i paid off a credit card today!

i am so excited! i paid off one of my chase cards today! in january, when i started my budget, i owed $643.91 on that card. as of today, it is fully paid off! i am so happy!

the current status of my other debts:

• other chase card: $9774.43
• bank of america card: $5043.41
• car loan: $386.59 (this one is so close too, i am so excited)
• student loans: $173,464.66 (these are paid by loan repayment money, not my own money, but i still think it counts)
  

my total current debt: $188,669.09

when i started in january, my total debt was $194,644.97. that means that in only 3 months, i have paid off $5975.88. this is amazing!

on top of that, i am saving money too. i currently have the following saved:

• emergency fund: $175.30
  
• trip to new orleans with give back cincinnati: $200.00 (plus i already paid $150.00 for this trip)
  
• christine and nate's wedding: $260.00

total savings: $635.30

now i need some advice. according to dave ramsey, i should be putting all extra money on top of minimum payments towards an emergency fund until i reach $1000. right now i am only putting $50/month towards my EF. the point of the EF is that if i have a financial emergency, then i have some money saved to deal with it rather than putting it on my credit cards and therefore setting myself back financially.

i guess one way of thinking about it is that i really do have a total of $635.30 in savings and if i had an emergency, i would skip the trip and the wedding. so maybe i really only need a little bit more savings to reach $1000 if i count that money.

so what do you guys think, should i keep paying off my credit cards the way i am, or should i put paying anything above the minimum payments on hold until i get more into my EF? and how much do i really need right now in there?

get cash for bitching

anyone who knows me knows that i love to bitch. i am simply not happy unless i have something to complain about. once that problem gets resolved, i find something else to bitch about.

while this may not be the greatest personality trait in some respects, in terms of getting cash money it really works out well for me. when i lived in new york, i was having a series of problems with a grocery delivery company. they would bring me broken eggs and brown lettuce and then refused to give me my money back. as a law student, of course i had many people around me to advise me on my rights. thus i learned about the better business bureau.

i complained about this particular company to the bbb several times and each time was given a $50 voucher for free future groceries. a couple smashed bananas led to $50 worth of free groceries! i was amazed. how could this wondrous organization get me such great compensation? i had spent hours on the phone bitching to unresponsive customer service reps. but fill out one online complaint form and i got the sun, moon, and stars?

of course i then became obsessed with the better business bureau. i told all my friends about it, and they were skeptical. but to this day, the bbb has never done anything but work miracles for me.

if something goes wrong in your transactional life, all you have to do is go online to the bbb website, file a complaint, and wait for the cash to come rolling in. you do not have to spend hours on the phone. you don't even have to spend one minute on the phone. and you do not have to even try to work it out with the company first! read the bbb policy: "BBB strongly encourages consumers to first attempt to resolve complaints directly with the company, however BBB will not reject a complaint if a consumer has not taken this step."

strongly encourages, but does not require. that means you can just skip all the annoying waiting on hold, talking to people who don't care about you, apologies, refusals to help, eating up your cell phone minutes bullshit that you would normally have to deal with. just click the link above, spend about 5 minutes typing, hit send, and you are well on your way to happy money land.

don't believe me? here is a bbb testimonial from my friend chad: "I once bitched about a terrible meal that we tried to enjoy with [friends] after boozing it up at a wine festival. I was refunded EVERYONE's money ($130+). JACKPOT."

i want to make it clear that i am an ethical bbb complainer. i do not file complaints unless i truly have a complaint. and i do not make up complaints just to get cash over little things. i wait for instances where i feel i have been truly wronged as a consumer. i value the bbb so much that i am not going to make them spend their time and energy on situations that do not require their intervention. i also do not want to dilute the amazing magical power they have by overloading them with bullshit.

however, if you have had a truly awful meal, or received poor service, or got screwed over, or been charged for things you did not agree to, or any other situation where you just feel like you were not treated fairly by a business, i strongly encourage you to use the bbb. they are your friend. they love you. they have your back. and they will get you some much needed cash in your pocket.

saving money = losing friends?

i am really annoying with this budget thing. let me list all the ways i am annoying:

• i regularly tell people i can't do things because they are not in my budget. and yes, i admit it, i have occasionally used this as an excuse to get out of something just because i didn't feel like it. however, i feel that is actually justified since if i really don't want to do it, i shouldn't be spending money on it, even if technically i can afford it.
• i started reading dave ramsey's total money makeover and i am obsessed. i talk about it constantly. my friend eric refers to it as my "cult."
  
• due to said dave ramsey obsession, i like telling people what they are doing wrong. to a friend who plays the lottery: "dave ramsey says the lottery is a tax on the stupid." to a friend who bought a new car: "dave ramsey says buying a new car is the same thing as throwing a $100 bill out the window every week." to a friend who is worried about paying for unexpected expenses: "do you have an emergency fund? how much is in it? dave ramsey says you should have 6 months worth of money."
• i actually am really not even sure what dave ramsey says, but any time i come up with what i think is a good money idea i say it is dave ramsey's idea so that people will pay attention to it. this does not work and people just make fun of me and eric tells them i am in a cult.
  
• besides my dave ramsey obsession, i really want to share my new money knowledge with anyone who will listen, and even those who won't. my sister got in a car accident and i wanted to talk about how to save to pay for a new car. then i was like "oh, wait, are you ok?"
• whenever i go out, i keep written track of my spending. some people are ok with this but others get very uncomfortable when they see me writing down notes on how much i spent after a meal or a drink or a movie.
  
• i always ask for deals in restaurants. if i am told there are specials, i have to know what they are and how much. "what's your cheapest beer?" is a common question of mine, followed by, "how much is it?" the other day i was out at a sushi restaurant and the owner came around with a bottle of sake, offering tastes. i would not accept one until i asked, "is this free?" and he assured me it was. some people think this is funny. others really hate it. i say too damn bad, if you don't like it then buy me a drink and then i won't have to worry about the price.
• i no longer offer to pay for things. i used to sometimes pick up the bill on things here and there, but now i am like "you owe $5 for your drink. plus tip." if someone doesn't leave enough money, i bitch until they shell out what they owe.
• other side of the coin: i only put in what i owe on group bills. if there is not enough money on the table, i refuse to put in more if i don't owe it (which i almost never do, because i always carefully calculate my portion plus tax and tip). i am not carrying the tip cheaters any longer. i think this probably makes me seem cheap, but again, too damn bad. i have covered the cheap bastards for long enough in my life.
  

my new thrifty ways are definitely an adjustment for people. in a way it is good in terms of weeding people out. i have felt that some people have been really supportive, whereas some are just uncomfortable or even try to make fun of me. it is very strange and really shows me who is truly my friend. if it makes you that uncomfortable or annoyed to hear me talk about money and watch me managing mine, then you must not really care about me paying off my debt and being financially stable.

credit score magic

i get free credit score tracking with my providian aka wamu aka chase card. aka the one that fucked me over and charged me 31.49% interest. well look what it is showing today:

FICO® Score Tracking

Track your score for each month that you've been a customer, up to one year.

	686		686		686		662		671		678		678		678		678		672		696		771
	Mar 08		Apr 08		May 08		Jun 08		Jul 08		Aug 08		Sep 08		Oct 08		Nov 08		Dec 08		Jan 09		Feb 09

Provided by: TransUnion

ok. i don't really get what is going on. apparently my credit score has jumped 100 points in the past 2 months. and in those 2 months, i only paid off a little bit of my debt and i also closed a couple accounts (which is supposed to hurt your credit score). based on what i think i know about credit scores, mine should not be increasing like this.

i realize this report of my credit score is probably not super reliable since it is just one credit reporting company and it is not official or whatever. but based on what this has reported in the past, when compared to my actual credit report, it has been accurate.

i feel like my credit score is proud of me and rewarding me for my hard work at sticking to my budget, but i realize that is not actually possible or even remotely based in reality. i wonder what the hell is going on.

i am crabby

why, you ask? well for one thing i am crabby because i am over budget by $0.24 for february. this is the result of several expenses this month. first i had to go to dinner at pigall's before it closed. it's the only 4 star restaurant in ohio and it closed yesterday. clearly i had to eat there. i actually budgeted for it... my monthly eating out budget is $190, and i saved up $130 of that for pigall's. but my dinner actually ended up costing $132. boo.

the other reason i am having problems with my budget is that i don't really have any room in it for unexpected expenses. this month i had to buy new trash cans (both of mine broke... they were those stupid foot press kind), a big tablecloth for a new table that i got donated from friends who were upgrading theirs (new tablecloth is much less expensive than a new table), and i decided to stock up on my face lotion which was on sale at target.

my face lotion is a huge pain in my ass. it is this aveeno brand shit that costs like $14. it pisses me off but i have tried all kinds of other cheap face lotions and they either cause a mild allergic reaction or else they are super greasy. it's the only one i like and i just can't do without it. yet every time i have to buy it, it fucks my budget over. i also went to trader joe's and stocked up which was another assault to my budget.

the upside is that i am spending much less overall on entertainment and eating out (in normal months where i don't go to 4 star restaurants) than i planned. so therefore even though i went way over my $50 household goods/toiletries/etc. budget for the second month in a row, i am still only $0.24 over for the month. so i guess it is ok as long as i am making up for it in other areas? and seriously i am not buying anything i don't need.

the other thing that is making me crabby is that just now i was on facebook looking at my friend mary ellen's pictures from her trip to madrid. i love madrid and went twice while i was in college. and i was thinking to myself how i am so sad because there is no way i am going to europe any time soon. absent some kind of miracle, the absolute soonest i could go there would be 4 years from now when i have paid off my credit cards and saved up some cash.

and then i was like "fuck this credit card debt, what did i spend all that money on anyway?" and i realized that one of the things i racked up credit card debt on was... trips to madrid. fuck me! i can't go to madrid now because i am still paying off trips i took to madrid almost ten years ago. bleah... i hate my debt and i am so crabby right now.

i'm not dead

and i'm sticking to my budget. apparently when you are sticking to your budget, there isn't that much to blog about...

read your mail

one of my many life lessons recently has been the importance of reading your mail. as you guys already know, this whole financial crisis and lifestyle change of mine started when i read my mail and realized that my providian card interest rate had increased from 7.99% to 31.49% without my ever knowing it (because... i never read my mail).

who likes reading mailings from credit cards? no one. no matter how you look at it, it's a reminder of what is lacking in your life. whether you lack money, or you lack the ability to manage your money, it sucks. even if you pay off your credit cards every month, that's a bill you have to pay.

i don't know how many other people out there avoid written mail and just do it all online like i do, but what i have figured out recently is that you are really kind of screwing yourself if you do that. my theory is that credit cards want you to stay in the dark about what is going on in your account... that is why they don't say "YOUR APR IS 31.49%, DUMBASS" in big bold letters when you log in. they save that information for tiny print they mail you that you throw in a box in your sun room.

however, with my new commitment to managing my budget and being totally aware of my financial situation, i am now reading all my credit card mail. and guess what chase bank (which i have two credit cards with) sent me the other day? a notice saying that they are increasing my APR from 8.99% to 12.99% for all future purchases.

fortunately for me, i am not using any credit cards anymore and since all i have is a balance, they can't apply the new APR to the balance that is already on there. but just imagine if i hadn't read this little flyer with the tiny print? i would have fucked myself again.

in other news, january was a successful budget month for me. i actually ended up spending about $500 less than i had budgeted for. i am still working on tweaking the budget as i figure out how much i actually spend on things (something i never bothered to pay attention to before) and try to budget for larger, non-monthly expenses (such as car repairs, weddings, and traveling). but it feels really good to know that i am capable of not only sticking to a budget but actually spending less than i planned.