This month turned out better than expected. I paid off 3 bills. Feels great. I did make my “savings replenishment” goal for the month, sort of anyway. I am about $7 short of a grand. I have decided to reset my checking account every month. I will transfer all of the money to my savings for the day before the last check of the month. The purpose of this is to save for what I want faster, but it serves another purpose… The less cash I have on hand means the less cash I am spending. Since my savings is not directly linked to my checking it takes days to transfer and a few additional steps beyond just swiping my debit card.
I am also thinking about rounding my debt out. Flat multiples of 50 or 100 are easier to calculate.
Total debt, payout and savings, originally uploaded by Dramatic. November and December are estimated.
Read First: So Far This Month...
OK, I realize now that, because of some unforeseen expenses, I may not make my savings replenishment goal. It’s cool, I will make it up over the next couple of months.
I am putting off all unnecessary expenses on hold, at least until next month. I am also clipping coupons, hey adds up to laundry money. LOL, I am so not the coupon / sale type. I will likely forget them when I am out shopping. Not finding many anyway, but $3 is a double loader. I don’t really intend to make a habit of this and I definitely will not be that person holding up the line while I look for my coupons or pinch my pennies, LOL.
I am actually looking to adopt some new, healthy habits.
IM Spam, originally uploaded by Dramatic. The offending message...
Fake: Sign in to Yahoo! (20061021), originally uploaded by Dramatic. I received this link in an instant message: www.geocities.com/ibe2233/. Clearly not the Flickr sign in page. I guess the obvious giveaway is that you don't sign in to Flickr through Geocities.
Real: Sign in to Yahoo! (20061021), originally uploaded by Dramatic. This is the real Yahoo! Flickr sign in page
Tried to steal my password today. No dice fuckers.
I have made large payments towards my debt. I have used a good amount of my savings which is really my MacBook Pro fund. I would have paid off 3 bills entirely and more than half of one of the remaining 3. I wanted to bring it down to a point where I could tell exacly when I would have it paid off, which will be April of ‘07 or sooner. I wish I could do the same with the other two… well at my current pay rate I will have them paid off in 32 months.
As for my savings / MacBook Fund, I am thinking about a transformation there too. I need separate accounts for my goals. I am thinking about setting up an emergency fund, a travel fund, an X-mas savings account and an account for all the things I want. Any ideas?
More to come later…
I went out last night for Dooney's Birthday. We just did a little running around.
At dinner, which for the womenfolk consisted entirely of appetizers and water (some had drinks), I decided to have a Hennessy and Coke. A "mini-martini" soon followed. Cute waitresses and Kyonna's mother talked me into going to the surprise party afterwards.
Party... Azelia, oh yes, prettier than I remember. Looks like she's doing better. She was at Houlihan's with us. My first drink I can only imagine was a punch experiment. Too much fruit. It was like fruit that had been rinsed in vodka. Kyonna's mother didn't come through with the cognac, wtf. OK so I get my lil' refill, with less fruit. I get up and go fill the trippy (had swirling lights) ass glass with vodka to the rim. I know my limit so I drank just enough to mellow out after a hard work week.
We left. I like Shanell. She real cool. I didn't know this before. We never talked before a couple of weeks ago. We have some things in common. I think we gonna be cool friends. In fact we might do some shopping together this week. I want the Armani Product (red) watch. I might wait until X-mas though.
Many have begged for what thou unasked
shalt havecould've had.
I know know you come here periodically, so I am laying it on the table. You and I were as close as two people could be. I separated myself so that I could get some things done and that I wouldn't take my pains and frustrations out on you. Got the you're too busy for me speeches, you don't want to talk to me, you are always to busy... yada yada fucking yada...
Then when I had some down time and tried to reach out, you shut me down. Your last word to me were "You played me, now I'm playing you.
" This hurt, deep. You know not many can make that claim, to have hurt me, but you did and you did so intentionally.
Here's the deal... We are no longer. All the talk about our future together, in our place as friends or whatever, done. We shared a few good moments but not enough to go through this bullshit over and over again. I have loved you as my sister, my lover and as my friend. You said you didn't need me, now I am doing better without you... How you like them apples?.
Monthly Payments, originally uploaded by Dramatic. These are my payouts from Sept, Oct and December.
This month I will pay off an extra bill (DFS). One more than the original 2 I espected and I am paying off more than half of one of my remaining bills. Which means that by tax time 2007 I should have just one outstanding debt remaining.
Since I have the opportunity to pay off DFS, I am dipping into my savings to do so. This hurts a little bit. I will, however, be able to replenish my savings pretty quickly, as the absense of DFS allows me to almost double my monthly savings.
I know my debt reduction strategy is not for everyone. I simply take a big axe and swing at the little trees first. They are in my way. When I am done with those I work on the larger ones. I can take smaller, better placed swings which will bring my trees down with less effort. Or I just paid off the smaller, easier ones first and redirect all or most of my funds towards the larger ones.
Not for nothing, I am that much closer to my goal. I am still trying to figure out if a “Debt Free Xmas 2007” if feasible. Might have to defer my debt freedom until Easter 2008.
Last month I made the decision I wasn’t going to rush and pay the bills off just because I had the money. I paid off all of my interest baring accounts immediately. Allowing interest to build would be counter productive. The other bills I let stand until the time of the month I usually pay them. It just didn’t make any sense to make additional trips to the payment centers or use additional stamps or plain just waste the time needed to do these things. So I put the money in my savings account where I could get a bit of interest while I waited to pay the bills. Now I have the funds set to cascade from my savings to my checking as my due dates come up.
And then there were 3!
I am taking a break from all non-essential communications. I will be gone for a week maybe longer. NO PHONE, NO IM, NO EMAIL, NO BLOG, NO KIDDING!
This started Monday. I turned off my phone completely. I have still been checking mail only because it was necessary. Haven't IMed anyone, except to say goodbye to the few I knew would notice I am missing.
Need to rest. Need to sleep. Need to recharge. Need to separate myself from everyone and everything that would seek to keep me from doing so. Anyhow, I'm out.
