July 9, 2008
Photo by AMagill via Flickr
When everyone thinks about how to save additional dollars, everyone is so quick to look towards being frugal. Though this is very valid and will result in additional funds for investing, we forget that this isn’t the only way! What about increasing your means rather than limiting yourself?
Some sample ways to increase your means are:
Start a Business - We are in a great time right now where it is easier than ever to start a business. The internet allows for some wonderful things. One of them is very low startup capital (if any!) is needed for some businesses and the internet allows for the small fries to compete with the major companies. The internet often lets the cream rise to the top organically thanks to services like search engines and social networking.
Start a Blog - It is easier than ever to get one going. Jump over to wordpress and download their software or get one hosted for you. You can make blogs on anything that interests you and if you develop a readership, there are many services available to monetize your traffic.
Free Sign Up Bonuses - You see these all over the place for signing up for various savings accounts nad credit cards. This is a smaller perk and doesn’t recur but every little bit helps.
Get Cash Back - You can get cash back for your online purchases through services like eBates or Fat Wallet. Want more cash back? Buy those purchases with a credit card that offers you cash back.
Take a Little Overtime At Work - Bank/Invest/Pay Debt with all the extra funds.
Ask For That Raise - You deserve it. If you don’t, work a little harder…jeez..
Every bit helps and if you can permanently increase your means, imagine all the extra savings and how much faster your financial goals will be realized!
July 8, 2008
As of July 8, 2008:
Car Loan $4,253.42
Student Loans $96,095.59
Total: $ 100,349.01
Obtaining this goal will be the thing that really opens up our life a lot more. It will release a major strain on our cash flow and make it so that we can really start either getting into a bigger house or piling up some investment assets. These two loans account for a bit over $1,000 a month in payments.
We’ve been making excellent progress so far! We had two car loans in there but we paid off one for $7,800 in about two years and we paid the other down to $4,253.42 from $15,000. We are working it down steadily.
July 8, 2008
“If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.”
- John Irving
July 7, 2008
Current Date: July 7, 2008 | Current Savings: ~$2,500
Target Date: October 31, 2008 | Target Savings: $10,000
But you said this blog was about eliminating debt!
It is but there needs to be some kind of security blanket to ensure that if there is an emergency, I do not have to resort to credit cards. We actually had the cash savings up to about 12-13 thousand but we learned a hard lesson in tax this year and then needed to pay 2,000 in emergency vet bills for our dog.
Why $10,000?
It is a nice round number to target for now. It isn’t enough to sustain us if one of us loses our job but it can be very helpful in most emergencies. In the future, I would like to target 3-6 months of living expenses in our savings account.
Photo Credit: Coin Site
July 6, 2008
Assets
Cash Savings: $2,581.90
Treasury Bonds: $611.36
401k / IRA / Pension (pre tax) $12,044.05
Home (estimate) $141,500.00
Total: $156,737.31
Liabilities
Car Loan $4,253.42
Student Loans $96,095.59
Mortgage $135,748.70
Total $236,097.71
Net Worth -$79,360.40
Blog Income:
None (Just started!)
Credit Cards?
I’ve done pretty good at keeping the credit cards out of the picture there. Over the past two years, they have actually paid me instead of me paying them! I may charge certain everyday things but I pay it off every two weeks when I do the bills. This ensures I will never have a late fee and I don’t let the credit get carried away. The result is no finance charge due to the card’s grace period and 1% cash back on the purchases. That is a nice turn of events when they only pay me. 
Student Loans
This figure includes the student loans for both me and my wife. The reason these are a big problem (other than for it being almost 100k!) is that the interest rates vary widely from 2.8% all the way up over 12%. The loans are consolidated and the government loan portion is the part with the lowest rate. It was the private loans that were the killers but there was no way to get around it at the time. We were both taking a full load of courses while working part time and the amount of tuition meant we needed to take out the loans.
Car Loan
We are making great progress on this one. My wife’s car is paid off and we are closing in on my car. This was the first piece of debt I wanted to get rid of since it offers no tax benefit.
I’ll be posting these updates monthly so stay tuned!
July 6, 2008
About BloggingDownDebt.com
On this site, you will be able to follow me on my journey towards becoming debt free. You will see exactly what I have for debt and track my progress monthly. Any revenue from this blog will be applied directly to the debt and will also be shown here monthly.
About Me
I am by no means a financial guru. I am 25 and happily married. My wife and I both graduated college and began careers. I went the corporate route and she went the health care route. I decided to start this blog because it is amazing how much debt you rack up when you just start off your lives. My wife and I graduated college owing about $50,000 each! I desperately did not want to be stuck in debt for the next 20-30 years of my life and personal finance tips and tricks peaked my interest.
I hope this blog is able to help others the way some of the blogs I have read have already helped me.
Want to follow along?
I’ll be posting my actual net worth details, thoughts along the way and interesting personal finance tips I find. If this sounds interesting to you, please pick up our RSS feed and follow along!
Thanks for reading!
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