Dec 1, 2008
The Daily Poverty Post.
Welcome to Bossy’s Poverty Party, an online support group for reining in spending, getting your finances in order, and climbing out of debt. Everyone basically knows what steps to take, but it is nearly impossible to climb that mountain alone.
So every day nearly every day over the next year, Bossy will use this space to report her spending and missteps, along with cheap recipes, savings tips, and suggested tricks and goals.
There’s something about the first of the month that makes Bossy want to start a new exercise regime and throw all of her clothes in the dumpster. But barring that, let’s check on her credit balances, shall we?
But before we do, Bossy has this to say: remember way back during the Revolutionary War when Bossy suggested going online to find all of your balances and then saving those links to a folder marked Debt Watch that lives on your desktop?
Well, Bossy did this, but she hasn’t been checking her balances at all. In fact, five minutes ago was the first time she attempted to see if eating the contents of six-hundred cans has reduced her debt — and guess what happened? Bossy selected the links from her Debt Watch folder, but she couldn’t access any of her accounts without first reentering her account name and password and please. As if Bossy remembers any of that.
But Bossy persevered, and when she says she persevered, she means she nudged her husband out of bed and made him come downstairs and access the accounts.
And here’s what she learned:
Bossy and her husband still have their suffocating home equity line of credit balance: $42,853
And speaking of suffocating, have you met Bossy’s student loan? $8,124.06
They still owe money on Bossy’s red Honda, but that balance has gone down from $3,215 to $2,684
In addition, their primary Mastercard balance went from $14,250 to $14,024, and their secondary Mastercard balance went from $2,200 to $1,358.
This means Bossy’s debt has been reduced by $1,599 in two months! Which is great news! Where great equals $69,043.06 shy of enough.
Go check your balances today!
Check below for the list of blogs already participating in the Poverty Party. And don’t forget to comb the comment section for links to entertaining Poverty posts across the web.
Well done Bossy! At that rate, you’ll be done in…7ish years? That’s really not as bad as it sounds. That’s without any income increases or savings increases factored in. You have a PLAN.
How is it you can easily do complex blogger things that cause me to bang my head against the wall in frustration, but you didn’t know you have to re-enter your passwords to check any financial site? I keep all my passwords written on a small piece of paper in my desk. Otherwise I’d be utterly lost.
I got my credit card debt down to $376! It was ten times that a few months ago!
Great job Bossy and husband. What I have read is to pay off your debt with the lowest balance. Then to take that payment and apply it to the payment you are already paying on the debt with the next lowest balance. So, pay of the 2nd MC and then apply that payment to the car balance. But just what I have read. You are doing a great job.
wow! that’s awesome, Bossy!
Baby steps Bossy. It helps to focus on one goal at a time. The snowball effect.
Come play “12 (frugal) Dates of Christmas” at jlogged http://jlogged.com/
Just think, if you keep up this pace, in like 4-6 months, you’ll have the secondary credit card and car paid off, and then you can start throwing those payment amounts towards the primary credit card and it will dwindle way quicker than it seems like it wil. You’re doing a great thing — keep up the good/cheap work.
86 months or 7 years… that’s really not that bad, but that is at 0 interest rate…. Hang in there bossy! Mine is no better!
I just paid off my car *2005 Acura MDX) last month! I am so excited. We pay off our credit cards every month so really the only debt we have is my husband’s car, which will be paid off in February, and our mortgage.
Kudos! Keep plugging away at that smaller MasterCard debt — once that one gets paid off you’ll feel such a huge, unspeakable relief.