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Home > Archive: May, 2015

Archive for May, 2015

Been a While!

May 29th, 2015 at 04:54 pm

So much for committing to blogging regularly...sigh. Oh well. Haven't had much to report, certainly not a ton of progress anyway. I'll try to summarize Smile

The Great: Mom decided that since she essentially bought my sister a new car (about $22k) a few years ago (long story), and is giving my brother dad's truck (in perfect condition and worth about $17k), that she was going to pay off my car. I wish I was a big enough person and/or in the position to turn her down, but I'm not....so in a few months, the car loan will be paid off, freeing up cash flow for lots of other things. There's a possibility (and this is with Mom's blessing) that I will trade the paid off car in for the car I wanted in the first place, taking out a small loan (~$7k), but I'd like to see how long I can go without a car payment to further other goals. Mom is pushing for this option, because she knows how unhappy I am with the car. This is clearly life-changing.

The Good: I started my 401k. It's only at 6% for now (with a 3% match). Once the car is paid off, I'll bump it up to 10%, with a plan in place to get to 15% by next April. Cap One Secured card increased my limit. Credit score has gone up slightly. I opened a new checking account with Key Bank for a $200 bonus today (should get bonus in 2 months or so). It's a completely free account. Once I get this bonus, will be looking for some others to do as well. All bonus money will go towards current CC debt.

The Bad: Money has been tight (see "The Ugly" below), so I unfortunately spent the additional credit line on the Cap One card, and have been maintaining the maxed out Verve card (make a payment, spend the payment, sigh). Things should loosen up now and it should be easier to make it from check to check soon. Once this happens, the cards are coming out of my wallet. Once the Cap One card is paid off, I'll begin exploring converting it to an unsecured (which would get me back my $900 deposit, which can go towards savings/old debt).

The Ugly: I've been doing a lot of traveling lately. My favorite musician has been on tour, and so I was away for 3 of the 5 weekends in May. This definitely set me back a ways, not sure of the total I spent, but it was probably somewhere around $1500 (this was thankfully all cash, that's the one benefit of cards being maxed out I suppose), it makes me wince a little. What's done is done, though...and moving on now.

So, there's the last 2 months in a nutshell. Numbers on the sidebar updated (except 401k - deposit is made on payday, but I don't see it until the next day, should be close to the $1k mark today, wooo!!!!)