New Fiscal Year New Blog on Finances

I haven’t tracked my progress on paying my debt down, partially because I have been working so much on a computer in my big girl job,  I don’t have a desire to write about anything.  

To be completely transparent  with my readers, I had paid more than half of my loan off, and seeing the numbers shrink gave me a great sense of accomplishment!  It felt amazing and a step in the right direction.  

Here comes the reality part, despite shrinking my loan, I added some debt to my one credit card which I was not able to pay off at the end of the month, and with a swipe swipe here and a swipe swipe there, vet bill, other bills every where a bill bill… I had put more than a couple thousand dollars on my VISA.  I only have myself to blame, as my original intention when my VISA balance was zero two years ago was to pay off my credit card at the end of each month.  

The one thing I did stick to was not increasing my limit beyond $5000.00.  I knew this could end up as a slippery slope, so I chipped away at the debt while continuing to make large payments on my loan.  

I bank with two different institutions as the one spot I bank with is solely for paying my debt off.  I set up a chequing account so I can deposit money into it & then put it on my loan or VISA.  All of my banking has been done on line, and I never use my debit card with this particular bank as it is used to solely pay bills.  I have been putting a bit of extra money on my chequing account as I wanted to snowball the hell out of my loan; come to discover one day when I tried to buy some groceries as my other debit account was dangerously low, the card I had was expired.  

Naturally, I called the bank, we cancelled my debit card as we were unsure if my card was stolen or I had cut up the new card accidentally (absolutely possible!).  And to make a long story short they took my outstanding credit card debt and merged it back onto my loan, which is a good thing as now I can just focus on the one lump sum & pay it down.  

My sweet low loan balance went up a bit, but that is okay, the interest rate is reasonable and better than the 11% which was on my Visa.  

You too can obtain a lower interest rate on your Visa if you have a plan which doesn’t offer you anything back in return such as airmiles or Starbucks Points.  I am sticking with my low interest card because I need to prove to myself first that I am capable of being responsible enough to pay off the balance before the end of each month. Until this happens, no freebies or special points for me.  

I have my wedding coming up posssibly in 2018 or it might be in 2019 and I will be a bride on a budget, but I plan to scrimp, save and continue to pay down my debt.  The credit card accrual was a bump in the road and thankfully I didn’t go back completely to my old ways of being footloose and fancy free with the spending.  

More to share soon like what have I been spending my money on?  Not a lot in the way of things, but money doesn’t always transpire into a tangible item you can display (for example eating out, buying lunch and buying too many groceries are a few examples).  I will also share what I have not been spending money on & some thrifty tips. 

Amen to the above.

Peace & Love – Rachel