My Debt Blog

Part of putting this blog together is to track the progress I am making on my credit card debt. These are the 4 active accounts I make regular payments on, even though I carry other various debts. I bought my wife earrings back in February and have to make 3 payments, and have one more to go. The offer was 0% interest and I’m not grouping that in my monthly updates because paying off a relatively small amount in a short period of time is not a long term goal. At any rate here is the chart:

I am trying to find a more efficent strategy to pay off more debt faster over less time or at lower interest. One of the latest options I am considering is lumping my 2 higher balance cards into one of those life of the balance low interest cards. I would much rather make a lump payment every month at lower interest than making two payments (double interest) every month and not lower their balances much. My high interest rate card company will not lower my rate, thus I have no choice but to no longer do business with them. Any other advice from readers is greatly appreciated.

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Since I am basically almost broke for the remainder of April and start of May, up until Friday, I decided to be productive this weekend. The weather was great here in Chicagoland so I was finally able to actually wash and wax my car by hand. Sadly I don’t remember the last time I waxed my car but I know this is the first time it has been cleaned this year. Now my car is bringing sexy back and the tires even look good, although I am going to have to buy 2 new ones because I’m losing the treds.

My wife had to work at her other job Sunday to make some extra money, her car really needed an oil change. Went to Walmart and had that done, they wanted like $5 bucks more to check fluids and tire pressure, I’ll do that myself thank you. New air filter, a bottle of fuel injector cleaner and a full tank of gas later, the engine of her car should be in good shape now. I got back home around 1:30 and figured I should probably wash her car too, which didn’t take very long. Then I looked at her car and couldn’t figure out the last time it was waxed, so I ended up waxing it, that took awhile to do. So now she’s bringing sexy back, um, in her car as well.

Low and behold right after doing all this, it decides to thunderstorm tonight. At least the rain will bead and I put fresh RainX on the windows so hopefully no spots to worry about. I’ll have to add about $60 bucks to the car maintenance but cars need their oil changed and gas to run. So now I am even more broke for this week, Friday can’t come sooner.

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It’s true we learn the most important skills in kindergarten. Things like cutting paper and coloring inside the lines. What happens when the expenses get greater than income? I got a nice tax refund earlier this month and I’m not sure where I would be if I did not have that. If my wife went on a spending spree I would at least see where the money went. Sadly, a lot of the expenses we faced this month all happened in the same month.

Insurance bill on the house was due this month. That’s not one to really put off because the banks get upset that you’re not protecting their investment. I know I should not include this, but I forgot to plan for it last month so it wasn’t taken into account. Also ran into some health expenses, had some much needed dental work done and my wife had her vision checked and needed new contacts. Not to mention my wife thought she got nail polish remover in the dog’s eye so we had to pay the vet on top of it. All these expenses right here, in excess of $500 this month. Ouch.

On a positive note, it is more comforting to have the money available we normally would not in order to handle these extra expenses. If there was no money to pay, Mr. Credit Card is always willing to front the cost for us. I refuse to increase my debt anymore because I want to pay it off. I want it gone!

The car insurance bill is coming next month for the remainder of the year. I just want to hide under a rock now.

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Today me and my wife went to see the Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals game. She got tickets for this on Friday through an online site, it was reputable though, moreso than the ticket scalpers trying to rip you off. We were going to take the train, but a guy on a motorcycle took his sweet time at the ATM we missed it by about a minute. The train would of cost us both $10 bucks to ride both ways. We ended up driving otherwise we would not make it in time for the game. Car needed gas though, at $2.86 a gallon it cost $27 to fill up.

Traffic was really bad because in Chicago all they do is work on the roads, it’s not like the cars actually have to ever use them some day. Adding insult to injury, because we were running behind the street parking was for the most part taken. Found a gas station that was basically selling itself out for parking, $25 bucks to park the car. At least we were within very reasonable walking distance to the ballpark. A very minor detour 2 blocks north to pick up our tickets, then 2 blocks back down to Wrigley Field, we made it to the start of the game.

Being about 1:30 PM, we didn’t eat anything so decided to get lunch before finding our seats, $20 for the food. Walked up a lot of ramps, then some more ramps, and then stairs to find our seats. Middle of a row, wonderful, people had to stand up so we could carefuly slide our way past them, food in hand, to our seats. Game was going pretty good until a few hours later at about the sixth or seventh inning, needed to stretch and get a snack. Back down the ramps to the bottom again. Had to walk all over the place down there to find this stupid lemon smoothy thing I loved as a kid, she had cotton candy, $10 for snacks.

The Cubs somehow tied the game at 9 in the 9th inning, but then in the overtime St. Louis Cardinals hit a homer with 2 on base making the score 12 to 9. We admitted the Cubs defeat and decided to go home. Overall, the day was a little expensive at over $100 spent. Sometimes there is more to life than worring about money, and just spending the day with someone you love is one of those lessons.

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I was listening to a show on the radio today, a caller with about 30 grand in credit card debt rolled that debt into his mortgage through an equity line. Sure this is just shifting that debt into another form, but maybe there is a benifit to doing this. This guy did not have the best credit before, because he carried a lot of credit card debt, but he had equity value in his house. By refinancing his house, he was able to pull that credit card debt into the equity line, which paid off his credit card companies, and his credit improved. He pays more on that equity line now because he no longer has to pay those credit card companies. In turn, come tax time he can take any interest he has paid and use that as a deduction on his income taxes. You cannot deduct the interest you paid on a credit card because they’re unsecured. The catch is you have to have a reasonable amount of equity in your home first in order to use it to pay your debt. I recently got my house and my loan to value is probably too high to consider this yet.

The show also said to avoid credit card consolidation companies like the plague. I guess when you consolidate all your credit card debt and make settlement payments to your creditors, it is as bad as bankrupsy because those creditors are not being paid on a regular basis while you build your big payoff payment for them. Granted it is best to not get into that bind where you have to resort to thinking about doing settlements or consider bankrupsy.

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I’m refering to paying bills of course. These damn things come in the mail and when I open them I know I don’t want to look but need to know the damage. Bills are just part of life I guess, at least I’m in IT and can at least survive off what the man pays me. When I pay the monthly bill pile I like to try and handle them according to priority:

• Mortgages - This is a must to be paid because if I cannot pay for my house, something is very wrong.
• Electric/Gas/Water/Sewer - The typical scope of utilities needed to keep that house working the way it should be.
• Student Loans - They loaned me the money to get that wonderful job (working in a cubicle from 8 to 5 all day) and I must complete that obligation and pay them back.
• Phone/TV - My cell phone plan isn’t too bad although I don’t understand why the taxes bloat the crap out of it. I have satalite TV, only extra I have is my local channels, no movies or special shows for us.
• Credit cards - These things are considered the lowest of priority because it’s like a bad car accident I got into that I just don’t want to deal with. I would compare this debt to be like pinching yourself many, many times.

Granted there are exceptions when you have a medical bill or something involving the DMV it is best not to procrastinate on those types of things. April was an average month for us, weather was a little rocky and had to use the heat a bit, but it will warm up soon. I hope my air conditioner doesn’t break again like last year.

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That day has come, taxes were due today. I drove by the Post Office on the way home and there was a line. Makes me glad I did mine a month ago because I didn’t have to deal with the mail. Why mail your taxes when there is electronic filing? I think some people might look at filing their taxes as a game and wait to the last minute just to add a little excitement. Maybe some people just forgot about their taxes, woke up this morning and thought “Crap, I need to do my taxes!” and got them in the mail today.

I already got my tax refund already, trying to figure out which debt to best utilize some it towards. I might focus on a smaller one just to give myself that feeling of almost having one card being paid off this year, which would be awesome. I’ve always been read that it works best to pay down the balance with the highest interest first though. We’ll see what I decide as I head into the final week of the month. Stay tuned.

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