Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Progress so far

I paid $1165.5 to my BOA line of credit. It was $37.50 higher because my friend remembered that she was to pay half of the ticket since I got it while taking her somewhere.

I locked myself out of my house yesterday and was scared I'd have to pay a super sized NY fee to get it open but my landlord was nice and lent me the master key. He even brought it to my office. :)

I had another savings mini-windfall. My job has this program that allows us to get points for doing healthy things like going to the gym and the dentist. I had 120pts which translates to ... $120 that I could use for a gift card.

I was very happy and thought about all the gifts I could get. $120 could get a me a cool gizmo at best buy, it could take me places at macys...

Then reality hit!

I am broke and in debt! Those are things I could have done if I hadn't been so stupid in my younger years. I could afford to splurge on random gizmos (can you tell that that word tickles me?).


What's a responsible city girl that's tryna get out of debt to do?

I did the responsible thing (yay me!). I used ALL of it to get a target gift card.


Umm.. I don't get it. How is that responsible? They sell a lot of gizmos there.

Good question. I do most of my household shopping (soaps, toilet paper, body lotions, e.t.c.) at target. I think my super downsized budget for 2009 allows me to spend $40 a month on all and everything household related. I figured that if I just used the gift card that's $40 extra a month I have to put towards my debt. Not a lot but hey, brick by brick.
I officially have $5.06 in my checking account to last me till the 15th. This is because of some timing issues that caused me to pay my entire rent with my first check. Hopefully, nothing crazy comes up.

5 comments:

  1. I was wondering, if you don't mind...how much to you make and what do you do? One city girl to another. :)

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  2. Good job making the huge payment to BOA (hate them) but with $5 in the checking for a week would make me nervous. You also said you paid rent with your first check, when do you normally pay your rent? I'm all for paying off massive amounts of debt, but not at the risk of being unable to buy food or gas to keep me going. I see you have a little EF but you might want to consider doubling it to $500 prior to attacking the debt. It is an amazing feeling to have an EF should an unforeseen event happen. If you pay off a bunch of debt with no EF, you end up charging the emergency. I speak from a been there done that point of view too.

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  3. Hey Jim,
    Thanks for leaving me these comments and the tips you've given. My emergency fund is actually $2125.51. It's on 2 lines because the bar hasn't progressed far enough to the right.
    Usually, I pay my rent in 2 parts. What I really mean, is i take out the money from my 2 paychecks - 1000 from the first, and 675 from the 2nd. I forget what happened in decemer, but I didn't take out the 1000 from one and so had to use my entire dec 31 paycheck to pay my rent.
    I'm pretty good about sticking to my budget, so unless a major catastrphe happens in the next 6 days i'll be ok.
    I paid that huge amount because it was extra money (From my dad) that I was not expecting and I didnt want to suddenly develop a "need" for it.
    @ candie, i make 62k a yr working in acctg

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  4. Wow, that's an awesome program you have at work!

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  5. hey, you're right, we do seem to have a lot in common! I'll definitely be following your blog. I'm with you on loving target for basics and also with you on the $5 in checking account...I had $7 until I got paid yesterday...sigh :).

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Hit me with some tough love