Letting Things Fall in to Place

For the last little while I have been musing over what to do with my GST cheque. Should I put it into my Christmas fund to get it finished off or into my visa account or into my LoC. I have decided to put it into my drum roll…. My Christmas fund. Little Lamb has consistently told me that I should focus on one thing at a time, instead of splitting my money a little bit at a time over lots of little things. And I think she is right. Also I called TD to see how I was coming with my Loc this month and I was pleasantly surprised. Last my over time will be on this week’s pay, so I have decided to take the over time minus the rest I need to finish my Christmas fund and put that into my visa card. It should bring it down at least by $150.00. I hate that I have to use my over time money for consumer debt but you do what you must. The next thing is that starting next month I have to decide if I will focus on my vet bills fund or my car fund. But that’s a discussion for another day.

On a side not as of today I have been working for the Bank exactly 1 year. Gosh how time flies.

Confessions of an indebted TD Student Line of Credit

In an attempt to not study for 30 min I decided to flipped though my old TD line of credit statements. I have only found a early as Feb 2006 when my credit limit was a small 8,000. Interest was dirty high at 8%, 7.25% and 7.5% though out the year.

I often want to ask people if they remember the very first thing that they put on their (visa, LoC, other consumer debt). I was always sure I knew what mine was but as I flipped thought my statements, it was reaffirmed. The very first thing I put on my LoC was my first and last month's deposit for my first place on  George st. N. That was March 28, 2006. I had had my line of credit since before September 2005 but had not used it. To 'spend' that $900 I was charged 74 cents. After that of the first year, most of my LoC was rent; though there are a quit a few spots were I paid my visa off with my LoC 60$, 100$ ect a shot. There are even months like June 2006 where all that my statement shows is payments, interest and insurance AKA no new debt And even by the end, Dec 2006 my available limit was 5,500.50 of the $8,000.00 I was given. So were did I fall off?

Some time between Jan 2007 and Jan 2009 I fell off the rail.

 I can't find the statements that consist of that time. June 2009 was a bang up month, I spend on my LoC $2,513.42. Yup that's a lot of money to blow though. But it didn't matter I still had 6,514.02 of averrable credit before I hit the 34,000.00 max. By December of 2009 my available limit was $1,668.41. The LoC was my never ending debit card and its clear that's how I saw it and used it. The statements don't lie.

Despite all the frivolous spending that I did that month (June 2009) and there was a lot like: $6.00 to E-Specially F (I don't even know what or who that company is, nor do I remember what the 6$ bought). The most frivolous thing I put on my LoC was candy. Yup I have a sweet tooth. The day after my birthday in September I went to the Bulk Barn and spent $50.52 on candy and a glass jar to to put it in. I justified it as my 'bday gift' to myself. The jar sat on my desk and I ate a lot of candy over the next month and half.

So there you have it, the day I starting digging my debt hole "March 28, 2006" for a deposit on my first apartment. The worst of my spending ways: June 2009 at $2, 513.42. And my most frivolous buy: $50.52 on candy.

What about you, can you answer these 3 questions:
1) what was the first thing you put on credit?
2) what was your worst debt month?
3) What was your most frivolous item you bought on debt?

Please I Need Your Advice/ Opinion!

I got a bit of studying done yesterday but not nearly as much as I would have liked. I also did some number  crunching. Before I did my 'Own Up to my debt' post I had my student debt at a nice round number like $40,000.00. Well would you believe it was almost $10,000 more and at the time I wasn't including my visa card debt in that calculation. Also at that time I set myself the 3.5 year goal, I told every one that if it took 2 or 3 jobs I was prepared to do it. My BF at the time asked me not to fearing that it would sound the begging to the end of our relationship. So out of respect for him I didn't. I also thought I would get a job that started at $40,000 and guess what I didn't. Now this is no one's fault but my own. In my defence I took the first job offered and 10 days after I had handed in my last paper for my last course of my BA degree, I was sitting in training class. So maybe I could have stuck it out and waited for a 'better' job but no one was paying my bills that wasn't an option in my option.

But I digress, let me get back to the the original topic of this post. As I was saying I have been number crunching. With my visa debt my total debt worked out to be $49,058.75 so in order to get it paid off in 3.5 years I have to put $14, 016.78 in to my debt year 1,2,3 AND year 1/2. I have been musing over if I should make year 1 Sept. 2010-2011 or Jan 2011-Dec 2011, since you will notice (see 2011Goals) that one of my goals this year is to put $15,000 into my student debt. However I have now decided to count year 1 of debt reduction, Sept 30, 2010- Sept 30. 2011. Since I think I officially started this journey Sept 9, 2010. This means as of May 31 2011 I have paid off $10,122.48 in debt (sundry debt, visa debt and student debt). However this leaves me with $3,894.30 to go before Sept 30 2011. That means I would have to put at least $973.58 between now and the end of Sept each month in to my student debt, outside of min payments to reach my Year 1 target.  Given my current debt reduction rate the number is possible however by the end of this month/ early next month I will have a car. This will significantly reduce my ability to meet this target.

On top of this my plan is after I know what my minimum monthly payments are to shift focus from aggressively paying down my LoC to my OSAP, since it is both the smallest amount and has the highest interest. And of course in October I will be in debt reduction year #2.

Another piece of back ground before I present you with my dilemma. In Nov. of 2009 I took $1000 of my OSAP money and put it into a mutual fund, I wanted to invest it in stocks but was convinced at the bank to do a mutual find (that's a post for another day). Any ways this mutual fund has done crap all for me its was up to $1115 a few months back but as of May was down to $1110. Since its done crap all for me and its likely I have paid more in interest to OSAP than it has made, I am going to cash it out. I had thought to leave it until Nov. 2011 at which point it would have been sitting for 2 years and depositing back in to my OSAP. I am hoping to recoup the $1000 since there will likely be fees for cashing it out.

Now this is my dilemma should I cash it out early (in Sept) to help me meet my Year 1 debt target
                                                       OR
Should I leave it until Nov. and let it be part of debt reduction year #2 knowing I will likely not have met my debt reduction target for deb year #1

WHAT DO YOU THINK????  Please any guidance is greatly appreciated.

Tax Return and Visa Card Update

I have noticed that I don't have very exciting titles for my posts.  But to be honest I really can't come up with anything exciting. I will endeavour to change this. Any ways I deposited my Tax return today and walked the $850.20 over to TD to pay off my visa card. Or I thought I was paying it off in full. Turns out I was $14.95 short. So when I got home today I made a bill payment from Scotia to TD visa for $14.95. As such I can't say I am consumer debt free yet... sigh how depressing. In the mean time I am actually going to go through my old visa bills to find out when the last time my bill would have come in with a Zero balance. I don't think I have ever had one; it would be interesting to see.

I moved $450 into my car fund which brings it up to $3,361.80. I also moved $50.00 into my retirement fund, I have no idea what it's at. Last I moved $98.73 into my What if... fund, which brings it up to $108.73. I may have to dip into it to get my friend a bday gift and card. I'm not so happy about this but I can't not show up to her place empty handed. And this is what the fund is for in the end. Example: What if... [INSERT FRIENDS NAME] birth day comes up and I have no spare cash.

After I finish this post and updating my side bars, I have to sit down and start writing cheques out to my account and to the charity I sponsor a child from.

I have been mulling over stuff with my line of credit and I think it is going to be really tight this month. I really want to get it under $30,000.00 but I don't know if I can do it or not. Cross fingers!!! It will depend on what's left in my bills account after I pay all my bills this month. Last month I had it all predicted so when I was updating my net worth before the bill came in there was no surprises. This month is going to be different.  

Plastic Crazy (credit cards)

I worked this past Saturday. It was dead so of course when your tied to a phone and desk the only thing to do is search the net. While on the net I came a cross the most stupid thing. It happened quite innocently, I was on the phone with a client who had a new visa card and wanted to know a symbol meant that was above the first four digits. The client was asking if it meant something like she was getting a new insurance. I had no idea so I googled the kind of card she had and up popped lots of pictures of her card. I clicked on one and after I finished with the client I glanced down to see the site I had lifted the picture from. Turned out to be chat forum from redtag.com which is a Canadian last minute getaway site. The topic peaked my interest so I went back to the first page.

The first post which started the forum off was a question: What do you carry in your wallet?

As I read more and more of the posts, the form developed into 'how many debt and credit cards do you keep in your wallet.' Some people posted pictures of their plastic cards lined up others just wrote them down. Now if your going to take pictures its always best to black out the personal stuff like your card number and name. A lot of people forgot to do this, talk about stupid. That's like jumping up and down and asking for identity theft or fraud to happen to you.

One thing that was really shocking was the shear number of things people kept in their wallets. One woman has 18, that's right 18 little pieces of plastic which consisted of 8 debt cards and 10 credit cards!!! I had no idea one person was allowed that many credit cards. The kicker was the same woman had 4 more at home all credit cards that she was debating about getting rid off but she hadn't decided if she could 'life with out them' no joke! Another person boasted about how he spends $3,000 a year in annual fees for his card and how it gets him in to the VIP lounges at the airports. That's a lot of money to waste of semi-conferrable chairs at an airport.

Another thing that blow me away the shear number of doubles. People who would have multiples of the same card all with different accounts. What is the point of that, can someone explain that to me? It might be because I was looking for it unknowingly but a lot of posters had visa cards from the bank that I work for. Some had multiples of the annual fee cards that we have. Which means there are people in this world with 2 identical cards that they pay $140 a year for. Don't people know that 2 of the same kinds of cards doses not give you better or more travel insurance?? o.O

This web forum was like a bad collision, terrible to look but addictive you couldn't take your eyes off of it. I was tempted to post the second question: how must is your consumer debt?

Is a piece of plastic in your wallet really worth all this?