Lost My Way & The Power of a Plan

I’m discombobulated. I had a plan that I stuck to…

And it worked!

Just a few weeks ago I paid off all of my credit card debt, $28k worth, on that plan.

Then, somehow, I ended up with dollar signs in my eyes.

I started sending even more towards my mortgage principle with the prospects of paying off my mortgage in April of 2014. I said I’d wait until May to get this started, but I started already to get a jump on things…

Then I started sending more towards savings seeing my $10k goal this year as *finally* possible.

I even thought up a way to send more towards my auto loan to finish it off too – even set-up a recurring e-payment just this week to get that one moving too.

All of these sound like good financial moves.

But I spread myself too thin. Way too thin.

In the now distant past, I had 5 credit cards with roughly $5k on each one. I was paying them all down aggressively — for a few years. Yes, the balances were falling, eventually I had them all down to around $4k each.

Progress? Yes, but it still felt like I was spinning my wheels.

Balances weren’t really falling. Finance charges weren’t falling. The balance in my checking account was the only real thing falling at a decent clip.

But once I set out targeting one thing at a time, I was knocking stuff out in a matter of months.

When I started with a real plan back in October, I still had three of those original credit cards. Coincidently, all three had a balance hovering around $5k.

With a real plan in place, the first card was wiped out by the end of November. The second was gone in January. And the third and final balance was gone a couple days before the end of March. One, two, three…

Now it’s April.

Today was my first paycheck since becoming credit card debt free. My auto loan balance sits at roughly $6670.

Eh, what’s that, like 3 months until it’s paid off?

Well, that should be the case…if I’d stuck to that original plan.

I hinted at it earlier this week, but I’ve come to realize that my current priorities are definitely backwards. I started attacking the mortgage ahead of the auto loan and that was the wrong course of action.

In an attempt to compensate, I overstretched myself.

So from here on out, again starting in May (for real this time) so I can catch my footing, the auto loan comes first, then the mortgage (until PMI is eliminated), and then savings.

With the summer season coming, and lower utility bills as a result, the combined monthly budget for these goals will remain $2000.

Best of all, this strategy still makes achieving all of the 2008 goals possible by year’s end.

Posted on April 10th, 2008 at 10:17 am by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Motivation, 2008 Goals | 5 Comments »

Moment of Clarity: When I Figured Out How to Fix my Finances

How did I find myself in this situation? How did I dig a hole this deep? And how on earth did I climb myself back out?

With tomorrow being a payday, the lull in my debt repayment plan is finally coming to a close. I’m pretty excited as it will give me the funds to be able to pay off the very last of the credit card debt. For good.

I was thinking last night about how and when this whole journey started…

I’ve always kept track of my finances dating back to 1997 when I opened my first checking account. Problem was, I only kept track of my checking account.

It wasn’t until after I’d bought my house in 2002 that I started to keep a detailed record of my credit card use. In the past, I’d always known what my balances were, but I never really kept track of how they got as high as they did.

In May of 2004 that changed. I put together a spreadsheet that listed all of my open credit cards with columns for the balance, the interest rate, the amount I paid for each specific month, and the amount I spent for each specific month. I still update it monthly and reference it all the time.

At the time, the running balance was $22921.42. It was time to start getting serious.

Or not.

Five months later, even though I was paying back at a clip of over $1250 per month, the balance had ballooned to $26145.56. I was headed in the wrong direction, but now I finally had visual proof of how wrong a direction it was.

I set up my first auto-payment in October of 2004 to start rapidly paying down an MBNA card that I no longer used. By February 2005, I’d wiped out a $3500 balance. At this point, I’d never even heard of Dave Ramsey, or snowballing, but I was essentially following his plan.

With one card out of the way and off the spreadsheet, I very foolishly opened a new account and used a balance transfer to partially take out the next target on my debt payment plan. In the long run, and even the short run, this line of thinking backfired. Instead of one bill for one card, I now had two bills for two cards and both had sizable balances.

I plodded along for the entire 2005 calendar year. In the end, I’d wiped out three different credit card balances but my total balance was still $18479.20.

Grand total for the year, I’d sent the credit card companies $26983.29 but my total balance had only fallen $6743.62. Finance charges didn’t make up the “missing” $20k. My own excessive spending did.

This is where I failed. While I had a solid plan to pay down debt, I didn’t have a plan to stop accruing it.

The next year didn’t get any better. I still hadn’t figured it out. I stepped up my repayment plan but still found myself deeper than when I’d started. By March of 2006, I was carrying $24184.37 in credit card debt all at rates higher than 17.99%.

My minimum payments were nearly $500 per month.

My monthly finance charges were exceeding $250 per month.

By this time, I was sending $3k every month towards Chase, MBNA, and Bank of America but was only treading water. I couldn’t understand it.

In May of 2006, I *finally* figured it out. Spending was my problem.

I decided that my last big expense on the credit cards would be an engagement ring. And with that done, it was time to start eliminating the balances. No tricks. No gimmicks. No balance transfers. Just huge weekly auto-payments.

And you know what? It worked!

By January of 2007, I’d wiped out all of my personal debt and only had a balance of $8962.39 on a business card. Things were definitely looking bright, but as with all things in life, a setback was on the horizon…

Unable to get a home equity loan (which turned out to be a blessing) because of our insurance situation, we took out a $12k loan at a high 15.5% rate to finance our roofing project. Six months later, we would finance over $20k of our siding project using credit cards.

Before I knew it, I was back over $20k in debt again. That’ll take the wind out of your sails.

But there was a big difference this time. Spending was, again, the culprit, but this time, they were more intelligent purchases. And this time, I had a plan, already implemented, to pay them off quickly.

It was also around this time that I decided that just eliminating credit card debt wasn’t good enough. It was time to really build some wealth at the same time.

I remember what sparked that vividly. I had been reading various PF blogs pretty regularly at that point, but never really “connected” with any of them. I dunno, none of their numbers seemed real or obtainable to me. Just interesting reads with some good financial advice here and there.

A co-worker had just purchased their first home. Financially, I wouldn’t say that I looked up to this person. Morally? Definitely not. I don’t even really admire their work habits. But they did mention how it “sucked” to have taken over $35k out of savings to make the down payment.

My jaw hit the floor. That’s impressive. Didn’t see that one coming. Total shock. In all honesty, yes, I was jealous.

I’m a guy who’s checking account rarely exceeds $2k and has virtually nothing in savings. I’m still that guy. But I’m not going to stay that guy.

See, I admittedly have a bit of an ego. I keep it pretty well sheltered, but it’s there. There is no way I can just cruise along in life the way I have been when people like my coworker have managed to save up that kind of money. No way.

Things were going to change. And they did. Immediately.

I took my repayment plan up a notch.

I took all but one of my credit cards out of my wallet.

I increased my 401k contributions, twice.

I finally looked into Dave Ramsey’s snowball plan and implemented it.

I started paying down my mortgage, first with an additional $25 per week, then increasing it to $125 per week plus a $25 biweekly payment from my wife.

Now I don’t have $35k in savings yet. I’m not even close.

But by the end of this week, I’ll have less than $7000 in non-mortgage debt and $0 in credit card debt.

Even with the additional mortgage payments and increased 401k contributions of late, my current pace still exceeds $2000 in debt repayment per month. Best of all, spending is not longer the problem it once was.

Doing the math, I’ll de debt free by the mid-summer.

And then the savings will commence.

Posted on March 12th, 2008 at 12:08 pm by Brainy Smurf
Life, Finance, Motivation | 6 Comments »

My 401k is Tanking

As of market close last night, the balance on my 401k is down $4600, or 7.25 percent, so far this year.

Dollarwise, that’s not really very much, but when you look at the percentage, well, the six-figure gains and losses you see occasionally on some NetworthIQ profiles start to make a little more sense. It’s all about the number of shares/units.

While annoying, neither number, the $4600 nor the 7.25%, really concerns me though.

I think a big part of it is because it (the market) truly is a level playing field. My holdings are pretty diverse, so my balance has generally paralleled what the markets have done.

The most comforting factor? It’s not just *my* 401k that’s tanking — it’s pretty much everyone else’s too.

The bright side is that my contributions usually go in right in the middle of the month, for this month I’d guess it’s lining up to be “deposited” this Friday.

With that in mind, I hope the market continues to fall so I can grab another monthly contribution’s worth at a discounted price.

Even chugging along with a -10.25% rate of return for 2008, things still look pretty good.

The market will turn around sooner or later, and right now, later is just fine by me…because the more I’m able to buy at a discounted price, the better off I’ll be in the long run.

Six-figure monthly swings, here I come!

(okay, maybe that’s thinking a wee bit far ahead…)

Posted on March 11th, 2008 at 9:14 am by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Motivation, 401k | 6 Comments »

Live like Most Won’t to Live like Most Can’t

During this lull in my finances, instead of looking ahead one month at a time, I’ve been extrapolating the data out farther and farther to try to set a plan for the future.

I used to think there would always be bills to pay. No end in sight. That’s just the way it was — and I think a lot of people think that way.

I have to admit, that sort of feeling really sinks in when you grow accustomed to carrying a $20k credit card balance from month to month. It almost became, dare I say it, comfortable?

There was no end in sight, but you know what? That was okay.

Keyword being *was*.

Though I find myself broke today, and a little uncomfortable as a result, I’m not carrying a 5 figure balance anymore. That feels good.

That’s better than comfortable.

It’s been a, for lack of a better term, crappy 3-4 years trying to get rid of my credit card debt, but now that I’m on the last leg, well, things feel great.

The line, “I’d rather live for a few years like most people won’t, to live the rest of my life like most people can’t,” really applies here.

I look at some of the things I’ve put up with over the last few years, and while I’m not struggling, compared to those around me and those with similar income, I’m practically camping in comparison.

Last week, I saw CleverDude’s photo of the inside of his home and laughed out loud at the comment where someone called it “ghetto”. I was thinking the same exact thing.

The funny thing is, he’s a guy who’s got his finances totally in order and is headed in the right direction — someone to look up to really.

So then I go home and see that I’ve got cheap shower curtains hanging in my doorways and think, “You know, this looks bad but I’m just a couple of steps behind CleverDude. I’ll get there.”

Side note: while his “doorways” are to prevent heating unused parts of his house, mine are for dust control. Adding insult to injury, my living room has piles of crumbled plaster all over the shredded and unfinished hard wood floor and exposed knob-and-tube wiring all over the place. You could say we’re in the midst of a construction project, but it’s looked this way for nearly six months.

See, told you it was ghetto. ;0)

I truly have been living the life most people won’t. Thankfully my wife has gone along with it.

But that’s the thing, I’m *that* close to being able to start living the life most people can’t.

Some may interpret that quote differently than me, thinking the “good life” is the one where you buy your own tropical island, but I tend to think things through on more realistic level.

As I said earlier, it’s almost the norm to carry huge amounts of debt these days. Finance everything. Enjoy now, pay later. The premise of the good old Lending Tree “I’m in debt up to my eyeballs” commercial.

Now that I’m on pace to be debt free in a matter of months (excluding the mortgage), I’ll already be living the life most people can’t. That’s exciting. I mean, I’ve almost grown accustomed to piles of broken plaster right inside my front door but I certainly wouldn’t mind a whole nice new room instead.

Pretty soon, I’ll be able to do it. And be able to afford it.

For real.

That’s the good life.

Posted on March 5th, 2008 at 10:14 am by Brainy Smurf
Life, Finance, Credit Card, Motivation, Success | 1 Comment »

Is it too late to add another goal for 2008?

At the risk of sounding like Al Bundy bragging about days gone by, not to mention scoring 4 touchdowns in 1 game for Polk High, my glory moment in high school was running a mile in 4 minutes and 18 seconds.

I can play it off like I don’t remember the exact circumstances leading up to the personal best, but I actually do remember them. Like I said, it was a glory moment.

The mile, or 1600 meter, wasn’t my best event while running on the track team. I was more of a distance runner, with the 5000 meter being my specialty. Didn’t lose a single race my junior year. Not one.

I wasn’t blessed with blazing speed. In fact, I wasn’t going to out sprint anyone.

What I did have was a rather fast pace and the ability to maintain it lap after lap after lap after lap almost indefinitely.

But now, 15 years have passed…

And there’s that additional 60 pounds around my mid section that’s kinda tough to miss…

But, deep down, I know that I can still do it.

No, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to run a 4:18 mile again.

I think it may even be a stretch to think I could get one mile under 5 minutes these days (though I used to be able to do 3 consecutive miles under 5 mintues).

My goal is to complete a marathon this fall. That’s not such a hard goal to achieve.

The difficult part is that I don’t want to embarass myself.

I’ll have to finish in under 4 hours. That works out to around around a 9 minute mile which, right now, sounds like a walk in the park.

The stretch goal will be under 3 hours, averaging around 7 minutes per mile. That’s a pretty quick pace, but something I think I can work myself up to over the next 5-6 months…

Even if I don’t make it, just being in somewhat better shape will make me feel better all around.

It’s cold out today though, so I think I’ll start working on this next week or, perhaps, the week after that… ;0)

Posted on February 28th, 2008 at 9:22 am by Brainy Smurf
Motivation, Running | 2 Comments »

I thought I had to make six figures to be rich…

It’s like the line, “it’s not what you make, it’s what you save” quote that’s thrown around so often has finally sunk in.

I used to think that to be “rich” required having a high paying job. But now, I’m realizing that that isn’t necessarily true.

Back in November I stopped working for my highest paying client. The choice was 100% mine and I knew that the lack sudden lack of income could be a problem.

But you know what?

Now nearly 4 months later, it hasn’t been a problem. And it’s not going to be a problem either.

I was always under the impression that my day-to-day finances were what kept things pointed in the right direction but, boy, was I mistaken…

My day-to-day finances are such a tiny percentage of my net worth, and that’s something I never really realized. Investments (and property) are what make up nearly all of the monthly gains (or losses) now..

Most months, the gains in these two categories far exceed my take home pay. By far.

I spend less than I make. That’s the key. And that’s something that I didn’t do in the past (obviously) as I dug myself into $30k worth of credit card debt.

I used to lunch at McDonalds or Burger King every single day during the week. Combined with the change lost in the seats of the car, that was costing me in excess of $40 per week. Now, I don’t eat lunch at all (yes, a problem of it’s own.)

I cancelled my cell phone service with Verizon saving me at least $30/month.

As I’ve watched my monthly finance charges drop from over $400 to under $20 on my credit card debt, I’ve seen the snowball at work — even though I didn’t actually use the snowball method for much of the way. That’s saved me, well, $380/month.

My standard of living hasn’t dropped one bit.

It hasn’t really improved either, now that I think about it, but in the future it will most certainly improve — because I’ll have the money in the bank to do it.

I’d say I was just breaking even when I still had all of those expenses. Now, with just those limited examples, I’ve shaved nearly $600 off of my expenses. That’s HUGE and I hardly even notice it.

Now that the credit card debt is almost eliminated, I’m on the verge of finding myself with that extra $600/month in my pocket! The possibilities?!

It just drives home the point that how much I make isn’t all that important anymore, it’s more about what I do with the amount that I make. Now that I’m doing that wisely, the rest kind of takes care of itself. Kinda like autopilot.

Building wealth is actually a lot easier than I ever expected.

Posted on February 26th, 2008 at 9:32 am by Brainy Smurf
Life, Finance, Motivation, Cutting Costs | No Comments »

Brainy Smurf’s PF Goals for 2008

With all remaining bills for 2007 paid already, it’s time to start looking ahead to 2008. This will be my official “Goals for 2008″ posting. Earlier this month, I had a preliminary version, but as I’ve thought about it some more over the past few weeks, there were a few things I felt I should add.

In no particular order:

• Eliminate all credit card debt by the end of June 2008. Current credit card debt is $10318. I’m aiming to achieve this goal slightly ahead of schedule, by about a month, according to the snowball plan I started in November. Achieved 03-27-2008
• Eliminate PMI from the Mortgage by the end of December 2008. Right now, it’s costing me over $1000 per year. For what? Nothing. To meet this goal, I’ll have to contribute an additional $160 per month towards my mortgage. Achieved 07-08-2008
• Pay off my auto loan by the end of December 2008. Current balance is $7418. This is also included in my snowball plan and it’s scheduled to be paid off in October if all goes as planned. I’m not looking to speed this up — just finish it off.
• Increase my 401k contributions to 15%. This way I’ll receive the maximum match allowed from my employer. Right now, I’m contributing just under 10%. I’ll plan to make this move once the credit card debt is eliminated. Achieved 12-27-2007
• Increase my passive income. Now that I’ve dumped my largest client, the hockey team, I’ll soon find myself bringing in a lot less income. But, I also find myself with a lot more free time. Free time that I should use to optimize my other ventures to make up the difference — except now I’ll focus on more passive income streams because, in all honesty, I’m tired of working so much. Right now my 100% passive income hovers around $50/month. With the least effort possible, I’m looking to triple that in 2008 and pick-up a few low maintenance clients as well.
• $10k in savings. This is my lofty goal. I’m not sure it’s even possible. Right now my ING account is holding a mere $1k. No matter how far rates fall, with a 5-figure balance working in my favor I’ll have to be making atleast $1/day in interest and for whatever reason, I like that. I’d also like to pay for some still needed interior renovations in 2008 with cash and this is where I’ll draw from.

Posted on December 18th, 2007 at 8:30 am by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Mortgage, Credit Card, Motivation, 401k, 2008 Goals | 7 Comments »

Credit Card Totals: 2006 vs. 2007 Comparison

As we near the end of the year, it makes it easier and easier to compare this year with last — and leaves time to make any end of the year attempts at besting last year’s numbers.

I use Microsoft Money to track my finances. Back in 1997, for unknown reasons (it probably had a nicer box than Quicken), I bought the program and started maintaining my checking account transactions.

After a few years of seeing how cool it was, once I had enough data, I expanded to keeping track of my credit cards. At first it was just the monthly balances, but eventually I started tracking every transaction and categorizing things accurately.

It took a few years to get things categorized to my liking, and by 2005, I had a pretty good system down. I’d added my 401k to the mix, my auto loans, basically everything financial.

The numbers this year look, well, okay I guess. I made more, which is always a good thing, but I also spent more.

While the original goal of 2007 was to increase my net worth to 6 figures, I think the main target in reaching that goal (which I won’t reach this year) was to curb my credit card use. And I think I’ve done that.

In 2006, I ran up $24,572 in credit card charges — $8k more than ever before. That’s a huge number. That’s an embarrassing number.

So far, in 2007, I’ve spent $22,305 on the credit cards. When you average it out over the past 11 months, that works out to around $2k per month, so adding in December, it will appear as though I’ve spent just shy of $25k this year too.

So why am I happy about that?

Well, though there’s a essentially no difference in the amount charged each year, there is a HUGE difference on where the money went.

In 2006, I spent all $24.5k on, well, stuff. The big expenses that year were a camera, a computer, a ring, a big car repair, and who could forget the hockey jerseys… Just stuff really. But that’s a lot of stuff.

Between July and August of this year, I charged $16k towards our home improvement projects. That’s something that isn’t going to happen again with any frequency. Take that out of the equation and I’ve really only spent $6305 so far in 2007.

I’ve cut my “stuff” expenses by 75%. And you know what? I still have plenty of stuff.

My habits have changed for the better and, at the same time, I can’t say my “quality of life” has declined any. At this rate, I’ll be credit card debt free this summer.

But it’s not all good news. While I spent less “technically” on the credit cards this year, I also paid less back.

In 2006, I sent $29,966 in payments towards three credit cards. This year, I only paid back $25,719. This is due in part to the aggressive repayment of the $12k bank loan we took out at the end of 2006 — and wasn’t a part of my “credit card” plan, but even still, that’s the only place I regressed.

Here’s the chart:

That’s the great thing about tracking your finances in MS Money, or even Quicken if you choose that route. You can visualize your progress, and that’s a huge motivator.Look at the drop in Finance Charges!? That’s not something I would have noticed if not for this program keeping track of everything and all of its built in reports.

It just goes to show that, even when you charge like a madman, choosing the right card to use makes a big difference. And choosing when (and what) to refinance with a lower rate promo offer can save you tons. Look at that — that’s over a $2000 difference between 2005 and 2007. And the total balance hasn’t really moved more than $5k.

And to end on an even higher note, it’s truly reassuring to see that, even just taking into account the the credit cards on their own, I spend less than I pay back.

Even with these obscene totals, I can’t imagine how deep I’d be if that hadn’t been the case all along.

Posted on November 26th, 2007 at 11:57 am by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Credit Card, Motivation, Cutting Costs | No Comments »