Cat note: Salem cat #1 would like you to know that he is discouraging blogging at 6 in the morning and instead is incurring petting and sleeping since he is lying across my one of of my hands and trying to occupy the other one.
I decided not to post my first budget for this month as I don't think I will have it sorted out in time for this month. Have you ever noticed that most people refer to getting out of debt as "digging out of a hole." I think I take this metaphor to literal because it never really made any sense to me. In stead I think of debt and no debt more in the sense of 'filling' a hole and building a ladder. Let me explain:
Picture yourself standing on the ground and in front of you is a hole and a ladder. Now the hole is were you need to plant your ladder for it to have a sold foundation. If you plant it in the hole you will only reach the ground (zero net worth). So in order to build financial and life assets IE: home, kids, retirement savings, travel savings and so on you need to fill in the hole. If you find yourself with assets and a hole 'debt' its likely that your ladder is on shaky ground and you'd like to shore it up before progressing further. Or you have got only part way up the ladder and despite all your heard work have found that your at a stand still, stagnant. Thus the only way to progress further is to climb down and shore up the foundation. I would like to think of myself as being in the second of these categories. Don't get me wrong I am still staring down a large black whole, but I have a few 'assets' and now I want to make sure that MY ladder is on sold foundation so I am climbing down and putting more towards filling the whole than building up the 'ladder.' I hope my analogy makes sense to someone else besides me.
Where am I going with this? Well one of my holes got a little smaller this past month. This month I put in:
May 5~ $407.55
May 6 ~ $3.46 (Snow flake)
May 6~ $4.25 (snow flake)
May 19~$525
May 24~ $24.61(Cell phone snow flake)
May 24~ $125.54 (Easter over time pay)
May 31~ $1.68 (storage snowflake)
Total paid: $1,092.09
Daily Interest for the month of May: $3.63
Total monthly interest: $112.55
Total without interest paid in April on LoC: $979.54
Current outstanding balance on LoC: $-29,088.13
$1.68 already added to snow flake jar standing at $331.82, 4.25+3.25= $7.50, pumps jar up to $339.32
Good going. You keep filling that hole till it is solid ground. Then up up and away.
ReplyDeleteOnce you see debt as an obstacle in your way it doesn't matter what you reference it too. Just overcome it
I like you analogy. I always see debt as a mountain. I have to climb every month but the mountain is getting smaller. Good progress for you. I love the snowflake method. I will need to start posting mine.
ReplyDeleteI think whatever analogy works for you is the way to go. For me I think of a bar graph with the savings being above the bar and the debt going below the bar (it does sorta look like a hole if you think of it that way). Major congrats to getting you LOC below $30,000!!
ReplyDelete