Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Battling the WANTS and focusing on the practical

I WANT a new dress for my hubby's (hee hee) military ball. However, I have this beautiful dress sitting in my closet. I wore it last month in my friend's wedding. It's also the perfect amount of appropriate for the occassion (read-fancy).



It's tailored and fits like a glove. I also have the matching shoes and shawl.


So..you are probably scratching your head and asking...what's the problem. Umm... I don't want to be seen in the same dress again. We might be using the photos from his ball as our formal engagement pictures in the newspaper for his hometown...yeah...don't ask. lol Long story short-his parents want to make an announcement. I just don't like being seen in the same dress twice. I don't know if it makes me feel cheap or like I can't afford something else. I think I spend too much time worrying about what others think of me. However, I'm going to fight against it and just wear the dress that I spent over $300 on when you include shoes, shawl, dress, and alterations. I spent fifty dollars just to alter the dress. I ordered the smallest size and
I still  needed to take it in several inches.


I'm going to save my money by not buying a new dress and put it to another WANT of mine- Getting out of credit card debt. Let's be honest-if I bought a new dress I would have put it on my credit card instead of using my bank card, even though I have the funds to purchase it in my bank account.

What about everyone else? Is there something that you didn't buy when you really wanted to and instead used something you already had? Please share if you want!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Confession Time....

I married the love of my life yesterday. :) We had a courthouse wedding but we are having our actual church wedding with friends and family after S gets back from deployment. I'm a very happy wife today. :) We are keeping this pretty secret and so far only our parents know. So if you somehow know me or are facebook friends....please keep this on the very very down low. Thanks for respecting our wishes.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Credit Card Balance- 755.00!

Current Balance $755.00


Last Statement Balance $1,005.03

Minimum Payment Due 12/08 $ 0.00


I will make this card go to 0 if its the last thing I do this year!

Monday, November 14, 2011

Now I understand why everyone hates interest so much...

Previous Balance

$1,684.76
Payments and Credits
−$1,300.99

Purchases
+$592.39

Balance Transfers
+$0.00

Cash Advances
+$0.00

Fees Charged
+$0.00

Interest Charged
+$28.87

New Balance
=$1,005.03

Well readers (All three of you :) ) : I went on Discovers website this morning to pay off the added charges I made over the weekend. Gas: 42.15- I fill up my car with gas once every two weeks. :) and I went to Rite Aid for paper towels and soap-12.09. S was making pasta and he declared that he needed paper towels for the aftermath. lol. He was right.

Anyway, back to today-I decided that as soon as I make any new purchases I will pay them off right away. Today, however, happened to be the end of a billing cycle. My lovely balance of 976 dollars became 1005.03 with the interest added on for the month. I made the snap decision to make a 250 dollar payment immediately even though it isn't due until December 8th. With this 250 payment minus the gas and Rite Aid purchase added in-I'll be down to the 800's. For the first time in my life I have such intense focus to pay this credit card off. I want my only debt to be student loans. Although I would gladly give those up as well. I'm hoping to be able to make another payment this month but it's going to be tight. I owe my fiance 400 for a plane ticket. However, I've decided to put aside 100 each week into savings so that it will be ready for him. As of right now..I have 100 set aside in savings for him.

Right now since I work for an employment agency I get paid every week. However, once I get hired officially this is going to change. I will have to rework/create a budget. I feel kind of guilty because my fiance and his BAH pays for most of our expenses. I really want to contribute a little more. I hope once this credit card is paid off I will be able to do that.
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Well I love reading details about everyone else's life so I'll tell you about my week in review-if you are interested and still want to read this.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty stressful because my boss was leaving for the week to go to Vegas to get married. No..it wasn't spontaneous lol. I came into work early every day and left late every day-I was averaging about 1o hour days.

Wednesday-I was the only one in my office that day. I got a lot of work accomplished and left the office at 4. I stopped off at a bank to drop off a payoff for a mortgage on a loan. Which means I was toting around a 130,000 check. Good thing they trust me! I got home, ready to relax, and enjoy some tv...turn the tv on...and...nothing. With a sinking feeling I check my internet connection...not available. Last Resort-check the phone-no dial tone. No cable, no internet, and no phone. I called Time Warner and they said they wouldn't be able to come out until 1-3pm the next day. Well there went my plans for the night. I spent the night pouting and reading my kindle. I also ate Ramen noodles that night because for some reason I was craving them for the first time since college. Weird. I had plenty of other appetizing food that wasn't chock full of sodium and absolutely devoid of nutritional value.

Thursday- I cleaned the apartment and did laundry from 9am until 2 pm. I also moped around the house since I didn't have tv. I did listen to my ipod though. Around 2 pm my hero dressed in a navy blue Time Warner shirt came to my door. Turns out they disconnected the wrong line when they were out disconnecting someone else's in my apartment complex. Le Sigh. On the plus side I was extremely productive that morning/afternoon. My apartment was spotless although that didn't last for too long. Sigh again. That night S and I went out for dinner at Carolina Ale House. I had a Stella Artois and their "famous" pub burger. It was extremely delicious as usual. Oops I almost forgot-I had the smothered fries-melted cheese and bacon-yum!

Friday-We were supposed to go out and work on decorating our apartment. Instead S went to work out in the gym and ended up pulling a muscle in his upper back. He ended up on bed rest for the day and I just read and watched tv for the most part.

We did have a discussion of sorts that night. It was more like me telling him that I can't always be the one to clean everything in the apartment. I mean I don't mind straightening up but when I clean and then an hour later the place looks messy again-it's irritating. I think what really annoyed me that morning was that he told me we were out of milk and peanut butter so I went to get some while he was nursing his injury. I came home and opened the fridge and saw a milk container. It was completely empty. He told me we were out of milk but he didn't think to I don't know..ummm...take the empty container out and throw it inside the trashcan that is next to the fridge? Sigh. He kept telling me that he will try harder. I told him that he always tells me that but then he continues to do things like that. I just get so tired of having to do everything. I mean yeah, I don't work 15 hour days like him but I still have long days at work. Oh well..everything ended up working out and in two months from now when he is deployed...I'm sure that I will be willing to give anything just to see him even if that meant empty milk containers in the fridge. I need to make the most of the time that we have left together before his fast approaching deployment-to a very dangerous area of a very dangerous region of a very dangerous country-that's all that I can say.

Saturday-We got a new picture for our wall, new sheets (yay), and a diploma frame for me. We need to figure out how we want to decorate before we can start buying more stuff for the apartment. I am a minimalist at heart when it comes to clutter. We had lunch at Jason's deli and made a frozen skillet meal for dinner. We relaxed and watched movies that night. I had two gin and tonics. In case you were interested...

Sunday-Church and then we had lunch in the downtown area. We do that a lot after church on Sundays but we also wanted to take photos of Fayetteville. We are planning on putting some black and white photos of the town around our apartment. We came home and I took a nap. For dinner we had pasta and his best friend came over. We watched some tv and then called it a night. I started and got halfway through a book called Gideon's Sword-written by two of my favorite authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

Alright-lunch is over-time to get back to work! How was your weekend? Are you planning on making any additional payments this month for anything? Let me know!

Friday, November 11, 2011

A case of the wants, gimmes, and I deserve it.

Note to self: When you are in the process of paying down debt you shouldn't look at clothes, boots, and shoes online. It just makes you want them more. It's kind of masochistic to tease yourself like that.

I need to learn to accept that I can't have immediate gratification. Maybe I should do something for the first time in my life and actually save. Save for Christmas. Save for a dress to my fiance's military ball. Save to buy new shoes for work.

I need to accept that what I have right now works fine. I don't need a new purse. I don't need this fall's latest trend...although those riding boots certainly do look cute on everyone that I see wearing them. unless my shoes are literally falling apart...I can wait.

It's time to be a grown up. It's time to realize that everything has a price. I need to figure out what that object's value is to me. Is half a week's worth of work worth those $160 riding boots from Aldo? Yeah...I'm starting to think they aren't.

If I stay focused I can pay off this credit card in under three months. In order to do that I need to budget for Christmas gifts and not put anything on my credit card. I know that I can do it...I just need to kick my own ass sometimes.

How about everyone else? Have you been budgeting for Christmas? If you do-how much do you put away every month?

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Closing my eyes and taking a huge leap...or how I decided to action against my credit card debt.

I made a very large payment to my credit card today. The largest that I have ever made. It freaks me out a little. Ok...it freaks me out a lot. The payment consisted of most of the money that I have made since starting my job. I don't know if this was a smart or stupid thing to do. I just felt like it was impossible to get my balance down by just paying a hundred or two hundred dollars a month. It seems like every month I am right back to where I started.

My balance for my credit card is...$2,277.15
I paid...1,300.99

A LOT. And letting my calculator due the simple third grade math....
This brings me down to 976.16.

This will be the first time that it is under 1,000 ever. I did a balance transfer back in August 2010. My card has never been below 1,000.

This is my chance to break free. I just can't fall back into a trap. Christmas is fast approaching and my loans start repayment in December. I NEED to get this credit card paid off to free it up for loan payments. I just hope that I will be able to get there.

I took a huge leap today. I just hope it wasn't into a bottomless pit.