Link Love and Updates

Hi everyone!  Since I hosted the Carnival of Money Stories last week, I’ll keep today’s link list on the short side.  If you didn’t get a chance, be sure to read a few submissions.  There were lots of great entries!

I also participated in three carnivals last week.  First up, I threw my hat into the ring on the mammoth Carnival of Personal Finance at The Personal Financier.  (Nice symmetry on the titles, eh?)  I’ve been relying on NPR and the New York Times to understand last week’s crazy economic news.  However, the Unreal Blog has another take on it all, complete with impressive graphics!

I love the Festival of Frugality for all the great tips, and this week’s edition at Living Almost Large was no exception.  Thanks to Donna Freedman’s submission from the Smart Spending blog, I even found this great post on DIY cat litter. Hooray for  Allie’s Answers!  Yesterday, as I was changing the expensive stuff I buy, I was thinking there must be a better way. . .now I’ve got a couple of options!

Finally, I was in the Money Hacks Carnival at On a Quest to Be Debt Free.  I like Miss Thrifty‘s tip to clean the oven.  Pretty soon, I won’t be buying a single cleaning product!

During my shopping bug this week, I also really appreciated Get Rich Slowly‘s post on advertising.  If you haven’t subscribed before, be sure to check out this blog.  This week, his wife posted a cool recipe for canned salsa.  I prefer to just can the tomatoes and make the salsa from those when I want, but this looks mighty tasty!  

Finally, I liked Simple Mom‘s frugal tips and the reminder that frugal tips are often eco-friendly tips.  I think for most of us, frugal choices are important not just for the money they save but also for the impact they have on our environment!

Update:  Yesterday, I posted about my sneaky shopping trigger.  Well, last night, we went to Macy’s with a gift card.  The husband found some great clothes, all on sale, for work meetings, but I came up empty-handed.  It was a very disappointing trip, but I’m proud of myself for not buying something just to use up the card!  I’m sticking by my plan to just buy quality items at good prices.

Sneaky Shopping Triggers

Back in my super-shopping days, the fall wardrobe was a prominent highlight of the year.  Fall shopping involved reading lots of glossy magazines, finding inspiration at Anthropologie and Neiman Marcus, scouring Loehman’s, DSW, and the mall for deals, and then splurging back at Anthropologie and Neiman Marcus.  The shopping cycle also involved an original list, purchases, returns, and new lists for things to match what I bought on earlier trips.  All this happened with good friends, so it was loads of fun.  I wouldn’t trade the memories, but I am a little relieved to have stepped off the shopping treadmill.

 

by pjinomaha

 

Here in Ohio, I haven’t given up shopping completely.  In fact, I am truly one of the luckiest girls in the world because I have a husband who LIKES to shop for clothes.  On our honeymoon, we had a total blast shopping, and he sweetly splurged on the most darling trench coat ever for me to wear this fall.  Still, it’s nothing like the old days.  I don’t read glossy magazines anymore.  I have a very small list of quality items to buy (new leather boots, a cream silk shirt, and a black cashmere turtleneck).  We have a set budget and are waiting until October to spend it.

Suddenly, though, this week, I have had serious, serious urges to shop.  They’ve been so serious that I DREAMED about shopping last night.  I’ve had to consciously remind myself what new-ish clothes I have in my closet because I’ve just felt generally disgruntled that I have nothing to wear.  What could be the trigger?  I watch the Daily Show online, but that’s it for TV.  Like I said, I haven’t bought one fall magazine.  At work, I’ve even been too busy to catch up on my celebrity gossip fix at lunch.  So, what gives?

This morning, I finally figured out the sneaky shopping trigger: “chick lit.”  I got Love the One You’re Withby Emily Giffin from my library “queue” this week and have been devouring it after work and before bed.  Now, by day, I am a literature professor, but by night, I shamelessly indulge my passion for “fun reading.”  I was an avid reader as a kid, not only of Jane Austen and Emily Bronte, but also of the teen series like Sweet Valley High and The Girls of Canaby Hall (about three unlikely roommates at boarding school; oh how I wanted to go to boarding school reading those!).  So, as an adult, when Bridget Jones’s Diary ushered in a new craze of copycats, I became quite a connoisseur. 

I now realize that, while they are technically ad-free, these books also let me shop vicariously.  Almost every one has a shopping scene or two.  Sophie Kinsella’s series, of course, takes the shopping motif to dizzying heights.  Even if there is no direct shopping, there are usually descriptions of adorable outfits and random allusions to trendy brands.  Griffin’s latest contribution was no exception.  Throughout the novel, we get one darling ensemble after another, and I realize I’ve been imagining wearing each one as I read.

So, sneaky shopping trigger: discovered!  Fortunately, my budget allows for some shopping soon, but until then, I’m pleased that I’ve identified where the urge is coming from.  Knowing is half the battle!

My Big Bulk-Shopping Trip

by aka Kath

Monday, school closed due to the remnants of Hurricane Ike, which did some damage all the way up here in Ohio.  After doing a little happy dance at the unexpected holiday, I decided to head out to the grocery store for my first attempt at buying for three months.  Last week, I posted the rules for my new approach to groceries.  Basically, I want to buy non-perishiables to last three months.  Then, I’ll supplement with trips to the farmer’s market, and bi-weekly trips for meat and cheese.

Thanks to some tips from readers, I decided NOT to join a bulk warehouse or go crazy buying things online.  Instead, I went to Meijer and aimed to buy the store brand as much as possible.  The trip itself was actually pretty fun.  They have nuts and granola in bulk bins and lots of large quantities of other supplies.  By limiting my shopping to the middle aisles, it didn’t wear me out the way buying everything does.  With my big bags of nuts and spices, I got a few odd comments at the check-out line, but also struck up an interesting conversation about grocery shopping as newlyweds.  Here’s what I bought:

• 6 packs of butter and some canola oil to make our own spreadable butter
• $40 worth of mixed nuts, sliced almonds, raw almonds, and walnuts
• 12 cans of beans and 6 cans of salmon
• 10 lbs of rice, 2 lbs of couscous, 10 lbs of sugar, 35 lbs of flour, 8 lbs of oatmeal
• the largest containers of olive oil, honey, whole pepper, red pepper, and 6 italian spice grinders
• choclate chips, nutella, peanut butter, raisins, bread crumbs
• minced garlic, boullion cubes, lemon and lime juice, yeast, vanilla, taco seasoning, salt
• 10 lbs of coffee
• vinegar and rubbing alcohol to make our own cleaning supplies
• 25 lbs of cat food and 12 cans of tuna (for the cat)

I also bought a few odds and ends for the week, but all told, I only spent $300!  I feel that this is much cheaper than the weekly deals I’ve been trying to get at Kroger’s.  Partly, I think this is because Meijer has lower prices, but I could also see the savings in buying the largest packages.  For example, the largest jar of minced garlic was about $3 cheaper than the equivalent in the smaller size I usually buy. 

I subtracted $50 from this month’s budget.  Then, I’ll pay back the other $250 out of each month’s budget over October, November, and December.  I’m hopeful to hold my bi-weekly budget to $70 and the farmer’s market to $20 a week.  If I do this and my supplies last, I’ll be able save about $1,200 over the course of the year.   That would be significant!

More than just the savings, I like the feeling of having all that food stockpiled.  Just with the moderate wind damage we had, several friends lost power for 4 or 5 days.  I like knowing that I’d have plenty to eat if that happened to us. 

Realistically, I know we won’t face a three-month disaster.  However, I also like that this approach is cutting down the mental clutter.  Getting together a big grocery list, scouring for deals, and doing a big shop every week took a lot of energy.  Now that the basics are all in place, I can free up some of that energy for more interesting things.  I’ll keep you updated on how my supplies last, and how well I do baking more items from scratch.  For now though, I’m quite excited about my “new thing.”

Carnival of Money Stories #77

Welcome to the 77th Carnival of Money Stories!  If you haven’t visited here before, I blog about my journey to financial balance.  Finally on the tenure track after years floating by on student loans, I share my money stories while reading some of the greatest American stories about money.  Today, along with all this week’s outstanding posts, I’ve included my favorite American “classics” about work and money.  Take a look around and subscribe!

Editor’s Picks: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Here’s the work that starts Americans’ obsession with the self-made man.  Once you read it, you’ll never forget Ben’s jaunty walk down the Philadelphia pier with a loaf of bread tucked under each arm.  It seems to be all he needs to take on the world!

NtJS presents What Is The Dumbest Thing You’ve Ever Spent Money On? posted at not the jet set.

Kelly from Almost Frugal presents Setting Goals in the Face of Uncertainty posted at Almost Frugal.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Basic Business Advice from an Accidental Entrepreneur posted at The Digerati Life.

MoneyNing presents Living on $34.01 a Week posted at Personal Finance Blog by Money Ning.

The Happy Rock presents Helping Friends Save Money Can Be Bad For Your Back posted at The Happy Rock.
 

The Wide, Wide World

One of my favorite sentimental novels, this work by Susan Warner charts a young girl’s journey to adulthood.  With shaky financial resources and few friends, how will she manage to find happiness and security?  In the nineteenth century, this novel was almost as popular as Uncle Tom’s Cabin and tells us much about America’s middle-class ideals.

KCLau presents How not to Spend that Money posted at KCLau’s Money Tips.

The Financial Blogger presents I Failed…For Now posted at The Financial Blogger.

Dividends4Life presents Progress Update – August 2008 posted at Dividends4Life.

Chris presents Being Laid Off – 4 Steps to go From a Layoff to an Amazing Job. posted at ProsperingServant.com.

Laura presents What’s a Better Deal, Rebates or a Lower Price? posted at Green Panda Treehouse.

Jim presents Comcast Triple Play Deals Are Getting More Aggressive on Blueprint for Financial Prosperity posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Unlike Benjamin Franklin’s, Frederick Douglass’s life story emphasizes the inequality of antebellum America.  Born a slave on the eastern shore of Maryland, Douglass finds his way to freedom and activism. His life’s work is a sobering reminder of the rotten foundation on which American capitalism was based.

fwp presents a (small) sign of financial maturity » the financial wellness project » because money doesn’t own you — YOU own money! posted at the financial wellness project.

Mr. ToughMoneyLove presents How to be a Money Strategist to Achieve Financial Goals | Tough Money Love posted at Tough Money Love » Hard Truth about Money and Personal Finance.

Todd presents Hurricane Ike and Fear posted at HarvestingDollars.

Ryan Suenaga presents Ask the Readers: What Do You Do with an Unreliable Employer? posted at Uncommon Cents.

Tanesha Morgan presents Bad Health Insurance, No Insurance? How to Manage Anyway. posted at Personal Finance Analyst.

Sun presents Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Timeline posted at The Sun’s Financial Diary.

The Great Gatsby

If you’ve never had a chance to read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, take the time now.  In this slender novel, Fitzgerald captures all the longing and emptiness of an emerging consumer culture.  I’ll never forget the scene where Gatsby flings shirt after shirt out of his closet to prove to Daisy that he’s finally made it.

 J. Money presents I won the mega millions lottery!!! Well, a piece of it anyways 😉 posted at Budgets are Sexy..

Grace presents Grace and the Green-Eyed Monster posted at GRACEful Retirement.

Kevin presents My 300th Post and It?s Really Important posted at No Debt Plan.

Upside Trader presents Lehman, AIG, Merrill Lynch and the Catastrophic Ripple Effect posted at upsidetrader.

FIRE Finance presents Save Your Wallet With These Penny Hacks posted at FIRE Finance.
 

Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison’s critique of the American Dream is one of the most powerful of the twentieth century.  His journey to understanding the racial dynamic of pre-Civil Rights America questions mainstream beliefs about the ability of anyone to get ahead.

FMF presents My One Tip to Being Productive Wherever I Am posted at Free Money Finance.

The Smarter Wallet presents Ways To Save on Seasonal Purchases: Time To Shop For Halloween! posted at The Smarter Wallet.

Ella Moss presents IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID! « Zodiac Times posted at Zodiac Times.

Will presents Making Money Online, Ten Things I Wish I Knew As A Beginner | Your Finish Rich Plan – A Personal Finance Blog posted at Your Finish Rich Plan.

GBlogger presents Success Stories: Couple Hits $515K Net Worth by Age 27 — and Seeks to Retire by Age 40 posted at CAN I GET RICH ON A SALARY.

Great stories everyone!  Hope you enjoyed the carnival and see you next week wherever the Money Stories go!

Money and Marriage

Last Wednesday, an article in The New York Times reported that many successful marriages work because both partners are on the same page when it comes to finances.  The author, Tara Siegel Bernard, points out that marriage throughout the centuries has typically been a financial arrangement.  It’s only in the past couple of centuries that the notion of love was wedded to marriage.  Now though, we seem to have come full circle.  Instead of marrying for money, it’s best to marry your fiscal soul mate.

 

credit: foundphotoslj

 

The article got me thinking, especially when Bernard asserted: “So much of what we want — or don’t want — out of life boils down to dollars and cents, whether it’s how hard we choose to work, how much we consume or how much we save.”  One of the things that makes writing about personal finance fun is that you’re really writing about your core values and the choices you make in life.  Beneath all the discussion about retirement, debt, savings, and frugality, we’re really analyzing what we want in life.  Do we want the big house, the big car, or the big bank account?  If we’re lucky enough to have a little money left over after the necessities are taken care of, how will we use it?

This article sparked some discussion between my husband and me about what our next financial goal should be.  Now that we’ve knocked out my debt, where to go next?  Bernard emphasizes the importance of long-term planning.  It makes a lot of sense because day-to-day temptations can overwhelm us if we let them.  There’s always a new toy to have or a little treat to buy.  However, with clear long-term plans and a budget, we’ll be able to resist the money drains a little bit better.

For us, the big long-term plan is to bring about a better work/life balance.  Now, we’ve got to figure out the steps that will get us there.  I’m going to start reviewing our income from the last five years to build a household budget and see how much we can realistically save.  All this falls in line with the article’s next piece of advice: run your home like a business.  By tracking income, expenses, and a budget, we’ll do a better job managing our resources for what we really want: time to enjoy life, resources to travel, and the security of having a financial cushion.

Fortunately, we are pretty much on the same page when it comes to finances and what we want out of life.  Now, I just need to get serious about creating the plan to get us there!  How about you?  How do you and your partner manage money?

Friday Roundup

Hooray!  Friday’s here.  We’ve got a full line-up of soccer games tomorrow, so I wanted to do a link round-up today.  I participated in three wonderful carnivals this week.  Let’s get right to them!

Money Hacks Carnival #29

This yummy edition (click over and you’ll see why I say yummy!) was hosted by Living Almost Large.  I liked FIRE Finance‘s very vivid explanation of how to easily save $6,000 a year.  The little things really do add up!  Thnk Your Way to Wealth had some good advice on how to group tasks for better efficency.  Uncommon Cents reminds us that sometimes the more you spend doesn’t lead to saving more.   Finally, I chimed in with advice on how to break the getting-into-debt habit.

Carnival of Debt Reduction

The Carnival of Debt Reduction made it through the recent round of hurricanes and showcased a whirlwind of good articles.  Debt Smackdown had good advice about when not to cancel a credit card.  Budgets are Sexy asked if you ever signed up for a credit card just for a tee-shirt.  Of course, mine ended up being one expensive “freebie”!  Gather Little by Little had an interesting discussion about people who pay their credit cards before their mortgages. 

Finance Fiesta

Finally, I was in the Finance Fiesta, a newer mid-week carnival, hosted this week by On a Quest to Be Debt Free.  Fiancial Learn has a thorough 23-point checklist for your finances.  Master Your Card has an interesting overview on when couples should merge their finances.  Fianlly, I contribluted my discussion about balancing cash vs. “inventory” when it comes to personal finances.

Check out all three carnivals and have a great weekend!  I’ll be back next week after all the soccer fun.

Carpool Your Way to Hapiness

Ok, maybe “happiness” is a little strong.  However, my new carpool certainly makes my budget a little happier!  My commute is 40-45 minutes each way, and that 1 1/2 hours a day at $4-a-gallon gas prices added up to $10 a trip and $200 a month.  Fortunately, another colleague lives in my little town, so now we carpool.  I thought I might not like carpooling because I had used that down time in the car to catch up on NPR, but after a month, I’m thoroughly pleased. 

Our Arrangement

One of the great perks of being a professor is that you can set your own schedule.  I’ve decided to work from home Friday mornings, so my friend and I only carpool Monday — Thursday.  We each drive twice and then drive ourselves on Fridays.  All in all, I only have to drive 12 times a month rather than 20, so that saves me $80 a month in gas!

The Perks

• See above. . .the biggest perk is that $80 a month.
• Not having to drive every day.
• One less car on the road four days a week.
• Getting to know an interesting colleague in a completely different discipline.
• Small-town gossip.
• Cutting down the mileage on my high-mileage vehicle.
• Having a carpool keeps me more accountable to get out of bed on time.
• Working regular hours on campus is good for my career.

The Drawbacks

• I can’t just decide to stay late or leave early.
• I don’t have that “alone time” in the car.

As you can see, the perks certainly outweigh the drawbacks, including some unexpected ones!  I seem to be less inclined to hit the “snooze” button on the alarm when I know that someone else is depending on me getting to work on time.  I’ve also really enjoyed getting to know my colleague and her perspective on things.  Since she’s an accounting professor, I hear about issues that my fellow literature profs never raise.

by Mike Licht

If you have the chance to carpool, I’d highly recommend it.  Of course, we’re out in rural Ohio, so there’s no HOV lane.  However, if you’re in a major city, that’s another great reason to carpool.  Carpooling is a nice frugal move in these high-price times!  Anyone else starting to carpool?

To Buy In Bulk: Long-Term Meal Planning

Yesterday, I announced my newest plan: to create and rely on a frugal pantry. Now, I realize that I need to get serious about this and figure out how to put it all into action. Loosely, here are my “rules” for the project:

1. Shop for non-perishable food once every three months.
2. Rely on fresh, local produce as much as possible.
3. Can and preserve as much as possible to use when fresh produce is not available (typically late November through early April for us).
4. Shop bi-weekly for milk, cheese, meat, and tolietries, stockpiling on sales and using coupons.

I’m excited about this approach because I think it will simplify my life.  I’ll rely on the farmer’s market for fresh produce while it’s open.  Then, we’ll use what we’ve stored when the markets are closed.  Instead of doing a whole big trip to the grocery store once a week, I can narrow it down to a few aisles every other week.  Also, once I get a list going, I think the bulk shop will be easy as well.  I may even try do to some of it online.  I’ve decided to do my first major bulk shop in a couple of weeks, so I’m planning for food to last us through October, November, and December.  I realize that this will include the holidays, so I may have to break some of my rules in December.  I’ll try not to be too rigid, but I’m hoping that by setting some limits about when I can go to the store, we can be more creative about using what we have at home. 

The first challenge is to figure out what I actually need to buy to last us three months.  We’ll start with dinners.  I plan meals fairly loosely by “night.”  Here’s the whole list of possiblities:

1. Soup night 
2. Salad night 
3. Meat, starch, and side night
4. Pasta or stir-fry night
5. Mexican or cheese night (crepes or souffle, for example)
6. Pizza night or night out
7. Leftover/wild card night

by f10n4

As you can see, this gets me through the week.  What I like about the system is that it is easy to rotate without getting boring.  At first, I made Monday night soup night, etc.  Now, I find it easier to just keep tabs in my head.  By Thursday, if we haven’t had soup, that will be soup night.  That said, we do keep Friday as pizza or going-out night.  By the end of the week, I’m too tired to do much else!  As for the rest, one week, we’ll have something Mexican.  The next week, it’s a cheese-based dish.  One week, we’ll have pasta and the next week we have stir-fry.  By sticking to type, it’s also much easier to eat seasonally.  For example, the salads change from spring greens and asparagus to tomatoes, feta, and basil, to spinach, apples, goat cheese and nuts.  (We do “cheat” and buy organic spinach in the winter so that the husband can gets the greens he loves.  I know, I’m lucky to have a husband who loves greens!)

For other meals, it is pretty easy.  The husband skips breakfast, but has cereal for a late-night snack, so I’ll need a supply of that.  I eat yogurt, cereal, oatmeal, or granola bars.  We have the kids every other weekend, and they like cereal, oatmeal, eggs, or pancakes.  For lunch, we often eat leftovers or sandwiches.  For snacks, we have string cheese, tortilla chips, crackers and cheese, and nuts.  So, all of the non-perishables for those things will need to go into the bulk shop.  We try to keep “junk food” out of the house.  If I really crave potato chips, I have to buy a small bag out of my cash allowance.

Now, I’m hoping to make as much as I can from scratch.  Ideally, espcecially as we move into the fall, I can have a baking day to do bread, crackers, and maybe granola bars.  I’d really like to whittle down the processed food that we buy.  Some weeks, I’m too busy for a baking day, but that’s what I’m going to aim for. 

For my bulk shop, I know that I need the staples for 6 pasta meals, 6 sir-frys, 12 salads, 12 soups, 12 “meat/fish+starch” meals, 6 Mexican meals, 6 cheesey dinners, and 6 pizzas.  I’ll also need a supply of oatmeal, nuts, and baking ingredients.  Now, I feel like I can start pulling together a shopping list!

My Frugal Pantry

Now that the wedding is over, I need a new project!  I’ve decided to research, design, and create the perfect frugal pantry for my family.  Over the summer, some of my “fun” reading including re-visiting the Little House on the Prairie series.  Now, as a child of the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was immersed in all things Laura Ingalls.  I read the books repeatedly and watched the TV series after school.  I even had my own sunbonnet and apron and was known to cover the swing set with my  mom’s sheets to simulate a covered wagon.  Not to mention that growing up in Missouri meant we were near her “Rocky Ridge” farm and a theme park that cashed in on nineteenth-century nostalgia.  On more than one occasion, I cursed my fate that I hadn’t been born a hundred years before.  

by combusean

Now with the whole “urban homesteading” movement, I can live out my fantasies through my pantry.  I hope to revive the lost art of storing and wisely managing food over a long period of time.  Reading the Little House books again, I found Farmer Boy to be one of my favorites.  I forgot that part of what made those books so compelling was the level of detail Wilder includes about process.  It was easy to track what the family grew, stored, and ate throughout the year.  One of my favorite scenes was when the parents went to town for a week and left the kids to fend for themselves.  Of course, they binged on ice cream and sweets and were embarrassed by all the sugar they used by the week’s end.  In some ways, I feel like we’ve gone through a similar binge.  Now that I realize that local, honestly grown food makes me happiest, I’m pleased to put aside all the processed, manufactured food, just as the kids were happy to go back to healthy food after a week of ice cream.

by thebittenword.com

I think this is a great season to start my frugal pantry because there’s so much to harvest and put up. I’ll track what I’m canning and freezing and hope that it will last us through the winter.  I plan to still use my own variation of the “Grocery Game” to stockpile toiletries, but I want to start buying beans, rice, grains, flour, baking supplies, and soup supplies in bulk.  My goal is to have a three-months supply of healthy food on hand that my family would actually eat.  Ideally, I’ll shop for bulk supplies four times each year.  Then, at bi-weekly trips to the grocery store, I’ll stock up on meat and cheese that’s on sale, get toiletries on sale, and buy the few perishables that I can’t get in bulk, like milk and spinach.  In the summers, I’ll buy extra produce to preserve so that I don’t need as much in the winter.  I also plan to build a nice repertoire of easy-to-cook meals that we can eat out of our pantry.  I like the self-sufficiency of the whole project, but I also like several bloggers’ suggestions that this contributes to the emergency fund.

Over the course of the year, we’ll track how much I spend and save on groceries.  Right now, I budget $100 a month for a case of wine and $400 a month for groceries, plus I spend a little extra at the farmers’ market in the summer, maybe $80 a month.  So, that gives me $5040 a year.  I’m going to plan $300 a quarter for bulk supplies and reduce my bi-weekly budget to $125, plus more in the summer for the farmers’ market. 

Now, my goal will be to at least stay on budget, but of course, I really hope that this will actually save us money.  I plan to use the old snowflaking approach here.  This time, though, I’ll decide what to do with the saved money next October.  Perhaps we can use it for gourmet foods during the upcoming year?  Or a foodie vacation?  Or monthly meals in new restaurants?  Since we can already afford our food budget, I don’t want this money to get lost in general savings.  Instead, it should definitely go to food-related treats!  What do you think?  Do any of you buy in bulk now?

Back to Basics: Renew Your Intentions

This is the final post in a series on the three R’s of debt reduction. Read the introduction here. Learn how reflection can help here.  Read about replacing bad habits here.  Today, I examine how success stems from a constant process of renewal.

Renew Your Enthusiasim

Unlike running up charges on your credit cards, paying down your debt is a lot longer process and can be a lot less fun.  There are no wild shoppping sprees, no extravagent feelings of glee at buying something “forbidden.”  Instead, day after day, you have to tell yourself, “I won’t go into debt.”  “I will stick to my budget.”  “I will make do with less.” 

by Petteri Sulonen

All that resolve can make for some tough going. So many times in the past, I’d set a goal and make a plan to pay off my cards.  Then something would come up; I’d give in to the impulse to charge, and I’d be back at square one.  When I moved from DC to Ohio, I totally planned to pay off my cards and start my new job free of credit-card debt.  However, I spent a couple of lonely weeks trying to make my new apartment feel cozy.  That involved almost-daily trips to Target for a shower curtain, or a new rug, or a new lamp.  Still, I thought I could make a few charges and still keep things under control.  Then, I discoverd that we wouldn’t get paid for another month due to how the university constructed our contracts.  Suddenly, the savings that I planned to use to pay off my debt had to go toward living expenses, and I had all these silly charges racked up as well.  So much for that plan!

by Joe Shlabotnik

In March, I started a new plan, and this time, I WAS able to stick to my plan, and even paid off my debt six months earlier than I had planned.  Partly, this was because I moved in with my fiance and was able to put a lot more money toward my debt.  Partly, it was because I made paying down my cards a public act, so I was too embarassed to make too many dumb charges.

 

Mostly, renewing my enthusiasm for my new goal helped me along.  Every day, I reminded myself about that debt.  Every month, I had to account for my success or failure.  Often, I’d wake up in the night, calculating payments and “snowflakes.”  The process of paying off my debt really was that: a process.  Setting a goal once and then moving on is not enough.  I discovered that I had to renew my commitment to that goal every day!  Some days it was really fun, like when I could send a big payment to my card.  Other days, it was no fun at all.  However, following my other “R’s” of debt-reduction: reflecting on my emotional habits and replacing bad habits with good, new ones helped me along.  Here’s hoping it helps you as well!