Erasing Our Debt

Salary Increased

I received my annual review yesterday. I was rated a 1 which is the highest you can get.

Last year my manager requested a 4.5% increase but since I had joined mid-year in 2006, I received a 3.05% pro-rated increase.

This year I am receiving a 7% increase! This will add an extra $220 a month to my income.

When I found out how much my increase was going to be I immediately started trying to figure out what to do with it. All the PF advice is to continue to live on your old income.

My biggest concern is how to keep that 7% separate from what I get paid now. I decided to just have 7% directly deposited into another account and use that account to make "extra" credit card payments.

I need to re-run the numbers to see my new get out of debt goal date. This will no doubt make a big impact.

Posted in Debt, Income | 1 Comment »

More money to throw at debt!

My paycheck for this Friday is going to be $200 more dollars than I planned for.

Gonna throw that at the Citi debt!

Posted in Debt, Freedom, Updates | No Comments »

Found another freebie

I’ve been going to the library every day since Saturday to study for an upcoming Calculus I test on Thursday.

I’ve been checking books out at the library ever since we moved here. They actually have quite a good selection that one co-worker is jealous of since his carries “nothing good.” I’m often checking books out for him.

But that is not the purpose of this post. I’ve long known libraries to carry magazines and newspapers. I’ve just never thought about sitting down and reading them while there.

The magazine selection is quite good and there is even some I have thought about subscribing to. But I think I can make the trek to the library once or twice a month, maybe more, to read the most current issue of any of the magazines they have.

Here’s to saving over $100 in subscription fees a year!

Posted in Frugality, Random, Savings | No Comments »

Just had to check

I just had to log on to check to make sure the payment posted for Capital One to finally be paid off. I was a bit reluctant to pay this card off. It will now be closed now that the balance is zero. I didn’t really want that to happen due to taking a hit on my credit report. But being free of this payment is already feeling great!!!!

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One More Down, Three To Go

As of today, Capital One1 has been paid off!!

Also we received our tax refund and $2,000 of that will be paying off Chase on Friday!!

Chase has been offering 0% and 3.99% balance transfers out the wazoo lately so I’m going to do the math to see if it’s worthy as I’m sure they’ll carry a 3% transfer fee.

Posted in Debt, Updates | 2 Comments »

Monday’s Quote of the Week – Special Edition

A year ago today, a little past noon, my wife and I got married. So today’s quotes are going to be about love.

Love is not sweet talks and flowers, but love is forgiving and compromising.

Love doesn’t make the world go ’round.
Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
                –Franklin P. Jones

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.
                –Mignon McLaughlin

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life; That word is love.
                –Sophocles

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 
                –1 Peter 4:8-9

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Actions against my 401(k)

I recently checked over my investment choices in my 401(k). What I found was I had about 4 out of 12 choices that were charging over a .7% expense fee. I looked at all the other ones that were earning similar returns and they were charging around .03-.1%. So I made a lot of changes to my investment choices there.

Also at the beginning of the year I was contributing 6%, 3% to Roth and 3% to non-Roth, so I could maximize my match as it topped off at 6%. I then escalated it to 10% for the last 2 paychecks. I have no lowered it to 1% to Roth and 1% to non-Roth. This should help me reduce my debt even more.

Even though I’m missing out on some more free money, I’ll still get a match on that 2% plus starting this year, we get 2% thrown in on top of what we contribute. So I’m essentially getting a 4% match while only contributing 2%.

Also this week I’ll find out how much, if any, of a raise I’ll be receiving on my first check in March.

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Reasoning for Disaster AND Emergency Funds

JW recently left a comment that he liked that I had both an Emergency fund AND a Disaster fund. Funny thing is is that as I drove home last night before I saw that comment I was thinking about my Disaster fund and what I should do with it.

I never truly visited the reason I decided to set up a disaster fund. A couple of months ago, the company I work for was expecting tough times and all the media outlets were reporting possible layoffs. I decided at that time that there was no way we could afford to only have a $1,000 emergency fund should I get laid off. The layoffs didn’t happen. But working in the financial industry, you never know what could be around the corner. Thus my reasoning for this fund.

Back to my thoughts I shared with myself as I drove home last night. A co-worker (the one I have helped) was discussing how excited she was to know she was on her way to get out of debt and was thinking about what all she could do with her "new found money." That got me to thinking about what I was going to do as well. It also made me think about the $2,500 I have in the disaster fund. I decided what I was going to do with it. Right now I am anticipating on having my credit card debt paid off in about 12 months. But I think I may can do this in 10 months if I use my disaster fund. Currently I am paying a little over $1,100 a month to credit card debt. That’s just a little bit less than half of the disaster fund. The plan is to pay down the credit card debt as I normally have been and then when the total gets to what my disaster fund equals, pay off the rest with that fund.

With the current payments of over $1k I could have the disaster fund built back in about 2 months. But I’d plan on going even further and having it extend up to $6,000. That of course would include the $1000 in my emergency fund so it would take about five months to achieve that goal.

Like my co-worker said, it’s exciting to look forward to the future when you have a plan.

Posted in Debt, Disaster Fund, Freedom, Savings | No Comments »

Monday’s Quote of the Week

The future is that time when you’ll wish you’d done what you aren’t doing now.

Posted in Quotes | 1 Comment »

7 Random Facts About Me

I was "tagged" by Tricia at BloggingAwayDebt, aka my inspiration to blog about my debt reduction process, to reveal seven random facts about myself.

Here’s the rule for this:

1. Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.
4. Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting on comment on their blog.

My 7 Random facts are:

1. I’m going to school to be a Math Teacher.
2. I’m addicted to Jason’s Deli and used to eat it once a week.
3. I have at least 10 different email accounts that I check regularly.
4. I love to cook and want to open a diner when I retire.
5. I got a tattoo to make my dad mad. It didn’t upset him at all.
6. I love to correct people when they make a grammatical mistake.
7. I’m an Excel junkie.

I’m going to tag the following:

Dreamy1.Net
ChiTown Blues
Frugal1StopMom
Young and Broke
NeedtobeDebtFree
Mark Cuban (just to see if he does it)
Curt Schilling (just to see if he’ll do it too)

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