Two months str8 being on time, and 3rd time proves to be the charm in breaking that record. Anyhoo, lets get to the meat and potatoes:

Here is where I was 6/8/08:

Here is where I am as of 7/8/08:

1. William & Fudge. Last month $2,426.81. Now I owe $2,276.81.

2. Direct Student Loan. Last month $7,336.31. Now I owe $7,250.40.

3. Target Visa (+ Federal Taxes). Last month I owed $8,445.19. Now I owe $7,764.96.

4. Sallie Mae. Last month $23,192.30. Now I owe $23,061.73.

Grand totals: Last month I was $41,400.61 in debt. Now I am $40,353.90 in debt.

In the last 30 days I have paid down $1046.71.

Something is terribly off in my figures this month and honesly, I'm too tired to try to figure it out or even care @ this point. It's been a LOOOOONG month. Not sure if it's purely the dog days of summer getting to me, the fact that I'm fast losing interest in Job#2, I'm feeling stuck, @ a stalemate, unmotivated, etc, but I'm just over it right now.

I didn't add this into the overall picture, though it counts. I transferred $950 from Target to a 1.99% promo w/my Wamu Visa. That will be paid off before the rate resets in February by paying $118.75/mo for the next 6 months. The interest is a few bucks, I'll get more specific about this in another post, but after crunching the #'s, I'll save about $100-150 in interest charges w/that move.

Why the numbers just DON'T freaking add up, if I add back in the $880 that is currently owed on that card, which remember originally comes from Target, I end up being in MORE debt this month than last month.

I'm hoping by August 8th, thing's will fall back into place, I'll see the change in monthly finance charges for Target, but most importantly, I'll get my motivation mojo back :\

Twice in a row being on time, not too shabby. Ok, let's get to it.

Here is where I was 5/8/08:

Here is where I am as of today:

1. William & Fudge. Last month $2,576.81. Now I owe $2,426.81.

2. Direct Student Loan. Last month $7,425.99. Now I owe $7,336.31.

3. Target Visa (+ Federal Taxes). Last month I owed $8,710.19. Now I owe $8,445.19.

4. Sallie Mae. Last month $23,381.49. Now I owe $23,192.30.

Grand totals: Last month I was $42,094.48 in debt. Now I am $41,400.61 in debt.

In the last 30 days I have paid down $693.87. again, not a heckuva lot of progress. A chunk of April and May monies went to paying off bills in real time vs. putting them on my credit card to worry about later. I think this will be the last month (knock on wood) of bare minimum payments and I am hoping to rebound in July w/an attempt to @ the very least splith my smallest debt in 1/2.

Suprisingly ontime this month, considering the fact that every fiber of my being hurts, but I'm off tomorrow so it's all good right?

Here is where I was 4/8/08:

Here is where I am as of today:

1. William & Fudge. Last month $2,726.81. Now I owe $2,576.81.

2. Direct Student Loan. Last month $7,513.69. Now I owe $7,425.99.

3. Target Visa (+ Federal Taxes). Last month I owed $9,093.84. Now I owe $8,710.19.

4. Sallie Mae. Last month $23,542.20. Now I owe $23,381.49.

Grand totals: Last month I was $42,876.54 in debt. Now I am $42,094.48 in debt.

In the last 30 days I have paid down $782.06, resulting in not much progress. Or so it seems. Let me just say, compound interest is a bitch, more on that later.

In my defense, I can't always have stellar months where I pay off cards in full, it was exentuating circumstances the first few months of the year that helped me pay off the smaller debts, plus I had more motivation. Now I'm tackling the multi thousand dollar debts and compound interest is totally working against me. I also gave up on the third job last month, I had a HUGEEEEE tax bill to pay, I have car tags and insurance due, it was my mom's bday and mothers day, so the extra hundred of dollars that could've went to my debt had more pressing matters to attend to.

So it goes.

A few things I need to do and while I am HORRIBLE @ following up on my blog cilffhangers, I promise to try better.

- Compound Interest is kicking my ass
- Numbers don't lie, finally did a budget and um, yikes!
- Lean months are coming
- Going back to school??
- Taking a step back to see what I have accomplished so far

Doing this 2 days early b/c I'm scheduled to work EVERY FREAKIN NIGHT this week...*ahem*

Here is where I was 3/8/08:

Here is where I am as of today:

1. Capital 1 Gold (+ GA Taxes). Last month $4,873.29. Today it is Paid in FULL!.

2. William & Fudge. Last month $2,876.81. Now I owe $2,726.81.

3. Direct Student Loan. Last month $7,603.81. Now I owe $7,513.69.

4. Target Visa (+ Federal Taxes). Last month I owed $8,940.81. Now I owe $9,093.84.

5. Sallie Mae. Last month $23,734.48. Now I owe $23,542.20.

Grand totals: Last month I was $47,883.20 in debt. Now I am $42,876.54 in debt.

In the last 30 days I have paid down $5,006.66, resulting in me paying off 1 more credit card and consequently, my GA Tax bill!!

Put it like this, when you do not see me updating this blog for weeks on end, I'm offline trying to make money...heh

I'm not sure what's up w/the Target balance of going up, I didn't make any purchases on the card, if anything, I was more likely to have been bleary eyed when I did the update last month. Oh well.

For some reason, I'm not feeling accomplished. Looking @ the numbers on paper, I can see something was done, I can grasp that 5k is nothing to sneeze @, yet I still feel like I'm not getting anywhere. I don't know exactly @ what point will I feel like I'm making progress, maybe when all cc's are paid off? when I have 1 student loan left? I dunno.

********

So I quit job #3, it was insane and I'll leave it @ that. No regrets nor any rush to find another job#3. I've just been taking it easy the last 2 weeks, enjoying a few days a week off and as of last week, decided to open up my availability for job# 2 and as much as that place irks me, it's pretty much a no brainer to just show up and get my job done.

Plus for better mental health, I've changed my time to leave @ 9pm Mon - Thurs, Friday nights I'll stay till whenever, plus I don't mind going in on Friday, traffic is off the wall, why not get paid right? On the weekends, I work till 2pm. This week, being my first since the change, I have 25 hours which is pretty good, and I'm off on Saturday.

Does it cut into my overall plan, just a bit, but again, my goal is do pay an extra $500/mo to existing debt an as you can tell from last month, I exceeded that goal by $4,000...hee!!

One more thing that soured my mood a bit, is that I lost out on some ad money last month. The good thing is, I never rely on that money, it's always in addition to what I make @ job #2 so on paper, it's no biggie. I also got a smaller ad, so I didn't completely lose out on much.

********

One last note on payments, I made a strategic decision to pay off the capital one gold card before the smaller debt. Reason being, that debt has no interest. Matter of fact, interest is the main reason I cleared out an old acct to pay off that card. @ the start of the year, I was earning 5% interest, and this week it went down to 2.96%. That day, I also happened to open up my cc acct and checked the monthly finance charge.

You know where this is going right?

I'd have been a dope to keep holding onto that $1,500 and earning about $3/mo when that 5k in debt was costing me $65/mo. I totally feel the same way about the Target debt. I cringe when I see how much interest I'm doling out, so the new plan will continue. Pay that off as soon as I can, and pay the minimum on the W&F loan, which if I keep @ the minimum payment of $150/mo, will be paid in full by Sept of next year.

********

Yet, I'm still all blah. I think I know what the prob is, while I'm working so very hard to become debt free, I have pending debts that can't be avoided, 2008 Taxes, state and feds (due in April); car registration, car emissions, insurance renewal (all due in May); tires, tune up, hair care (flexible I guess) and a few more things, so guess what kind of catch 22 I'm stuck in?

Either use existing cash to pay the new debt, or pay off the cc and end up putting the new debt back onto the paid in full cc. Ugh. Yea, that's what's been sticking in my craw for the last few days.

It has helped me reevaluate much of what I'm currently doing, I haven't been being super strict w/myself in terms of my finances. I can possibly squeeze more money out of my daily spending to set aside for the upcoming debt. I can pick up extra hours from job#2. If I can avg 25 hours/week for the rest of this month, I can get $700 and use 1/2 of that to take care of the car, still leaving $350 to pay down on debt and I can try to eek out and extra $150 from my main money (job #1), which if I tighten the spending belt, may be doable.

We'll see. Stranger things have happened to me, who knows. Maybe that fairy debtmother will shine her light and give me the 43k I need to make the rest of my debt completely disappear.

Re: my cat, the grief is still there, but I'm feeling bette. We are looking into becoming a foster home for cats/kittens that need nurturing. Doing that in a way to guard my heart from what happened, not ready for the permanent replacement just yet. Also, I do have an idea of the cat I want next and until it shows up, this is a way to fill the hole in my heart and bring some kitten antics back into the house.

********

Now onto my debt.

What I am going to do, from now till the final pay off date is, track my progress monthly. The graph on the right side of the site will change each month (hopefully downward motions only...lol). In the blog part, I'll break down where I was and where I am. Also in the far right column, I have a quick and dirty cheat sheet of debt. Ok, here is where I was 1/8/08:

Here is where I am as of today:

1. PayPal Buyers Credit. Last month $112.50. Today it is Paid in FULL!

2. Capital 1 Visa. Last month $468.92. Today it is Paid in FULL!

3. Orchard Bank MC. Last month $1,027.70. Today it is Paid in FULL!

4. Old Navy Card. Last month I owed $683.44. Now I owe $432.86.

5. Toyota Car Loan. Last month I owed $2,057.68. Now I owe $1805.40.

6. Target Visa. Last month I owed $2,470.1. Now I owe $2,126.78.

7. GA Taxes. Last month I owed $2,183.74. Now I owe $2,183.74.

8. Capital 1 Gold. Last month $2,910.32. Now I owe $2,625.43.

9. William & Fudge. Lasst month $3176.81. Now I owe $3,026.81.

10. Federal Taxes. Last month $6,934.03. Now I owe $6,934.03.

11. Direct Student Loan. Last month $7,776.56. Nw I owe $7,690.45.

12. Sallie Mae. Last month $24,050.68. Now I owe $23,897.83.

Grand totals: Last month I was $53,121.83 in debt. Now I am $50,723.33 in debt.

In the last 30 days I have paid down $2,398.50, resulting in me paying off 3 credit cards. Now for some fuzzy math, bear w/me, this is a convoluted story, try to stay awake ;)

Back in January, I got "pre approved" for up to 10k @ 8.99% w/free balance transfer. Let me back up a bit more. When I first added up my GA Taxes, I must have missed a year, b/c I was off a few hundred bucks, actually owing bit over 2k and not the $1500 or so I thought.

Ok, so I'm getting these offers and then I get the tax bill and then I get a "convenience check" from Capital 1 Gold.

(There is much more going on behind the scenes, including 3 phone calls to the GA IRS, finding out one of the years went into collection, DESPITE the freaking fact that I already paid it and now I have to call them tomorrow and figure out why this all happened.)

Anyway, anyway my thinking was this: use the CC check to pay the tax bill then do a Balance Transfer to the new card.

Well, I ended up getting approved for $600 bucks. Yup. Before I knew it, $500 went to Cap 1 Gold. @ first I was pissed, but believe it or not, this all worked out for the greater good.

Remember the miscalculation on my part? (2k not $1500?)

Well I wrote out the CC check for the $1500 and mailed it on the 14th, bill was due on the 15th. After my 2nd call to the GA IRS, realizing it was over a week and no check posting, I went online and paid each year w/the cc.

By doing a balance transfer of $500, I was able to free up much needed space and the next day I went ahead and paid it off (that Juniper card will ONLY be used for car related purchases such as gas and oil changes, minor things I can pay in full each month).

*Whew*

Long story short, my cap 1 gold now has my GA Tax bill on it.

Now the next part of the story is, I felt my "true" debt didn't reflect the actual picture so I made a minor change to the chart and how I'll log things.

Target Visa card is the card w/the Federal taxes on it. I went ahead and removed the taxes from both credit cards. Each month I will report the pay down amounts separately. It won't be an exact science. Until the credit card part of the debt is paid off, I'll just leave the tax debt as is. All payments will simply count towards the older debt. Of course I'm not factoring in interest. When the cc part of the debt is paid off, I'll count the final payments on the same card, as tax debt. If that makes any sense @ all.

So now what? According to my overall breakdown for this year, updates in bold.

With that amount, @ the very least I'll pay off all the smaller credit cards:

PayPal Buyers Credit - (Paid in Full!)
Capital 1 Visa - (Paid in Full!)
Orchard Bank Card - (Paid in Full!)
Old Navy Card
Ga Taxes
Toyota Car Loan
Capital 1 Gold
and $1900.72 toward Williams and Fudge.

In the short term, that means over the for the next 10.5 months I need to pay off the Old Navy Card, Capital 1 Gold Target Visa*, Toyota Car Loan, GA Taxes and $1900 towards Williams and Fudge for a grand total of $8,448.78.

*since breaking out the tax debt from the cc's, the target visa balance was smaller than the cap 1 gold card.

********

Last thing, as this is my first full week w/o job #3 and I'm almost caught up on missing sleep. I started to reread a few entries and realize I left a few things hanging. I PROMISE. Tomorrow I am going thru all entries since the year started and conclude the cliffhangers.

I update my loan repayment progress on or around the end of the month.

Here's the debt chart from Jan 07: (I missed updating in in February)

Here's the loan progress chart from Feb 07:

Here's my March progress:

The minimums are as follows:

Rollover minimums from 4 paid off cards: $185
Toyota Loan: $263
Total Minimum: $448

+

My 10% snowball is $236.84.

=

New car payment: $684

********

The chart dates are wrong, I'll fix that next month...and...MS Money calculates interest slightly different than the actual amount owed. For consistency, and b/c it's always more anyways, I'll go w/what my statements say.

Also, I didn't factor in any extra payments to my March progress just yet. I like the shock and awe approach of repaying debt...more on that next week :)

Now that the credit cards are paid in full, the poor little monthly progress chart is empty, well not for long.

I've filled it up w/the loans, which means for about 15 days I lived in pure bliss of having nothing but 0's only to see it all filled back up again. *sigh*

No worries...I felt the same way when I filled it up w/the credit card debt. :\

Once I get that car loan paid off, which'll be a huge milestone, I can ramp up payments to the Direct Student Loans debt.

Here's the loan progress chart from February 06:

I'll post this monthly chart towards the of the month.

So, a few weeks back, Robin in Savannah asked me about my car loan. For some reason, that question stuck in my craw, and while I put it on the back burner so I could focus on paying off the final credit card, I knew I had to get to the bottom of something that was puzzling me.

A few months back, my amount owed was $5,004, I remember that # b/c I felt a huge relief knowing by the next payment I'd be under 5g's. Fast forward to January, I check MS Money, only to find, I still owed $4,999.

WTF?!?!

When I tallied up what I paid since using MS Money, it was well over a grand, yet the amount owed only went down a few hundred bucks. Not only that, I had to put in an account adjustment of $117 (more!) to get MS Money to be in synch w/what I owed.

I called up World Omni Toyota.

The rep, Chris, who was QUITE rude by the way, and this isn't the first time I've called them and been treated rudely. Matter of fact, in the 3 years I've had the car, it's only my 2nd call to them. BOTH times the reps act as if they are collecting money and I'm behind calling to make a payment. Just plain old surly and rude.

Anywayz...

From Chris I got some basics, the percent is 7.4% and the pay off amount is different than what I currently owe b/c they factor in 10 days of interest. She's going to mail me a history of my payments, which since I pay by direct debit, I don't get. I went ahead and opted to have my statements emailed to me.

I went back into MS Money, deleted the old account and made a new one w/the new figures. Worked like a charm. Give or take a few cents, it now matches what I see online.

I also saw if I pay online, as in sending extra ducets, those bastards charge me $9.95 for the privilege. How kind of them *gag*

Bump that, I'll be paying them for free via my bank account thankyouverymuch. The one bright spot, there is no prepayment penalty, I'm past that point. You better believe I'm paying this sucker down pronto.

Now I have a similar tale about my Direct Student Loans, minus that nasty customer service, so I wont go into more details. To sum it up, interest rate is 7.125%, I deleted the old account, added the new one and that too is matching what I see online.

All of this made me think. Perhaps I should leave the William & Fudge debt for last, I'll have to double check w/Sallie Mae, but W&F aren't charging me interest. Though psychologically it'll feel good to get that paid in full, just like my rationalization on why to pay the car first, the $100 I pay getting added to another debt is far less than adding say $263 from the car or $131 from Direct or even $318 from Sallie Mae.

I don't mind them hanging around a bit longer if I can get the interest charging loans out of the way first.

And I'll put it out there, again, I'm really looking forward to having the Toyota Car Loan PAID IN FULL by the end of May, which would be so awesomely amazing if all I have left to tackle in the last 1/2 of 2007 are my student loans.

;)

So one of my plans when I pay off the Capital One Gold Card, is to turn my attention, and debt snowball, towards the next highest debt. Right now that position is just about tied by my Toyota Car Loan and one of my Williams and Fudge Student Loan.

My original game plan was to pay off the car loan next, that way I could drop my insurance and save an extra $60-$75 a month. But after talking it over w/a friend, that may not be the best thing to do.

I thought after 3-4 years the car wouldn't get anything back in case of an accident. But she told me I should look @ the blue book value for the car 1 year older than mine to now. If I pay off the loan by next year, it'll be the same amount of time. B/c it's a Toyota, which holds it's value, I may still get a few thousand.

Unless that is what I save when I reduce my insurance, doubtful I'm guessing it'll be about $720-$900 ($65/$75 times 12) then I should keep it fully insured till it the blue book value is less than what I can save on my own.

Makes sense.

The student loan isn't racking up interest, it's just a total amount due that I'm paying monthly, but I thought I can make a bigger dent paying off the car then rolling over all the monies + the $263 car payment to the student loan vs. rolling over $100 from the loan to the car.

*shrug*

It's not a huge deal, as they'll both be paid off, but I'm just fishing for ideas. Any pros/cons to paying either off first? Are @ this point are they both equal?

The major pro point is the psychological boost I'll get from paying off the car first, 1 less debt. Other than that, I gots nothing.

What do you think?

Yet another debt I don't wanna get into. Just cuz I'm finally fessin' up to it all, doesn't mean I want to gab about it *pouts*

As of this posting the owed amount is: $26,912

I will update this post as I pay down on this debt.

Ah...even more student debt to record. What fun. NOT!

As of this posting the owed amount is: $8,203

I will update this post as I pay down on this debt.

2/1 Update: I realized I owe more on this than originally thought. The total amount owed is $8,700.

Now that the credit cards have been 'splained, lets move on w/the more adult debt, loans. Boo!

First up, we've got Williams and Fudge. This student loan got me my degree a few years back.

I originally owed 5645.11 and started out paying back $25/mo. Then moved to $50 and earlier this year, $100.

As of this posting the owed amount is: $4,927.00

I will update this post as I pay down on this debt.

Quick pop in to update a bit of life news, I'm MOVING! Starting mid June, I'll be living w/my aunt, which will bring a HUGE relief on my walled and also means I can pay of some bills mucho faster. A while back I said one day I'd be brave enough to tackle my student loan debt, well, I'm getting closer to that day.

I haven't worked out all the loans, I've been to 5 colleges @ some point people, but I did contact one to update my mailing address etc and double my payments. @ one point I was paying $25/mo and about a year ago I went up to $50. Now I'm @ $100.

I squeaked "How much is my balance?" and shut my eyes tight, bracing myself...

$5400...

*gulp*

Ok.

That means 540 months to pay off...yikes!

But...if I can pay an extra $400 a months, 10 months. Ok. I'm game.

As soon as Orchard is done, I'm paying that debt of next, and will update my little repayment chart on the right --->

Unlike my cc's, it's not a given I'll be able to scrape by $400 extra bucks, believe it or not, I want to go back to school next year. Really. But this time I want to pay in cash and this time, it's a state school, much lower tuition. So I need to save as well.

So I may be able to pay @ least what I was giving to the cc's $94 I'll round it up and it'll be an even $200 a month, 2 and 1/2 years. Not to bad and it'll allow me to squirrel away tuition money too. If I pay it off quicker, I'll be away from starting school that much longer and my goal of using the new degree (potentially even more money) will be that much further away too.

It'll be a short-term sacrifice, for a longer term goal.