Ouch.

Ouch. Sorry, had to say it again.

This time I’ve highlighted the negatives.The largest loss was due to the accident I was in this past weekend. I still haven’t heard yet if my insurance company considers it totalled, but until then, I’ll consider it a total loss.

Also relating to the accident, having to put a rental car on plastic, even just to get home, threw that all off track as well. In the coming week, I’ll also be taking a cash hit as I’ll have to pay my deductable on the insurance policy.

Not looking to be a great month financially.

On the flip side, the balance on the original home improvement loan continues to shrink.

I think we’re still on track to finish it off this month barring any additional unexpected expenses relating to the car accident.

I’m still overpaying the auto loan each month — and thankfully the automobile in the accident was paid for — but it’s not really beneficial as the rate is so low anyway.

Last week I also stepped on to the 0% balance transfer bandwagon. I applied for one of the CitiBank cards that boasts 0% for balance transfers for 12 months with no transfer fees.

Unfortunately they only gave me an insultingly low limit of $6800. I was hoping for more, and expecting more, but I guess it’s probably a better thing that it’s not a lot of money being tossed around on my first go around.

Right now, we’re thinking to just use $6000 of it and drop it into an ING Account until we’re ready to tackle phase two of our home renovation.

That way, we’ll have over $10k available in savings and some additional cash from my wife’s side to pay for the work. (I don’t include her finances in these reports as we don’t have any joint accounts, and, if we can manage to survive and gain wealth on just my income, well, the money she brings in is just a total bonus!)

When it comes time to pay back the roughly $5k balance on the 0% transfer twelve months from now, I’m confident we’ll have saved up enough to pay it off entirely and not have to pay a dime in finance charges.

We won’t make any money on the transfer like some people do, but it will give us the funds NOW and at no cost — which is exactly what we need.

Another scenario would be to pay down the credit card debt I’m carrying, but I’m reluctant to do that as it’s not reported on my credit report.

I own my own company and $7k of the credit card debt is on the company card.

My personal credit cards are used for gas, to pay the home internet bill, and the monthly fee for a storage unit I rent… oh, and unexpected car rentals! How could I forget those?

I think I’m going to start doing an update twice per month…

I spend so much time looking over and keeping track of my finances, it’s hard to wait an entire month for status reports — especially when I feel as though I’m “this” close to ridding myself of the debt nightmare I dug myself into.

Exciting in a nerdy sort of way.

Not a great finish for the month of April…

Negligible gains in our savings and our checking account took a monster hit — though much of that is answerable to the sizable decrease in the balance of our home improvement loan. In the end, a modest 2.36% gain.

In regards to the home improvement loan, from Bank of America, it was originally $12k at 15.5% (that was the best rate we could get on an unsecured loan — ridiculous) back in December of 2006, we’re on pace to be done with it later this month. Thank heavens.

For the next round of renovations this summer, we’re going to try the local credit union and probably charge a pretty fair chunk on plastic too if we need additional funding.

The credit card balance tipped to the wrong side for the first time in over a year during this period. I had an unexpected expense for a design project I’m working on — a project that unfortunately I’d already been paid for, so this cut heavily into the profit. Drat.

Hopefully, in the coming weeks, a few more April invoice payments will roll in allowing us to get back on a more aggressive track.

Seven more months to come up with another $33k to reach our goal for 2007.

Nearly three years into this, I’m starting to actually see the light at the end of the tunnel of debt I managed to find myself in. It’s funny, once you change your whole outlook on money and finances and the ball gets rolling — and you keep track of the progress — it starts to become, well, almost exciting and fun at the same time. Maybe it’s just me…

One million dollars is actually a very easy, not to mention realistic, amount to reach for nearly anyone. Income doesn’t really matter so much, and I’m aware that I won’t be able to retire early on it or anything, but for now, it’s a goal. A reachable goal. One I don’t think I’ll get bored with and abandon in a couple of years. When I hit it, I’ll raise the bar.

While I’m still tanking on the Assets side of things, over the past month I managed to put a pretty large ding in the debt I’ve been carrying. Being that this is the first mention of my finances, it’s basically been like this for the better part of three years — so when it’s coming down in $6k increments and there’s only around $21k total in non-Mortgage debt, well, it’s almost time to celebrate the first leg of the climb and prepare for the next climb to $1,000,000.

For explanation sake, since this is my first financial update, I don’t include the house as an Asset. Mostly because it’s too much of a pain to figure out what it’s actually worth on a month by month basis, and even if I were comparing it to local real estate sales, it’s really a hit or miss guesstimate. The actual mortgage, however, is something that’s easy to track, so I include it as a liability.

For the total Net Worth though, I omit the mortgage from the calculation, as technically the Asset of the house should theoretically cancel out the mortgage and then some. Make sense? I hope so.

Hopefully, a few more months from now I won’t be so cash poor.