My Journey From Debt

Well, as I reported before, I had a little bit of money in my checking account that wasn’t spent before I got it. It was nice to have a little bit of breathing room and I also took advantage of the opportunity and spent some of it on some stuff that I didn’t really need. In some ways I kinda feel almost irresponsible because of it, but at the same time I haven’t really spent money on random stuff for quite some time.

Since I last posted here, I have spent $43.51 at Wal-Mart and bought some batteries, two bags of chips, a couple of things for the kitchen, and some toilet paper. There were a couple of other smaller random things in there as well, but all-in-all it was not a huge amount and it was all things that while not necessary will be used. I also spent $29.67 at Target on some entertainment, there were a couple of movies that were on sale that I have been wanting to get and I also bought a Wii steering wheel to use when playing Mario Kart with friends.

Finally, I am becoming more involved with my electronics lately and spent $61.48 at the local Radio Shack. I have made a couple of different purchases there and it did total up to more than I was expecting to spend on the couple of small projects that I am working on, but I also replenished my supply of resistors and diodes as well as purchased a new breadboard (used for testing and prototyping circuits before building) so looking back on it I don’t feel too horrible.

The worst thing about all of this frivolous spending is that it really starts to add up if your not careful! I have realized a couple of additional parts I am going to need to finish up one of my projects so I foresee another trip to Radio Shack in the fairly near future, but other than that I am thinking that my frivolous spending should be done for awhile. Also, since I am more caught up on everything now I should be able to just go out and get these types of things (well, except the Target trip) as the need arises instead of spending $134.66 all in one week so it will be much more spread out and not as big of a hit to the accounts.

In the positive category, however, I received a 1 penny deposit into my checking account as an interest payment. It’s not much, but nice to know that the bank wants to give me money just for using their services and doing what I normally would with my meager amount of money. Oh, and it’s payday this week too and I will have some bill paying to do that you will see posted about probably next weekend.

Ok, I promised you all that I would post in more detail about my trip to the grocery store on Saturday and here it is. I know it seems like I spent a lot of money, but at the same time I probably won’t do any serious grocery shopping for another 2 months or more. I might stop to get a loaf of bread or gallon of milk, but that will be about it.

As you can see, according to the calculations on the receipt, $22.40 which comes out to about 11% off of what the price would have been had I not purchased things that were on sale and used that $0.50 coupon that was available at the store. However, that is not everything that I purchased.

As I was loading all of my groceries from the shopping cart into my vehicle, I realized that I had forgotten to buy bread, for whatever reason I just walked right past that isle and didn’t even think of it. So, I went back in to get a couple of loaves of bread.

This completed my shopping trip and I now have food in the house so that I will not be as inclined to eat fast food as often. Perhaps I should buy fewer groceries at a time and go more often, but I think for now I will continue as I have been doing and just go when I need food and can afford to buy a bunch of groceries.

Ok, so I haven’t been near at good at updating this site as I used to be, but I also haven’t been having a ton of cash flow. That said, I did spend a some cash that I didn’t really account for, but I know that it was pretty much fast-food except that I spent a little bit in the vending machine at work one day and used cash to buy a couple of loaves of bread.

At any rate, I currently have $41.00 in cash in my wallet and a checking account balance of (by my calculations) $316.75. This is after spending some last night and getting some cash.

It was payday this week from both my full-time and part-time job. I received $447.12 from my full-time job and $139.81 from my part-time job. It felt really nice to get that money and not have a stack of bills waiting to be paid, at the same time it was somewhat concerning because I kept thinking that I must have misplaced some bills or something. I checked all my previous statements and check register and it looks like I really am getting on top of things! At this point, I have the bill from my remaining store credit account and also some student loan payments that I need to make.

Last night, I went grocery shopping (that will be discussed separately as I plan to scan in the receipt and share that with you all) and spent $177.93, but according to the receipt I saved like 11% so that’s pretty cool. Also, I put $32.50 worth of gas in my vehicle and took $40.00 cash out of the ATM.

The other thing coming out of my paycheck already is my $25.00 automatic transfer to savings every two-weeks, I’m excited to report that I currently have $404.03 in there so if I need to I can take $100 out to pay a bill without falling below the $300 that will trigger a $3.00 monthly service charge!

Well, I might as well start with the biggest news first, I am no longer in default on the account listed as “Credit Card 1″ on the My Accounts page. I talked to them on the phone several times and have gotten on a payment plan that will help repair my credit as well as help me get that account balance quite a bit lower. The only downside is that my payments on that account are now $400 a month.

Also, coming in as pretty big news is that I have started another part-time job so that I now have a little bit more money coming in to help get these things taken care of.

In other account balance news, I somehow managed to overpay the Store Credit 1 account to the point where not only did I get it paid off before having to pay any interest (remember that one was no interest no payments until November 1) but I now have a $50 credit there….I’m not sure if that will be refunded to me or if it will just stay there until I use the account again, but either way it’s one less line of debt!

Also, I have managed to get my savings account up to $379.03 so I have a little bit of a safety net again!

Time To Pay Some Bills

Well, only three bills to pay today. It’s a good thing too, right now my checking account is at $605.25. At least I have $26.00 cash to get me through till payday!

$400.00 - Credit Card 1 - This is my set monthly payment…for now
$100.00 - Revolving Credit Account - Amount Due $91.00
$100.00 - Electricity - Amount Due $75.44