Here's Where We're At

So, I'm in Vegas, working for my dream company. Things have not been great on the work front for my other half and as a result we've gotten into a bit of a rut with our debt.

It's frustrating when you look at your paycheck and see your year to date income and wonder where the heck it all went. These things happen, though. Moving across the country wasn't cheap and of course things happened before and after we got here.

But now it's time to fix it. It's time to hunker down and get out of debt. I'm working on getting a few extra projects (mainly voice work) going, and I've been working on a new blog that I'm quite happy with. Writing for me has been something that I work on when I'm busy and happy, and though I haven't been terribly happy, I'm going to try and step it up a notch. It may well be that writing MAKES me happy.

As for my other half, well, he's getting there slowly but surely. He's also much better at being frugal than me often times. He's usually the one to say "we don't really need that right now", whereas I tend to be a bit more spendy. He's right though.

So with a new effort, and for transparency sake, it's time that I stick the old total bar back on the side of the blog and again list my debt. It's worked before, it should work again. It's also time that I set myself some goals about making extra money. Obviously, I want to make as much extra money as possible, but for now we'll be starting small. I want to make an extra $200 a month. So, here is the state of the ugly ugly union:


BoA - This is our major credit card. All our moving expenses went on this, as well as incidental things that have come up. And, I'm ashamed to admit it, so did a big chunk of my car.
Current Balance : $11795
Min Payment : $242

AmEx - This was another credit card that was used for all kinds of incidentals and then the rest of my car... mostly the warranty went on this.
Current Balance : $4348
Min Payment : $89

Prosper - This is a short term loan that we used to pay our 2010 taxes. We had both freelanced all year and, though I had put some money aside, it got eaten up in the move.
Current Balance : $3285
Min Payment : $149

ING - This is my checking account overdraft. Any time we travel, it's ended up on this. I really need this to be empty so that I can use it in case I have to fly home in an emergency.
Current Balance : $1091
Min Payment : $100

Total Balance : $20519
Total Minimum Payment : $580

So we need to pay all of this off and quite quickly. The current plan that I have is to pay off the ING and Prosper accounts first. I really need the ING account cleared so I have it as an emergency fund. I'm also working on building back our emergency fund but that isn't going to be full for a while. I have to get this debt paid down.

Anything that my other half makes, luckily, can go primarily towards our debt, so if he got, say, one movie, he could wipe out an enormous chunk of it. Of course, that's not exactly something that we get to bank on so we'll be assuming that won't happen.

So here we go. Nose to the grindstone. Time to fix it all.