My Debt Reduction Blog

It’s nice a have a great mechanic. He handles every issue and maintenance for both our vehicles. Today I brought the mini-van in for an oil change, when I went to pick it up, he said no charge. How cool was that!?!

There’s a lot of reasons that cause folks to wake up and realize their in debt over their head. For us, my slap in the face was the fact we had so many different credit card bills that I couldn’t keep track of them anymore and started missing payments. I was getting hit with late fee payments and my interest rates kept going up. That was when we sought the help of a Debt Management Program.

Coming up in December, we will have been on the program for 2 years, and have paid over $20,000 of our debts off. But with the routine we’re in now, sometimes there is an urge to stray, buy something I don’t need, or spend foolishly without thinking. I started this blog as a project to keep me focused on the light at the end of the tunnel, but my main motivation is a number I see every time I enter a statement in my spreadsheet.

I built a spreadsheet that I update every time I get a statement, even though I don’t personally pay any of my statements(DMP does). On this spreadsheet, there is a line for every credit card that lists Balance Due, Minimum Due, Actual Payment, and Finance Charge. Across the bottom are the totals for each column.

And the total finance charge is what absolutely pisses me off and in this case, anger is very motivating. As of this writing, my total monthly in finance charges is just over $330. Isn’t that sick!?! Every single month I throw away over $300 while nothing goes towards my 3 kids college fund, or our retirement or anything that will ever benefit us.

So, right now that my biggest motivation to keep on track. What is your biggest motivation?

It’s been a rough couple of works for me, hence the lack of posting. The issues are not financial related so they won’t be shared here. I’m hoping to get over this hump soon, so I can get back in to my groove.

If your interested in ‘micro-blogging’ and have used sites like twitter or Jaiku, you might want to try out Pownce as well. It’s similar, but does have a few additional features. To get an account with pownce while it’s in beta does require an invite, and as luck would have it, I have 11 invites to hand out. If you’re interested, please contact me.

So far I kind of like it. Looks nice, and has the simpleness aspect that I really like.

Sorry for this brief off-topic post, but I saw this on the morning local news and if your a Seinfeld fan, you might want one.

Turns out, a local company(Milwaukee, WI) actually manufacturers and sells a Festivus Pole. So if you’re on board with A Festivus For The Rest Of Us, maybe you should pick up one for the season.

Yesterday all over the blogosphere, the grand opening of mint.com made headlines galore. But at no point does it sound like something I would ever use. The first thing it asks for after you register is, bank account information and credit card information. That’s just not something I’m willing to hand over to a service I learned about only that day.

I’ve read lots of comments on the many blogs, and I’m clearly not alone. But while reading through comments, I’ve learned of another website called ClearCheckbook.com that allows you to track spending and other stuff without asking for any account numbers of your banks and credit cards. I just signed up for an account with them and will see what they’re all about.

Just a mini post. Our checking account is tapped, I don’t get paid until Friday, and we really need to do a grocery shop. The plumber bill really put a kink in the works this week. I’ve transfered $185(The total of the plumber bill) from ING, but it hasn’t posted yet. This is the tightest we’ve been in a long-long time. But in the past in a situation like this, I wouldn’t think twice about just using a credit card to go shopping. Now, I know I have to wait until Saturday to go grocery shopping, because that is when I will have cash.

A long time ago, I thought I downloaded the You Need A Budget spreadsheet for free. Today I went to see if I could get again, but see that it costs $19.95. Didn’t it use to be free?

Looks like for me they will pay interest around the 10th of every month. I still don’t know if I want to transfer the majority of savings from ING to HSBC for the gain of a few percent. I really don’t like the HSBC interface.