Blogging Away Debt

Time Management, Demanding an Additional Payment and Canceling Credit Cards

Before I share some articles that caught my eye this week (I’m getting back into the swing of things and bringing these Friday round-ups back 🙂 ), I just want to mention that there is more info available about the writing position here at the Saving Advice Blog. The big thing to note is the deadline, October 13th.

Now onto the round-up:

First up is JD at Need To Be Debt Free. I think I really feel a connection with JD because he’s in Michigan and he shares exactly what’s on his mind. He’s had a lot of hardships, but gets himself and dusts himself off after hitting those bumps on the debt reduction road. Recently JW was thinking about time management. That’s one of my weak spots, so I found his schedule interesting. I think I’m going to need to do something like that.

Grace at GRACEful Retirement shares a co-worker’s experience with American Express. They called and demanded an additional payment, above and beyond the normal monthly payment. If that additional payment wasn’t paid – the card would be suspended. All I can say is ?????

Him & Her at Make Love Not Debt are taking some steps to clean up and started canceling credit cards. They report that none of them fought to keep them as a customer. I’ve decided that it’s time to simplify our lives and start canceling some of our cards.

Changes to Our Income

by Tricia

I have gone back and forth as to what to do from the income from the sale of this site. It could go towards our credit card debt…we could use it as a partial down payment for some land for the tiny home of our dreams…we could also go out and buy a sweet LCD TV (that one is always really tempting).

There’s another thing we could do. We could use the funds to invest in our future. That’s what we decided to do.

As you know, we have a budding business that is bringing in a small amount of income, but it is no where near full potential. We aren’t quite ready yet for full blown business, but we are close. Both my husband and I believe in this business. My husband has been doing a lot of the work right now with tasks that pertain to his specialty and he is almost done. That leaves the tasks that pertain to my specialty. I am so very far behind. I’ve been picking at it when I can, but there are not enough hours in a day. Without the completion of my tasks, we can’t go full blown. Once we go full blown, I’ll need to commit about 10 hours/week and my husband will need to commit about 30 hours (about 10 of his hours either of us could do).

I started seeing the funds from the sale as a way to help us get that business going. I would cut my hours at work and my husband would get a part-time job. So we both would be working part-time jobs and working the rest on our business. The sale funds would help fill the gap to keep us afloat until the business kicked up full steam.

So that is what we are doing. I’ve already gave notice about my hours and my husband already has a job lead. I tend to believe that things happen for a reason. I was struggling to try to keep everything together (as some of you noticed with my lack of daily posts and delay in email responses). I like to think that I can do it all, but I can’t. So with everything coming together as it has…this is our chance!

There will be no spending spree and I’ll have to just drool but don’t buy when it comes to those LCD TVs. The sale money is going to sit in a savings account and earn interest while we pull what we need each month to bring us to our normal income level with our new schedules. That means our business is going to be a big driving factor behind paying off the rest of our debt. If the business doesn’t succeed, we’ll be in debt for a while longer. It is a risk, but one that has been lessened thanks to the sale funds and because I am only going part-time at work (meaning chances are good that I can go back to full-time if needed).

We want this, though. There was no lack of passion, only the lack of time and resources. We can have that now, at least for a few months, so we are going for it. You can’t succeed if you don’t try. We want to succeed…we want this. I believe it’s time to make it happen.