Entries this day: blast_from_past budget

blast from past

3 October 1999

Wende and I watched Blast From The Past last night.  It was great!

I was actually pretty surprised at how well I liked it.  I thought it
would just be a cheesy romance thing, but I was laughing at the
situations and all the wacky funny stuff!

Given the plot, the resulting situations were believable (assuming
they could in fact survive 35 years in a large hole) and quite
entertaining.  Good ending and all that.

The funniest scene to me: he was outside skating, and some beautiful
women skated by and smiled hugely at him.  His eyes kinda went gaga,
but it turns out, not at the skaters!

Go check it out!

budget

3 October 1999

I owe about $9526.98 to various credit cards, $300 to Maggie, and $500
to my dad.  Right now, being in debt really bugs me, so I'm focusing
lots of my funds to pay it off.

At my new job, I bring in a tad over $800 on the 15th and last day of
each month.  Looking back over my finances, I pay a tad over $400 to
rent (this varies as I do some work for my landlord), $23 or so for
natural gas and electricity, some for groceries, some for cell phone,
..  okay I haven't really looked at my finances that closely but I'm
beginning to do so.

Back to my credit cards.

I called the 4 banks (banks?) and determined my balance due, credit
available, payment due, and interest rate for each:

card      bal        credit    interest
          due        avail
Card A    630.82     5068      4.9%
Card B    187.54     4812      9.9%
Card C    1425.96    6074      18.1%
Card D    7282.66    217.34    12.96%

Nice.  Obviously I need to transfer funds from Card C and Card D with
their huge interest rates.  So I had Card A write a check for $1425.96
to Card C, and a check for the rest of my credit available to Card D.
I think $3642.  So once those go through, I believe the table will
look like this:

card     bal        credit    interest
         due        avail
Card A   5698.78    0         4.9%
Card B   187.54     4812      9.9%
Card C   0          7500      18.1%
Card D   3640.66    3859      12.96%

Card A said it should take 7 to 10 days for the funds to be transferred.

Right now I'm going to call Card B and have them write a check to Card
D for $3600.  Hold please.

- -

HOLY COW!  I just did that balance transfer without talking to a
human!

So after that goes through, I think my table will look like this:

card     bal        credit    interest
         due        avail
Card A   5698.78    0         4.9%
Card B   3787.54    1212      9.9%
Card C   0          7500      18.1%
Card D   40.66      7460      12.96%

Card B said it would be 3 days, so it may even go through first.

Please note that Card A interest rate is good for 6 months from the
day the balance transfer occurs.  In April 2000 it will jump to 13%,
so I will have to remember that then.

- - - - - -

When I graduated from UH, I had about $26,000 in debt: $14,000 in
student loans, $8,000 in credit cards, and $4,000 in hospital bills
(from my skating accident)

In 2.5 years working at TeleCheck, I was able to pay all that off, and
save $10,000.  In 1.25 years of bumming, I spent the $10g, purchased
$4027 in various internet stocks (actually $117 in brokerage fees and
$3910 in stocks (now worth $2818)) and accrued the debt above.  It's
been fun; I'll enjoy the process of paying off the debt.

Now here's a weird question I must ask myself: If I am losing dollars
in the stock market, is it better to sell all the stock ($105 in fees)
and pay off credit cards?  Or carefully see which stocks are going up
and which are going down and sell the downward spiraling stock?  Or
trust they will all come way up in the long run and just sit on them?

I think I'll just sit.

I also think I will put the above credit card debt table on the front
page of my website.

Crazy?  No - I hope whoever sees it will become a bit less tight
lipped about their debt.  Nearly everyone in this society owes big big
money.  Why not talk about it and say This is Crazy! and quit spending
to Impress the Joneses (or to make ourselves feel better) and live
better in the long run?????