Debt on a Diet

I've been good, I've been working to pay off debt and being pretty smart about it. We're not in as far as some people (only about $27G) but it's enough to hamper our way of life.
Mom helped me figure out how to pay it off the smart way. We have started with our smallest balance and paid as much as we can to it, while paying the minimum on all the others.
After the first one is paid off I roll the payment from that one into the next lowest balance and so on.
It's working so far. I've managed to pay off 4 debts in 9 months. The big bills are next. I'm hoping they will go away as fast as possible.

I'll be posting updates along the way and post what I find works and what doesn't .

I pulled my credit report today and found some errors that I should be able to clean up. My credit score has dropped to 642. Ouch it used to be good but now it's poor. I will have to find ways to bring that up. I realized I shouldn't have cancelled my Capital One cards, but I never would have used them again and they both carried annual fees. At least my BoA cards don't. So use them wisely and I can improve my credit with those.

The biggest thing we need to do is watch our spending. We have spent waay too much on books and groceries this month. My Sears bill was late and now the monthly payment is $732 this month. That took a huge bite out of my notebook savings. Now that we see how much we are going through, we should be able to cut that drastically. I will have to shop for dry goods at Wal-Mart whenver possbile. Look for sales and adds and only use Publix for fresh stuff. I love Publix but they really are so much more than other stores. Marla provides for a family of 4 and only spends $350 a month on groceries. I spent over 3 times that much this month. Oh yeah... there is definately room to cut.

Savings... I must start putting money back into savings. We have no reason why we aren't. Pay yourself first and pay cash. Those are the two rules I need to work on. The pay cash thing I got... it's the pay myself first part I don't do.

This debt is very manageable and I was able to catch it before we got in over our heads. Credit cards are a crock and they know they are a scam. Mom said I need to read "The Creature of Jeckyl Island" so I'll check the library for it...

Ready or not.... Debt is going on a serious diet!

Great Time Thief - the web

It amazes me how much time you can lose just sitting on a computer fiddling with a web page. I spent the day working on this blog and only wanted to spend a couple of hours.

Have you ever put your mind to something and refused to put it down until you were able to figure it out. Everything had to be just right (at least for the moment) before you could walk away? Oh well at least I had the day off (really should have done some work) and at least now it's workable.

The New Year has started off quietly. Only a few moments after midnight (I made it to see the ball go down.. and clean my kitchen) the whole neighborhood lost power. It was erie in a surreal way. It was dark as far everywhere and a thick fog had rolled in. It was right out of a movie. Would have been a good night to film.

I really must get something accomplished today besides this webpage. I have two more to work on later.