Credit Summary

I have been thinking a lot about buying a house lately and thinking about the best way to get my credit score when Get Rich Slowly did a timely article yesterday about credit.com and seeing your credit score. It was perfect for me so I went and looked. The first part is my credit summary…..not so bad….but not great

The next part is the detail on the grades

The good news it appears that the things that are tough to change easily are in good shape. That leaves me with the 2 F’s. The one with the least impact is that I don’t have enough different types of credit. I am not going to worry about that. When I am ready I will add the mortgage and car loan. I am not going for the student loan. That leaves the Debt Usage at 30% of my score. I am working on that. I am still striving to pay off the Commerce account this year. I am making progress even though I am struggling mightily on this right now. I keep thinking that maybe if I break into my company stock plan I can sell a portion of that and be in better shape. It was $18,000 last time I looked. That would probably really advance me in my progress. That would take away half of my debt. Right now I am on track to be paid off in I think 2014. I could cut that in half if not more. Then the conservative voice in my head says. Right now you have in that stock a true emergency fund of 6 months. If you lost your job you wouldn’t be out of luck. If you want to get married you have the wedding paid for in this account. If you want to buy a house you have 10% of a 180,000 house. It has taken you 4 years to build this up and if the stock splits you won’t get as much and you also won’t get the dividends. Then the really serious voice kicks in and reminds me that I don’t have the maturity yet. What I mean by that is about 10-15 years ago I had about 5,000 in debt and Grandma bailed me out. It was too easy and I didn’t learn anything as shown by where I am now. If I struggle a bit more I will probably learn something so that I won’t get myself in this problem again and yet still have the safety net. So I don’t do it for another month until I get frustrated and start to consider it again. I didn’t get into this situation overnight and I won’t get out overnight short of winning the lottery or powerball. Boy wouldn’t that be nice.

I am going to start recording my credit report card monthly so I can see some improvements. One thing of note it says
$22,198 in credit card debt
$24,100 total credit limits
$253 highest min. card payment

I will record that too. I can do this….just one step at a time.

Working through spending money.

I have gotten better and my bank accounts and credit cards show it. Part of the way that I have gotten better is because I look at how much money I have on a regular basis…..daily if I must. I also do something strange. I get on a tangent. I really need/want xyz. Generally it involves travel. Then I go research it and research it and while I am researching I start thinking about how much money it is and where am I going to get the money and do I really need to do this. By the time I am done I have talked myself out of it. It seems to work….while time consuming it is working.

Coolness

2 cool things have happened this month. I received my dividend check from work. Now in the past I would have looked at that and thought “what treat do I deserve with this?”. Not this time. I divided it in half and put half in my emergency fund and left the other half in the savings. Now I did end up using it but with different logic in the past. The other coolness event was we had my boyfriend’s God daughter last weekend. In the past the days we have had her tended to be hard my cash flow. Generally we would rent a movie and get pizza. The first over night we had her we went out for breakfast and then the botanical garden. She of course needed a hat and some rocks from the gift shop along with a chinese parasol. Lunch out and then home for a nap. From there ice cream out and then boating around the park. Sandals for the pedicure and a game for her game boy at Walmart. The pedicure and then dinner. That was a terribly expensive day. The next time we ate breakfast in but went to a festival the night before and out to dinner. The next day was the park. Not quite so expensive. This time was going to be an entire weekend. Friday night I picked her up and we went to the grocery store. $66 later we had what we needed. Friday night we did do face painting and ice cream but together that was about $30. We had dinner Friday night at home, breakfast on Saturday. Free trip to the science center but ate lunch there….slightly poor planning on my part but boyfriend picked that up. Dinner at home and then the drive in. That ended up being $20 with tickets and some snacks. Sunday had breakfast at home, watched movies and played games, lunch at home and dinner was home made pizzas. So for about $120 I fed two adults and 1 7 year old and entertained the lot of us for an entire weekend. Figure in Saturday nights dinner was 5 more meals for me this week, Friday nights dinner was 1 meal for me and 1 for bf and we still have some of the pizza fixings. Not bad at all. All week I have packed my lunch if I didn’t already have a lunch meeting. I still have cash left over from the $100 that I took out last weekend for the weekend expenses. Yeah me! I have struggled some with July’s expenses and getting organized. I also over drafted the play money last month. I have a plan on how to handle that. I haven’t exercised like I should but I have increased the water. I can do it….yes I can.

I’m excited and changing

I was so proud of myself the past two weeks. I figured out my expenses for June and looked at my spending account. I didn’t have much money to last me till my payday 6/5. So I basically stopped spending money. Now in the past I would have used my credit card to buy my fathers day gift and birthday gift for my sister. I would have the money the next week so no problem…..except I would only pay the minimum on the credit card. This time I looked at the calendar and looked at my checking account and determined that I could wait until I got paid and not be late. I did it. I was paid on Friday and I have really really really been thinking I want more plants. I had even planned to go to Lowes on Friday and buy plants. But I didn’t. It just didn’t feel right. Saturday I ordered my fathers day gift (paying cash). Sunday I ordered my sisters birthday gift (paying cash). Monday I needed to go grocery shopping. I spent quite a bit but it was all cash. I looked at my money situation on Tuesday and realized. Probably no plants….also no cute little table for the patio unless I built it out of things I already have. The next most urgent thing was a hair cut. I have just enough for that but not for special shampoo and stuff. Tonight is the hair cut. I am improving.

I decided to take a quick status check of where I am at. Wow! I rock! It is June 10th and I already have my bills for the month reviewed, scheduled, old bills shredded and even balanced/entered some into Quicken. I have actually jogged every work day for the last 2 weeks. This is my 3rd Wednesday on the plan. I reviewed everything else too…..double wow! I really rock! I have summer semester pretty much paid for except for parking and $60 of books. I have almost $500 in my tuition account and at least $100 in my most account. I am already saving towards fall. I have almost $500 in my line of credit…..I could feasibly keep saving there and then at the end of the year use it on my Commerce balance to make that goal. If I kicked up my payment (but would cause me problems) I could get under $2,000 owed on Commerce this month. I will definitely make it next month. For _43_ days I have had $1,000 in my emergency fund. Holy cow! By the end of June I may have my debt reduced by almost $2,000. I know that is only $2,000 in 6 months and at this rate I probably will not make $6,000 by the end of the year but it is such a hard earned $2,000 I have much to be proud of. I have learned some. I am improving. I can keep this up.

Why do I want to be debt free

While doing my blog reading I came across a post that asked “Why do I want to be rich?” I think I can honestly say I don’t think I necessarily want to be rich. What do I want? I want to be out of credit card and line of credit debt. I want to go on a business trip and not have to worry about whether I will be able to afford the hotel that I will be staying at. I don’t want to have to negotiate with the front desk to pay one day at a time on my room. It was terribly distracting and I didn’t get as much out of the conference. I want to have enough cash on hand that I don’t have to time to the day when I can pay a bill and not have overdraft. I would like to not have to lay awake wondering if I can afford something happening to the car and getting it fixed. I want buy the plants I want and have the garden I want. I want to own a home…..I don’t mind a mortgage. Utlimately though I want to get married and have children and to be able to stay at home with them. I want to walk into that marriage with little debt of my own. I want to get married soon and have the wedding of my dreams.

I know to do all that I have to change myself. I need to recognize when spending money really makes sense. When to buy cheap and when to buy quality. I need to know that people that love me will still love me even if I don’t buy them a lot of gifts. I need to recognize when it is really just a burning desire to spend money and how to side step it. I need to always like who I am and be comfortable in it.

Emotional roller coasters

This financial journey is such an emotional roller coaster.  Yesterday at lunch I was anxiously looking at my money contemplating what I would be allowed to spend this weekend.  For Memorial Day weekend we are going out of town.   That is a post all of it’s own…..it was an interesting insight into my psyche.  I had a little anxiety because the check engine light came on  in the car.  Last night I got home and discovered that another credit card had closed my account.  WTF  I don’t believe I had been in overdraft on that account in recent history.  I haven’t used it since the beginning of the year.  One of their reasons was that I had too few accounts with greater then 24 month history.  Double WTF.  All of my accounts have greater then 24 month history.  I haven’t opened anything in the last 24 months.  So then I was bummed out.  This morning I woke up and felt that my credit history is going to hell in a hand basket and I keep working and working on improving and credit card companies just keep closing accounts.  The car light was on….and I am looking at spending more money this weekend.  Flash back to the present.  I worked through lunch figuring out my bills for June to help me figure out what I can afford this weekend while eating the lunch I brought from home.  While calculating my bills I looked at the block buster charge that was expected.  Did I really need this $29.99 service?  No.  So I called and canceled.  wow….look at me.  I just saved almost $30.  While doing this I calculated my debt since the beginning of the year.  I figure I owed $38,142.03 on January 1.  My calculations show I only owe $36,707.49 on June 1.  I have managed to pay off $1,434.54.  Not bad…..I may not make the $6,000 for the year but I am doing better.  The sun just came out on my cloudy day.  Lets step back a minute…..I am right on track with paying off school….in fact my summer tuition is paid all that is due is books and parking.  I have that already in savings and am starting to save for fall semester.  I have $1,000+ in my emeregency fund.  I have already bought the laptop.    I have paid off almost $1,000 on my Commerce Bank card.  I have about 3-400 in a savings emergency type account.  Maybe I’m not so bad.  I think I can do it.

Surprising good feelings

I was heading down to our cafe at work to grab a quick lunch (yes I know I should have packed but I wasn’t sure about my lunch plans this am) and I checked my spending account bank account to make sure I would be ok and that’s when it happened.  It was just a quick check and then another number caught my eye.  $784.19.   Now that number doesn’t really sound very interesting except it was in the available credit line column of the credit card I am trying to pay off.  I know that $784.19 doesn’t even sound like that much money and for the most part it really isn’t.  In this instance though it is huge.  It represents what _I_ have been able to pay off on an account all by myself.  It isn’t credit that the credit card company extended my card for but the very intentional work that I have done to not use the card and to pay it off.  What makes it even better is that this hasn’t been done at the expense of other things.

I have paid off half of my summer tuition.  I could pay the whole thing right now but I would prefer to let it earn a little interest.  Since it isn’t due until July 1 I have some time.  I am starting to save for the fall semester.  I have $1,029.35 in my emergency account.  I even have 310.41 in my line of credit.  I have $184 in savings that is building a bit.   My car and rental insurance is paid in full.  I even have $172 available on the only credit card I am allowing myself to use and that is before this months payment and my company expense reimbursement.  I have all of my bills calculated and scheduled for the rest of the month.  I have spent quite a bit in the last two weeks but I had a little reserve built up to allow that occasionally and I recognize my spending and have stopped.

Wow….I have paid of 784.19 all by myself.  I can’t wait till that is $1,000.  This feels good.

I can do this…..

I woke up this morning and life was great.   Highly productive weekend.  All of the bills were paid on time.  I had over $1,000 in the savings account and a plan to pay off the Commerce credit card.   I had planned out where the bill paying account was going to go for the next month and a half.  I had checked in on my school financing project and was right on target.  My state income tax return was still to come in.  Life was good.

Then I got into the car and drove to work and discovered that the passenger window would not go up.  It was truly amazing how something so simple could make a day seem so cloudy.  This was just another sign that I needed to replace this car.  So I started thinking about it.  I could give up the paying off the Commerce card and reduce what I am paying down on another card.  That should give me about $300 a month and then I could….so I took my bill paying plan for the next month and started checking out changes.  Fortunate that I did this because I realized that I was $200 off and would be have been in overdraft in short order.  So I fixed that and to fix that I had to take $120  from savings and $210 from the money market holding the $1,000.  Needless to say I no longer had $1,000 in the account.  Then I checked out some other things.  I needed to reduce the Commerce payment so i didn’t end up in the hole.  The other card I couldn’t reduce or I wouldn’t even be making the finance charges.  So then I started thinking…..no this isn’t right so I added up what I pay or plan to pay for the next month for my credit card and line of credit.  Add to that the rent, tithe to the church and expected utilities.  Then put on that the Netflix, blockbuster accounts and the subsidizing of my favorite soldiers angel.  Then if I take the idea that I get 2 paychecks a month that leaves me with……drum roll….98.22.  That doesn’t leave me much of a car payment.  Then I started the perhaps if I do this or maybe do that and sunk into a funk.

I believe I can do this.  It is the year of “I believe I can”.  I don’t know how without sacrificing something else but I will find a way.  Perhaps I need to reduce the cable bill or I need to reduce the spending money so that it is less and figure out how to do it with less.  I can’t earn more as we have no raises this year and I won’t cut my tithe.  Maybe the blockbuster or netflix has to go.  I won’t give up the soldiers angel but maybe those have to be subsizdized by the spending money and not the bill paying.  I really just must believe in myself.  If all those other people can do it then I can too.  I just have to keep believing and keep figuring out how.

I want to spend money….

Not only do I want to spend money I am struggling to keep from spending.  It started with the….it’s almost Easter and I _NEED_ an Easter dress.  I don’t need an Easter dress and I really can’t afford an Easter dress.  I still owe my March tithe.  My head says “but but you don’t have anything light and colorful really to wear for Easter and wouldn’t it be nice to have a new dress”.  Nice….yes.  Need or necessary no.

I thought I had done pretty good because I did not go through my normal I am going to rent a cabin in the woods for Palm Sunday weekend.   I research and research and sometimes go so far as actually putting out a reservation or inquiring about renting and then cancel the week before.  It helped that I will be out of town half the next week for work and beloved said he didn’t want to go.  If he didn’t want to go and I wasn’t going to get to see him half the next week and into the weekend then I didn’t want to go.  Add to that I had been paying bills and I just couldn’t figure out how (without using credit) I could afford it.  I had even made it through the “must get new golf pants for Tucson business trip”.  I went and put on the ones from last year that fit and while they don’t look the greatest they will work.  As will all of the cute golf shirts I bought last year.

Then the whole Easter dress thing came up.  So I had pretty much talked myself out of that (and honestly while looking online hadn’t really found something that jumped out at me) and was out ordering the table decorations for Easter (generally I would buy local and then take in suitcase but since I have longer trip not enough suitcase room) and then the “must get Easter gift for everyone” voice started up.   Brief station break to say that I did have my act together enough to look in the Easter box to see if I had some plates left over from last year.  I spent almost an hour looking for cute coffee mugs for the whole family that say “love” without being corny or too religious.  Fortunately I managed to not spend the money.   Then the very insistant voice of “must buy God son Easter gift” roused itself.  So there goes another half an hour.  I am proud to say that I managed to talk myself out of that.  It also helps that what do you honestly get a 1 year old about Easter.  He gets excited about an empty box and a spoon.  Someday I should do something but fortunately it doesn’t make sense this year.

See what I mean about must spend money.  I have so far successfully worked through those land mines.  It was time consuming but I did it.  I think this is where I have failed in the past.  I put myself on the strict budget and follow for awhile and then just snap.  Once I snap and buy things I don’t really need or want I beat myself up and either start over again (spending 2 months financially recovering) or give up.  How do I get past these things?  I have read some people talk about they give themselves a spend on anything bucket and then use it but they don’t get anymore until the next refill.  That might work.  I have been trying the “think about what little successes I have had and how great they feel and wouldn’t it be nice to have more them”.  Also doing the “everynight I open Quicken and look at how much money I owe” trick.  While it has been kind of working I don’t believe it to be sustainable.  So maybe I need to look seriously at how to fund the crazy money fund, where to put it and how much to put in it.  *Sigh*  I suppose if this was easy I would have already done it and everyone else would have too.

March status check

I have been bad the past two months on paying bills and it is showing.  Last night I buckled down and I did it.  ouch!

So for a status update:

Commerce bank card….haven’t used it yet this year!  I am down to $2,348.84 from 2704.97 at the beginning of the year.  That does include this months payment.  I am so excited that I haven’t used it yet this year.  In fact I have been doing pretty good on not using my credit cards at all.

School paid for….Spring semester completely paid for and by the end of the month I should have around $1,000 between my school savings account and my Missouri Most account.  I know that I had planned to put $500 in the Most account everytime my school savings account became that high but I am keeping it as a bit of a safety net.  The good news is that last night I was tempted to pull from it to pay bills and I didn’t.  Yeah me!

Buy laptop…..well I just went out and did it.  I had problems with my work laptop and was terrified of all the things I could lose so I went and invested.  Not on credit….totally on cash.  Not bad.

Replace car…..unfortunately the car account is still at 0.  Baby steps.  The expense of the laptop in January took till February to recover and then in February I paid off a bunch on a credit card to add that buffer for business travel.  This month I had a $600 flight home for easter.  I haven’t given up.

Have $1,000 constantly in savings account….wellll I have changed so my check is deposited there and I am only “paying myself” $1500 a paycheck.  Which in theory should be more then enough and allow almost $200 into the savings account each pay check (every two weeks) but it hasn’t quite worked that way.  To keep from using credit cards and not touch my school account I have been robbing from that and from my line of credit.  I do have a dividend check, company reimbursement, bill assistance, and income tax return coming in which should subsidize some.

Lose 20lbs …..I went up and I think I am back at 208.2.  I have been putzing a bit with a diet, doing belly dancing class most if not all Wednesdays and increasing water.  I am still doing the crisscross (20) almost every work week morning and added cross over leg lefts to build up the inside of my thigh muscles.  I can see that I have lost inches but I really do want to lose pounds.

As for my January Goals

• Pay for Spring Semester – success!!!!
• Drink 1 bottle of water every day – mostly success!!!!
• Put the $200 dividend towards the laptop account – bought!!!!
• Put the $500 dividend towards the $1,000 savings account – used on laptop but it was emergency
• Wash face every night – gotten out of practice
• Complete the month caught up on the 365 day bible – totally out of practice
• Exercise 3 times a week minimum – really really out of practice
• Get my finances organized in quicken. – working diligently on
• Journal at least 2 times a week – out of practice

I am going to spend the rest of the month thinking about goals for April.  I have some wins and some losses.  I had to chuckle at myself last night.  I am struggling to pay my bills and yet I didn’t give the bill information to my beloved to reimburse me.  I am struggling to write myself a check for reimbursement from the company and I refuse to touch my college fund.  The last I am proud of.   What I am not proud of is that I am in this state and to save myself I removed the tithe for the month.  As soon as I get some of this other money that is the first thing I do.  It’s a promise.