Live Real, Now

The no-pants guide to spending, saving, and thriving in the real world.

Search Results for: how-to-complain-the-squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease/INGDirect/subscribe-by-email/money-problems-day-1-setting-goals/questions-from-a-reader/consumer-action-handbook/what-happens-when-you-save/experiences-v-stuff/5-steps-to-save/5-life-altering-lessons-i-learned-from-my-debt/brown-bagging-your-way-to-savings

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-05-29

Misc

Let me check….

Finance

A few days ago, I asked a coworker if she wanted to go out for lunch.  She said she’d have to check her bank account before she decided.

What?

If you have to check your bank balance to know if you can afford something, you can’t afford it.   It really is that simple.

Now, strict budgets aren’t for everyone, but everyone should know how much money they have available to spend.   If you don’t know what you have to spare, you need to set up a budget.

Period.

After you’ve done that, you can ignore it, with the exception of knowing how much you have available to blow on groceries, entertainment, and other discretionary purchases.

If you don’t know where your money needs to go, how can you determine how much you can spend on the things you want?

Budget, updates, and the future

Finance

I have recently reworked our budget, including a new spreadsheet, sorted by categories. It’s a Google Doc template available here. I will dive into each section in detail in coming weeks.

My wife and I had a long conversation about what has worked and what has failed miserably regarding our debt and repayment plan. The results of that conversation will be the subject of a few posts over the next couple of weeks.

Our destination hasn’t changed. Our map hasn’t changed. We are making some changes to the route we take, to allow better for our strengths and weaknesses, both as a couple and as individuals.

 

My Credit Cards

Finance

This announcement is a bit premature, but not everything that’s premature has to end in an evening of disappointment.

At the beginning of the year, I transferred the balance of my last credit card onto two different cards, each with a 0% interest rate.   One card got a $4,000 transfer and the other got $13,850.  The approximately $415 in fees I paid for the transfer saved me nearly $1500 in interest this year.

The card that got the big balance is the card we use for a lot of our daily spending.    On my statement dated 2/18/2012, the balance on the this card was $14,865.23.  At the same time, the smaller card had a balance of $3,925.09, for a total of $18,790.32.  When I started my debt-murder journey in April 2009, it had peaked at just under $30,000.

When my payments clear later today, that balance will be gone.

That is nearly $19,000 paid down in 8 months.

Now, the inheritance we picked up did accelerate our repayment a bit, but only by a few months.

Starting from $90,394.70 in April 2009, we have paid down $63,746.70, leaving $26,648.00 on our mortgage.

I’m more than a little excited, which–as usual–is the cause for the prematurity.

New goal: pay off the mortgage in 2013.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Five Signs You Don’t Need That

Finance

Everybody occasionally buys things they don’t need, from DVDs to luxury cars.   There are signs that what you’re buy may not be an actual necessity.

Here are five signs you should put that back:

  1. You’re buying that sweater or video game for the endorphin hit, you’re shopping for the addictive high not to fill an actual need.  It’s a habit that’s as hard to break as smoking, if not harder.  You can’t, after all, stop shopping altogether.
  2. You already have one.  Or 10.   A relative can’t turn down a sale and she buys for life.   She regularly buys 3 of whatever useful gadget is available on the shopping channel.    Her house has turned into a sad story of compulsive hoarding.
  3. The rationalizations for your purchase include “It’s cool”  or “My friends all have one.”  If you are buying something just for the bragging rights, it has become an ego purchase, which is something to avoid.   The insidious part of an ego purchase is that you have to keep topping your last purchase and the last purchase of your social circle, or the purchases lose value.  It’s a vicious circle.
  4. It doesn’t have a “place”.  Where are you going to put it?  Is it going to go in the corner, or is there a drawer or shelf it can live on.  If there’s no play to consider “away”, you’re just buying clutter.  If you must have it, go home and toss, sell, or donate 2 things to make room. If possible, do that before you actually by the new toy.   If it’s important, you’ll come back for it.
  5. You didn’t know you needed it 10 minutes ago.  If you actually need it, it’s on your list, right?  Impulse purchases have been the biggest budget-killer in my house.  That’s why we use Alice for the household goods.  If we don’t see the it, we can’t throw it in the cart at the last minute.    We no longer shop with the debit card, so we have to watch what we buy.  It’s embarrassing to have to undo a purchase at the checkout because I didn’t bring enough cash.

What did I miss?