I'M GOING TO BRAG A LITTLE!!!

I made a pact with myself; I will get out from under my credit card and personal loan debt this year, and then start working on getting out of debt - period!!  This week I actually started seeing the fruits of my labor.  I've paid off one credit card, and the personal loan! 

I am sooo beyond excited with this feat that I haven't stopped smiling since making those last payments.  Would you all excuse me as I do the Happy Snoopy Dance!!!

The paid off credit card is the one that makes me most happy!! That card has been the bane of my existence for wayyyy toooo long!!! It even had its own name - that's how long it had been around!  I really wasn't charging a lot on it, I just got lax in paying it off, and I had such a good raport with the company that my statement every month showed how much I owed, which was always plenty, and how much my monthly payment was - "0".  Now ask yourself, if I have a balance in the red, how is it I could have a minimum payment of "0"?  I figured they really liked me.  Hey, even if I missed a payment, I wasn't charged a late fee - nor did the interest rate go up, but I sure was charged the interest on the debt, and that interest then accummulated interest, and so on, and so on, and so on!!  It was literally a snowball effect - but the wrong kind of effect.  I finally had to get to the point where I thought "enough already!!!"  I actually did something most would think not the smartest move, but transferred it to a new "zero interest for 15 months" card, and paid that puppy off in 7 months.  And I cut both cards up and will never use them again!!! Did I just say never?  I meant NEVER!!!

Who says more plastic is the way to go?

This is an amazing fact: do you realize just how much credit card companies encourage us to carry debt - hey, debt is good!  Heck, the companies go after Freshmen college students during "welcome week".  They're adults now, and they can get their own cards!!!  Add to that that most incoming students pay their school debt with student loans.  Anyone can get one! Think about it - a good credit score basically tells you that you can hold a balance on a credit card, but you're faithful at paying your debts.  You would think, then, that having no debt would give you a perfect credit score.  But actually - it doesn't!  You don't have a score if you don't use credit.  I guess it stands to reason.  Credit score means you have credit.  Unfortunately, by the time those previously mentioned college freshmen finish college, their debts are often so attrocious with payments made to pizza and beer and minimum payments, they are confused at to how it got so big!!!  And that student loan???  well, it's often larger than the price of a small house.  OUCH!!!

The problem, however, is the card companies aren't paying our bills.  The companies may love the concept of us carrying a revolving debt because it keeps growing and growing and growing and ....  We are the ones who have to pay that bill.  It is, unfortunately, too handy to have around.  Don't have money for that purse, hey, you have plastic!!  You like that bike, no cash, but LOOK!!  Visa's literally jumping out of the wallet pouch and onto the counter!!  AND- too often, when we want to purchase something on line, we have to use a credit card of some sort.  (I'm rather glad that there is PayPal around so I can use it and payment gets reduced from my bank account instantly.)  Have you noticed that when you try using cash now the salesclerks give you that funky - "what's that?" look?  What's worse - try pulling out a checkbook!  So credit has just become so convenient, and "safe", but much to our detriment. 

And that student loan???  It is the one debt that never goes away.  A person can declare bankruptcy and that loan will not be forgiven.  There really aren't a lot of degrees that make it worth having a student debt of over $100,000.  Maybe a doctor, or a lawyer, but certainly not a Bachelor's Master's or PhD in Women's Studies.  Last I heard, the student loan debt in America is over $1.2 trillion - TRILLION!!!!  ARE WE KIDDING OURSELVES???


It's time to say "ENOUGH ALREADY!!! "

Did I scare you bad enough???  So how do we get out of debt?  Is it possible to overcome this burden?  Here's what Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover program emphasizes": a process of using the debt snowball effect.  Just as I referenced how revolving debt can become like a snowball going down hill, this one is just the opposite.  If you're familiar with a snowball, you can start with a small one, roll it down a hill and it will pick up more snow and gather speed as it rolls down the hill.  In the same vein, rather than letting debt become larger and larger on one card, you gather all your debts together, and start paying them off, one at a time!  You take the smallest debt, and pay the most you can afford to pay on it until it's paid off.  At the same time you pay the minimum on the other debts just until the small debt is paid off.  Once you've paid off the smallest debt, you start making larger payments on the next smallest debt until it is paid.  Then the same goes for the next and the next until they are all paid off.  As you pay off each debt, the payments to the next one grows,  gathers steam, and hence - the snowball effect. 

IT'S TIME TO PULL OUT THE SCISSORS!!!

But here's an important point: often we just have to get to the place where we look at our finance situation and say, "hey, enough is enough!"  Does it make sense to pay a credit card company our hard earned money just because the plastic card in our wallets are too convenient?  Think about it; the average interest rate on a card is about 16% apr.  So if you carry a debt of $1000, and let's say you never put another thing on it, but pay it at a rate of $50.00, which is probably above minimum, it will take you 24 months to pay it off, and you will pay an extra $200 just in interest alone.  You might think, what's $200?  It's your 200 hard earned dollars!!  And that's just on $1000.  What if you debt was about $5000, and you paid $100 a month??  How's this: it would take 83 months to pay it off and you will end up paying over $3000 just in interest - IN INTEREST ALONE!!!  You could take a nice trip with that $3000, that's your money!!!  Let me repeat that... THAT'S YOUR MONEY!!!  See why I say you have to think, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH???  If I was to think of how much interest I've paid on the card that I just finished paying off, I probably could have bought a house on it!!  Okay, maybe not quite, but I certainly could have a put a huge downpayment on a house.  And yes, it was MY MONEY!!!

So now I'm striving to finish paying the last credit card.  I will take all that I paid on the first card and the personal loan, and will put it all on this last card until it is paid in full!  And once that's done, I will just have to do the Snoopy dance all over again!!!  Wanna join me??? 

Can We Talk?

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW???

Di you know that men hate the phrase "can we talk?".  They hate it with a passion!  A couple of years ago I became very upset and angry at a male friend/co-worker.  We were on a buisness trip, and he said something that to me cut me to the quick.  As is typical of me, I clammed up and didn't talk to him the following day.  The problem, though, clamming up was not very productive for the business task at hand.  When we were leaving a site he said something to me, and rather than responding to his statement, I instantly turned to him and said, "can we talk?"  The look on his face after I said that was one of which window is easier to jump out of?"  Now, our relationship was not one where we could have those "talks" on a regular basis.  He just stared out the car windshield, and propped his head on his hand as his arm rested on the driver's side window as I began to tell him how upset I was at him for his statement the previous day.  As far as he was concerned, I sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher - "Blah-blah - blah blah blah blah, Matt! Are you listening to me?"  He turned to look at me and said, "are you all of a sudden my wife?  Well, after telling him that if we were going to complete the site visit without anymore issues, we needed to iron out our problem, which we did (I think).  To this day, though, he and I laugh at the thought that I could possibly have said those three attrocious words to him, "Can we talk?"

A couple of years later, after having an issue with an former love, I sent him a text stating, "we need to talk."  He was in no mood to read those words.  After going round and round with him about my text, I decided just to let it go.  Problem was I wasn't forgetting it.  It was festering and turning ugly in my mind and my heart.  According to him, the term "we need to talk" meant we were ending things, and every bad thing about our relationship was all his fault.  Wrong, "we need to talk" to me meant - we needed to talk.  It could have resulted in the demise of the relationship, but if it did, did he honestly think that not talking about it would mean everything went on as if nothing was wrong?  Something was wrong, and I needed to get it off my chest.  As it was... well, I did refer to him as my former love.


So, what is it about men that they hate the phrases "can we talk", or "we need to talk"?  Women are talkers.  It is one of the ways we can cope with our lives and our emotions - just being able to talk things out, to air out our grievances.  "I'm angry, and you need to know why."  "You've hurt me and you need to know that you did."  "I just need your ear and some sound advice right now."  "I've been hanging with two and three year olds all day.  I'd like some adult conversation."

Ironically, women can talk - and talk - AND TALK to each other for hours.  And sometimes we hold nothing back.  My sister lives with me, which is both a blessing and a curse.  It's a blessing because I always have someone here to talk to, to laugh with, cry with, and just air out my anger at something that may have happened during the day.  It's a curse because sometimes she can get brutally honest with me - and holds nothing back.  It will hurt to the point where I think "why can't you be like a guy and just not want to talk?" 

Communication is an art form.  It's one that needs to be cultivated, developed, and practiced.  But more-so, communication is a necessity.  We have to be able to communicate with each other without feeling like one is bothering the other.  "I'm angry and you need to know why", or "you've hurt me and you need to know that you did." - why would someone want another to be angry at him/her, without hearing the other person out?  Talk about it, figure what transpired, and what needs to be done to "fix it", if it can be fixed.  Do you really want a wedge to develop between you to the point of destruction of a relationship? 

Women really don't just "get over it!"  We are made with a mind and emotions.  When we need to talk, we NEED TO TALK!  I mean - do you really want to hang around with someone who starts to pull away from you because she's angry or hurt?  Guess what? She's probably throwing darts at you in her mind.  She's probably thinking the worst thoughts about you, and you didn't do anything to combat those thoughts.  Here's a thought: you want to cuddle with your wife, or girlfriend at night?  Talk to her during the day (and not by text - thank you very much!).  Talk - let her get it off her chest.  There's an old saying, "don't go to bed angry."  There's a good reason for that.  There ain't gonna be no nookie with an angry Cookie!!  But if you allow yourself to listen to her, to let her spill her guts out to you, and you and she work through the issues, hey, you never know, she may even go to bed without a headache!

So... Can we talk??