The goal for July was to be under $2,500 on the Discover card:

Smallest Debt (June 2012): $3,600

Smallest Debt (July 2012): $1,683

My goal is to have the Discover card paid in full by the next update!

Total Debt Update:

July 2012: $28,995

% Change from July: 6.6% Decrease — Nice.

Key Facts to Consider:

• I’m under $30,000 in debt for the first time since April 2008 (when I financed my car)
• I noticed that Discover is offering me a 0% APR balance transfer with a 3% fee for 18 months. The offer is available through 9/11/12, which means I could have the full limit available to transfer minus the 3% fee, around $6,700. When the Discover card is paid, my other credit card has a blended interest rate of 10.48% (majority of the balance is under 9.24% interest, new purchases are 14.24%), so paying the 3% fee and then having 18 months to pay a chunk of debt with no interest is tempting. I will consider it once this account is at a $0 balance.
• I just realized that at some point in the not too distant future, I will have a month where I am not accruing interest charges. Each month I am taking a step back of at least $200 in interest charges. This amount is decreasing, but I just realized how pleased I will be to look at all of my accounts and know I didn’t incur a single fee in a month.
• I have been slacking: not doing any extra work or overtime. I need to get back on that and earn some extra dough.

How did your finances change this month?

My goal for the June 2012 Debt Update was to be under $31,000 in debt. Drumroll please….

Total Debt Update:

June 2012: $30,999

% Change from May: 3.7% Decrease 

Yeah, I totally made a last minute payment just to meet my goal! But I also could have made a larger payment, but am really embracing the value of having a $200 buffer in my checking account (something that used to be unheard of before). I also made some progress on my Discover card…

Smallest Debt (May 2012): $4,269

Smallest Debt (June 2012): $3,600

I really want to get the Discover card PAID this summer. So instead of an overall debt goal for July, my goal for next month is to be at $2,500 on the Discover balance. I will probably also be under $30,000 in debt if that happens, which will really help me see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Remember how in Groundhog Day Bill Murray’s character finally realized that February 2nd was on a loop and he began to take full advantage of that fact? There was a brief sweet spot where he exploited being in the loop before he had had his fill and realized how thoroughly depressing it was to be living the same day over and over again (couldn’t that be a commentary on how we live our lives if we aren’t mindful?). Well, I think I am in that sweet spot with my debt repayment. I am not doing anything particularly different, and  my income hasn’t increased significantly, but I am doing enough of the same actions to FINALLY start seeing a difference. I know the grind of paying off debt will continue to pop up at random moments, but right now, I feel good. This is the first time where I am excited to keep going and to continue to cut back on luxuries and entertainment (and that is tough in the summer when I have family visiting and friends whose social calendars are always full) and make better progress every month.

I also want to talk about savings. I’ve mentioned before that I have never been good at saving. Saving was always a temporary action and whatever I had would usually end up being spent for one reason or another. I opened my ING Direct Account in September, and this past month, I also finally opened several different accounts to begin differentiating my savings goals. So I now have 4 different savings accounts:

1. Personal Savings (AKA Go to Hell Money)
2. Business Capital fund (for future small businesses I plan to own)
3. Real Estate Investments (House down payment/slush fund for home maintenance, rental properties, etc)
4. Travel and Toys (Everything fun that used to be what I spent all my money on)

I opened my savings account in September 2011 with $25. I now have over $700 in my accounts and my goal is to continue to divert 10% of everything into the accounts. BUT. And this is a big BUT (no pun intended)– I am not going to put money in savings when I think it might end up coming out! I’ve done that too many times and my main goal is to have something that is set aside and continues to grow. I want this money to be used for assets and investments I understand. I am now truly understanding the meaning of Warren Buffet’s number one rule, and that has been guiding my finances a lot. Yeah, I’d love to have 5 large in savings by the end of the year, but I’d also be stupid not to pay off debt with that money. So my savings will continue to grow slowly and I’ll try to pay down debt more and more rapidly.

If you are currently paying off debt, I want to encourage you to not give up. I honestly felt hopeless and drowning in debt one year ago. I’ve only paid about $10,000 off and I still have a ton of debt left to pay off. I’ve probably paid more in interest fees than I ever want to sit down and calculate. If I were to compare myself to any of my fellow bloggers who also put their finances out there, I would neatly calculate that I am a loser. But I won’t do that and you shouldn’t either. We all have totally different lives and situations to deal with. We all learn our way on our own time. Some of us (ahem, looking at myself here) take a little longer than others and make progress a little more slowly. That’s OK. I’m still focused on it and excited about getting my finances in order. Even these little things like having 3-figure savings and $200 in my checking account after my bills are paid are keeping me motivated.

So don’t worry about the dude who paid off $90K in 7 months. Don’t worry about him. He’s doing his thing, you’re doing yours. You can learn from him, just don’t spite him for having the ability to quickly accomplish what make take a few years for someone else to accomplish.

One of the problems with having a blog is that there is a record of promises I have made to myself. No longer is it just in my head where it will go away and I can go back to binge-television watching and eating Choco Tacos while sprawled on the couch. Damn it! Anyways, this month’s debt update met the goal from last month:

Smallest Debt (April 2012): $4,343

Smallest Debt (May 2012): $4,269

Next month will be better, I know this.

Total Debt Update:

May 2012: $32,183

% Change from April: 2.1% Decrease 

The monthly goal was to be under $32,200, which I just barely met. I also made a goal to increase my income. First, I got a raise at work which is backdated to February (the backpay will be a nice little chunk to pay towards my Discover card). I immediately increased my savings rate and retirement contribution rate which I had been waiting to do as soon as my raise was implemented. I’ve also been doing some side work since the last week of March. It’s a pretty cool chance to work with a very successful business and get paid along the way. My eBay side business is also generating around $200-$250 monthly. So while these two side ventures aren’t earning a ton more income for me, they both have the potential to continue to grow, with the same level of effort from me, to much more. So I’ll continue to work on these side efforts, but I am also enjoying work more as I have a lot of new responsibilities and a chance to learn a lot more. So what’s the goal for June’s update? Under $31,000 in debt and to continue to be diligent at work and on my side work. Sometimes I feel exhausted because I am putting at least 60 hours a week into everything. But I know it’s not a lot in the grand scheme of things. I still have time for dinner every night, time to read and time to hang out with my friends and family. I’m not writing as much as I want to be nor exercising but that is my own doing, which brings me to part two of this post:

2012 Goals Check In

Whew! What a farce! I totally just wrote my goals back in December and then told them “See you bastards in hell!” and didn’t give them a thought since. We’re getting close to mid-2012, so I want to check in on these goals and see what needs to be adjusted to meet as many as I can.

1. Develop my relationships and spend time with the people I love.  Always!
2. Reduce waste: Energy, water, food, consumer items and paper goods. Yes on all of them except water. I’m not making a conscious effort to use less water what with the 2-3 showers a day I take and the garden hose I like to leave running all day to provide “soothing water sounds” (mostly kidding). But I hardly ever let food go to waste now, and am much more conservative in all the other categories too.
3. Get to know more people in LA and elsewhere.  Yes. Meeting lots of new people through work, blogging and looking for side work. It’s been very fun and I’ve surprised myself at how non-anti-social (that’s not a word) I can be. 
4. Pay off $20,000 in debt to bring my debt total to under $15,000. Remains to be seen. I’ll be very happy with under $20,000.
5. Wake up 1 hour before I have to get ready for work, Monday through Thursday and write, do errands or work out. Not doing this at all. Going to re-implement for at least once a week.
6. Exercise 6 days a week.  Not at all. Around 2-3/week. Now pushing back to 4.
7. Successfully complete the Yakezie challenge.  This should be doable! I need to read more blogs who are new to Yakezie and provide whatever support I can. 
8. Develop American Debt Project and my two other online properties into income-generating websites. Yes, but not a lot. The other two have been completely neglected. I plan to revive them towards the end of the summer.
9. Buy my first place.  Only if I have the down payment and the slush fund. More concerned about making the right choice instead of just doing it for the sake of doing it!
10. Contribute 10% of everything I make to savings. Totally embracing this! It’s really easy to save a portion of my side income because I treat it as found money, so I don’t mind parting with it.
11. Start an herb garden in the patio! Too busy for this right now. Might enlist my mom to help make it happen.
12. Become a better photographer.  Nothing’s happening….
13. Writing goals: Submit to Thought Catalog, brainstorm/start book ideas. I’m over Thought Catalog, but I still need to write non-blog stuff to stay sane. This is also at an impasse.
14. Make at least $5,000 in writing/freelance income.  None of it is writing income, but I think I can definitely hit the $5,000 mark.
15. Create monthly goals for each month, which I will announce on my blog.  I love doing this one! The monthly goals keep me on track and I am going to switch it up a little for June. So here’s to the June update being under $31,000!

Another slip-up month. I was going to cheat and not post until next month, but I realized I have to be honest with myself (since the updates are mid-month now, I skipped March and went right to April). I have to post regularly scheduled updates. Between the big East Coast trip and taking care of a few annual expenses, I fell behind by quite a bit this month. My goals for the month were under $32,000 in debt and $500 in savings. Well, I missed the debt mark and have just over $400 in savings. The cool thing has been transferring little amounts of money to my savings. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything and I don’t want to make any withdrawals from savings again, which I haven’t done since January.

I have been working a lot, which is why I haven’t been writing as much, but I’m happy to be working. However, it’s still painfully obvious to me that I do not have enough income. I am not ungrateful for what I have, but I see a dizzying stretch of sameness if I do not push myself to the next income level. I’ve cut expenses as far as I can: I track my spending, I don’t drink or smoke and I spend most of my extra time feverishly working on something that could be big. But right now I’m just tired. I’ve been at this for a year and I still feel like I can’t get ahead. The worst part is that while my overall debt level has gone down, my credit card balances have stayed high, and the high balance card just stays in the same thousand-dollar range.

I could have said no to my friend and not been a bridesmaid in her wedding. That would have saved me around $1,000. But then I would have spent the rest of my life seeing my friends’ pictures and remembering that I wasn’t a part of that wedding. Just another snapshot in the alumni magazine of someone else’s joy. But I shared in that joy and this is one couple who I am not worried about making it. Their relationship and friendship has been a source of strength for our little circle and I love them and I wouldn’t have missed that wedding unless I’d gotten shot, and even then, I would have tried to make it if the bullet hadn’t hit any vital organs. I only have a handful of friends that would ask me to be bridesmaids in their weddings, and this was the first of those. And let’s be honest, the other three have all told me they’re either not having a wedding or are going to ask me to be present with them when they go to a Justice of the Peace (and maybe a Denny’s afterwards). So was this a once-in-a-lifetime event? Probably!

So right now, right in this moment, I’m a little tired of all the hustling and tracking and planning and managing. But if I let myself relax and just do them anyways, they don’t seem so stressful. So my goal for May is to get under $32,200 in debt and work on increasing my income. I’ll report next month on specific things I did to increase my income and how it turned out. I’m not going to set any savings goal for the month because I am comfortable with my savings rate. With my income just barely meeting my expenses, I have been committed to saving whatever I can and will continue with that until I break this threshold. That’s what I have been seeing this as: I’m hovering at a certain income level and I need to break this threshold to get to the next level where I envision that small cushion between income and expenses as the most comfortable, microsuede-upholstered chaise lounge ever. I’ve been here for nearly six months (at this income level) and I’ve been telling myself to keep going and not get discouraged. I have to believe that and believe in myself. I have the skills, the enthusiasm and the ability to make more money. It’s going to happen. But if I get down on myself, I won’t be able to figure out how. A wise rapper named Too $hort once said:

I know you tired of being broke just hanging out
You gotta lot a dreams but you can’t get out
The first thing you need to do is set yourself some goals
Think positive, everything else is old
and work hard, never stop hustlin’

I will be gettin’ it! On with the bad news:

Smallest Debt (February/March 2012): $4,169

Smallest Debt (April 2012): $4,343

Next month will be better.

Total Debt Update:

April 2012: $32,872

% Change from February/March: 1.0% Increase (Bad Girl!)

I’m not beyond reproach, but I don’t pretend to be that way.