Start Retirement Contributions
Start Savings Account for New (smaller) Home
Increase Mortgage Payment by 100%

To be honest, I look at that list and wonder how the heck we are going to do it. I start to feel like I did way back when we started reducing our debt. There’s a lot to accomplish and I get that feeling of “It’s going to take forever.” Talk about déjà vu.

But then I look back at what we did. I am taking a deep breath right now. We can do this, and we will do this. The first order of business is to get our emergency fund up to $5K. Then we start splitting up all extra money to the four savings baskets as start paying more towards our mortgage. I’m not sure how our extra money will be split yet (except for the mortgage – I would like to double the monthly payment).

Now I’m feeling excited. Just the thought of having $10K in our emergency fund puts a smile on my face. Rome wasn’t built in a day and this isn’t a race. We’ll get where we’d like to be. Just like with paying off our debt – it is going to take some time. Patience young grasshopper…patience.

Posted by Tricia on April 27, 2009 at 10:39 PM in General Personal Finance | 21 Comments »
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Do You Have Any Questions for Me?

As a blogger, I tried to remember to give enough details so that our journey made sense. A few times on here I have given updates to things we were trying or were going to try. I’m sure there are things that I have forgotten to give updates about. In any case, if there is something that you would like to ask me, I am opening up the floor in this post.

You can also ask other questions that are maybe not related to debt. The first place I visit when I go to a new blog is the about page. I love learning more about the blogger themselves.

I can’t guarantee that I can answer every question. Some may be too personal to answer and I’m not sure how many questions I’ll get. I’ll keep this open until end of day Monday and we’ll see what happens.

Do you have any questions for me?

Posted by Tricia on April 25, 2009 at 10:38 AM in About Me | 12 Comments »
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National News Show is Looking for Someone to Talk About Student Debt and the Recession

I was contacted by Elyse who works for the show NOW on PBS. They are looking for someone to interview for the show, but they are looking for someone specific:

The national news show NOW on PBS is looking for a student graduate who is in debt, about $50,000 or more, and fits one of the following two profiles:

1) A recent graduate (0-2 years out, give or take) who has been unable to find a job in his or her chosen profession because of the recession and is having difficulty or is totally unable to make their student loan payments.

2) Someone with an advanced degree who is about 5 years out of school and has been hit hard by the recession – possibly lost his or her job or is woefully underemployed, maybe trying to support a family, who is considering bankruptcy.

If you are interested in being interviewed for a documentary that will look at the student loan and recession crisis in the US, please contact us right away. The show will air on Channel 13 in late May, so
we’d need to hear from you immediately. Please contact Elyse Eisenberg at NOW – (212) 560 8567- if you are interested in doing the interview. You can also send an email to – eisenberge@thirteen.org.

Please contact Elyse if interested in talking about your story.

Posted by Tricia on April 25, 2009 at 9:03 AM in General Debt | Comment First »
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