A little off-topic, but I designed a little avatar that displays next to my posts. It was difficult trying to find a picture to put there. I wanted something that represented me. For some of you long time readers, you may remember that I started it was purple and green on here then I changed to gray and blue. With those colors, I didn’t feel at home here. Our debt reduction rate also slowed down – although that could be just a coincidence. I asked everyone what they thought and a few of you said that the purple and green matched my personality.

Being in debt can be a dark place. The purple and green sure brightened it up LOL. Just loading up the site in my browser made me feel more optimistic. So with my avatar I decided to go with a simple purple and green theme with my name in it

I do have an update for our net worth and the little graphic in the left sidebar is updated. It is so nice to still see that line going up. Our net worth as of January 31st is ($23,489). You can see all of the detail on my NetWorthIQ profile.

There are a few things to note. Our car has finally decreased in value to around $4K, probably due to the lower gas prices now. For quite a while, it was hovering comfortably above $5K. If gas prices go up again, there is a chance the value could go up since it is a fuel efficient car (not a hybrid, though).

During one of the last net worth updates I posted, I received a few comments about my retirement fund. I wasn’t updating it, even though the value was very likely changing. I’m sure it has lost value with everything that is going on right now. Since there wasn’t even $3K in it and I am no longer contributing to it, I decided to remove it from our net worth. It’s not money that I plan on pulling from anyways. The rest of our assets we can sell/pull from if we need to.

There is one other thing missing from our net worth. Back in October, I sold this blog to Jeffrey Strain (from SavingAdvice.com and FreeMicroLoan.com and other sites too). That is sitting in a separate savings account earning interest and I am pulling a salary from it monthly to equal the income I would normally make from this site. There is still money in account, but since the sale price is not public it is not on our net worth.

Part of the sale agreement was to keep blogging here for six months. That means that my commitment per the terms of sale ends March 31st. Our credit card debt will probably not be paid off by then, so I’ll be here for a while longer after that. Some of you have asked me to keep blogging. You will still see me around here because I am looking forward to following the next blogger and participating in the comments. You’ll also probably see me around other debt blogs as well. I haven’t had the time to read many of your blogs lately, and I’d like to get back into doing that. I’ve also thought about finding a blogging gig somewhere. If that doesn’t materialize, at the very least I will join a forum. If I do, I will announce on here. I’d like to thank those that shared your opinion about me still giving updates now and then – you’re right.

Everything still seems very surreal. By the end of this month, we should be able to get our credit card debt to close to $4K. Only a little bit more to pay off and we could technically use our savings to pay off the rest. It’s hard to describe, but I feel like asking my son to pinch me. After three years at reducing debt, so much of it has become second nature…extra money automatically went towards our credit cards. What will it be like without having credit card debt? I guess only time will tell.

I do hope that things kick up a little bit here and the rate of debt reduction increases. I think we will be able to pay a good chunk of debt this month, but I’m holding on that after last week’s fiasco. It was not a good feeling to see that we only had $21 in our checking account. Talk about a close call! Part of my debt reduction strategy is to run our checking account low so there is no temptation to overspend. But that was way too close.

I am going to double and triple check our finances to make sure I do not miss anything this month. Once I’m sure everything is covered, then it will be time to pay some more debt. If we can pay $500 extra this month I will be very happy. Come September, things should be picking up.

As always, you can see all of the numbers on my NetWorthIQ profile.

July will be an interesting month because we spent some money to go visit our relatives. We’ll have to wait and see what the rest of July brings. But I know one thing – the money we spent on that trip was well worth it. It is very difficult to live so far from our families. I have more to say about that tomorrow.

I’ll probably be posting our May spending this weekend and we’ll review more things that enabled us to increase our net worth last month. I can tell you right now that our income was a big help. It was higher than normal again in May.

To see our complete net worth, you can always check out our NetWorthIQ.com profile.

This month will probably be a little interesting. I believe there will be an increase in our net worth but not as much as the last two months because our income will be more “normal.” The plan for June is to continue beefing up our savings account balance. Our debt reduction will stall for a little bit, but that’s okay. We’re still on track for meeting our debt-payoff goal date (May of 2009).

Speaking of goals, back at the end of 2007 I listed a few an update a little while ago. As of today, we have paid off $8,100! Woohoo! We are way ahead of schedule

Some of you may be wondering how April ended up being such a great month. Here are the unusual things that happened in April:

• My husband sold an expensive piece of old business equipment.
• I sold a year’s worth of advertising on here and received an upfront payment.
• I worked overtime for extra money.

Combine the above with the normal money we have been contributing on a monthly basis and we paid off our debt by $2,300. I am still amazed how everything added up. I want every month to be April!!

With that, our net worth now stands at ($27,616). As always, you can see the whole picture at my NetWorthIQ profile.

May should be a great month too if we get our economic stimulus payment as scheduled. But I’m not holding out for it. If we manage to have the money to bring our credit card debt under the $10K amount, I am going to do it the first chance we get

There’s still a long way until we have a net worth of zero, but things are definitely looking better than when we first started reducing our debt. Back then, our net worth was a negative $55,696!

As always, you can look at the whole picture of our net worth by visiting my NetWorth IQ profile.

As of the end of February, our net worth is now at a -$31,193. We were able to increase it by 5.87%. I am pretty darn happy with this increase. It is the largest monthly increase we have had so far.

As always, you can see how everything is spread out in my NetWorthIQ profile. I stay focused on our credit card debt on here, but we do have some lingering student loans and we have our mortgage.

We’ll see how we do for next month’s update. I’m still in that state of mind

I was thinking about something today. There are only fifteen months between now and our goal date of May of 2009. While I still have some hope that we will be able to meet that date, I have to be a little realistic here. It will be very difficult to pay close to $1,100/month towards our credit card debt. Last month, we were able to come close to that, but that was cutting things close.

In fifteen months, a lot could happen that could help or hinder our debt reduction. I hope that things happen that will help it. But right now I am feeling a tinge of pessimism. $1,100/month is a lot to ask right now. I guess it is only a goal after all, and there’s no harm in not reaching it.

But I do want to make it. If anything, just to have a goal that was reached. So I’m not giving up just yet.

Looking at our little graph at NetWorth IQ, we can see that we have almost rebounded from our setbacks earlier in the year.

With everything that December brings with increased heating costs and Christmas, I am pleased with how we did.

Right now it stands at negative $36,384.

If you take a look at my NetWorth IQ profile, you’ll notice that it looks like my student loan balance increased. It didn’t increase – I found an error with how I previously entered my student loan payment. I switched the interest paid and the amount paid to the principal balance. So, it will be another month before we get those loans under $30,000.

Overall, though, I am very pleased. As long as our net worth keeps increasing, that means that we are spending less than we earn.

A new debt total is coming up the next chance I get. Thanks again to those helping out with guest posts while I’m a little swamped with life!

As a sidenote, we are very close to reaching another little milestone. While I don’t actively blog about our non-credit card debt, I still track it through my NetWorth IQ profile. We are very close to reaching a milestone with our student loans. After next month, they will be under the $30,000 mark. Yay!

At any time, you can see all of our debt and view our detailed net worth by checking out my net worth profile at NetWorth IQ.

If you look at my net worth profile, you might want to look at the top advertising banner. I caught an ad for Pinecone Research there. They pay $5 for each survey you do and are very legit. I get about 1-3 surveys/month and I have always received my checks.

As always, you can visit my NetWorth IQ Profile to see all of our debts since I only track credit card debt on here. I also keep track of our savings account balance under the “Other” asset category.

I am very pleased with this increase, although I know a bit of it is short-lived. A big reason our cash is so high is because of a health insurance payment of over $800 (it’s due every two months). But even if that money wasn’t included, we’d still have an increase in our net worth for the month.

I often think a month is going to be a tough month, but then somehow things work out. Sure, we’ve had a few months where our net worth decreased, but overall it’s been moving up…up…up. It feels wonderful.

In fact, it feels so good that I want to show the debt monster a thing or two. There’s still that goal of getting our credit card debt under $20,000. Time to review our cash flow to see what I can do

My NetWorth IQ Profile (also shows all of our debt, since I only track credit card debt on here)

Three words come to mind when I see that we increased our net worth by over a $1,000 in August…I can’t complain. For having increased expenses this month, we still did quite well. Don’t worry, I know I still owe my spending report for July. I actually have all of the information for August ready so I’ll be posting both shortly.

This weekend, to help keep my mind calm, I cleaned and started a new organizational scheme for all of our financial stuff. A big part of that was finally getting rid of many of the older receipts I had. While doing that, I found every receipt I needed for July and August so it worked out well.

As a note, I just want to say thank you to everyone who left a comment about the loss of my friend. I also thank those who wanted to leave a comment but were not quite sure what to say (I’m one of those people…so I understand). It means a lot to me, more than you will probably ever know.

In my NetWorth IQ profile, I had given myself a value of $8,000 for our personal possessions. Well, after having our garage sale this past weekend, I realized that there is no way we could easily get $8,000 by selling our stuff. So, I took it completely out of our Net Worth.

Next up, I had to add in our confirmed IRS debt of about $1,600. I thought about it and thought about it and decided to add that debt in with our credit card debt. I originally used the refund we received (as a result of the error with our return) to help pay our credit card debt. It’s only fitting that I add it back in there. While I cringed to see that we have over $21,000 in credit card debt again, I’m okay with it. I will work harder to get under the $20,000 mark again

Those two changes made our net worth plunge to a negative $42,069. I’m not really upset about it and not even disappointed. I know what I am doing will benefit us greatly in the long run even though there are a few stumbles here and there in the short run. I’m fine with that.

Since I don’t track our mortgage or student loan debt on here, you can always see that information (and more) here:

NetWorth IQ Profile

FYI – For those that have been looking for a PineCone Research banner, I caught one on the NetWorth IQ page when I was entering my info (on the very top). I have been doing surveys for PineCone for a few years now and they pay $5.00 for each survey you complete and they are very dependable. The banner doesn’t appear to be on every page, though. I think it rotates or something. I’ve heard that the banner is gone now.

June looks like it will be a good month for us. My husband has a few projects he is now working on and he finally has some work for his temporary job. It is the perfect time to beef up our savings and possibly pay more on our credit cards.

Since I don’t track our mortgage or student loan debt on here, you can always see that information (and more) here:

NetWorth IQ Profile

At some point shortly, I will be getting a bill from the IRS for the taxes that we owe for 2005. At that point, I will add it to our liabilities and our net worth will take a little nose dive. While I’m not happy about that, I won’t let it get me down. It’s just one of those little bumps in the road.

You can only imagine how I stared at the computer screen when I saw that it decreased this time around. It decreased by $860 to be exact. Don’t get me wrong, I knew there would be rough patches on this journey and I can name a few right off bat. I always hoped we could make some sort of progress with the net worth. I guess April proved to be too formidable a foe. Reduced income and increased expenses are a bad combination and when I post our income and expense report you will see what I mean. I’m hoping to get that posted in a more timely manner this month.

I guess I’m not really upset or angry that our net worth decreased. I am trying to liken how I feel to something that you can relate with but I can’t. It’s a very odd feeling that probably is exaggerated due to me being quite tired right now.

In any case, feel free to check out the total extent of our debt at my NetWorth IQ profile. For a little pick-me-up, I decided to see how much we have reduced our total debt since February of 2006 (I only track the credit card debt on here):

TOTAL DEBT

February 2006: $105,468
April 2007: $86,243

We paid off $19,225!

Yes, that was a good pick-me-up. I’m glad I did it.

Now I’m getting some sleep

When we hit a net worth of $0 I think we should have a party

To see how all of our debt breaks down (since I only focus on the credit card debt on this blog right now), please check out my NetWorth IQ Profile.

UPDATE 4/11/07: With our health insurance, it is a little over $400/month. But, I have to pay it every two months, so my payment is a little over $800 every two months (that’s why it says $800 up there). Thanks to the reader that brought this to my attention

Looking at the table at Net Worth IQ, it’s nice to see that spot under “retirement” growing. It’s almost at $500 and I didn’t even miss that money. There’s much to be said about having things automatically deducted from your paycheck

A quick update – my husband received an offer for another temporary job for the summer. He hasn’t accepted it yet, but I think he will. He’s done that job before and he enjoyed it. They REALLY want him to come back. The main thing holding him back is childcare but I think we’ll be able to figure something out.

I think back to when my husband lost his job. Some of you said, “When one door closes, another one opens.”

Very true…very true.

So, after recording that paycheck, my net worth looks a little better for the end of December. It sits at -$38,691.

Now, since I essentially received a paycheck early, that means that I will only have one paycheck in January. That sort of stinks because January income will really look bad and December will be inflated. I’ll have to remember to note that when I post the income and expense report.

With that paycheck, our income is a little over $48,000 for 2006. I am very pleased with that amount.

Now since I have some money early, I’m going to try to send more money towards debt earlier this month

Plus, what a way to end the year with breaking the -$40,000 mark

You can click here to view my profile at Networthiq.com.

I do not regularly check my profile over at NetWorthIQ, and when I went over there to update for November I noticed that I had some comments over there! One of the comments mentioned that we have paid off $14K in debt in 10 months. Quickly, I thought, no…it’s around $12K. But, the commenter is correct because he was looking at our total debt.

With this blog, I am only tracking the credit card debt at the moment. Since I used Prosper.com to obtain a loan to get some of that credit card debt at a lower rate…I include it in the balance. That means I do not count our mortgage or student loans. I also didn’t include our car loan, but since that’s now paid off we don’t have to worry about that anyway

Back at the end of February, out total debt was $105,468. At the end of November, it is now $90,557. So, we have paid off $14,911. Before the end of the year we will have paid over $15,000 towards our total debt. Forecasting our income, it looks like we will make around $47,000 for the year. About 32% of our income will be going towards our debt.

It’s too early to speculate what’s going to happen in 2007. It would be nice to keep up the pace. Many times on this blog I’ve mentioned that we’ll be losing income, but then something happens to help keep it steady. Like the time my husband cut his hours, but he is making almost the same due to the minimum wage increase in Michigan. Starting January 1, I will only have my one full-time job and my husband will have his part-time job for our steady stream of income. There will be some blog income, but it is actually decreasing now.

I do believe you need to be active when it comes to your finances, but I also believe that there is a point where too much speculation will drive you crazy. I think I’ve reached that point. I think for a while we are just going to keep doing the best we can and taking life as it comes to us. All the while keeping our head up and eyes open for new opportunities.

To see the complete breakdown, you can see my NetWorthIQ profile here.

October was the first month without a car payment, and that helped with the overall picture for October. Unfortunately, I will not be able to snowball that payment into the rest of our debt. We will be using that $250/month to go towards obtaining health insurance for me and my family.

I am currently reading Health Care on Less Than You Think (amazon referral link) by Fred Brock and I will have a review shortly on the book. The beginning chapters are sobering, giving examples of individuals that have been devistated financially by medical problems. I know one medical problem can easily undo all of the progress we’ve made reducing debt, and reading those stories really hit home.

That will be my weekend – finishing reading that book and figuring out what health insurance company to go with. Stay tuned to hear more about the book or how I am going about finding decent health insurance.

If you would like to see the rest of our debts, you can check out everything at networthiq.com on a monthly basis.

The biggest change to note for all debts is that our car is paid off

The biggest thing to note is that our car will be paid off this month! I am very excited about that

I am still working on the income and expense report for August. I’m using the new format to give everyone some more information so I’m trying to make it nice to look at and easy to read. There are a few expenses that will be hidden – but I’ll explain that when I post it. I also have to track down around 14 receipts.

I’m hoping by the end of Monday to have it posted.

Sorry that I haven’t been writing much this week. It’s been easier to stick with crunching numbers. I’ve been trying to write – but I can’t seem to get anything out. I’m sure I will be able to soon. Thanks for sticking with me and thank you to everyone who has left kind comments. It is appreciated.

May Net Worth $-49,309
June Net Worth $ – 48,477

Difference: Increase of $832

I guess what I would like to see is our Net Worth increasing by at least $1,000 every month. With the extra income we are now making and the credit cards now at very good interest rates, that is my Net Worth goal I am shooting for.

Even though I am under the weather, that puts a smile on my face. One financial goal reached – many more to go

~~~~~~~~~~

Wow, April was a great month and my Net Worth increased to $-52,015. Most of that is due to my tax refunds and using it all towards debt. It is getting so close to being only 50 grand in the hole. I love that little graphic from networthiq.com. It is such a “mood-booster” seeing that line shoot up.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I had a sizable loan reappear that I had forgotten about. I’d be lieing if I said I wasn’t a little bummed about that. I really was looking forward to paying off more of my debt with that money. But, now all personal loans from family have been paid off and all concentration will be on the credit cards.

I did have my reports ready a few days ago to update in My Progress to Date post but then that family loan reappeared. I am hoping to get new reports ready this evening. Stay tuned

$-51,900
January net worth: $-52,200.

My net worth increased by $300!!! It may not seem like much, but it is a start! I thought for sure I was going down, but I didn’t and I am VERY happy!!

There is a neat website to go to where you can keep track of your net worth, and look at the net worth of others: http://www.networthiq.com. That’s where I am listed, and here is a link to my profile.

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If someone figures out how to get more hours in the day – let me know, ok? LOL

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