Andy Hough

Credit Card Is Paid Off

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My final credit card payment should go through today leaving me with no credit card debt.  I can’t get too excited about this since I still have about $57,000 in student loans but it is progress.  One positive thing is that I  now know that I won’t run my credit card debt back up with frivolous purchases.  Another thing is that I won’t have a generic debt expense anymore, it will all be student loans.  My credit card debt was a mixture of a student loan debt balance transfer and miscellaneous expenses such as food, clothing, gas, etc. so I wasn’t sure what I was paying off.

Now that I have my credit card paid off I have two new goals for my money.  One is to pay off my private student loan that has an interest rate of 11.75% and a balance of just under $2000.  The other goal is to fully fund my Roth IRA.  The maximum contribution is $4000 for this year and I’ve only contributed $150 so far.  I have until April of next year to get this funded.  For now my plan is to split any extra money equally between the two goals although I’m considering just focusing on one goal and completing it than focusing on the other.

August Income

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Here is a breakdown of my income for August.

Job Income

$1853.7

Medical Study

$125

Online Income

$76.41

Ebay/Half/Selling stuff

$85.92

Surveys/Mystery Shop

$26.11

Interest

$2.86

Total

$2170

My income for September should be roughly the same. The medical study has ended so I won’t have that income. My interest income has almost disappeared because I ended my credit card arbitrage.  The other categories shouldn’t change much.

Maybe I’m a Nomad

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My lease on my current apartment ends in October and I have already given notice of my intent to move out.  I like my current apartment ok but I just feel a need to move.  I don’t like to be in any one place for too long.  Moving out may be a bad decision because it will be difficult to find a similar place for the same or less rent.  I’ll probably go down to a studio from my current one bedroom.  I really don’t need much space.  The other drawback of moving out is that I’ll have to sign a new lease.  I’d like to be able to just pick up and leave whenever I feel like it.  Since I still have a year of school left and don’t have much money saved that isn’t really an option anyway.  For now moving to a new apartment will be the closest to traveling that I get.

Budgeting and the 60% Solution

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The 60% solution is a budgeting method I’ve seen mentioned on a couple of blogs. The basic concept is to limit your committed expenses to 60% or less of your total income.  Then commit 10% each to retirement savings, long-term savings, short-term savings for irregular expenses, and fun money.  Looking at my budget for last month my committed expenses are quite easily under the 60% limit.  I don’t actually follow the 10% guidelines for what to do with the rest of my money but as the article indicates once you have your committed expenses at 60% it is simple to save money.

Since I have a lot of debt to repay I don’t think the 10% guidelines work too well for me.  Right now I just put as much extra money as I can towards debt.  Since I’m frugal I don’t worry that I’ll waste my money without specific guidelines on where to spend it.  I use Pear Budget to do my budget and it works fine for my simple needs.  I use it more as a way to track my income and expenses than as an actual budget.

What’s Happening Now

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No, I’m not talking about the sequel to the 70’s TV program “What’s Happening” featuring Rerun and his friends. I’m just updating a few things that have happened since I last posted.

I got a ticket on Friday which will cost me $126. If I go through diversion to keep the ticket off my record it will be an additional $20.  I plan on doing that since I haven’t had a ticket in the last 10 years and I would like to keep my MVR spotless. I probably could have avoided this ticket if I would have just agreed with the officer and not argued with him but I thought the officer was wrong and still do.  I’m not sure if being right is worth $146 though.

I’ve decided to go ahead and pay off my credit card even though it is at 0%.  My balance is down to $424 and I think I should be able to pay it off next month. The ticket and some other extra expenses I have next month will make it tight to have enough money to pay off the card though.  If I can’t get the card paid off next month it isn’t a big deal since the card will be at 0% until January.

I bought clothing for the first time this year yesterday.  I bought a couple pairs of swim trunks to double as running shorts at Target.  They were on clearance and the total for both of them was right at $12 with tax.