My Journey From Debt

I know I’ve been really bad about this lately, but sometimes I get hungry and I really don’t have much in the way of food in the house because I’m leaving the end of this week to go on a little trip….

Supper tonight was Taco John’s and cost me $5.13

Well, I’m not too disappointed about my spending this weekend. It was better than most, grand total: $43.59

Friday
$8.48 (cash) at WalMart
$5.35 (cash) at Burger King

Saturday
$7.00 (cash) at Olive Garden
$13.76 (debit card) at Target

Sunday
$3.85 (cash) at Burger King
$5.15 (cash) at a gas station (bottle of water, Mt. Dew, and sunflower seeds)

It ended up being a fair amount, but I don’t think I did too terrible at any one spot so am fairly happy with my weekend. Also, I don’t feel that any of my spending was terribly frivolous so can be fairly happy with that.

Well, just as I suspected, I ended up taking the $300 out of my savings account and putting that into my checking account to use to pay my bills. My savings account is now at less than $1.00 but will have another $25 added to it next week when I get paid again.

My cell phone statement came showing a credit of $6.40 so I don’t have to pay that one until next month! Yippee, that’s extra money that I can use elsewhere…I had a $90 speeding ticket that I got Sunday. It isn’t due until the 22nd, but there’s no harm in sending it in early…so much for the extra money from not having to pay my cell phone bill.

$225.00 - Revolving Credit Account - Minimum Payment $206.00 (includes past due amount of $102 and I got a $35.00 late fee - yuck!)
$125.00 - Landline/Cable TV - Amount Due $106.74
$100.00 - Internet - Amount Due $79.17
$100.00 - Credit Card 2 - Amount Due $91.00
$ 50.00 - Electricity - Amount Due $49.15
$ 65.00 - Store Credit 2 - Amount Due $10 (my payment also includes a $15 fee because I paid by phone to avoid late fees)
$150.00 - Student Loan 1 - Amount Due $149.91 (includes $61.14 past due and $28.00 late fee)
$200.00 - Student Loan 2 - Amount Due $180.65 (includes $75.68 past due and $28.00 late fee)

I’ve updated my progress counter in the sidebar, and it looks like I’ve actually gone backwards! Yikes, I’m sure this is partly due to my late payments and not getting some of these things taken care of last month. Hopefully next time I update it, I will be making progress…with any luck, I should at least be able to be at less than I started!

So I’ve kinda been slacking lately, both with my posting and keeping you all up to date on my finances and also in terms of managing my money….I’m catching up though and while I’m not paying any bills during this post (that will be in a separate post) I do have some incomes and expenditures to report.

Since my last post, I got paid (yay) from both my full time and part time jobs:

Full Time: $431.04
Part Time: $163.93

Then, I turned around and spent most of it before paying bills (shame on me I know)
I had a domain name renewal (automatic withdrawal) that cost me $6.99
I also have an automatic transfer set-up that takes $25 from my checking each time I get paid from my full time job (twice per month) and puts it into my savings account
Also coming out of my checking account was $40.00 that I withdrew from the ATM on the 28th.

I spent $373.71 on car parts (oil, oil filter, air filter, spark plugs, and brake pads) that I used, but also purchased some parts that were not used and I will be taking back so I should get a little bit of money back (estimating around $120 or $125 so I will be sure to report on that.

While on the topic of my vehicle, I spent $55.00 on fuel on the 25th, $20 (cash) on the 27th, and $71.60 on the 30th (of that though, about $24 or $25 of it went into a jet ski that I was borrowing)

In other expenditures, I spent $8.00 at Dairy Queen on either Monday or Tuesday and $4.36 at Wendy’s last night. I also spent $4.55 at the hardware store yesterday because I needed some stuff to do some minor home repairs.

Whew, that was a lot of spending :S

I also did some moving around of money…I took $2.09 worth of loose change out of my pocket and put into my change jar and took $1,000 out of a money market account that I had (that account is now depleted) as my last resort emergency fund. Of that $1,000 I put $251 into my savings (I’m now above $300 which is my bank’s minimum to avoid a $3.00 monthly service fee which I just got nailed with again) and the other $749 into my checking account. I’m going to pay bills now and see how far I get, I’ll likely end up depleting my savings account yet again

I spent $5.89 for my supper tonight and ate at McDonald’s.

I try not to eat out because I know that it is expensive and also very unhealthy, but I still do once in a while. On a brighter note, aside from some sunflower seeds, that was my one meal today which means my food cost for today was $5.89.