Ding Dong One Card Is Dead (Paid Off)

Or, it will be . . . when I get paid today. Anyways, the first of the two cards that I have will be paid off today, as soon as I get paid. 

This is an oddity in me not having my paycheque before payday. Usually I get my cheque a day or two early and so early in the morning of payday I do my banking online.

So, ordinarily I would have already deposited and spent my paycheque by now. The money is allocated in the budget and I have it all worked out what goes where.

My best guess is the fact that it is the last payday of the year that Boss wants to make a bit of a presentation. 

Regardless, he has until close of business today to give me my paycheque. The one thing Boss has not been is one to play games with my paycheque, so I am not worried.

So, technically I haven’t paid anything off as I haven’t been paid yet . . . but I will.

With regards to credit and debt, the one point that I wanted to make was that one way to look at it is bringing future money into the present to spend now.

What that means is that when you spend on credit you are bringing money that you will make in the future into the present to spend on something right now.

At some point in you will have to send that money back to the past, in order to pay for that spend that you made back then. You do this by paying that debt off. 

That is why it is so much fun to buy on credit, as you get to spend now with money that you did not have. You get to have the spend and have it not impact your cash on hand.

Which is why it is so hard and so boring to pay off debt, you get the pain of the spend but you don’t get the fun of getting the item that you bought.

I use credit cards for two things, the first is for the ease of spending on my day to day things. 

I make sure to allocate the money to pay off each and every spend in the next payday’s budget right away, so I can:

• See the pain of that spend

• See how that spend impacts my next payday’s budget

• Set my mindset that that spend will be paid off right away

The other thing I use credit for (these days) is to stock up my homestead supplies with what I deem essential, stuff that I must have. 

The prudent part of me wants to wait and buy this stuff over time, but there are things that I just don’t want to wait and risk it either not being available or going up in price.

I am trying to do this dance of being debt free (or as close to it as possible) and having the essential supplies I would need if I was somehow forced to start that homestead right away.

I have my savings, and investments, so technically I could pay both cards off right now. 

The thing with investments and savings is that you don’t dip into them unless you absolutely have to (or to enact that big spend you planned) . .  . such as buying that land/cabin/house/something  that I want to buy. 

None of the things that I am buying are what I call wasteful purchases, but it still aggravates me every time I spend on one of these items.

It is a dance between having what I need and paying off what I have already bought. 

I am doing okay, not great, but okay. I endure what I have to endure today so I can have a better future (so ends theory).

At least I know that one of my credit cards is paid off, and I only have the other “low interest” credit card remaining.