I’m a Woman and I Have the Right to Change My Mind!

I love that saying by Wendy Williams! She uses that statement when she is adamantly against or for something! She doesn’t hold her tongue with how she feels. Then at a later date she is apt to come back and say. “You know what? I was wrong about ……, I think they are good a couple” or whatever she may be talking about that day.

I said all that to say you, not very long ago I wrote a post saying that I would never do another spending fast, that is wasn’t for me, and that I needed to try other things. Welp I am going to eat my words.

I don’t want anything to do with a spending fast but Murphy has moved in. Murphy is apart of Murphy’s Law. In short this theory says that if something can go wrong, chances are it will. It has. Earlier this year I had this great amazing plan of paying off $9,000 dollars of debt in 90 days, and completing my last and final debt by October or November. Due to Murphy, I’m looking at November or December if I keep my budget tight.

Some of you are wondering what could possibly put me so far behind. Simply a car repair. Its along the lines of a $1000 not to mention the little incident with our rental property at the beginning of the year that we are trying to bounce back from.

Sigh! I am a little irritated by it, however it was just what I needed to motivate me to watch where every one of my cents are going. So starting March 30th. I shall do a Spending Fast. No unneccesary spending will occur. I have been doing this long enough to know what are necessities and what are simply sad attempts to talk myself into thinking its a need. I know that eating out must be controlled and trips window shopping has to end as it leads to impulse and emotional buys. I know that i must find free activities for the princess because other wise we will drive each other crazy. So now that I know what I need to do, I am going to tell myself (and the princess) no and just do it.

Has Murphy (a financial issue) just moved in with you? What are you doing to bounce back?

Im Not Doing Another No Spend Challenge! You?

I am not saying I won’t be tempted to, however I have not found one to be successful for me yet. If you are interested in what some of the challenges look like do a Google, search. There are tons of them there; see if you have an interest.

I have tried all kinds of challenges. Some I put in place and some others I borrowed. I have tried not eating out for several weeks, no spend challenges, cut the grocery challenges, and much more. What I have found is while these work for many people they are not for me. I tend to thrive well in things that are not so extreme. Those challenges that are all or nothing cause me to work hard then binge hard.

When I decided I was not going to spend for several weeks at a time. I did just that, however the moment I finished a challenge and  walked into my local Target and Ross I bought and bought. Things for the home, clothing, things for my daughter and more. Luckily I was smart enough to keep the tags on most of it so that I could return it, There were many items that never made it back to the inside of a store. This is because I could not bare to take it back. Oh the agony. Did you catch any of that sarcasm? Point is they should have never made it home.

I say all that to say, everything won’t- work for everyone. I suggest you find a method that works well with your lifestyle and your personality. What I found that works best for me is to give myself (what I consider) a small personal monthly budget. It is a mere 50 bucks a month. Within this budget  I can purchase whatever I like and after that nothing else. There are exceptions that I allow like weddings, Sorority events, or trips where I up my budget to about 100 bucks. Those moments, however are very few and far in between. I know some of you are saying whoa not a whole 100 bucks but eh, that’s my kind of challenge. I like to see how much I  can get for so little. I am still happy with my progress and will continue to make changes that are in line with a better financial future.

What kind of money challenges have you participated in? Have they worked for you?

4 Ways to Keep Motivated While Paying Down Debt

I’ll be honest, Im a little burnt out on the finance talk. I want to continue to pay down debt and pay it down fast, but the excitement is fading. So I have come up with four tips that will keep you motivated.

Forgetta Bout It (In my best Italian voice)
If your half as bad as me, you are calculating and recalculating your numbers every single day. I have calculated my loan payments probably 70 times in the last 4 months. That is not an exaggeration. I want to find every extra dollar and apply it to my loan and in doing so my calculator on my phone became my best friend. I am sick of these numbers, so I have decided what I will do is check my bank account once a week, and continue to pay the $1000 -$1400 monthly and in September I will check my loan totals. This will help me focus on other things in life not just adding numbers all day.

Read or Listen to Debt Free Stories
I listen to Dave Ramsey Debt Free Screams when I get burned out. Its nothing like listening to an individual in a more difficult position and with way more debt talk about their sacrifice and determination to pay off debt. Many times they are able to complete the task in less than 30 months. I remember a couple who had about the same amount of debt I have and whose family income was almost exactly the same as ours. In about 2 years they payed off their debt. Heres the kicker this family had 10 kids ranging in ages from 12 years old to 6 weeks! How can you feel sorry for your self now. You can’t, you just can’t!

Give Yourself A Treat
Im so busy coming up with ways I can deprive myself or shrink our grocery budget that I forget to treat myself. Everytime you meet a monthly goal or weekly goal treat your self to something small. My something small is this White Out Cupcake from Sweet by Holly here in Jacksonville. It is awesome and its $3. And twice a month I plan to go and get one. I also go to one of my fav discount stores and pick up a shirt or two. This makes me feel like Im living instead of drying out at home like a prune. Whoa what an analogy.

Imagine Yourself at the Finish Line
This is what really gets me through. Thinking what life will be like when you owe no one. Aahh, I feel it now. It feels like wind blowing through my hair, kinda of like the Michael Jackson pose where he is screaming. If feels like you’ve birthed a new life. Like you,ve finally wrangled that loose pig, that you have been trying to wrangle for two years. Okay too much? Well you get the point, it is an awesome feeling and I am currently chasing that feeling.

What motivates you to pay off debt? Have you have an enough moment where you don’t want to see another bill in your life?

June Debt Update

Current Debt Status:

BOA CC Balance: $0.00 donkey kicked this; 1/15/2013

NavyFed CC Balance: $0.00 power punched this; 3/21/2013

Nelnet Balance: $0.00 choke slammed this; 3/21/2013

Federal Student Loan Balance: $16895.00 When I wrote this last month I had already applied 1504 toward the loan. Since then I applied another $500 in May and in June I applied $1400 toward the loan. That’s a grand total of $1900 since the last time I wrote. If you can tell I like nice even numbers!

Car Loan: $20,052.59 applied $478.00

So, I’m doing well this month! Even better than I thought. I was determined to meet the goal of $1200 that I set for myself last month and I am right on track to not only meet but surpass that goal by about $200. I have taken precaution in my spending and on top of that my hubby has started receiving a hazardous pay during his deployment. My next goal $1400. This is an ambitious goal because I am taking a trip mid July and have house guests during the Fourth. Wish me luck!

What are your goals. Have you payed off your debt?

Someone Mysteriously Paid Off My Student Loan

Oh how funny and irritating this true story is! Welp I’ll start by saying that I work very hard to put every penny towards my student loans. Each month I patiently await for the 15th, thats our payday, when I can apply this large calculated amount of money towards my loan. I know that sounds weird but it is like a Holiday for me. A special time when I can see the money on my loan melt away, but this month I was in for a huge surprise.

I payed money towards my loan as I usually do. I go into the website, type in $1,000.00 then hit click, then I wait. If I apply any amount to my loan during a Thursday or Friday I have to wait an entire weekend to see the updated amount on the loan, but on Saturday I noticed that it had already been removed from my checking account.

I then went to check my loan account and realized something miraculous under the “How much do I owe” tab. The amount reported $0.00 owed. What!! I immediately began to have some shallow breathing. I sat straight up in my bed. I had not made the aweful mistake of taking $18,000 from my checking account to pay for my loan had I?

No! My account specifically said “Other” when I searched to see where the payment had come from. Whoopee! Do you know what I can do with this extra money? I can start paying off my car early, then fund a large emergency fund, oh and don’t forget save for a car for the hubby. This is awesome, but where did this money come from? I have been praying, but would this loan just up and disappear? Who would want to pay off $18K in loans?

So I decided right then that I would call my loan company. Sure it was midnight, but I wanted to check to see if the automated lady would help me understand why I did not owe them anymore. After putting in plenty of information for her to recognize who I am, she then let me know my account had been taken over by a company named FedLoan and that they would be further handling all of my account information. What? So you mean I still gotta pay somebody for this loan.

Sigh. All of my excitement left. It really felt good for those three minutes and thirty seconds to imagine one of my biggest financial barriers where wiped smooth away. I did some heavy dreaming in that three minutes and then back to reality.

Have you ever thought that your loans were magically wiped away? Or were they really?!

Image from Snorgtees.com

Snowflakes in June: Finding New Ways to Add to my Debt Payment

June is a bittersweet month for me. I am completely free from working and the summer is mine. I think I’m more excited than the students. On the other hand, my extra sub income is gone out the door. I have been privileged to even be able to work, but now that I have three months off, I am going to have to make my own snow.

For you to understand the Snowflakes, I must share with you the Debt Snowball Theory. In this debt repayment plan you pay the bare minimum on all of your debts except the one with the smallest amount. You will pay the bare minimum plus add any leftover money at from your budget toward the smallest one. This is called a Snowball. When that debt is completely payed off you take all the money used toward paying the small debt and roll it over to pay the next largest debt. This becomes a debt snowball. Once that debt is payed off you roll all money from the last two debts into the third one. And so on and so on.

Snowflakes are extra small amounts of money that are found within the budget or income that is used to make a snowball. Examples include but are not limited to rebates in the mail, loose change, extra money left over from the grocery or gas fund, side income that may be minimal, selling items on Craigslist or eBay, and much more.

With that said I will sell more items, cut my grocery, gas, and whatever other bill I can cut, collect loose change, and indulge myself in Swagbucks (an online rewards program) to cut costs in other areas. Goal – $200 extra bucks a month. I pray that some months it’s way more than that but I want to be realistic in my expectations.

What things do you to bring in snowflakes? What is your largest snowflake you’ve recieved?

My total Debt Payoff (The First Trimester 2013)

Well this has been a pretty good trimester. Especially when it comes to my financial goals. Since I’ve introduced my blog on January 20th of this year, I have been dedicating a good bit of my free time to the calculating and recalculating my debt free date. Among that I’ve also spent time coming up with ways to save money, make extra money, and creatively tell you about it. But at the end of the day the numbers are just numbers. Simple math. My last trimester numbers look like this

Total Debt January 20th:
Amounts paid off:
BOA Credit Card $743.72
Navy Federal Credit Card $10068.33
Nelnet Student Loan $4135

What I’ve paid off in the last four months
Federal student loan $1500.47
Car Payment $1912

This trimester is promising but the problem will be keeping my budget tight. I mean really tight. Five bucks here and there could throw off a lot. So I have given us $70 of wiggle room. This is for small mistakes, to eat out once or twice, to get a red box movie, to get a book of stamps, etc. You get the drift. Anything spent over that goes into money allocated for debt. In this new trimester, I have cut the budget everyway I know how, except for the cable. I am working on lowering the cost of our cable, but not interested in turning it completely off. Cable is a want, I get that and I think that when you are on a “spending fast” so to speak then you should have a silver lining. Look I’m not giving up cable, I know what you guys are thinking.

Moving along… My new financial goals for the 2nd trimester is to simply put $4500 – $5000 dollars toward student loan debt ,and the minimum towards my car loan, between the month of May and August. You may think to yourself that should be easy considering what I was able to accomplish in the first trimester. This biggest difference is income. I will be out of work as a substitute teacher, so we are going back down to one income, for the summer at least. However, I have one month to make a difference in the debt, because I still will be working in May. I literally plan to work everyday before the end of summer, so that I can go out swinging. Hopefully by doing so I can pay off a good chunk this financial goal.

I always talk about goals, boys in girls because they are super important. More important is writing your goals down and sharing them with others who may hold you accountable. That’s why I share with you. I do have goals outside of these financial ones. I need something else to keep my brain from bursting because I’m running numbers all day! I will share those soon!

Have you reached any of your financial goals yet? Have you rerouted your New Years Resolutions?

Debt Update: May

Current Debt Status:

BOA CC Balance: $0.00 donkey kicked this >> 1/15/2013

NavyFed CC Balance: $0.00 power punched this >> 3/21/2013

Nelnet Balance: $0.00 choke slammed this >> 3/21/2013

Federal Student Loan Balance: $18694.00 applied $1504.00 plus more to come before the end of May

Car Loan: $20,800.59 applied $478.00

So, I’m doing well this month! I was determined to meet the goal I set for myself last month and I am right on track to not only meet but surpass that goal by about $200. I have worked every day in this month thus far and will continue. It has paid off. Hopefully I can meet next months small goal of $1200.

What are your goals. Have you payed off your debt?

Deployment makes for new savings

Soo, the hubby left on Tuesday (Sad face), for a deployment. It’s only Thursday and it doesn’t even seem real. It’s almost like I’m waiting on him to return soon. Anyways I am sure it’s about to be an uphill battle but I kinda feel like I’m coasting. My daughter on the other hand didn’t take it so well. She cried the entire first day. She is two so she doesn’t exactly know everything that is going on but she definitely understands that daddy left. So this is definitely the down side to the deployment.. Wanna know the up?

I am going to be able to cut several of our expenses. Every dollar saved means an extra day of debt freedom. So for this reason alone, I am less aggravated, upset, hurt, mad about this deployment that I deem frivolous. There is no reason deployments should be every year. We do have families. Sigh, I apologize for coming off so bitter. Deployments are always an adjustment, but I digress. Back to expenses, the cell phone bill, gas, and grocery bill will be cut in half. Not to mention my husbands personal spending budget that I will add to the looming debt.

I say all that to say Deployments suck but this is an awesome chance for me to get ahead in my debt endeavors. My goal is to put between $1000 and $1600 dollars toward my debt each month. The summer months will definitely be on the lower end, due to summers off (I’m a substitute teacher). The higher end is considered during my working months. My Ultimate goal is to pay all but about $5000 dollars down by the end of December. That is $15000 between now and then. Sounds unrealistic, but that’s my goal and I’m sticking to it.

Do you make monthly or yearly goals? What works best for you?

My Debt Update: April

Current Debt Status: 

BOA CC Balance: $0.00 donkey kicked this >> 1/15/2013

NavyFed CC Balance: $0.00  power punched this >> 3/21/2013

Nelnet Balance: $0.00 choke slammed this >> 3/21/2013

Federal Student Loan Balance: $20,068.46  applied $754.97

Car Loan: $20,800.59 applied $474.00

So I wasn’t able to apply as much I would like to because Murphy (Dave Ramsey Followers understand) moved in. In addition to that, I was off due to spring break (I’m a Substitute Teacher) and I only worked a couple days the week before and the week after. So I wasn’t able to add. I am seriously thinking of starting another spending fast.

Hope I have motivated just one to kick start their debt pay off!!

Goal – Contribute $1800+ to debt. This is a safe number. I felt disappointment this month and don’t wanna feel that again. We will see how it goes.

What are your goals have you payed off your debt?