Payday! I put an extra $300 into savings, so I can update the Freedom Fund in the upper right. I have a personal goal to get that savings up to $1500 by the end of November, which is going to take some belt tightening. The Freedom Fund "ultimate" goal, which I'll add, is $20,000. If I can get a part time 15-20 hour/week job, I should be able to write for over two years by partly living off my savings.
That is all.
It's time to put some money into my savings. A lot of people say to start saving right away, but I wanted to wait until I got my credit cards paid off. Now (wohoo!) I'm free from all consumer debt, and I need to start turning the tides on the interest-machine, and get it working for me instead of against me.
I have a measly $327 in my savings account. My stretch goal is to get that up to $1,500 by the end of November.
When I finish school, which should be Spring of 2010, I want to have enough money set aside to quit this job, start working part time so I can write full time. I can, theoretically, have about $25,000 in the bank. I have a budget of $1,340/month. I need to examine the ol' budget again and see how much I'm actually spending, but using that number as a mark, I can go for 18 months without a job. With a part time job or a teaching gig, I should be able to stretch that for several years, enough to say I've given professional writing a fair shake.
Okay, so if you look in the upper right corner, you'll note the new line item for savings. Let's see what we can do with it.
I just checked my credit score at Experian.... 770.
So, that's cool. I'd like to get over 800 just for kicks, but I'm not going to worry about it. Because I was checking my score, I also took the time to buzz through my account records, as displayed on the credit report. I've been working hard to get out of debt, and in the process I took a lot of 0% credit card offers so as to eliminate my formerly horrendous interest payments (looks like I got out of debt just in time, as most of those wonderful offers for "1 year, 0% APR w/ no balance transfer fees" seem to have dried up).
I was SHOCKED at how much credit I had available.
I thought I had somewhere around $20-30K in credit (I know I should have had a better grasp of that number, but I just kept a loose tally in my head). It turns out I have $51,300 in available credit.
I'm not worried about having all that credit floating around; I'm not going to spend it. I was actually going through the records to figure out which cards I should eliminate, however--partly why I'm posting right now--but another thing that came up that complicated this: phantom cards.
I've posted some information below to give you an idea of what I'm dealing with. I've made the information ambiguous enough that I'm comfortable sharing it, and I changed some of the information that is there, in order to further obscure the facts.
So, here's my credit cards, with their "available credit" and the "open date".
CARD....LIMIT.........DATE OPENED
1.......2,000.00......2006
2.......7,500.00......2008
3.......12,500.00.....2008
4.......6,500.00......2002
5.......Non Active....1999
6.......10,500.00.....2007
7.......6,500.00......2006
8.......2,500.00......2008
9.......Not Active.....2004
10......3,000.00......2005
Two of my oldest accounts are those "phantom" cards, opened when I was really bad with my credit. Those are Cards 5 and 9. I checked with both banks and both gave me the same answer: these accounts aren't "active", meaning they can't find them. Each bank gave me the address for their credit score dispute department. For a while, I thought of just ignoring the error and leaving them on my report, because I figured their long history would serve to my score's advantage. Two things stopped me: 1.) it's irresponsible to have accounts just floating out there and 2.) I don't think it's helping my score.
I say this because the part of your credit score that takes your credit cards into account uses these variables: length of time your cards have been open, percentage of available credit on your individual card, total credit available. It might also take the actual number of cards into account, I'm not certain. I don't know this equation, and I can't find it on the net. Anyway, my point is this: I don't think a card with a "0" in the "available credit" column can help my credit score. It could actually drag it down (but again, I don't know).
If anyone's listening, I'd love a little advice.
1.) For my "phantom" cards, I'm thinking of writing the companies to see if I can revive these accounts. If they'll put some actual credit in them, so much the better. If not, I'll have them axed.
2.) Does anyone know of a calculator that would allow me to view credit score scenarios relating to which cards I should keep and which cards I should eliminate? Does anyone have a rough formula that allows you to figure this out? Does anyone have a professional "guestimate" or a gut call they would like to make?
The only cards I need/want to keep are:
#2, because I'm carrying school loans at 0% until my company reimburses me.
#8, because I get cashback for buying gas with it (I have a reoccurring payment going to it)
#10, because it's attached to my checking account
Any thoughts? Either way, it's been good to frame the issue for myself!
In eighteen months, I’ve eliminated over $14,000 in debt. I paid off my car loan (two years early) and I paid off my numerous credit cards. I sent my last check to a credit card company yesterday, for $600. It felt anticlimactic when it happened—I intended to have it paid off in July—but today, it’s starting sinking in. $14,000 is a lot of money.
Some people set goals and nail them. I’m not one of those people. In my journey to pay off this debt, I set goal after goal, and the only thing I was consistent at was failing to hit my marks. If I promised myself I would pay $1,000 towards my cards, I would inevitably pay $200, or barely stay even. I would go out and spend large amounts of money for dinners when I promised myself I wouldn’t. Expensive wool jacket? Well, I know I shouldn’t, but what the hell.
I have a $300 pirate outfit in my closet, bought after I consumed several glasses of wine at a fair. Being the hit of some as-of-yet unplanned Halloween party doesn’t seem as cool as it did that night.
But I kept setting goals, and I kept trying. And when I told myself I would send the $600 government refund check to my credit card company, and I actually sent $500, it was still $500 less to worry about. When I told myself I wouldn’t go out and spend money on Friday, and I went out and spent $20, at least it wasn’t $50.
I’m not a sterling example of personal finances. I know that. But I think there are a lot of people like me out there, who just have to keep plugging away. Keep setting goals, keep trying.
It’s remarkable how great a success you can be, if you persistently fail enough.
Hello? Anyone home?
My, it's dusty in here. Chilly. Feels like nobody has been around for ages. My last post was... five months ago? That's five lifetimes, in cyber-years! Oh dear, bread and beer, as my grandmother says.
What needs to be updated? Hmmmm.... it says that my credit card debt is $1458?! Nope. Let's shake that column out a bit.... mind the dust... and... done! Looks like I have eliminated all my credit card debt.
It didn't happen as fast or as easy as I would have liked. I flew to San Francisco to visit some friends, which cost money, and I bought a few things, some of which I probably didn't need, but some of which I did. I won't go into the details for now.
I have a small savings account, with about $350. It's not much, but I'm going to start filling that up. I'm looking forward to that cushion.
I'm still working full time, going to school full time, and sleeping part time. My work is still paying for school.
I go from seven in the morning until late at night, which is why I've been so delinquent in posting. I'm going to have to rearranged how I approach my finances now, seeing that I've accomplished a lot of my major goals, and that means I'll be back more frequently these next few months. I still have school loans, two which are in interest free deferment while I'm a student, one that I need to pay off. I just need to figure out the details.
I'll keep you posted.
© Blogger templates The Professional Template by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP
