My Debt Blog

Here’s the stats on my ugly load of credit card debt and the very little progress I have made in the short term of paying it off, yet much more progress on the long term cost of it. I got some credit line increases and some APR decreases this month which helps reduce the finance charges. Now if I push higher payments to these so that more will go to the principle besides just paying that minimum to cover the finance charge and nearly nothing of the balance.

I am considering opening a new credit line to transfer my now HIGHEST rate credit card to a 0% for 15 months. By making a bigger payment to it that should be blown away in less than that time and all with not paying any more finance charges. The unsafe side is if I don’t pay it off in time then the interest accrues from the start and that would hurt. I would like to at the least pay off one smaller account this year so I can beef up payments on the next smallest account. There has also been talk about me getting a second part time job to earn some extra income to go towards paying off debt. I have some hurdles to get through here in June because the car insurance bill is coming and there is no budget for our anniversary either. Goodbye emergency fund?

Comments(5)

Today I have finally turned 25 and am glad I am at the point where I am with my life. I remember back when I was 15 what high school was going to be like, and then at 20 dealing with the challenges of college. Now at 25 it seems like what was once so complex is now much simpler than it used to seem. Sure I have made mistakes, made good choices and bad ones, got into some debt, but I’m finally working on moving towards a more positive direction.

So for the past few weeks I have been listening to The Dave Ramsey Show and am starting to understand why people become motivated by him to handle their debt and take control of their money. It isn’t completely him that makes this happen, it’s the callers who have real life situations probably much similar to some of our own, and people almost help other people through the show. At any rate my wife got me his Total Money Makeover book for me to read about his system. I also went on his website and found his software for only $10 along with another book I want to read, The Millionaire Next Door. I am cautious to consider his system because he does not believe in credit period.

Comments(3)

The whole concept of have now, pay later has always bothered me, but sometimes things need to be replaced quickly. I should be saving money to probably just buy a washer and dryer. The washer is not very old but very cheap, and the dryer is very old and expensive to operate (both came with the house.) I thought about just continuing to use them until they just break down and we’ll get something else, but my wife does not like that idea. If these things break, we might not be at the point to replace these things. I’m trying to find ways to avoid financing this purchase besides just saving for it.

On the upside, Sears is currently offering no interest, no payments for a year, so technically the purchase will not cost me anything in the end, as long as I pay it off before that year expires. I did the same type of deal with my stove and paid that off in March. At the same time I wonder if having newer and more efficient appliances will help save me money on my utility bills. I do most of the laundry (I’m a guy too, I know it’s rare) and wash nearly everything in cold except the under things and socks I use warm. My dryer takes sometimes 2 hours just to try an average size load of laundry, and it’s a gas dryer. The little knob on the dryer is broken too so sometimes the stupid thing doesn’t turn off and will run much longer than necessary, which is a huge waste of money.

This has been going through my head lately while at the same time I’m trying to pay off my debt. It’s really hard to move forward if you fall backwards and get deeper in debt. I hate pretending to own things but at this point I might not have a choice. My wife likes the idea of new appliances because she also thinks they add value to the house. I don’t think an appraisal of the house would be any different based on the appliances in it. They would probably help drive a better offer some day when we’re ready to sell. I hate justifying this stuff to myself it is driving me nuts.

Comments(5)

I have been talking to my credit card companies for some time now trying to get myself better rates. One of the major problems I was having was my balances were too close to the limit in order to offer me a better interest rate. A technique I applied was to ask them for a credit line increase, sometimes this can offset the utilization to reduce the interest rate.

My Bank of America card got raised by 1k and I called this month and got the interest rate down to 17.24% APR which is much better than that 25.24% I had been paying. My Citi Dividend card got a nice $3600 increase bringing my utilization way down. Called them last night and asked them if they could reduce my 11.24% APR, they said no. I asked for a supervisor and sat on hold awhile, got a rate specialist and asked her for a lower rate. She told me I had a good rate, which I told her that is a decent rate, I want a great rate. After telling her that I get offers in the mail all the time for much better rates she finally threw 9.9% APR at me, sold!

Now I must admit the bad news regarding debt not the event. It is coming up to my one year wedding anniversary and we both would like to celebrate it in style since it is the very first one. We’re going to stay at a Jacuzzi suite and go to a fancy restaurant, and for now the plan is to hold over the cost on a credit card. I’m also trying to figure out what we should be spending on each other. I don’t want to start any fights over trying to budget this stuff. These minor increases are temporary and will be my focus to get rid of so I can get back on track. I’m also going to start setting some money aside now in preparation for Christmas so I try to avoid doing this in the future.

Comments(5)

I’ll start out by saying that I do have some student loans. In college it felt like I had no choice but to resort to getting a loan to pay for education. I could have put education on hold while saving up the money, but the problem with that is actually going back to school.

Growing up my parents reminded me to save my money for college. So I saved a lot of money, spent very little of it, always paid my bills, and stayed debt free throughout grade school. When I got to college and the bill came, I paid it from my savings. After three semesters that money ran out fast. Then I did something really stupid, paid for college with a credit card! My girlfriend (now wife) had been borrowing money the whole time thus far and urged me to get a student loan. Signed up for a loan, to cover school related expense so that I could the (beer) money from my student job for myself.

Graduate college with a bunch of credit card debt and now student loan debt. At least my student loans are consolidated into a nice low rate under 3%. Living on credit cards in college is about the stupidest mistake I could have made. Now I am paying, and then some, for that mistake. The student loans in my opinion are not a mistake, just necessary at the time to get to the point to get a job. I still remember that first paycheck from my salary based job and thinking I’ll be able to get out of debt in no time. Bills came in and then I realized how little I had left after the basic needs have been met.

Once the credit card debt is gone my next priority is paying off these student loans because I’m not going be paying these things for 20+ years. I set my goal to pay off my credit cards by March 2009, we will see how well that date is come this time next year. After that is gone I will be debt free except for the house. Are student loans worth it? I think it would take me longer to be at this point in my life without them.

Comments(0)

I can remember all the way back when the postal stamp was only 22 cents. Then it jumped to a quarter, then 29 cents in the early 90s. By the later 90s and early 01 it got to 34 cents, then seemed to rapidly go up to the former 39 cent rate. Now we hit 41 cents for a stamp, but not just any stamp, a forever rate stamp.

Now think about what the bulk of the mail you get daily that keeps the postal service working the way it does. Most of it is junk mail! I may filter through a bunch of credit card offers, student loan refinance offers, insurance, etc just to find my billing statements. Then if I pay a bill the old fashioned way, writing a check and mailing it, I must throw a stamp on it just to get my payment back to them. They waste money to advertise to me yet it cost me money to pay them.

Now we have come to the great new era of online banking and electronic payment. Why get your statement in the mail and pay by check when you can view the account online, schedule a payment to be made directly at the time you do it, no waiting, no worries, no additional cost. I think it is because of how many use the Internet to pay bills is causing the decline of having to mail letters with stamps. We still need them to ship larger letters or packages though, unless someone figures out a way to do that over the Internet I would suggest getting a patent on that process.

Back to the new concept of the forever stamp, how good of a deal is it? Sure you could invest in a ton of these things at the current rate, but what if we get to a point where there is no longer a need to use them? Give them a few years to see if they pan out, but I am skeptical about this idea of a stamp being good forever at the rate you paid for it. There are better things to invest your money in, stamps are not it.

Comments(1)

Personally I don’t think this will work. Today gas prices were $3.32 a gallon near me and I am getting close to my wits end. About 2 months ago I could fill up for $25 and now it’s $40 because of these price hikes. I want my $2 gas back!

Recently I highlighted a rant on gas prices and I was simply bothered at how quick they went up. Now I am upset with how much they have gone up in general. There’s so many so called reasons I read in the paper trying to make the case to explain why gas prices are high. My biggest question is why do we just put up with it? I like my car and enjoy driving it, but if gas prices continue to rise this rapidly it will become ever increasingly harder to deal with them. I have been waiting for things to balance out here awhile. Interest rates have risen much higher than they used to be as well. Taxes always seem to be going up. The value of the dollar has diminished greatly.

I’m not buying gas tomorrow to see if it will make any bit of difference. That stupid e-mail has been forwarded to me so many times, I guess I will go with the flow. Maybe I’ll invest in a bike, it’s just the 14 mile commute that becomes a problem.

Comments(3)