So . . . This is a Thing This Month

I will admit that ever since I broke the one month to go to Total Debt Freedom that my eager anticipation has kicked up. 

(I apologize to everyone for being a tad annoying on this point.)

Ever since I turned the page (literally) on the month of September and looked at the month of October, Total Debt Freedom Day has been staring me in the face.

I seemed to need more of a thing to do . . . daily . . . so I’ve started doing this . . . 

  

Yep, ever since the second of October, I have been crossing off the day before on the calendar. That way I can see how many days are done and how few are remaining.

I also get the satisfaction of crossing off a day and telling myself that that day is done one down, so few to go.

I use this and other little games to keep me occupied and my spirits up as the clock ticks down on this long journey towards wresting control of my paycheque back from the banks.

I will turn this page on debt, so what if I chose to make up silly little rituals to keep me motivated (and thereby preventing me from doing not do anything stupid).

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive and keep moving forward!

Less Than Two Weeks To Go!

It is official, I have broken the two week mark until Total Debt Freedom Day. 

  

It is less than two weeks before I am totally debt free and living in Banff for the week to celebrate. 

To be honest, today marks exactly one month until the 7th of November when I will pay off my Low Interest Credit Card and thereby technically pay off my last debt.

Yet with the Wanda Loan being my last and largest debt, and my last contractually obligated monthly bill/debt, I am calling this one done. 

Since the credit card will be paid off on the following payday, I am considering it to be under the heading of “current expenses.” 

But, by all means ignite a large debate over social media over this and thereby driving a tsunami of traffic to my humble blog.

Anywhoos, I am starting to let myself get a bit more excited, yet at the same time I am cautious. 

I am trying to walk that line; letting myself enjoy this, yet not get to careless, cocky, or sloppy, and in the process, sabotage my efforts.

I am still going over my checklists and budgets; ensuring that I am doing what I need to do to pay off the Wanda Loan. I am doing my due diligence.

I am starting to plan for life beyond Total Debt Freedom Day, however. I am putting my goals in order on what I want to, by when and how . . . all after Total Debt Freedom Day. 

As I have said before Total Debt Freedom Day is a Crossroads Goal, not a destination. 

You do not stop at a Crossroads, you: pause, reflect, and move forward, ever onwards towards your next Crossroads Goal, in the never ending quest to continually better yourself and your life.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

Payday Update

This is the last payday before the payday that I will pay off the Wanda Loan. This means that what I do with this payday will directly affect whether or not that will happen.

This payday turned out to be marginally better than I had expected. I stress marginally, as in a smidgen better, nowhere near budgetary minimum, let alone WOO HOO territory!

I still have to hedge my bets so to speak against how bad my next paycheque will be. I can’t just fund everything and stroll merry along. 

What if the paycheque turns out to be worse than I thought? What then? Well, as a last ditch effort I will do the unthinkable before the unconscionable. 

I will take a cash advance on my credit card (the unthinkable) before pushing paying off the Wanda Loan one payday (the unconscionable).  

So, I have funded my groceries wallet with what I need to exist (including what is left in the wallet). I have been draining the wallet recently, instead of funding it back to its budget (as in: what should be in there). 

This is a tactic that I use in such cases, one measure to stretch my dollar and still live. 

I put less back into the wallet then I spent out of it, thereby saving a bit of cash. You can only do this for so long, however. Remember kids, indefinite deficit spending only works if you’re a government and we’re not.

My one treat meal a week will go on the credit card, and I won’t buy gas this payday.

I have more than enough gas to make it through, so I won’t even put the gas on the credit card. That I may do next payday, if needed; (I stress if needed).

All of this will be made right on the payday of the 7th of November when I pay the credit card off in full. After which I shall begin my Rebuilding Phase. 

So, all in all, I’m still on track to pay off the Wanda Loan come next payday!

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

The Lesson Of Two Bad Paycheques

I checked . . . these next two paycheques are my worst this year, perhaps longer. This got me thinking . . . what if this had happened 4 years ago?

I am now standing on the cusp of being able to live on approximately 10% of my take home pay (base on my budgeted targeted minimum).

Four years ago I was paying for: 

• A 3 bedroom townhouse (had a roommate, but I was “the responsible one.”)

• Truck payments

• Credit card minimum payments ($500.00 a month)

• Truck insurance payments

• Power and gas (for Townhouse)

• Food

• Gas (for truck)

• Etc.

I had no savings and was living near the bottom of my actual bank overdraft. I would have had found it hard to live on 90% of my budgeted minimum.

I was so maxed out and stretched thin for so long that it was a way of life. To me it was just “normal” it was just what people did. 

It wasn’t until the chill went down my spine when I realized that unless I changed things, I would be facing mandatory retirement age with the same bills and no savings.

While things are tight for me now, they are tight because of a self-imposed deadline. I am doing this to myself and I could easily relieve the pressure by just calling this whole endeavour off.

I can take a hit like this in my budget, a hit that I could not take four years ago (again an approximate 10% drop in take home pay for both paycheques).

Yet, I did not go through all this so to save the company money and be able to take a pay cut. I did this for me, I did this to salvage the cash from my own financial system to put it to use for me.

(Okay, point of clarification here. To be clear, my pay was not cut, it was just a combination of the number of work days within these two affected payperiods, and the fact that sales have slowed. It is just one of those random things that happen beyond our, or even our boss’s, control.)

Let this be a lesson and hopefully motivation for those of you out there who are in a situation that I was in 4 years ago, to actually do something to turn your financial situation around. You can do it, I am proof of that.

I know that things will turn around for me; one way or another I will make sure that they do. 

Sales will pick up again and that there will be payperiods with more working days in them. Things will bounce back.

The one key difference starting three paycheques from now (Nov 7) is that I will be entering, what can only be called . . . “The Rebuilding Phase.”

I have torn down my life and lifestyle to its bare minimum in order to eliminate debt. Once that is done I will start rebuilding my life and finances . . . starting with my finances.

After all, I want land (160 Acers minimum) to start a town which will help break this vicious victimizing fiscal cycle for its residents.

As always: Keep your head up, keep your attitude positive and keep moving forward!

Adjusting To The New Normal

I have my goal, and I have a plan. I am working the plan and the plan is working . . . it’s insane, but it is working nonetheless.

Every penny I spend, whether it is cash (out of a wallet) or out of the bank account (via debit card) or on the credit card is now under intense scrutiny. 

Now, more than ever before I am asking myself “Do I really need this spend?” 

Yes. It has come to that.

My budget is tight, but even if my more conservative paycheque estimates come to fruition, I will still make the day . . . and the day after (Nov 7). 

You know, the day that I will pay off (in full) the even increasing credit card balance on the sole credit card that I am using.

I know that the more I put on that credit card the further I go from being able to call Oct 23rd “Total Debt Freedom Day.”

For me, despite how stringent your definition of “Total Debt Freedom” is, Oct 23rd is still the day I consider that I will finally turn the page on debt. 

This is because it is the last of my contractual monthly obligated debts; no more obligated regular payments to anyone. The remaining ones I control (credit card and cell bill).

Over the past two days I have been going through a myriad of emotions: from anger and frustration to downhearted with a healthy dose of injustice, and on to indignation, determination and yes hope.

I have been through worse and I will yet still go through worse. If my past has taught me one thing it is this . . . I can do this . . . I can and will make the day.

I just have to spend as close to nothing as possible over the next five weeks.

Why five weeks and not three? Well, it’s three weeks to Total Debt Freedom Day and another two to Nov 7 and the official beginning of the Rebuilding Phase.

I will be okay. I will get through this. I will make the day. I am too stubborn not to.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive and keep moving forward!

Duelling Shrinking Paycheques

We’ve all had it, a bad paycheque, one that does not meet your hopes or expectations. Somehow you have to adjust your plans and budget accordingly. 

Well, I am about to have two bad paycheques in a row . . . and it seems that they are trying to see who can outdo the other in underperforming. 

At the worst possible time, no less.

These two paycheques are the last two before paying off the Wanda Loan. Actually it is the one before it (Oct 7) and the one that I will pay the Wanda Loan off with (Oct 22).

These paycheques along with the contents of my bank accounts are all that I have to work with. 

So that means that my savings and Wanda Payment Targets can’t be mucked with. I can’t stray from the plan. 

Simply put, I have to continue saving and paying what I had already planned to do, or I will miss Total Debt Freedom Day.

Whilst doing that, I still have to find some way to exist. 

How do I know this? Well, yesterday was the start of a new payperiod. So it is also the day that I put in my timesheet for the upcoming payday on the 7th (Saturday). 

With my best projections, it looks like I will fall short of my “Budgetary Minimum” (the amount that I base my budgets on) by at least a decent night out for two . . . with drinks.

On this day I also prepare my next paycheque’s timesheet and estimate what that paycheque (as in the one after this one) may look like. 

That one looks like it may miss by as much as a nice dinner for three. So I am now hoping to only miss by a nice dinner for two. 

(That is what passes for hope in my life these days). 

The easy answer would be to just shove the day that I pay off Wanda back one paycheque. Sure, bring logic into this.

I will somehow make this work and make the day, for more than the reason that I have already booked my celebratory vacation week.

For me, this is somehow beyond personal, this is my line in the sand. This day (and me along with it) have been shoved around so many times, that I am planting my feet.

This is the day, and I will make the day: October, 23rd, 2017.

I have already made the budget work by doing some minor tweaks like . . . tossing out the grocery and treats budgets . . . small stuff like that. 

I have less than a dollar to spare, but I have made it. I will continue to keep as much cash in my bank as I can between now and the 23rd. 

The trade-off for this insane budgeting is that I will pay the Visa off in full on the 7th of November. I will use the money that I had earmarked to rebuild my Personal Overdraft to do so. 

PI will then continue with my RRSP and Mid-Term Savings plans and just trickle save up the Personal Overdraft with the cash that was earmarked to pay the Visa Card off.

The Paying off of the Wanda Loan does mark a change and shift in the phase or chapter of my life that I am in. So for me it is still the monumental day.

Is it actually Total Debt Freedom Day or is the day really November 7, 2017? I will let others say what they want and argue the semantics. 

For me, October 23rd will always be the day things shifted and I finally turned the page on debt.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive and keep moving forward! 

In 0 and 3, I’ll Be Free!

Today is exactly three weeks from the morning that I will walk into the bank, and pay off the Wanda Loan. 

  

Sure, it’s snowing and I have winterized Wanda over the weekend, none of that matters, for I will be free in three weeks.

With the winterizing of Wanda, my fresh water tank and plumbing is now deactivated for the winter. 

This means that I don’t have to worry about my pipes (or water pump) freezing and cracking, which could cause a great deal of damage within Wanda.

It also means that I can’t turn the tap and expect water to come out. This will be the cause until spring, perhaps even the may long weekend.

Again, this is just something that I have come to adjust to. Even through summer I still carted my water in bottles home with me. 

I use my 5 gallon jug with a spigot (tap) for my fresh water all year round. It is just something that I am used to.

Well, in the dead of winter I have to forgo the jug due to freezing concerns. I end up bringing home just enough water to get me through until I can get more. 

All of this will finally be worth it when I finally become debt free. 

Again, in the interest of being honest, I do have some expenses on a Visa card, but that card will be done before the end of the year and is manageable.

All I know is that we have entered the month that contains Total Debt Freedom Day . . . 

  

And that is something worth celebrating!

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!