I made a New Year’s resolution this year to get my finances in order and so far I am doing ok. The first thing I did was check my credit report to make sure everything was ok there. They were as I didn’t see anything I wasn’t expecting to see. What I did see however was a boatload of credit card debt and that my friends was what I wanted to take care of this year.
I had three different cards and all of them were pretty much maxed out. I don’t have good credit to begin with so the totals weren’t extraordinary or anything. I don’t want to give a specific number but I will say that combined they were easily over 10k. Two of them had pretty high interest rates so the first order of business was to consolidate those two into one payment at a cheaper rate on a different card.
Once that was done I started to penny pinch on everything. I stopped eating out all the time which was a big money saver in itself. I also cancelled things like Netflix and my Sirius radio which I still miss to this day. I made myself a promise that once I’m debt free that is the first thing I will get back. It might be in two or three years but at least it is something to look forward to. I canceled cable a long time ago (that was like $80 a month) but I don’t think I’ll be able to ever get rid of the internet; it’s a necessary expense.
That is pretty much all I have done and like I said so far it is working for me. I am paying way more on my cards than I ever was and slowly but surely they are starting to drop. I made out a payment schedule and if everything stays the same and I don’t have any big hiccups like my car breaking down or something I should be in the clear by early 2014.