May 2009

Well, we did pretty good this month, paying off a total of $264.00 in cc debit leaving us with a new balance of $11,583.07. Our savings went down again being as we purchased a new car. Our 2001 Expedition needed an additional $4,600 in repairs so our mechanic told us to get rid of it while we could. We purchased a 2008 Chrysler 300 and we really like it. There are a few things I miss about the Expedition though but the car is growing on me. :) I hope everyone else had a terrific payoff in May and have a great June!

April Totals :)

Well, we did pretty good again this month. We had a couple of emergencies and thus our savings went down but at the same time we were able to pay off a little bit of our credit card debt. Our pay off amount for the month of April was $ 274.20 leaving us with a balance of $ 11,828.80. Not too bad considering we went on a vacation and had to repair the truck to a tune of $500! Ugh! I hope everyone did well last month! Good luck this month too! :)

April 1. 2009 Update

I know it's not QUITE April 1st but I already have our totals ready so I'm posting them today. During the month of March we were able to reduce our CC Debt from $ 12,586.59 down to $ 12,103.00 so not too bad! Our payoff amounts totaled $ 483.59 (this does NOT include the $159.00 in balance transfer fees which we paid in full). I certainly hope everyone else is seeing their CC balances go DOWN rather than UP. Good luck in April everyone! :)

Our Payoff and New Balance

Well, we certainly didn't pay off as much in February as we did in January but we sure did save a lot! (and that's always a good thing) Our previous CC Balances were $ 12,781.22 and our New Balances are $ 12,586.59 for a total payoff of $194.63. We're still working on getting our savings up and our CC balances down, I am hoping to pay off more in March than we did in February. I hope everyone Else's balances went down too! :) Have a happy March everyone! :)

Watch Your Credit Scores!

If you have recently had credit lines closed "due to inactivity" or the like WATCH YOUR CREDIT SCORES! I recently had 3 credit lines closed for the reason above and my score in November 2008 was 744.......... my score today is 668 !!!!!!!!!! I was FLABBERGASTED! All 3 of the accounts state "account closed at customer's request" even though I did NOT close them myself. I intend to call Experian and ask about this type of "reporting" as it doesn't seem fair to lower my credit score because 3 cc companies decided to close my accounts NOR write that I closed them when I did not. Moral of the story, watch your scores! They may be going down and you don't even know it!

Today we did it..........

Well, today we transferred our LARGE CC balance onto 2 new CC's that will both have 0% interest until March 17, 2010. The transactions cost us $159.00 total in balance transfer fees BUT we will save around $656.56 in interest over the next 12 months by paying the $159.00 upfront for a real time savings of $497.56. (We already have the $159.00 set to the side to pay ON TOP OF the 1st month's minimum payments.) I am not sure yet but I believe that the minimum payments we will have on the 2 new CC's will be MORE than the minimum payment due on the orginal CC but that's OK, at least the balances will be going down faster. :)

Another Downward Turn!

We paid another CC today and our newest Grand Total is $12,781.22! So far this month (January 2009) we've paid off $769.65 in credit card debt! Woo Hoo! I hope we can keep it up well into next month! :) Yay for us!

Going DOOOOOOOOOOOOWN!

Ok, so my "To Start" CC total for the beginning of 2009 was $13,550.16. We've paid a few bills and now our NEW total is: $12,849.21!!!!!!!!!! Woo Hoo! Just seeing that new total makes me feel so good inside! I can't wait until it completely disappears! :) I hope everyone else is making their totals go down too! Have a great day everyone! :)

A New Way Of Thinking

Well, after reading the disturbing news that Circuit City is closing ALL of it's stores, as well as a major grocery chain having to close 50 doors, and several other stores having to file for bankruptcy we have decided to change our game plan. We are going to move any debt from high interest CC's to low or no interest CC's and continue to pay more than the monthly minimum, however, we are going to focus on saving our money instead of paying off CC debt. We only have enough saved to pay PART of one month's worth of bills and I've always "heard" you should have at least 3 and now they are saying as much as 8! (We previously had 3 month's worth saved but due to an unexpected illness, we spent the money paying bills for 5 weeks as well as the medical bills that accrued.) My husband works for a small business and we have GOT to get some money saved jic something bad happens. I have no doubt my husband could find another job in his field but I am not so sure it would pay as much as he is making now. We are REALLY starting to get scared so we are going to try to "help ourselves" by saving money instead of paying off the debts right now. As long as we keep paying the bills, and don't let our credit scores falter we should come out of this ok. It's just a bad time to have accumulated all of this CC debt and NOT have enough in savings to cover our butt's should something go wrong. Here's hoping all of you have a wonderful 2009! Good luck saving and paying off debt! :)

Helpful Credit Card Payoff Calculator

 CC Equal Payment by Payoff Time Calculator

Ok, So NOW What To Do?

Alright, I found a Credit Card Debt Payoff Calculator and after entering in all of my information it states that if I pay $921.63 a month, I'll pay off all of my cc debt by March of 2010. I HAD set my sights on a year BUT now that I'm looking at it all I highly doubt I'll be able to do that. $900 a month is a LOT of money, and I suppose, that if I had had $900 a month to spend on just anything I probably wouldn't have this debt. KWIM? So, it's back to the drawing board. But the question still remains, where do I start? I mean I know that I'm supposed to pay off the CC with the highest interest rate 1st and then put that amount towards cc #2 and so on but at this moment I don't know exactly how much extra I have to put towards the 1st CC yet. Also I have received a CC balance transfer offer to move up to $2,000 off of a card for a 3% fee at o% interest until march 2010. The fee would be $60 and the interest on the particular card I would be moving it from would be 9.24% so is it wise to do that? Ok, interest on the $2,000 at 9.24% would be roughly $16.60 a month so that's be like paying almost 4 months worth of interest upfront but I'd gain 8 month's at no interest saving approximately $126.00. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, it sounds like that is a pretty good deal huh? then I'd be actually paying off the $16.60 every month instead of accruing that amount in interest. Oh man, what's a girl to do? I wish I could get an offer to move the entire $5500! Wow! Now that would be NICE! LOL Ok, I think I'm done rambling now. Any suggestions? Thanks for reading! :)

Woo Hoo! No INS payments for a year! :)

I just found out today that since October I have been "over paying" on my son's health insurance and now we don't owe them anything until at least November 2009! No, I didn't intentionally over pay, I paid the premium I was asked to pay and it was WAY over the actual amount as they re-figure every year in October but don't send the new premiums until January so I am over paid by over $500! Cool! Everyone can use a blessing in disguise I guess! I just wish it had been changed in October or November or December when I NEEDED it changed. *sighs* But I guess, later is better than never right? :)

I guess now I need to put that extra $ towards a CC right? :)

Will Do!

We're going to save the money.

After talking to my husband IN DEPTH about the new situations at work we have decided to SAVE the money we were going to pay on the 1st CC we were going to pay off instead of actually putting the money on the card. For right now anyway. The CC has a 0% interest rate until March 31st of this year so what we are doing is instead of putting the extra monies we had intended to pay on the card in January, February and March we are going to put it into our savings account and IF things are OK at the end of March then we'll pay it off. If things are NOT OK then we'll decide exactly where to go from there. So far we have saved an additional $100 towards the paying off of this card. I have notated in a ledger exactly what this money was put into the savings account for so we won't spend it unless we have too. I truly hope things will be fine but only time will tell. :)

Going Down! :)

I made 2 small payments early this morning totaling $25 thus bringing our Total CC balances down to $13,067.34. We're on our way! :)

Well, my husband just called and he had some bad news from work.

They are eliminating their IRA program altogether, they have changed the vacation for 4 year employee's from 3 weeks to 2 weeks (my husband should have had 3 weeks starting this year), They are doing away with ALL overtime. Absolutely no overtime is allowed until further notice. so that means if he works 60 hours this week he can only work 20 next week because they are on a 2 week pay scale. The Key West job has been postponed AGAIN for at least 2 months, and there will be NO raises at all in the 2009 year. Not even cost of living increases, and all foreman and supervisor's are absolutely NOT allowed to moonlight, they MUST be free for any emergency calls.

Needless to say, my husband is highly upset. I told him not to worry because when we bought the house I made sure all of our bills only totaled up to his working 40 hour weeks. I also told him that at least he has a job and making $16.59 an hour is better than not making anything at all. kwim? But he is REALLY down about the cost of living raise not happening. I told him that maybe CVS, Walgreen's, and Kmart will keep up the great deals and keep me going to the flea market and that's how we can make the cost of living increase. kwim?

I really don't know what else to tell him. I mean I know he's upset but I'd be more upset if he lost his job. God, that would be HORRIBLE. Now I am wondering if instead of trying to pay off these credit cards if I need to be putting this money into savings jic something bad happens. kwim? The 1st one I am trying to pay off has a 0% interest rate until March 30th so I am thinking I should put any $ I was going to put toward that cc (except for the monthly minimum payment) in the savings account at least until March and if things are ok then pay it off. What do you think? Any input will be MUCH appreciated! Thanks everyone! :)

Paying Off Credit Card Debt In 2009

To date, that I'm aware of, our credit card debt totals $13,550.16. :( I'm going to work VERY hard to try to completely pay off this debt by the end of 2009. Wish me luck! :)