“Oh boy, it’s a box! It’s two boxes!” (My crazy Sebastian and Max)
My guys above are invaluable in helping me to keep my spirits up. It always amazes me how they can find such amusement in something so simple as a box. 🙂 “Oh boy, it’s a box!”
I mentioned last week that I would talk about how I keep from letting myself feel down about my debt. I try to not think about it in overall, total sums, but rather what I can work on at the moment. This does not mean I am in denial, by any means, but as my grandmother used to say when I would stress out about my debt or other matters, that I shouldn’t make a mountain out of a molehill. Or, I guess in this case, not turn a 20,000 foot tall molehill into Mt. Everest. As weather such as wind and rain gradually wear away at such massive structures as mountains or the Grand Canyon, so will I do so with making extra payments over time. (I just thought of that analogy, what do you think of it?) Read more →
Don’t we all wish we could stay in bed some mornings?
Been a few weeks and I haven’t reported in on my progress. Well, not much has changed since the past two weeks, but that is about to change this week. I should have been able to pay my extra $430 to my private loans, as usual out of my regular paycheck, but this month that didn’t work out. I am now taking an e-course called Dreaming of Mortgage-Freedom that is run by Hari of the Tiny House Family blog and one of our first assignments is to start tracking our spending. Â (To get to where you’re going, you need to know where you are right now.) She suggested an app and I know others who do the same thing. (By the way, she was on the Today Show this morning! But for me, sometimes, it’s literally the writing down of everything with pen and paper that helps me to see things clearly. And here’s what happened this month: Read more →
Will spring ever get here??Bikes in the snow. My baby blue has been inside throughout all of this.
I’ve noticed that people tend to really like these posts on my blog, and I hope it’s because my progress inspires people. This has been a really tough winter in the northeast – ridiculously “butt cold” temperatures and when it does warm up, it’s just to snow. Â (See my evidence in the pictures above.) So, I needed a pick-me-up to make me feel good. Â I have been meaning to chart my progress on my wall, so I gathered up the numbers.
Here’s how they look since I started really keeping track:
Sept. 2013:
Personal loan: $4,211.42
LAL loan: $20,939.94
Simmons Loan: $23,620.04
Big Daddy (federal) loan: $75,390.94
TOTAL BALANCE: $124,162.34
Today:
Personal loan: $000000000 (gone, gone, gone!!!!)
LAL Loan: $18,871.05
Simmons Loan: $23,620.04
Big Daddy (federal) loan: $75,390.94
TOTAL BALANCE: $117,882.03
DIFFERENCE (DECREASE in DEBT): $6,280.31  🙂 🙂 🙂
Of my last two payments on my LAL Loan ($455 and $171.95, respectively), here’s how much went to principal and how much went to interest:
$455 total payment = $397.46 to principal and $32.54 to interest
$171.95 total payment = $169.12 to principal and $2.83 to interest
I cannot tell you how happy this makes me!!
It’s been 5.5 months and I’ve gotten rid of more than $6K in debt, AND have increased my savings accounts to more than what they have ever been before since I’m on my own.  I’ve gotten rid of enough shit in my apartment that I can now keep all of my christmas decorations here instead of taking up space in my brother’s attic. I’ve gotten a job at the gym which has been a goal of mine, and I start this Thursday evening. I’ve taken an additional test with NASM and passed, and am working on test #3 and certification #2.  Out of nowhere, “my” author has asked for  my help again on her book, and she really respects my work (and sense of humor) and pays me well for my time. I have a positive net worth due to my retirements savings and am continuing to put in more than 6% of my salary into my 403(b) account on top of the 10% that my employer puts in a pension (yes, really, I have one) plan, in which I am fully vested.  Things are coming together!!Â
(To my friends out there reading this, if I ever get down on myself, could you remind me to read this post? Thanks.) Â As my brother said to me on facebook the other day “Sis, you’re doing it!”
You may have noticed that two of those loans don’t appear to have changed, balance-wise, since I embarked on this course. Today, that changes. You see, when I had more debt, I asked my lenders to allow me to just pay the interest that kept accruing on my loans per month. That equals $558/month. Yes, it’s depressing as hell to think about paying over $6,000/year just to keep a loan from growing. Â I’m calling my lender today and will be asking them to put me back on the standard repayment plan, so at least some of my payment goes toward cutting down the balance. It may not be much, but as I have learned, every little bit helps.
Good things are happening. I don’t know how or why but as I say to some of my friends when they question why things start going their way, “do not question the wisdom of the gods, just go with it.”Â
And now, for those of you who love the snow, I leave you with one more image. If I had been standing next to this snowpile (which wasn’t created by plows, etc., it was just there, it would have at least been up to my waist.)
Yep, it’s another cute pet photo – my Callie!! She’s teeny-tiny!
Well, I’m getting there. Been doing really well with the freelance work so I should be receiving a second payment this week. My financial adviser suggested I set aside 30% for taxes, and then it might be good for me to split the remainder between savings and paying off my private law school loan. She thinks that if I do something like that, based on what my invoices have been for, I might be able to bring down the student loan from the roughly $19,485 that it is sitting at today, to around $11K. Imagine that! Read more →
Some days, it’s better to just go back to sleep like my boys.
First, the bad news. Last week I was so tired on Thursday night, I fell asleep before I could make a transfer of funds from my online savings account to my regular checking account. This started a domino effect which just pisses me off, both at Bank of America and at myself.  Even though this is really embarrassing for me to talk about, I promised to be “real” on here so I’m not going to only tell you about good stuff all the time. Read more →
Just one reason I am working hard to get out of debt. So I can save more like my baby girl, Osito.
If you know me in real life, you know that I can sometimes be what they call, ahem, “decision-impaired.” 🙂 Before I make a decision about something, I feel like I have to research every option, you know, leave NO stone unturned! It might be because of my current full-time occupation of being a law librarian, and having a wealth of resources at my disposal every day. I feel like I need to keep looking for things until I find out definitively that I have found all that is to be found. Read more →
Sweet Virginia, who was just adopted this past weekend from the ARL of Boston!
If you are a faithful reader of my blog, first of all, thank you. But you may be wondering how I could go from Part 6 last week to Part 8 this week. Simple. I can’t add. I looked back at my posts and realized last week was actually Part 7. I’m home sick today but had most of this post already written so I thought I would go ahead and hit that old “publish” button. (And now, if you will excuse me, I have to go lie down and take a nap.) Read more →
When I first took out my personal loan to cover the gap caused by the difference in the $ I owed on the loan vs. what I could get for it, I told myself it would be gone by the end of the year. I didn’t care if I would need to take money out of savings to do it. I just wanted it gone and now I can start the new year off with a clean slate. And I CAN!!!! (And yes, I did have to take some money out of savings, but I am all the more motivated to replace it in there now.) Read more →
I was going to write this as a Making Progress Mondays post, but the day got away from me yesterday. Sorry!
The last week has been kind to me. Not a ton of progress in the cutting debt area, overall, but the hope for saving and paying off debt definitely increased. I am going to be working at a gym as a front desk person, hopefully in January. I have officially been hired and will probably just be the fill in person but you never know when that could become more permanent! AND I have started doing freelance work for someone I worked with a few years ago. At times, Â when I’m working on her book, it feels like no time has passed, but I know it has. Because I am different now. I have a real focus to my work I didn’t have before. Â And I LOVE IT!
The debt total stands at this today, having just made some payments on my personal loan and my LAL loan.
Simmons loan: $23,620.04 (paying interest only right now)
Big Daddy loan: $75,390.94Â (paying interest only right now)
LAL loan: $20,437.99
Personal loan: $633.85
GRAND TOTAL:$120,082.82
Total as of Dec. 1st: $120,563.23Â
DIFFERENCE = $481 decrease in debt!!
On a completely unrelated topic, I just finished reading a book, This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heart, by Susannah Conway, which I highly recommend. She writes from such a place of openness and I just found it to be really refreshing. I also felt like a lot of what she wrote was written for me (although I know that’s not the case.) That’s how much her writing spoke to me. I found I was bookmarking almost every single page.
Have you ever read a book that touched you like that? Please let me know if you have  — I’m always on the lookout for good books, especially now that the snow, ice and cold weather have come to New England and I’ll be running on a treadmill a lot more. (Having broken my anterior fibula last year, I’m becoming a bit of a scaredy-cat when it comes to running outside on snow and ice.)
I’ve also begun reading Bleating Hearts: The Hidden World of Animal Suffering, by Mark Hawthorne, which a friend told me was on sale today on Amazon for .99!! (Kindle version, it’s usually more like $34 to buy.) I’ll let you know in a future animal issues post what I think of it. So far, it’s looking really good.
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Finally. It has FINALLY happened. That moment when one of your debts finally dips below the $1,000 mark. My personal loan has dipped to $987.27 with my payment of $177 made on Friday. I now have 29 days from the date of this post to get it paid off, completely. Â I CAN DO THIS! Read more →
Chasing Simple Dreams 