Ooh, looking good

I took a peek at my December balance sheet. And let me tell ya, it is looking good. It looks like I made some major progress.

Woo hoo for that!

Now the trick is to be able to keep it up!

So I am waiting for a couple of credit cards to post the new statement and then I can do an update. It is so very exciting though!

Ah

Well, we didn't spend too much on Christmas this year. We did go slightly over the amount that we wanted to cap spending at though. The good news is that none of it went on credit cards this year!

Hooray for that!

And it is looking like one $250 student loan is going to be paid off this week and a good chunk of the AMEX is going to be paid down. See what happens when you get serious about debt reduction? I can't to look at my month end numbers next week to see how we're doing.

Free Amazon.com Unbox Downloads

I was playing around online and came across something interesting. Now, I knew that you could pay to download movies and stuff from Amazon. But apparently they also have some freebies on there.

I suspect that they are hoping to hook you so that you will buy some downloads. Silly peeps at Amazon! heh.

If you want to watch some free stuff, there are several things listed as freebies on Amazon Unbox. And if you are looking for some Christmas shows that are free on Amazon, here is some info on free Christmas shows on Amazon Unbox.

Enjoy!

year end tax tips to save some cash

I got an email from ING with some tips on saving on taxes. Some of the tips I already knew about, and some not so much.

Here are some highlights:

Maximize your savings. Put the maximum $15,500 into a 401(k) or similar retirement plan if you can. (Self-employed? You can put in more!)

Lose the deadweight. Make sure you review your mutual fund portfolio and sell off the lesser performers. With stocks, hold off on selling any shares until next year if you expect to be in one of the two lowest tax brackets next year (10 and 15%) - starting in 2008, taxpayers will pay no tax on the profits from the sale of assets they have owned longer than one year.

Install energy-efficient storm windows and doors by December 31st and you can claim a tax credit of 10% of the costs up to a maximum credit of $500. Also, putting in a high-efficiency electric heat pump and/or central air conditioner qualifies for a $300 tax credit (also subject to the $500 total).

more ING drama

Well, it was bound to happen.

I have discovered another bill that I got an NSF fee for. My car insurance payment bounced thanks to ING holding my money hostage.

So now I have one $38 fee and one $28 fee. And in case you are wondering, the $38 credit has not shown back up yet. If you recall I faxed ING proof of the fee in hopes that they would credit it to me.

I will give them until tomorrow. Then the can of whoop ass comes out :)

Progess, maybe

So, I've been looking over my financials.

I did one of those zero based budgets for the month.

A few categories went over. And a few are under.

I think I might pay off something small this month. I just might!

And it is very exciting!! I am really stoked about it!

ING update

So, I posted a few days ago about the ING/ NetBank transition fiasco.

As a quick refresher, here is what happened.

I closed the NetBank account before the migration. It had an old name on it. ING migrated my NB account info anyways - even though the account was closed. The name on NB did not match ING but the SS#'s were the same. So they put a hold on the account and never told me about it.

I called them all frantic. They assured me any bills that came in for payment would be paid. On the 15th I log into my AMEX account to see that my payment was sent back to them! And they charged me $38!! All because of ING.

So, called ING and told them they needed to give me $38. They told me that they did not do that. I explained it to them and they said I could fax over the info to the NB Migration department and they might consider it.

So that is where I am at now. Waiting on them to "consider it" and if they say no I plan on fighting it. I'm only asking for the $38 and this little fiasco could result in AMEX raising my interest rate and I didn't even mention that to them!

hooray for coupons

We do not dine out as much as we used to. And that is a good thing. It is good for the waistline. And it is also good for the finances.

Today however we are going out for lunch.

We are doing it because we have a coupon for one free meal to one of our fave restaurants. And you can't pass that up!

Man, I love getting two meals for the price of one. It's good, it's real good. And we saved the coupon for today so that it would come mid-month and then we won't have to dine out again this month.

Hooray for focusing on debt paydown!

ING frustrations

So I had a NetBank account. NetBank had their problems and ING took over. I already had an ING account.

NetBank accounts were being converted to ING accounts. I got all the money out of the NetBank account and closed it because I already had ING accounts.

Wednesday my ING accounts were frozen.

Why?

Because they transferred over the NetBank info and it didn't match completely with the ING info. So they decided to freeze my money. Including deposits I had sent from PayPal.

I had to fax them some info. Took two days to get to my money. What a pain.

so...

They went ahead and did it. The Fed did end up lowering the rate by 1/4 of a point. I have not noticed if my ING rate has been lowered yet though.

I suspect it either has been or will be. They have beeb pretty quick in the past to lower it. And I saw that the markets took a tumble. But I was too scared to log into my e*trade account to check out the damages. Maybe I won't check it till the end of the month. You know, give it some time to right itself.

Fed lowering the rate

Have you heard the news? The Fed is supposed to lower the interest rate again today. I must say that I am not looking forward to this. I do not want to see my ING rates lowered again. And the exchange rate will just get worse. Ah, won't you be glad when the economy is strong again? I know I will!

Jodie Foster comes out?

Did Jodie Foster come out?

While it has always seemed to be a bit of an open secret, it may be a secret no longer. Apparently at the 16th annual Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment Power 100 breakfast Jodie Foster was not so private about her private life.

During her acceptance speech for the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, Jodie thanked “my beautiful Cydney who sticks with me through all the rotten and the bliss.” And Cydney is of course the woman that people have been saying that she is with for years. Kudos to her for finally acknowledging Cydney.

Mmmm free

Isn't free stuff nice?

Like having a nice filtered water thing at work. And having an ice machine.

Coffee for free is also nice. Hot chocolate is even better!

Now, if they just provided free food too. And I am not talking about birthday cake, which there always seem to be.

A sub tray would be nice. I'm not picky :)

I win

Having a cafeteria at work is bad news. It is so tempting.

You run late getting to work. So you want to cut corners. You want to not take time to pack a lunch.

Why?

because you can always buy it at work.

Oh, so tempting. But not gonna happen. Must pay off debt.

Ouchie

Sometimes I really hate sitting at a computer.

You know how you are working in excel for a really long time and you start getting a headache. And you make the percentage for the zoom bigger so that it will help. But it never helps.

I think it feels like my eyes are going to just bleed from staring at the screen so much! Sometimes I really hate working with numbers all day long. Maybe I will pay off my debt soon. Then I won't have to work jobs that I hate. Maybe I can be a nomad traveler instead!

Found money

You know what is fun?

Finding money. I love to find money. I even pick up pennies when I see them.

Today I found a quarter at work. It was near the snack machines. It might not seem like a lot to some of you though.

But I get really stoked when I find money. Free money is hard to come by.

And I sure do hate losing money!

Shooting in Omaha mall! Yikes

When I was on my break at work earlier I saw on CNN that someone was in a mall in Omaha with a gun. My first thought was that I hoped it would turn out well since it is so close to Christmas.

Well, apparently it did not turn out well. I saw on Yahoo that the gunman killed himself. But not before killing eight other people. And police have no idea what the motive was. Ah, that sucks.

Retire in your 30's?!?

Holy cow. Did you see this headline on Yahoo today? I would so love to retire in my 30's. And my 30's start next year, heh.

So, yeah, that is not gonna happen for me. I am not sure who is reading Bankrate that could act fast enough to be able to retire in their 30's though.

Looks like here are some of the steps:

1. Live below your means.
   
2. Invest, invest, invest
3. No debt

Ugh

It was really cold here last night. Our heat decided to stop working around 7:30 pm. Talk about panic!

Our apartment mgmt company is absolutely horrible. We feared having to spend money for a hotel as it was gonna be below 20 degrees. But we called maintenance. They said they'd be here in about an hour.

It was more like an hour and a half.

But he fixed it! We didn't have to spend any money! Hooray!

Argh, coworkers

I can't afford to be sick. I don't have insurance.

So it makes me mad when people come to work sick! i don't want to have to go to the doctor because of them. And I can't afford to miss work because of them!

And if they know that they are sick why do the come to your desk!!!

So, I guess I should drink lots of orange juice tonight!

Winter weather a-comin'

Ah, it looks like it is on its way. Yes, snow is what I am talking about. I am not a fan of driving in the snow. I was hoping that it would hold off until after the first of the year.

We've had some flurries. That was no big deal. It was not a problem to drive in. But now the real deal is on the way. Ugh, don't want to drive in snow but have to go to work to make money to pay off debt.

Can't wait till debt is paid off so I can take a snow day!

An Editor's Pick!

Hey, hey, check it out. I got picked as an editor's pick over at the Carnival of Debt Reduction!

And the same post was included over at the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Hooray!

So be sure to check out those carnivals. There are also a lot of other great posts at each carnival.

Many thanks to both hosts for including my post!

National debt grows $1 million a minute

Did you see this story on Yahoo this morning? The national debt is currently $9.13 trillion and grows by $1 million a minute! Yikes!

Here's the scary part from the article:

The national debt — the total accumulation of annual budget deficits — is up from $5.7 trillion when President Bush took office in January 2001 and it will top $10 trillion sometime right before or right after he leaves in January 2009.

Wow.

And some are saying that this is just leading to a recession, Let's hope not.

Getting serious about debt reduction

As you can see from my newly updated monthly totals in my debt roundup #10 post, I am not making a whole lot of progress here. It is frustrating to say the least. It seems that just when I think that we are gonna get ahead of the game something happens like needing new tires or the check engine light comes on and so on and so on. It is really never ending. And sure, people say that is why you need to have an emergency fund so that when things like that happen it does not set you back. Well, what happens when you do not have any extra money to put into that emergency fund? What if you can't save $50 a week by cutting back on Starbucks because you do not drink Starbucks to begin with.

A lot of debt reduction resources seem to be tailor made for people that are spending frivolously regardless of their debt load. JW at Need to Be Debt Free is not a frivolous spender, from what I can tell, and he seems to be having some similar issues to mine. Only I think his might be a bit worse. We do not benefit from the "latte factor" principle because we have already cut back every possible expense that we can.

So, what option does that leave?

The only conclusion that I can come to is that you have to find a way to make more money. Period. Or you will never get ahead.

If you look at my alternative income for November post you will see that I listed making around $1400 last month in online income. I actually made about $2200 doing some online reviews where I won't get paid until this month. That will be reflected in next month's update though. The point is, I have been getting up for work and going to my computer first thing to try to make some money online. Then I go to work and get a little overtime. Then I come home and spend the night working online to make more money. I spend almost every waking hour at the computer but it looks like it might start to pay off.

I am getting serious about debt reduction as of now. Sure, I started this blog back around March as a way to keep track and motivate myself to pay down some debt. I had some victories and some setbacks but am practically still at the same place. Well, that is all about to change.

Here is my debt reduction plan -

By July all but one of the credit cards will be paid off. Here are the list of cards that will be paid off in that amount of time, interest rate and minimum payment:

target.......................959.23............. 19.24%.............. 26.00
orchard bank .......1,781.18............. 22.65%............. 55.00
capital one ..............490.02 ..............5.99% ..............15.00
priority visa .........2,442.47 ...........27.49% ..............45.00
american exp .......1,595.68 ..........18.24% ...............20.00
ba visa ..................3,483.78 ..........29.99% .............162.00
capital one ..............300.00 ...........0.00% ...............15.00
capital one ...............785.52 ..........16.90% ...............35.00

And here is the one card that will be left to pay off after that:

ax blue ................17,511.50........... 12.24%............. 349.00

So, that is the plan. I looked up a debt snowball calculator last night to see how quickly they could be paid off if $2000 extra was applied each month and it started counting in January and said that they could be paid off in six months. Where am I getting that $2000 extra? The online income. If more than $2000 is made then it will all go towards the debt.

Now, here is the good news. Both of us have a decent possibility of getting raises next month. And if that happens then the extra cash will all go towards debt as well. So, that means that the debt could be paid off sooner than six months. Well, all of the credit cards but the one. Then that will leave the car and the student loan. And in the event that anyone gives us cash for Christmas is can go towards debt.

We also have some monthly prescriptions where we are going to play the free gift card game each month. This past month we transferred to Kroger for $60 worth of grocery gift cards. This month we are doing CVS for $50 in gift cards. And I already have a thing for Kroger for January for another $40 in gift cards when we transfer back. This is what will help us to stay on track with the budget.

After all the credit cards but the amex blue is paid off the next effort is on the car. The plan is to pay it off, sell it for somewhere between $7000 - $10,000 (depending on how long it takes to get it paid off) then buy a car no more than $3000 and bank the rest towards debt.

Then the amex blue is to be paid off and then the student loans.

And that is it. This is a declaration of getting serious about reducing and eventually annihilating debt. It gets serious next month (because I have too many outstanding things this month).

Alternative income update for November

In November my earnings from various things online was $1404.63.

That is money that was actually put into the bank. I did actually earn a bit more than that for the month due to some online ventures that will not pay out for 30 days. So, that figure will climb again next month.

Sadly most of my other sites got hit by the Google page rank demons. My PR 2 sites all got docked to PR0 which lowers my money making ability. Sad news indeed.

Debt round up #10

As of 11/30/07, here is where I stand:

• Car loan = $12,753.38 (last month was $12,642.42)
• Credit cards = $30,049.38 (last month was $30,747.71)
• School loans = $155,060.72 (last month was $154,055.23)

The credit card number is not entirely complete though as I have two cards that run their statement this week. It is a bit of a bummer that both the car balance and the student loan balance went up. The student loan balance went up due to some capitalized interest posting to the loans. And the car loan balance went up because I couldn't pay it this month and got an extension :(