Goods vs. Bads

I am hesitant to post on here when I don't really accomplish anything, but I guess that's the point of this blog ... accountability to myself and my goals.

Today is my last day of work before I fly out to the East Coast for a mini-vacation with my parents. My parents split my airline ticket out, which was something I asked them not to do, but they did anyway. My mom will also likely be picking up all of the hotel costs. She has already been out there for work and has her car, so we are driving back home.

My plan is to encourage my parents to enjoy our time out there together, but enjoying it in ways we don't spend a lot of money on. Like I'm going to suggest we hit up a grocery store for food/snacks for the weekend, rather than always hitting up restaurants and fast food the whole trip. Do more sightseeing that doesn't cost a lot, than stuff that does. I think it will be good. And I hope to pitch in when I can for gas and what not.

Outside of this, I haven't accomplished a lot since I last posted. I'm going to list of goods and bads ...

GOODS
- My goal to quit drinking soda is going very well! And my caffeine level of intake has also dropped off, since I'm just drinking a cup or two of hot tea, not 3-4 cans of soda in a day. This also saves me money!!

- I've been getting up early and out of bed, so I'm not rushed in the morning

- I've started organizing some of the big projects at work

- I didn't go out and buy lunch yesterday when I thought about it, instead I spread out the things I had brought with throughout the day and wasn't hungry.

- I'll get three paychecks this month. That is really good and wil help me fund my emergency fund.

- I got more organized for my sports team, in terms of checking on our player availability.

- I went over my cell phone bill, divied it up between our family members (5 of us share one plan, in my name) and everyone's transferring me their cut.

BADS
- I haven't taken care of calling for a lower interest on my card. I also haven't figured out what to do with the other card. I stay up awake at night worrying it to death. I'm going to spend some travel down time working this out and writing down my zero-based budget.

- Despite getting up early every other day, yesterday I hit the snooze button too long, had to rush through my morning and arrived last at my office. But today was much better.

- Finding new players for my sports team is proving difficult. The more new players I find, the less stress I'll have come fall. I need to get more of my teammates involved, but everybody has something better to do (except when it's time to complain). I'm going to send an e-mail out today asking people to hang fliers while I'm on vacation with my parents.

- I had a bad weekend of spending money. I went out with my boyfriend for a few beers, than we had a baby shower an hour away, so I had to buy a gift for our friends, pay for part of the gas, and bought my boyfriend dinner since he had bought me dinner on Friday night. I also bought two expensive drinks at the shower (at a fancy brewery restaurant on a river). That said, my boyfriend chipped in some for the gift and I opted to drink water when I could. But I need to be more aware of buying the least expensive options when I'm out with friends or drinking water, non-alcoholic beverages. It's just hard when you want to have fun and everyone else is too. I wonder what all of their debt is like though?

So I have had some bad days, but I'm still chugging along. Learning lessons every moment. I'll update my sidebar next week after I pay some bills. I think I need to simplify it too ... maybe just a graph or something.

I blogged about this earlier here and had decided that I should get a 403b started even with a small minimum amount.

But now I'm not so sure, after reading this discussion over at NCN. Specifically, should you have a 401k (or in my case, a 403b) if your employer is not matching funds and you need to pay down debt?

Part of me feels like if I can squeeze it out of my budget somewhere, even a small amount in my 403b would be smart to get going while I work my butt off to pay down the rest of my debt.

But then the other part worries that I'll need that money each month.

I left a comment over there looking for NCN's thoughts. I'll wait to see what they say and then make the decision. I'm leaning towards getting it, signing up for the minimum and then just figuring out some more ways to bring more money in to make up that difference. It makes more sense to me to have a nestegg of something, no matter how small, when I get rid of all of my debt, than nothing at all, you know?

Feeling Down ... Quitting Soda

But I just keep telling myself, hey, at least I'm not Lindsay Lohan today.

I now know my balance on my last credit card. It's worse - much worse - than I thought. And I'm behind on it. I've been working hard to catch up on everything else and get organized, but ignoring this one.

But I'm going to take care of it soon somehow. Then I'll update the sidebar again.

At least I'm not dead. At least I'm not facing jail time. I'm healthy. I have a good life. I can make this work. Somehow.

Today's step towards getting out of debt, and improving my personal health as well, is that I quit drinking soda yesterday. Cold turkey. I'm now on day 2. I'm most definitely a soda junkie, but then Monday night when I realized I was out of soda and trying to figure out how I could go buy more, I further realized I only wanted the soda, I didn't need it. I don't need most of the stuff I have bought in the past, much less this crappy artificial beverage.

So, this morning I'm drinking hot tea. Gives me a bit of caffeine, plus it's green tea. And I can keep reusing the bag for a few drinks. And I have my trusty water bottle too. Free!!

Hopefully in a few days, I'll start feeling better too as my body cleanses all the soda residuals out.

Every little bit helps right? Right.

$70,000

A woman paid off $70,000 worth of debt in 19 months ... that's less than two years!!

I don't know how she did it exactly, but that is AWESOME. And it gives me a lot of hope and excitement that I can do this.

Trying to figure out my debt snowball ...

Prior to starting this blog, I'd been working for several months ... almost a year actually ... to find ways to pare down my budget and expenses, while chiseling away at my debt.

It came very sloooooowwwwwllllllyyyyyy ...

Obviously things like cutting out cable TV were easy. I only missed Project Runway for about a week (I still miss the entire food network though). I'm actually a pretty big fan of PBS now too.

I bit the bullet and went to a credit counselor here in town. One of the actual "good guys" not some skeezoid jerk who would charge me 99% interest. Or those horrid commercials I always hear on the radio. They make my skin crawl. But I'm meandering here ...

I had the number for the credit counselor in my town for probably 18 months before I actually called. I think I might have even called earlier, left a message and than never called back. Until last fall. That's when I realized I was drowning. So I actually called, made an appointment, waited out the few weeks I had to wait to get in, then took off from work for a "doctor's appointment" (the money doctor) to go.

It was awful. Or more honestly, I felt awful for going there and taking up somebody's valuable time. Yes, I need help with my debt. But I sure as hell am not helpless or a single mom trying to figure out her welfare, supporting her kids and her bills. I'm a young late 20-something professional with two college degrees who tried to fill the holes in her life and her confusion over life's path with crap like vacations, parties, clothes and shoes (actually later, it was just to cover my rent and groceries ... shame spiral here I come). But I went to my appointments there twice. Feeling like a piece of crap, irresponsible bitch the whole time.

A very nice woman, a "mom" type, was my counselor. She helped me sort out some basic information, gave me kleenex and a hug when I couldn't help balling my eyes out (ride that shame spiral, wooooo!) and instructed me to get all of my debt down on paper and start logging all of my spending to start my budget.

The second appointment was much of the same, I had my spending log (which I had not filled out until like the day before, but was 99% accurate b/c I rarely use cash thankfully ... we can tackle my procrastination later) and she discussed all of my options for my credit cards and discussed the work I had done asking my credit cards at that time for better rates. Only one had given me a better rate, dropping from something poisonous like 30% to 15%.

As it turned out, through my discussions with her, is that the credit counselor would just ask my cards for a certain locked in rate (which actually in my case weren't much better than what I already had), then I would pay them my payment all at once, then they take out a small fee for handling it, and I'm just responsible for paying the counselor for X amount of years until it's all paid off.

But the thing is, they weren't going to be able to help me much better than I was already helping myself. Plus they couldn't help me with my car loan or my student loans. She was telling me things I already knew too ... Cut your spending, make positive life changes to improve your money coming in versus going out, clean up your messes, balance your checkbook, call your credit cards and ask for better rates, etc., etc., etc. Basically, the credit counselor said you keep coming here and we'll watch over you while you learn how to help yourself.

But that's all I wanted. Just to help myself. Not to have someone help me help myself.

[I should note that I think this service was really great for someone who needs help with their credit. And I'm not saying I didn't need help, but just for me, it wasn't a good fit.]

I cancelled my next appointment. I had applied for some job I was sure I had a shot at some computer company in town that would overpay me to be a mindless droid and had already realized I needed to get rid of my single apartment. That new job would mean I would make a crapload of more money.

This was right before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was really nice. I ate a lot. I spent the whole day with my family. And then I got home, checked my mail and received a big fat rejection letter. Dear Flip, thanks for applying, but ...

I think my mom thought I might hurt myself that night or worse. I'm by no means a suicidal or mentally unstable person. But that was the tipping point to rock bottom. Right there. I was so far in debt I didn't know which way was up. I couldn't afford my apartment. I couldn't even get a job that less intelligent people I know with zero personality were hired for. What the hell was I going to do?

Have you ever woken up from a dream and been so disoriented you didn't know where you were and it scared the everliving hell out of you? It felt like that. It felt like when I was learning to scuba dive and I was underwater in the ocean by myself and I wasn't paying attention, then turned around, lost my sense of direction and panicked because I couldn't swim right and I couldn't find the other divers. I was alone. In the middle of the ocean underwater. I did not know which way was up.

So that pretty much sucked. Plus my mom was in full-blown protective mom stage. She was the only person I felt I could talk to about it, and trust me, I probably wouldn't have if given the option. I'm stubbornly independent to a fault.

But it got better. I didn't die. The world definitely didn't end. I realized I would've hated that job and only wanted it for the better salary. My current job was better for me and I realized that rather than sneaking around for a better-paying job, why couldn't I just admit to my boss I needed a better salary, one that was competitive for my work/education level anyway. And I started to figure out how to sublet my apartment. Sometime in here is also when I discovered the world of personal finance blogs ...

Which brings me back to figuring out my debt snowball. I now have a better salary (yeah!!), my budget is pretty picked-clean, but I admit that I don't have a written budget yet and I don't know exactly what my debt snowball would be. I also need to figure out what's happening with the last of my four credit cards. I've spent the past few months getting back on track, but now I need to fully commit myself to kicking debt's ass and taking names. I can do it. I'm tough. Debt does not want to meet me in a dark alley.

I've been paying all of my stuff on time, but have been paying my credit card minimums plus a little extra. So I'm not hitting one card with a big snowball, I've been just throwing little wussie snowballs to each one. So now I need to figure out how to put all my firepower into a bigger, better snowball.

Here is my to-do list ...

1. Actually build myself a written budget. This should be very simple. I think I'm just letting my fear of failure let me procrastinate.

2. Start my 403b, and make sure it's budgeted in. Ignorance is not bliss.

3. Figure out the last of my four credit cards. I would like to find a good 0% balance transfer for this one, get that squared away and part of my plan. Again ... fear of failure creates procrastination.

4. Attack the card with the least amount with a kamikazi debt snowball. Because clearly attacking the card with the highest interest rate would take forever because it's also my biggest amount, I'm going the least amount route. I'll also work on requesting a better rate on that high card.

5. Build additional income through my sports blog, selling unneeded possessions, picking up odd jobs, etc.

So I got paid this week and my payments for my car, CC2 and CC4, plus my car insurance and money for rent to my sister and part of her utility bill are now either paid/awaiting their automatic transfers. I'm current for right now and will work on my to-do list over the next two weeks before my next paycheck comes in.

August is also looking excellent because I'll get three paychecks and I think I get the yearly annual raise due to my union membership.

403b

On my major to-do list has been figuring out what a 401k is, if I need one and how I can get one.

Everything I read says you need one if you're going to be financially smart and savvy for retirement. And that you need to start one as soon as possible.

I kept reading about them, all the different vocabulary words out there and it was just gobbley-gook to me.

Additionally, the Human Resource ladies at my job often seem more confused by my questions than helpful.

So I decided to ask my boss, as she's been quite knowledgeable about other aspects of my employment, despite our differing career paths and designations within our place of employment (I'm union, she's non-union).

And man, did I stike gold with that decision. Turns out she has a special love for her Tax-Sheltered Annuities and really believes that women need to take care of their money and educate themselves in these areas as much as possible.

So I learned that I actually want a 403b, not a 401k, because I work at a public institution. And she showed me how I could start one, where she would start out investing her money in what funds and how to start learning more. This rookie is very thankful for this conversation today.

I also learned a bit about what a Roth IRA is, how over time I can better "diversify" where my investments are and helpful websites where I can keep learning. I'll post those in my resource area on the sidebar.

So there is my new goal. To start my 403b, no matter how small I have to start it, as I pay off my debt.

I just wish I would've asked these questions years ago. However, it's never too late. Right? Right!

Car Insurance

I recently worked with my car insurance company to improve my rate and drop my monthly payments (I can't yet afford to do the 6-month payoff all at once).

I had always just figured it wasn't up for negotiations, but then realized if I never asked, I would never know.

I started by getting a quote from a different national insurance company (the little gecko) as a bargaining chip. I never intended to leave my insurance because I like them and the local people are really nice (a "family"). The woman who helped me was great and worked through all of the options with me and also suggested shortening my current term to help me best drop some of the expenses when an old accident (snowy roads) will fall off my plan early next year.

I was hesitant to increase my deductible from the current $250, because I was afraid I might not be able to then afford it if I did have a problem.

But since I made the initial big changes, I've been acutely aware of my driving so I can avoid any tickets and accidents. And this week, I decided that now with my emergency fund plan and my improved driving attitude/behavior that increasing my deductible to $500 would be a smart plan to help me save money overall.

So, I just talked to the Insurance Agent again and adjusted my deductible up, which will save me $50 over the six months. Every little bit counts. And I'm super excited for next year when that accident finally falls completely off, saving me even more money.