get out of debt

Want to get money to pay my debts.

Sweet! I’ve sold a lot of extra junk from my place, taken on extra jobs and minimized expenses big time to about $1000 a month, creating a cash flow of about $700 a month – making my 3 months emergency fund easy to complete (only $9 technically till there which I should have after I sell something tonight on craigslist).

Anyway, now with that underway, debating between getting debt down to $10K by end of 2009, or if I should sock away some for a down payment on a house and/or investing (which will earn a great return). Thoughts on this?

ps check out my blog re: personal finance in Hollywood
http://copyandcredit.blogspot.com

Student loan: $10,901.22 (-1.625%)

Mom Loan 1:$2,000—> $1,000

Mom Loan 2:$1,000

Mom Loan 3:$200

Credit Card:$735.88

Dad Loan 1:$800

Dad Loan 2:$550

Dr. Bill 1:$225

Dr. Bill 2:$70

Dr. Bill 3:$70

TOTAL DEBT = $10,901.22 of original $23,105.53 remaining
TOTAL SAVED = $3,090.90 of $3,100 in E-FUND

i am a lot more in debt now. stupid school.

Went into the city for a friend’s b-day last night. Met up for Indian food – yum! We brought our allotted fun $, didn’t overdo it on food or drinks, checked the bill for mistakes, etc. Then the hubby went to put my leftovers in the car before we went to play a couple games of pool. The car was gone!!!

We had parked in kind of an iffy area but didn’t see any signs so didn’t think much of it but of course, Sat night in a big college area, the cops are on the prowl for illegal parking, I guess…and there was a sign… just not in plain view, of course.

A trip to the ATM and $112 dollars later and we had the car back. OUCH! Needless to say we skipped the pool hall and just headed home, angry at ourselves for being so stupid.

Stuff like this happens. We’re not perfect. It is very frustrating though. We were running late and felt bad so we were just looking for a quick, convenient spot to park. We should have been more careful. I don’t expect we’ll be letting something like this happen again anytime soon.

A couple positive things to note:

The less frugal versions of ourselves would have said “Screw it. Let’s just go play pool, have a couple drinks and forget about this” but we stopped and realized we needed to accept full responsibility and admit to our friends “Sorry but we can’t afford to do anything else tonight since we now have to pay $100+ for the tow.”

Also, for the first time ever, my husband equated the cost of our mistake with his income. (i.e. ”$112? That’s almost a day’s take home pay!”) That is a really big deal. He doesn’t generally think of money in those terms.

So, it sucks but these things happen. If your going to make a dumb mistake you can at least try to get something positive out of it, right?

got my self in debt when i lost my job, but have been paying off debters a little for the last couple years a slow process but im working on it

I sent $500 to my next loan. Down to $9300.

Reminds me that I was right to be obsessive about sending in my extra payments immediately upon being paid. This time I had to split my $1000 because I paid off a balance smaller than $1000 on my other loan and then had to put the remainder to this one – but since I didn’t do it right away, I only ended up paying $800 total this time. Not the worst thing ever but I want to maintain discipline. The end is so close – March, we’re hoping.

Paid off hubby’s car “loan” the other night. We only owed our friend $400 so instead of making this month’s $200 payment, we just gave her the final $400. It felt so great to finally cross something off our list. We are probably going to have a couple of slow months b/c we both need new tires for our cars before winter really hits. Have saved up for hubby’s (his are really bad) but not mine yet so it’s good to have something accomplished since we’ll be going into a couple months w/o as much $ as usual to throw at debt (the extra $200/mo. is going to help though!). This is the first real debt we’ve paid off together. It feels great! = D

My grand total for debt (as of this moment anyways) is only about 3 G, but I have been in debt my whole life and it would be nice to be debt free for awhile.

I live my life on credit because I’m lacking the funds
And I’ve been wondering where all of this money will come from.
My bank account have been overdrafted for a while.
I am the proud owner of a NEGATIVE balance account.
Please pray for me.
Its been a really tough couple of months.

for best buy mastercard

i spaced on the due date for my next payment and ended up sending it express mail overnight to get it in on time.

also i accepted some overtime at work the next two maybe three weekends. all of that extra money will go to best buy mastercard. will have to make up that lost sleep and leisure time later.