"Stick-to-it-ness".....gotta have it to be successful!

Please forgive me for not blogging lately. I don't know if I mentioned this or not, but I just recently started a new job and it has been somewhat difficult to get use to my new working schedule. It is very far away from home, therefore, I have to catch public transportation, which is a pain. At first I was driving to work, but the traffic was horrendous, and would cause me to have driving rage, so I had to find an alternative. Well enough about that...I could start complaining about the reasons, I somewhat dislike my new job, but the way things are going in this economy today, I would be a fool to complain. The economy seems to be going to hell in a hand basket....but anyway, that's another story for another day.

One thing that hasn't changed is my focus on getting out of debt. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to start cutting out small expenses or finding ways to reduce spending. For example, I still have a home phone, but I no longer pay those ridiculous fees to ATT. I am now with Packet8 and I paid $199.00 for the entire year and I have unlimited phone usage and free long distance for about $16.58 a month (if you break it down). I still have my stand alone DSL through ATT for $19.95/mo. I used to pay over $60 a month for both my phone and DSL with ATT and now I only pay $36.53 a month...that's about a $25 dollar monthly savings. In April, I am going to cut my cable off...that will save me another $61.32 a month. I also recently cut my cell phone off and took on a pre-paid cell phone, which will save me another $42 dollars a month. With just those 3 items, I will be saving about $130 a month. That money can be applied towards a bill or applied towards my ROTH IRA, which I just opened up with Scottrade. I am not going to miss the cable by no means...when I watch tv, I am normally looking at the shows that come on the local channels...now I might miss CNN, but I can always watch them on the internet.

Now, I mentioned in previous blogs that I wanted to pay off my car within the next 12 months or so. I have currently devised a written plan to pay it off by April of 2010 at the latest, but I am hoping that when I get my income tax that I can pay if off by September of 2009. Please see my plan below:

Current Balance as of Jan 2009: $14,989.10
Monthly Payment: $487
Additional Money applied in excess of monthly payment: $513
Total Monthly payment: $1,000
How payment is applied per the financing institution:
$795.09 = principle :)
$204.91 = interest :(

• Feb 2009 - $795.09
• Mar 2009 - $795.09
• April 2009 - $795.09
• May 2009 - $795.09 + extra paycheck $1,500 = $2,295.09
• Jun 2009 - $795.09
• Jul 2009 - $795.09 + extra paycheck $1,500 = $2,295.09
• Aug 2009 - $795.09
• Sep 2009 - $795.09
• Oct 2009 - $795.09
• Nov 2009 - $795.09
• Dec 2009 - $795.09
• Jan 2010 - $795.09
• Feb 2010 - $795.09
• Mar 2010 - $795.09
• Apr 2010 - $857.85

Total: $0.00 ( the car will be paid off if everything goes as planned)

Now, if I receive my income tax, which is supposed to be about $4,500, then I will apply the entire check towards my car. This will allow me to have my car paid off in 2009. This is going to take some discipline, but I know that I can do it because this is very important to me. I will update you on a monthly basis to let you know how I am doing or if anything changes, but for now, this is my written down plan of how I will pay my car off within the next 12-15 months or less. The original payoff date, according to the financing company, is May 2012...can you believe that?!!! I bought the car in May 2007...I feel like a total fool and I am not even going to tell you what the interest rate is for the sake of not embarassing myself even further. I am glad that I now know that debt is a bad thing...we all have to learn from our mistakes and I am truly paying for mine. One thing I can say is that I will never let myself be in this predicament ..I don't ever plan to finance a car again...I honestly don't plan to finance anything, if I can help it. I might have to finance a house, but if I do, it will be for the shortest period possible. I hope that you are writing down your goals and devising a plan for getting out of debt as quick as possible. What I wrote above might sound elementary to you but it works. You don't have to be a genius to do a budget or write your goals down or devise a plan for getting out of debt. It is simple to do, you just have to have the discipline to stick to it...that's where things start to get hard. Let me know your thoughts and comments and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me.