My APR's

Jim over at mydebtblog asked me what my APR's are. I thought it would be a good thing to share with you guys.


Capital one - 10.8%

BOA Line of credit - 21.99% (grr!)

BOA Credit Card - 0% till I think April, then 14.99%

Merrill Lynch - 3.99%

Us Bank - 14.75% that is in place to be reduced to 9.99%

Grad loan - 6.8%

Undgrad Laon - 2.88%


There you have it. As you can see, Bank of America is out of control and they refused to lower the rate. Matter of fact, when I called them to lower it, they reduced my credit line (they did the same of Merrill Lynch too since they own that) and effectively destroyed my credit score. They left about $60 on each account even though I had about $5000 in unused credit. I'll save that for another post because it makes me MAD.

Luckily I had a purchase check for my capital one account with no fees. It's not 0% but at the current purchase rate which is about 10% lower than the Boa. I'll take it. Just unhappy I couldn't transfer the whole thing out. The thing is, If i get a new credit card, I don't think I can do a balance transfer because it's a line of credit not a credit card. Let me know if you guys no any different! I really don't want another card but at this point, my credit score can take as many hits as it likes.

It was 672 on dec 2nd and I think it dropped to 657 shortly after the Bank of America Fiasco. Not sure what it is but I'll be checking on it every now and then.

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.

2008 in Retrospect

I have finished going over my budget for 2008. The numbers tell a story. A very sad story. I spent $10,0075.75 on debt. In some places (not NYC) that is enough for a down payment on a house. This is why I am broke. Do you know what I could do with 10K? I'm sure you do. This is why this has to end.
I got $1400 from my folks to pay for a computer I had bought to replace one that was stolen. I am putting $1129 towards the BOA loan and keeping 271 to pay off some tickets I received. The timing of this could not be better as I was not sure how I was going to pay those off and they are all (3) past due.
I have no money until the 15th because I just paid rent with my last check so it should be interesting to see how this month works out. The good thing about me is that I have a cash flow sheet that I update regularly so I am always aware of my cash situation and don't usually get into crazy cash strapped situations unless a major unexpected expense occurs. I have a category called unplanned spending but it's usually about $100 a month. I will try and figure out a way to get this on the blog so you guys can see where my money goes.

Trisha over at blogging away debt inspired me to keep a record on what I pay as finance charges and boy it was an eye-opener! In December I was charged $415.91 in finance charges. From September to December I was charged $1619.07. Lord only knows what the total for the whole year was. That was as far back as I could go without paying for old statements. I need to get this number as close to zero as possible. The major culprit is the BOA gold option loan because the interest rate is 21.99. They have refused to bring it down so I am doing my best to move it around and pay it down. I'll post monthly on that.

In 2008 I went overbudget by $500.97 but I ended up with a balance that was $294 higher than budgeted due to unexpected income. That's not bad but I will try to stick closer to my budget this year. My biggest categories for overspending were eating out ($262.51), clothing ($373.57) and unplanned spending ($641.57). I don't have a budget for clothing this year. I have too many clothes. I don't need anymore and I need to lose weight. Eating out definitely needs to be watched. I have a sensible budget and I shouldn't be going over by so much. I definitely need to look at what fell into unplanned spending to see what I can plan for. I know a lot of the excess came from my move.

2009 is going to be much better and I am wishing myself success in all my endeavors.

What do you guys have planned for the new year?

How to get a debt-o-meter

I finally got all my numbers in and my debt meters are up and running. Yay me! I'm going to take a second to talk about my numbers before i get into the step by step guide.
As of January first 2009, I owe other people $72,647.85. Yikes. That's about 10K more than I make a year. How in the world did I get to this stage? I'll save that for another post.
What's my plan for the year.
I said earlier that i wanted to get my credit card debt specifically under 35K. It's currently $41,338.12. That's very doable. I think overall, I want to reduce my debt by 10K by the end of the year. That will give me a little push. The problem is that my rent is very high. More about that later too.

On too the meter. I guess my post inspired others to do a similar thing. I am still going to write a step by step guide but fellow blogger over at out of debt again did a much more comprehensive guide and it has pictures. Feel free to head over there if you don't understand my instructions or you just learn better visually.

Step 1

Head to the layout section of your blog
Select add a gadget
Look for gadget called add html/javascript.
Select it

Step 2

The gadget should appear. Position it where you want. Click on the box to edit it. Then paste this code in:

EDIT: It won't let me paste the code. It converts it to the bar. So anyone that wants the code email me or visit the website I linked

All the bolded items are things you can change. You can title it whateve you want. The part in purple can be copied and pasted on the next line if you have more than one credit card. The percentage tells the bar how far out to go (the tracking progress part of the bar) The $0 is how much i have actually paid. Some people change that to percantages. The other number is my total debt. You can also change your total from left to right.
If you want to get real technical you can change the color. I have color 692 but that might not work with other color schemes. Unfortunately I don't know any other color codes but you can probably google it or look at the source page of another persons blog.

Step 3
Tweak it till it works.

That's all folks. If you have any simple questions - feel free to ask me. I might be able to help but remember I am not a compsci person at all

Debt O Meter

As you can see, there is some "construction work" happening. After days of bothering people and trying to have them help me put a debt meter on my site, I took a crash course in html and I'm doing it myself. It's mostly by trial and error so it's gonna take a while. Don't worry, as soon as I figure it out, I'll do a step by step guide on how to get this on your site so other newbies won't be as frustrated as I have been