Okay, Onward

Okay, so the car that turned out not to work is sold. I put all the money from the sale onto debt and in the bank for my medical bills. All is taken care of and good. The good thing is, I'm really starting to see some progress on the smaller of our two credit cards. It's not been below $4,000 in over a year and now it's sitting pretty at $3,714.50.

Every so often I get horrendously frustrated with paying off debt. It causes me a lot of stress and really impacts the choices that I can make with my life. But, I know it's not forever. Sometimes, when I sell a book on Amazon or some other small thing I might put $7 towards my debt, or another small number. It may seem silly, but it makes me feel better.... lighter somehow.

You have to keep going with the little stuff. You have to keep snowballing your debt. It's really the only way to do it. I'm being much more vigilant about making sure the debt on my BoA card doesn't increase any more. We have a couple of things that get automatically charged to it, and I'm being really good about paying them off right away. You have to do that too, else you never get anywhere. My goal is that the next time my statement ends, the amount of interest won't max out the card. I don't think that's actually happened yet on that card. But when you're paying $150 a month in interest, it's easy for it to happen.

You have to keep sucking it. Keep going.

Current Totals

Prosper - $0
AmEx - $3714
BoA - $11866
ING - $833
Total - $16413

Goodbye Soon, Stupid Car

Back when I moved to Las Vegas 18 months ago, I bought a car the first day I moved here. After a week, I completely hated it.

I paid way too much for it, and I did what so many people do when they get new jobs:

I purchased an item based on what I perceived my income would be, rather than money I had on hand.

Honestly, this is a really common occurrence. Lots of people get into debt this way. They get a big increase in salary and they don't pull their punches with their spending.

So, this car has been a real pain since I bought it. It's got many little things that keep going wrong, the air conditioning no longer works, and I've honestly gotten tired of it.

Sorry to whine. I made a bad choice and it's haunted me for a year.

So, anyway. I'd saved up the $350 to fix my air conditioning, when a friend of mine told me she was leaving town and wasn't planning on taking her car with her. On a hunch, I asked her what she was looking to get for it. She came back with $600 for a car in really good working order. Since that's just $250 more than my air conditioning, I'm buying her car and selling mine. This means I get to go back to driving a late 90's Toyota, which is honestly my preference over the 2002 Ford Escort!

I should also be able to recoup some money by selling the Ford, which makes me super super happy!  So, probably in a month when all of this is done and barring crap happening, because crap certainly happens, I should be able to put another chunk on a credit card. Things certainly are moving in the right direction. We've taken $900 off our debt in the last four weeks. Here are the new totals:

Starting Debt: 07/02/11 - $21543

Updated 6/15/12

Prosper - $0
AmEx - $4257
BoA - $11869
ING - $1004

Total - $17130 (20.5%)

Onwards!

Goodbye Prosper

Today is a good day. I paid off the Prosper loan today. We had it for 15 months, paying it off 21 months early. It took a lot of extra work, but this is a huge mile marker on the road to get out of debt.

Without this loan, we now free up an extra $150 a month to put towards the American Express credit card, which is currently holding a balance of around $4400. That, plus putting anything extra that we can towards it, should mean that we can really start to snowball out of this situation.

I'm incredibly relieved, though I confess it was a bit anticlimactic!

I've been working hard on projects like getting Voiceover work and finding other ways to make extra money. I have a roommate now, and wouldn't have been able to pay off this loan without his financial contribution. Needless to say, the hard work is starting to pay off!

How's your debt journey going?


Starting Debt: 07/02/11 - $21543

Prosper - $0
AmEx - $4494
BoA - $11913
ING - $1133

Total - $17538 (18.5%)

I Know, I Know

I know it's been a while. I'm sorry. There has been so much and I'm so focused on my food blog that I've totally neglected this one. I'd say No more!! I shall regularly update and prevail! but I really don't want to make a promise that I can't keep.

So, instead, an update.

I've been getting lots of extra work lately doing voiceovers. I just recently landed a contract to record an Audio Book which will help hugely. I have no AC in my car and I simply can't handle it anymore (it's already over 100 degrees in the Valley) and this will give me the last of the money that I need to finally get that handled, plus some extra to pay down my day.

Hey shameless plug! If you need voicework, no matter how big or how small, check out my website here.

So, my Stunt Guy is back in Atlanta, trying to get some work. It's done a little to alleviate the financial strain, but we have a really long way to go. Hopefully he'll get some bigger gigs soon and we can start taking big chunks off our debt. In the meantime, I've got a roommate and gone into hunker down survival mode. This has involved lots of pantry purging and not doing things that cost money. I've also done really well at getting myself in shape, even running a 5K. I'm getting close to my goal weight, and continue to plug away at it.

So, here is the real update. When last I posted, here was the state of the union:


Prosper - $3026
AmEx - $4282
BoA - $11708
ING - $968

Total - $19,984

Now, this is where we stand:

Prosper - $367
AmEx - $4494
BoA - $11913
ING - $1133

Total - $17907

So we've paid over $2000 in the last few months. We've been paying it on our highest interest loan. It's almost paid off and I am so very happy! This loan has been a pain and being done with it will be huge. We'll be able to start snowballing our minimum payments and hopefully the rest will flow nicely. I calculated that if we snowball minimums, we're looking at 32 months worth of debt. I find that to be unacceptable, and am pushing really hard for us to try and get all this paid off in half that time or more.

I'm happy that once we move on to paying off the AmEx, I can throw random dribs and drabs of cash at it whenever I want. With the Prosper loan, we always had to pay at least $150 at a time. I find it better to be able to whittle in down.

I still can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, though I'm sure it's there. But I'm going to keep trucking.

Life

Life gets crazy sometimes. I'm dealing with an impending cross country move for my guy, who also just had to have his appendix removed (thank everything for insurance, else we'd be declaring bankruptcy after this). I've got a 5K coming up that I'm trying to train for. I haven't updated this blog in ages and I have no good excuse. I'll get to it soon though. Debt totals are down from the previous. We managed to put a lot of extra money on our Prosper loan between my tax return and some extra income that we both made. The good news is that my guy is moving for work, so he'll be able to make some nice contributions to getting our debt paid down. I'm looking for a roommate to help us pay stuff down.

I've been working a lot on my other blog project too. Check it out.

Thanks so much for still being here.

Total Love

I love re-doing my totals for debt right after I've made all of my payments. It goes up from there, but for a few days I feel like I've made progress.

It's slow going. I'm not making progress as quickly as I would like, but we're owed about $800 in extra income that will all go to debt if it ever gets here.

I hate how long it takes for freelance checks to show up. You'd think I'd be used to this by now.

The one thing I do have to look forward to, though, is that I should get a tax return this year. I hope I do, because I want to get rid of my Prosper loan so badly I almost itch.

Here's hoping.

Blech

I applied for a loan yesterday, in an attempt to consolidate my debt and lock in a lower interest rate.

I was denied.

It's hard to say that. I had repaired my credit and it was pretty and shiny and good. Now, it's in the crapper. But, our bills are paid. We are owed a bunch of money that we have no idea when it will show up. We have plane tickets to fly home in December. It's not all bad. The biggest thing is that we aren't going further into debt. We may be moving at a snails pace, but at least we are moving.

I checked the interest rates on my credit card... something everyone should regularly do. It's not too terrible. The biggest problem is the Prosper loan that I took out in order to pay our taxes. I thought initially that I would be able to pay it off in three months. Here we are, six months later, and we're paying just over the minimum. Now what I need to do is focus on it, because the interest rate is 21%. Everything extra that we can swing will be going on that loan. I'm seriously hoping that no more surprises come along and we can really get all of this taken care of.

Honestly, if you are trying to get out of debt, remember that the best thing you can do first is to stop charging on your cards. Even if you think you'll pay it off immediately, if you are carrying a balance, stop charging now. Don't be me.

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.

Depth

I think I'm one of those couponers who peaked early and then crashed and burned.
People complain that they don't coupon because it's so much work and so much to keep up with and I think that they might be right. I've had a huge stack of inserts to clip and file for a while now but I haven't managed to get around to it. It's partly because I work a regular job, partly because I have another new big project and partly because couponing is kinda lonely.

But then I look at the depth of our debt and I'm grateful that I'm at least doing it sometimes. We really have drastically reduced our grocery bill. For one thing, you don't realize how much stuff actually costs until you find how cheap you can get it. I swear I will never pay full price for cereal again. No way in heck. So thats why the updates have disappeared. Work has been busy. My other project has been busy, and I've just not had as much time as I would like to wax lyrical about the virtues of personal finance and saving money. Although, I am looking into RelayRide or some other service. Basically the idea is that when you aren't using your car, you rent it out by the hour. I'm trying to find someone who has been involved in it before so that I can get a better inside opinion. Know anyone?

But for now, I have sorting and clipping and writing to do.

May Totals

May was the first full month that I worked on extreme couponing/strategic shopping. I was really happy with the financial results from this first month. I ended up spending a total of $296.91 on all groceries. I saved $467.92 in total. I'm well on my way to making my goal of saving $1000 this year to the point that I'm laughing at how silly a goal that was in the first place.

The more immediate goal is to only spend $50 a week on groceries. I believe that is completely appropriate and I'm hoping to hit that this month.

One of the benefits of shopping this way is I'm actually able to add more variety into what we have in the pantry as we try new things. I'm happy with how it is going and I plan to keep working on it.

I had a really great grocery trip last week that I haven't written up because I've been both busy and sick. I should be back to normal posting soon though.

Another neat benefit of shopping this way is that I was able to tell my parents who were flying in from England to not worry about bringing toiletries. I was able to hand them a bag of shampoo, razors, deodorant, body wash, toothpaste and floss at the airport so they saved room in their packing and didn't have to deal with the liquid issue. I got all of those items for free. It was very neat.

I'm Baaack

So I thought this blog would end when I moved to Las Vegas. It's always been primarily a personal finance blog so I figured I wouldn't need it anymore.
Guess who was wrong? Me!
Moving was really expensive and getting our lives set up in Las Vegas has been very challenging. So, we're back to penny pinching. We're in a whole bunch of debt and it's time I made myself accountable.
Since I can't really increase my income that much with my full time job and all, I'm working on saving as much money as I can.
I've recently discovered couponing, so expect many posts on that. I've also started a new project that I've had in the works for some time called Daily Amazon Finds, where I find you the neatest things on Amazon all in one easy to reference place so if you're bored and want to see some good stuff, or you're stuck for a last minute gift idea, you can check it out there.

It's good to be back.

Back to Life

And here we go. I'm done being so dormant with this blog I believe! I have a fixed laptop, a car that is running better, a fair amount of work booked, but enough free time to finally get down to business with some other projects that I've been meaning to work on.

I'm so happy that things are getting together. Yes, I'm still in debt, but I'm happy and hopeful.

Right now, I'm working at the lovely Georgia Ensemble Theatre on a play called the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I've got a great cast of energetic and fun people, and I'm really liking Assistant Stage Managing this show. I've got a fair chunk of free time right now because I don't have to be at the theatre until after 6 most nights, and I actually have Monday and Tuesday off. I'm doing well with extra overhire work, looking forward to helping load in A Christmas Carol this coming Monday. I also have a production meeting for a play I am Stage Managing in the spring on Tuesday.

I'm on track to meet my minimum expenses this month, and will definitely have some left over. Though I have nothing booked for January yet, December is looking insane and I'm pretty sure I'll be in good shape.

This blog is going to change a little bit. I'm going to broaden it to more than just personal finance, though that will continue to be a big focus, as well as frugality. I'll have a new banner soon I hope. And much more regularity with posting.

Hopefully I'll stick to this. I know sometimes I don't, but hey.... lets try again!

Forward and Back

Well, I'm in debt again. Not a huge amount compared to previous escapades... about $2,000. Definitely too much though. Luckily, I have a four shows booked... a total of 7 months work booked between now and May. Thats a lot of solid work, all of which pays above my minimum. I'm hoping that between now and the end of the year I can get all the way caught up, even replenish my savings a little. Every large bill has been covered as far as I can tell. This of course does not include the unexpected, but it's definitely a good thing that I don't have to stress about bills for a while. I'll still be working as much extra as I can to get this debt cleared.

I've never really been able to get ahead. It's been a huge weight on my shoulders and I can't wait to get it off of there. I'm on a pretty hefty spending freeze excluding planned things, and I really can't wait to start working at a new theatre company on August 30th.

England was great. I have the cutest nephew and niece in the world. All is well there and my brother had the most gorgeous wedding. I'm so glad that I went.

Home is Where the Heart Is

Next week I get to fly home. My tickets were horribly expensive. I was lucky, I had a lot of help, but as it stands I did have to charge part of them so I have some debt to clear. Not only that, but this month and next month I am squeaking by on very little work. I'm hoping that things will come up, like the 6 days of work I randomly had booked this month which covers most of my rent. Still, though, it's probably going to be rough sailing for my until September.

I have work booked from August 30th to November 26th so far. I'll be able to breathe during that time and hopefully use that as a way to catch up a little. My goal is to finish out this year completely in the black with a little extra in my Emergency Fund. It'd be so nice to have that account sitting with three months worth of bills in there.

I've done a few odd jobs here and there to make some extra money. Some suited me, some really really didn't. I'm looking at heading back into the world of writing a little more heavily on days when I am not working. I have so many project ideas but have difficulty sitting down and writing. I've noticed I get more done in certain parts of the house, though, so I really should just get up in the morning, set my computer up on the dining room table, and work. We'll see if that theory works out at all.

In the meantime, soon I will see my brother married and meet my niece and nephew. I'll help my Mum move into her new house and I'll see my sister on her birthday. Very exciting and total worth every penny.

Time Flies

Everything is going by so fast right now. I can't believe it's almost July.
Tomorrow I get to close a show, and I'm still very uncertain about what might happen between now and October. Everything feels as though it's so up in the air.
I was going to be working a job in August that I had to turn over to someone else purely because I can't afford it. It's weird when you can't afford to work. But I have to get better about remembering my minimum amount that I need to make a week, and I can't take jobs any more that don't pay that. I really really need to be better about that. It's so hard for me to turn down work that I don't always look at things in black and white. I don't always remember that work takes up lots of time, and that time also needs to be spent paying rent.
Wow thats a convoluted sentence. Basically. Think things through, pay attention to the salary, remember what you're worth.

I think it's all going to be okay, just need to do a little brain rewiring.

I still have a lot of money to find in order to fly home. I have time, but it's really running out. I'll make it work somehow, I always do.

Getting All Booked

So after not having work booked, I'm getting a fair bit busy. I have one show in rehearsal right now, another show starting rehearsal tomorrow. Then in July I start rehearsals for the next one, and I'm also booked for November and February.
This is pretty great for me. Some of these gigs pay well, some of them less so. I'm excited to have work in my calendar. Right now I'm consistently working until September 4th. I'll really need to keep on top of day gigs and extra work to get my bills paid though.

One thing that I haven't had much success in recently that drives me nuts is getting my savings back in shape. As a general rule, you should have three months of expenses in saved up. I don't. I've got about two weeks right now. It's one of those frustrating things because I find it so hard to get ahead.

When I'm working this much, I eat out a lot. If I just have an hour to go and grab food, I do. I don't buy expensive food, but it really does add up. So, it's going to be back to using my trusty bread maker to make fresh bread and back to buying things to make sandwiches with.

I've got to keep on top of this, get my savings built back up, and get travel money saved up. My big brother gets married in July and trans-atlantic plane tickets sure aren't cheap these days!

Sacrificing Wealth for Art

June and July are going to be financially rough for me. I know this already. I'm prepared for it.
I'm working on two plays that, in a nutshell, pay diddly squat. But gosh it's going to be satisfying. I get to work on new contemporary work, play with some of my best friends, meet new awesome people, and add some very nifty credits to my resume. I'm glad I'm doing that, but this is one of those things where there isn't money in it.

When I left my corporate job last year, I knew there might be times like this. I was prepared for it and I've never really been into having money but hating my job. This is the first time, though, where I've really put myself in a financial pickle. I really think it'll be worth it, but I doubt very much that I'll be clearing my overdraft either month.

As well, the price you pay for loving what you do and working in the non-profit industry. I'll be doing as much side work as I can, but I still doubt it'll quite be enough.

By the way, you can now find some of my writing on the Gaucho blog

Also, hi Mimi :-)

Errors in Judgement

So I took a job for the last month which was a lot of hard work. I put in 30 hours more than I should and subsequently managed to knock my hourly rate (I was getting a flat fee), down to below minimum wage. No fun. I managed to get out of the second half of my contract and am working on something else that is a little more money, a little less driving, and a lot more fulfilling.
My issue here is that in hindsight, I should have gotten more details about the job before I took it. Part of it is that I didn't know the right questions to ask, but part of it also was just my desire to work work work.

I spent 6 weeks without a day off. I might have gone a wee bit crazy around the end there.

So now it's back to working what a normal person works. The only problem is that with that, comes less income and a little more financial stress. I have a $250 vet bill to pay this month, and as it stands, with what I have booked, it's going to have to get pulled out of what has become a miniscule savings account balance.

I'm starting to freak out again because I'm back to making painfully slow progress on my debt. My student loan is costing me a minimum of $608 a month which is about half my expenses. I want to get these payments down but it's so darn hard to find any extra money to throw there. I'm using every penny I have to cover bills and living expenses. So here we go again. It's spending freeze time. Last night I bought enough groceries to last a good long while. I have a couple of things to buy for the garden and a birthday present to get and after that, no more going out, no more nothing. We're going to see if I can get through the month and charge absolutely nothing to my card other than gas.

I feel like I might not be able to pull this one off, but I'm sure going to try!

HItting Monthly Goals

So I've been working on keeping to a couple of goals. I've been doing pretty well. I've been completing a pair of socks each month as planned, though I've had a bit of a leg up (no pun intended) the last couple of months because they've already been partially finished.

Also been keeping up with the reading. I've finished I think four books so far, though unfortunately I still have 60 to go this year. I'm not giving up hope yet, but I'm definitely going to have to do better.

I've started working on paying extra on to my student loan. It's only been a little bit, $21 last month, but the idea here is to lower my monthly payments. Because I'm freelancing, I don't have a guaranteed income, so the lower the amount of money I have to make to stay afloat, the better. I'm hoping to get it down to payments of $400 this year. So far my payments are $609. I have 37 monthly payments more to make. Scary scary number.

I'm keeping my spending down when I can. I've been eating out more than I should be of course, but I'm working on getting that under control again. Also hoping that as spring comes, our utilities are lower and that will certainly help.

Doing okay on the work front. My nine week gig ends soon, but I just started another one. It doesn't pay stunningly well, but the work is kind of fun and I don't have too many hours. I can do other things in the meantime.

Other than that, just plodding along feeling a little stuck, but progressing as best I can.

In the Interest of Not Being Thought to Be Dead

Darnit I disappeared again! No excuse.

So, the last 6 weeks have been terribly busy. I'm on week 6 of a 9 week gig and though it has been grueling and challenging (which I actually like), it has also been great for my finances. I've had a few normal hiccups, like vet bills and such, but the last two months I have hit my monthly necessity goal and been able to not pull anything out of my emergency fund.

Now the bad news. Taxes are coming. Taxes are one the most frustrating things for me because I never seem to get it right in my head what will happen.

Last year, working my 9-5 corporate job may have paid off $11,000 in debt, but it also pushed me into a higher tax bracket, so I owe money. A lot of money. More money than is left in my emergency fund. So, I'm remaining calm and working hard and hoping that I can get this all balanced out somehow.

One of the things that I do that can sometimes be a little crazy is, I never turn down work if I can technically do it. So you might find me getting up at 7am to drive an hour to go and install a set for six hours, then driving directly to my regular gig and setting up and stage managing a show, then going to have dinner with my heavily neglected best friend, then heading back home to sit up and do paperwork, then crashing at 2am, getting up at 8am, and doing it all again. It's busy, it's crazy, it's exhausting, but boy is it ever fun.

And this is how I make ends meet. A little here, a little there. Have crescent wrench, will travel. In this profession how can I not? I could have three weeks where I get no work, run out of red wine entirely, and watch 31 episodes of Stargate SG1 in four days. Keeping busy is good. Working is good. Being able to pay my bills is good.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a two show day to prepare for and someone has to handle the fake snow.