Owner: In Debt Because I Like Nice Things URL:http://nicethingsbaddebt.blogspot.com Join Date: Sun, 04 May 2008 18:22:13 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: This blog is devoted to following my journey out of credit card debt and struggle with still wanting the finer things in life. Site statistics:Click here
Week 1 Of The May Grocery Challenge 2008-05-04 13:58:44 This month I decided to join Give Me Back My Five Buck's May Challenge
. This month it was a grocery challenge. Right now I have a budget of $150/week for groceries for two people. I know, I know, that sounds so high. However, my husband is 300 lbs and eats enough for 2 adults. In addition, this is groceries for 7 breakfasts, 14 lunches, 14 daytime snacks, evening snacks, and full dinners for 7 days. It's a lot of food! I initially struggled with spending so much on groceries, because before we used to eat out quite a lot and I was only spending about $75/week on groceries. However, when I compared the additional grocery money with the amount we were spending on eating out every week, we're still coming out ahead. I joined the challenge because I still feel like I could be cutting expense Read more:Grocery
We Are Weak 2008-05-04 10:38:19 Right after I posted last night I went outside to get the mail. It was 9:15 PM and I figured we were in the clear. Guess what was in the mail? An advertisement from the casino. Normally I throw them away without looking so that I am not tempted. This time I opened it. Stupid me! Inside was a $100 slot credit for me and $15 for my husband (Can you tell who gambled more?). This is free money....and actually, a smart person would go and cash it out and deposit it in the bank (you can cash it out after betting $100...so you might not get $100, it might be $20...but still free money), but I'm not so smart right now. So we caved. My brother-in-law also decided to go and drive us there (saved gas money at least). We left every single credit card, check, and debit card at home. I even took my all
Still Resisting 2008-05-03 19:18:44 If we can make it another 45 minutes we'll be in the clear, and hubby says he isn't feeling well. So it looks like we'll have avoided a potential catastrophe today! I fell asleep for a couple hours during the Derby (thankfully, so I didn't have to see the poor filly die), which definitely helped to stave off the boredom! I should make it through tomorrow as well.....Sunday's are typically my day to get a lot of school stuff done! And I have a deadline looming for some stuff related to my London trip....so that should keep my mind off of it tomorrow! The weekdays are never a temptation, and next Saturday I think we're going to Cedar Point, and then I'm busy until June 21st! So the itch should be gone by then!Thank you so much for all of your support and kind words!!!!
I've Got The Itch 2008-05-03 09:06:16 I am going to confess to you all: I have the itch. No, not some weird medical mystery, but an itch to spend money. And not to shop, but to gamble. This is a very very very bad itch for me to have because I have a serious pathological gambling problem. The itch started last Friday and is still here. The casino (2 of them) is only 45 minutes away. I know I should not go there and it is the stupidest waste of money in the world, but it is so much fun! Let me give you some background on me and gambling. I used to buy scratch lottery tickets as a little kid when there was no 'over 18' laws in Canada. I'd get my allowance and buy a Slurpee and a scratcher. When I was 16 I snuck into the casino for the first time and won a couple hundred dollars. I forgot all about it until one boring June day.
So Close To The "Dream" Goal 2008-05-02 05:50:28 So I posted that my May goal was to get my Bank of America card under $6000, or a dream goal of being under $5000. I am really pushing hard for $5000 because that means I could definitely pay it off in just two more months. My goal was to have it completely paid off by the end of July, and I really want to make that goal. Right now the balance is $8368. So I need to pay $3368 + interest charges. To be safe I am estimating $3450 (even though interest charges were only $68 last month). As of right now I have paid $268 on the card and have $1900 in the savings account to pay on it. This means I need to somehow find $1300 in about 6 days (the statement cycle closes on the 10th). I currently have around $2000 in the checking account. All bills up to and including the 15th have been paid in fu Read more:Close
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Surveys: Get Paid For Your Opinion 2008-05-02 05:41:37 I know I've talked about these in the past, but now that I've been participating in these for a couple months I thought I would give everyone a quick round-up of the sites I have been using and my opinions of each.1. Surveyspot. This was the first one I joined. It is very easy to sign up. Emails are automatically sent you. Surveys are emailed several times a day. The vast majority (about 90%) of the surveys are for entries into sweepstakes. However, every so often there will be ones for $3-$10. Once you complete the cash surveys you have to wait for it to show up in your account and then request a cash out. There is a minimum of $5 for cash out. Paper checks arrive approximately 2 weeks later. Pros: Lots of surveys. Easy to sign up. Cons: Not many $ surveys. You have to remember to cash
19 More Car Payments 2008-05-01 18:56:32 Another payment made. Only 19 more to go *sigh* I want a little Toyota Prius so badly!!!!
No Time To Spend Money 2008-05-01 05:18:11 Whew, I know the month is just beginning, but I have been so swamped! I woke up 2 hours early so I can get a head start on the day. School has been beyond busy lately. I am currently working on preparing for my London conference, preparing 4 manuscripts for submission, studying for my exams in August, and handling all the final exam issues for the class I teach. Things are probably not going to calm down until the end of June. I should be completely stressed out by all of this, but I totally thrive on it. Busy is great! Busy keeps me out of trouble. Boredom means I start trolling Amazon and ebay and Saks.com. Boredom means I decide to drive to the casino to kill a couple hours. Boredom means I drive to Chicago for the day and spend $1000 on Michigan Avenue. Basically, boredom means I spen Read more:Money
Official May Goals 2008-04-30 19:58:51 May is going to be a very interesting month. There are going to be a couple major opportunities to spend money, and I need to work hard on resisting. May is also a very busy month. I have a 5 day trip to London for a conference. I get back for one day and then have a 3 day workshop in Chicago (I'll be taking the train to and from each day). Then there is Memorial Day weekend, which I'm sure hubby will want to do something. Finally, I have reunion weekend that I'll be working at. Oh yea, and we'll be going to Cedar Point for one day. So, with all of these activities happening there are going to be extra temptations to spend money. More so than the boring, cold months we've endured so far this year. So here are my goals for the month of May:1. I have joined an online grocery challenge. Curr Read more:Goals
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April: Another Successful Month 2008-04-30 18:27:22 Another month has gone by! My does time fly. I can't believe it is Wednesday, nevermind the end of the month. Our main goal for April
was to get the credit card debt under $40,000. My secondary goal was to possibly get the Bank of America card under $7500; however, I knew that was going to be a stretch. It was the overall debt that I was focused on.So, how did we do:Wells Fargo: 5910.03Wells Fargo: 5808.21Kawisaki: 5533.09B of A: 8368.63Amex: 5771.22Amex: 7360.00Capital One: 312.00Grand Total: $39063.18We did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have not been under 40K in debt since we moved into this house 2 years ago. In four short months I have managed to undo 2 years of bad decisions. When we moved to Indiana 3 years ago we had about 28K in debt. Read more:Month
Quarterly Credit Score Updates 2008-04-29 19:13:49 WOW WOW WOW!!!! What a great motivation boost this was!!!! We ran our credit back on 1/7/2008 using MyFico and the Equifax score. So I decided that we would check it every 4 months as a motivational tool. Although we are seeing our balances decline, this is another solid number that we can use to help us! Here are my numbers before and after (I'm only reporting those that changed):Credit Score
: 669 710Amount of Debt: Bad Not goodCredit Utilization: 73% 44%Total balance (revolving): 56995 34039Total balance (installment): 76054 82127Accounts with balances: 20 16Accounts opened in past year: 3 2Now some comments on this. The utilization does not match my records. This is because I am using a combined utilization of all of our accounts together. The total balance Read more:Quarterly
Today is Beverly Hills 90210 Release Day 2008-04-29 06:40:20 Yes, I freely admit it, I am a complete geek. I am a HUGE BeverlyHills
90210 fan. I grew up watching this show as a teenager and was only a couple years younger than the kids on the show. It was the ultimate 1990s teen show (although I am also addicted to watching reruns of Party of Five on OnDemand). Every 6 months they release another season of the show. I always purchase it on the day of release, and then usually sell it when I am done. It ends up costing me about $20 to watch all 8 DVDs, which is much cheaper than renting the 8 DVDs and I can watch them at my convenience (which is usually 2-3 shows per weekend; although season 3 came out during the writer's strike so I watched all 28 episodes in about 3 weeks). After watching the entire season I religiously Google when the next season Read more:Beverly Hills
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Is It Me Or Is Clothing Made Cheaply Now? 2008-04-28 16:16:53 This morning I was hunting around trying to find something with long sleeves (Thanks for the crappy, cold weather Indiana). I found this thin, black, V-neck long sleeve from J. Crew. A few minutes after putting it on I looked down and noticed two little tiny holes. I have only worn this shirt 3-4 times since purchasing it from the outlet store in December (for about $30). I bought it to layer under another V-neck sweater. UGH! This ticks me off, and it is not the first time I've noticed this happen to shirts (from Lacoste and Banana Republic as well)! I can't fix it either, eithThese shirts are not cheap and should not fall apart after a couple wears. Well, 'old me' would have tossed it away. But 'new me' realizes that since I only plan on wearing this under another sweater I'll keep it! Read more:Clothing
Free Money Day 2008-04-28 15:00:59 I seriously love coming home, opening the mailbox, and finding free money! OK, it's not a lot of money, but whatever, every single little snowflake counts. This time it was a check for $3.00 from Pinecone Research. I will be adding this company to my sidebar now. They paid quickly, and even better was the fact that I didn't have to request payment, the check just automatically came! I also received my $500 reimbursement from my Vancouver trip. However, as I previously mentioned, I need to use that to pay for Virginia airfare and registration. I spoke with my school today though, and they are going to give me an advance reimbursement. So I'll have that $500 back in the bank within 10-14 days (need to fill out the paperwork tomorrow).I also received $525 from Paypal this morning for the sal Read more:Free Money
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Quick Weekend Update 2008-04-27 20:02:28 OK, here is how we did for the weekend...1. My school to-do list: Got everything except one thing done. Will tackle that first thing tomorrow morning! Already have a new list ready for the upcoming week!2. Yard work: Nada. Really need to get this tackled. Maybe tomorrow night if it's not raining!3. Housework: Got everything done!!!4. De-cluttering: So close! I need to tackle the shoes in the basement bedroom and then start on the storage bins. So I came really close, but not quite! I have 3 days left in the month to try and finish!!!5. Motorcycle insurance: Check! All bought and paid for.6. Ebay/half.com: All ebay items sold today! Half.com items are selling as well. Need to list some things this week!7. Spent $5 of my allowance on iTunes. Wasn't planning on doing this until next month. Ot Read more:Quick
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Motorcycle Insurance Found and Paid For 2008-04-27 13:39:10 Last week I posted about having to find new motorcycle insurance for my husband because of the outrageous rates Allstate wanted to charge us. I shopped around online at the major companies (State Farm, Progressive, and Geico) and found an incredibly low rate with Progressive. Since my husband's motorcycle is 10 years old and we only paid $4000 for it, we did not elect for comprehensive or collision. We also only opted for the state minimum insurance coverage because, really, how much damage could a motorcycle possibly do. And, if someone hits him then it is their insurance that has to pay anyways! We did elect for additional medical coverage though. When/if he upgrades to a Harley Davidson in the future (which won't be for at least another 2-3 years) then we will go back up to the highest Read more:Motorcycle
Another Spending Day: All on My Husband's Dime 2008-04-27 12:50:03 Hmmm...there seems to be this direct correlation between having money in the bank and spending it. The more we have in it, the more we spend. We did great on Friday. We went out for dinner and the guy who moved in with us paid for dinner. Yesterday was just grocery shopping. Then this morning my husband says he wants to spend some money using his allowance! We had to go to the spa store to get chemicals for our hot tub ($15 from the bank), and since the store wasn't open we went over to the pet store and spent $60. I needed a new leash for my dog. We walk every single day and the leash I had was almost 3 years old and was falling apart. We also bought some dog treats and dog food. We only feed the doggie Solid Gold and Wellness, which is very expensive. However, he is our child and we only Read more:Husband
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I am Motivated This Morning 2008-04-27 07:17:39 Every weekend morning I wake up feeling very motivated and sure that I am going to get a ton of stuff done. However, by the end of the day I usually haven't gotten much done. This weekend I am determined though! I have a huge to-do list for my house and for school stuff. I am halfway through the school list, but have a ton of home stuff to finish. I still need to finish de-cluttering the basement, putting away laundry, cleaning the house, and picking up big sticks in the yard. If I start right now and stay determined I might be able to do it!I did get more de-cluttering done last night. I decided to tackle the downstairs bedroom closet. I managed to donate to Goodwill all of my husband's clothes that no longer fit (that was everything downstairs). That saves me at least 1 full box of packi Read more:Morning
And The De-Cluttering Continues 2008-04-27 07:16:59 Another room tackled today! It was just a small area in my basement. It basically involved going through all the drawers on the coffee and end tables, and the counters. And again, the wastefulness continues. Found 2 packages of expired Crystal Light and 2 boxes of Easy Mac. We bought these for guests (my husband's kids were visiting last year for Spring Break). Not only was it a waste of money, but we could have donated the food to a local food bank. Then I found 2 months worth of my dog's Revolution flea medication. However, upon closer inspection, they expired this month (and I JUST put a treatment on him last night). When it comes to the doggie I won't chance expired medication. That was another $25 in the trash. I didn't get a whole lot of trash out of that room; however, it did make m
The Week in Summary 2008-04-26 19:26:15 This week I stumbled on some new personal finance blogs! Hopefully I'll get addicted to them and be able to add them to my weekly summary!Tricia at Blogging Away Debt posted this week about being in a funk! I think we all experience this at some time or another and can totally relate to how she is feeling. No one said this journey was going to be easy! Four months in and I've already hit some bumps in the road.Nat over at Frugalista Files posted an interesting article about a decline in luxury sales! This is always an interesting topic for me to read, since I really do like the nicer things. I'm just too in debt to be able to buy them anymore!Krystal at Give Me Back My Five Bucks posted about a vacation dilemma. Spend big $$ on a great vacation, or put it off to throw money into savings? I Read more:Summary
In The News: Tax Rebates Arriving Early 2008-04-25 06:55:27 Good news for those of you who are expecting your Economic Stimulus Check to be direct deposited. Because of the system updating daily, people will begin receiving their direct deposits starting this Monday as opposed to 5/2/08. 800,000 people will receive direct deposits on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Five million will receive the direct deposit on Friday! Click here for the full story. I'm a little bummed. Mine won't arrive until July. We owed money and therefore didn't put our direct deposit information down, since we filed in February before they implemented the stimulus plan. Oh well, I'm sure whenever it comes it will be a much needed boost for whatever credit card I am paying off that month! Read more:Arriving
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The London Fund Is Growing 2008-04-25 05:58:52 My trip to London for a conference is rapidly approaching. I leave on May 13th for 5 days. My goal was to save up $600 US, so that I would have approximately 300 GPB. This should be enough for transportation around the city, food, and any little touristy things I want to do. I should mention that my touristy things are free. All the ones you have to pay for, well I did those last time I was in London. This time I am hitting up museums, etc. Anyhow, last night I transferred my allowance from the week into the fund ($25) and now my grand total is $595!!!!!! I still have 2 more allowances ($50) to put into the fund, and my brother-in-law is planning on giving me $100 for doing his taxes earlier in the year. So what does this all mean? Two things: 1) I hit my goal! And making goals, no matter Read more:Growing
Some Relief for an Upcoming Business Trip 2008-04-24 06:45:17 Some of you may remember that I posted a while back about being accepted to a very important workshop in Virginia. It was going to be a very expensive workshop, costing over $1200 (by my initial estimates). I was unsure as to whether I was going to receive any funding to help defer costs and had been trying every way possible to save money. I am sharing my hotel room with another grad student (saving $250-300), I got a great fare on my airline ticket and was able to use a $150 travel voucher I had ($450 savings from original estimate). So I figured, worse case I'd be paying about $750-800 out of pocket. Well, I got a letter yesterday saying that I won a grant for $1000 to help with the costs!!!!!!!!! This means I won't have any out of pocket expenses...I won't even have to pay for food!!!! Read more:Business
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The Library: It's Free!!!! 2008-05-05 18:41:41 I know I posted about going to the library today, but I'm still a bit excited about it and thought it deserved its' own post. I decided to go today just to get the travel guides. The library is not conveniently located to my house or school. It's probably a 15 mile round trip. However, I decided to go for it! I was absolutely amazed at the number of travel guides on the shelf. There were rows and rows! And they were all current. I figured the library might only have old ones, but nope, these were the 2008 editions! Then, I was looking at the new non-fiction books and they had the brand new Tom Cruise biography. I would never pay for this book, but figured 'Why not?' and grabbed it. I also grabbed another 4 books from authors that I regularly read. I was really amazed though! All these book Read more:Library
What a Great Day 2008-05-05 16:08:43 Usually Mondays really suck, but today was different. I got into school this morning and checked my mail. I found a letter from the Arts & Letters office. I knew it was regarding this grant I applied for, but I figured it was a rejection letter because I submitted this almost 2 months ago. However, they gave me the grant!!!! It is $1000 towards travel for London and my Virginia conference. Since I already procured funding for Virginia from another source, I am going to use this $1000 for London. This means that I won't have to pay for transportation to and from the airports, or my dinners out of my pocket! Originally my advisor was going to pay for the hotel and that was it. But now I'll submit for hotel, food, and transportation and my advisor will have to pay much much less, and I'll Read more:Great
, Great Day
Gambling or Shopping: Which One Caused The Debt? 2008-05-05 06:22:38 The topic of this blog this weekend turned into a discussion of another one of my vices: gambling. Yes, I have one of those wonderful personality attributes where I tend to go full speed ahead with things. I often don't think before I do things and I don't let things go. Thus, I am impulsive and bit compulsive and a bit obsessive (a psychologist's dream). I am also one of those people who cannot wait for things, I need the instant gratification. I cannot stand being bored. My body is also twitching to do something, anything....I just need to keep busy!All of these wonderful attributes often lead to addiction. And yes, I definitely am addicted to gambling. I am also a bit of a shopping addict as well. I do not plan purchases, I just buy them. If I see something pretty in a window I'll end Read more:Gambling
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May Dream Goal: Almost There 2008-05-06 06:22:04 I only have about 2-3 days left to try and make the dream goal: Get the BofA credit card under $5000. I need $3187 to be able to do this. Right now I have $2663.87 in the savings account, which means we have only $523 to go. I am expecting a $205 deposit today or tomorrow from my school, and just over $200 to come in from half.com late this week/early next week. I also have a deposit to make of $91 today ($11 in survey money and $80 from selling my desktop computer). I have enough money in the checking account to cover the $523 right now, so I think I am going to make the transfer later today and make the payment! I am in absolute shock that I am going to be able to make this goal. It was mostly due to my husband's large bonus check and selling all that stuff on ebay this month! I really t Read more:Almost
, Dream
Some Stores Offering Incentives Without Stimulus Check 2008-05-06 06:17:11 We've all been hearing that stores like Sears and Kroger are offering bonuses if you spend your economic stimulus check there. Right now they are offering 10% bonuses in the form of gift cards. Well, I guess somebody, somewhere complained and now the TV commercials for Kroger state that you just need to buy $300, $600, or $1200 in gift certificates and they'll give you the bonus. It does not mention having to bring in your stimulus check or anything! I kind of wish the Kroger stores weren't on the other side of town. I'd totally go and take advantage of this and get some free groceries! I wish my local grocery store would offer this. I'd probably do the $1200, since $120 would be a free week of groceries!!!Is anyone deciding to take advantage of these special offers? Do you think they are Read more:Check
, Incentives
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