Stay The Course

I hate that phrase, it always irritates me, especially when others say it to me. “Stay the course,” “Keep calm and carry on,” etc, etc.

The frustrating thing is that those phrases are right, they are good, they are what most of us, myself included, need to hear from time to time.

The other is to be reminded that change is not quick, there is not montage to quickly go from novice to expert in two minutes or less; life is not like that.

The troubling thing is that we have to go through the boring and tedious bits in order to get to the end and achieve our goal.

The same is true for me, for while I can see and envision myself being totally debt free I am not there yet, in fact I am just over a year away, and that is a tough year of tight budgets. 

Then again, scrimping, saving, and economizing are not new to me, so I can and will do this. I will also be celebrating being totally debt free in one year’s time.

That will be a glorious day, something worth celebrating, and yes worth going through all that I have gone through.

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

My Own Pilot Project

So, in my own style, I made a spreadsheet yesterday to try to figure out just how that new system would work in paying down the Wanda Loan.

It was quite a spreadsheet, it was complex, intricate and in a word: impressive. The results, however, were mixed and unclear. 

In the end, I wasn’t sure just how effective either the new system or the spreadsheet actually was.

I have decided, however, to just go ahead and see how things go.

For the month of December, I will charge on ahead and:

1. Pay my regular Wanda Payments.

2. Pay an extra $100.00 (on the loan) on the odd (or non-Wanda payment Thursday).

3. Pay $1300.00 each payday (on the loan). 

The revised spreadsheet will simply measure the results of what happened. I can already figure out how much of the payment went to the Principle and how much went to Interest. 

I can do this by simple math and by recording the outstanding balance on a regular basis. I do this just after each payment has gone through. 

Since this does not change until another payment goes through, I can then know what affect each of these payments had on outstanding balance. 

I wanted to get started earlier, even with the small Off-Thursday payments, but I simply can’t, my budget is just too tight until the first December Paycheque.

I will try to scrimp out a bit of cash so as to do the extra payment on the 1st of December, but we will see if this is possible. After all, I have other goals I must achieve before starting this.

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

A New Game

So, yesterday, or more specifically midnight last night, was one of my regularly scheduled Wanda Payments. 

This means that I can, through a simple calculation determine just what amount each of these payments is coming off of the loan. 

I use this to determine just how quickly these payments will chip away on that overall balance. 

Currently my payments are $122.38 bi-weekly (every second Thursday) and the difference that this last payment made in the outstanding balance was $43.08.

This means that as it stands now, only 35% of that payment was on the principle (the outstanding balance) and 65% of that payment was interest.

Sooo . . . this got me thinking about new and inventive ways to pay as little interest as possible, for a few reasons, but mostly just for the sport of it. 

Also, due to the fact that I spent approximately $50,000 over five years to pay back $17,000.00 in credit card debt for stuff that I don’t have any more, the thought of paying next to no interest on the remainder of this loan is veeeeerrrryyy appealing to me.

(That and the image of some fat-cat banker up in some concrete and glass tower having a complete hissy-fit over what I am doing and how I am “cheating the bank out of what is rightfully theirs (interest)” is also a happy thought.) 

So, what I will try out next Thursday (or Wednesday evening rather) is to make an extra payment of $100.00 and see what effect that has on the interest paid on the loan. 

This payment will sink me into my personal overdraft but the experiment will be worth it.

It should, in theory, cut those interest chucks in half, since I am paying an extra chunk and paying it early. 

The plan, as it stands now is to pay $100.00 on the off-Thursdays, as in the Thursday that is not my regularly scheduled Wanda Payment. I will also put those large chunks of cash on the loan when I get paid. 

The combination of all of this, should, keep the interest down to a minimum and thereby pay that loan off even faster. As well as cheat the bank out of as much cash as possible (evil cackle).

Unless, of course, there is some magic piece of fine print in which the bank can invoke to basically say that I am the customer and therefore must get screwed and always pay the maximum amount of interest. 

No matter what happens, I will blog about it here so that, as always, you can learn from my experiences, more specifically, my mistakes.  

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

Wanda Paydown Estimator

Okay, so with the change in plans to pay off the Wanda Loan, this means there is a great deal of uncertainty as to just how this will unfold.

The other question is if I will still be able to make the day, while putting less on the loan than I had originally planned to save. 

To answer this, I made yet another spreadsheet: The Wanda Paydown Estimator. This one will model what will happen to that balance after each regular payment and my extra payments.

I have put each and every regular payment in there and each payday, all in chronological order. 

Each entry will take the current balance and subtract the payment and show the new balance. 

The amount of the regular payments will be what it currently is and use that going forward.

If the theory holds true and the amount being taken off for interest will drop, then that number will increase. 

This will then, in turn mean that the payments going forward will take a larger bite out of the Wanda Loan.

Like the savings estimator spreadsheet, this one will start out with all estimated numbers and get gradually more accurate as real numbers are added in.

As it stands it looks like I will either be paying the Wanda Loan off, either one payday early or one payday later than Total Debt Freedom Day (Nov, 7, 2017). 

What it really means to me is that it is still possible for me to make that day, and celebrate Total Debt Freedom on that glorious day.

There are a thousand things that could go wrong, or otherwise make my plans go askew, but I will deal with them like I have already dealt with all of the other challenges that have arisen. 

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

Choose Your Mood; Define Your Day

I keep coming back to this, because I keep having to start again and refresh the concerted effort to be and stay positive.

How things affect you really is dependent on your mood. If you have a positive outlook, then things won’t bother you as much and are less likely to enrage you.

I start the day by making sure to tell myself positive things about myself and my life. I also declare to myself (out loud) that I will have a good day and that I am a positive person. Again, it may seem silly, but it works.

I also have to be on guard against the negative thoughts or those imagined imaginings of how things will go wrong and other people will screw me over. 

I have to stop myself and then again refuse to accept that negativity. I find that it is easy to get frustrated with the slow pace of positive change in my life.

This frustration can morph into negative thoughts and those negative thoughts can grow into a negative outlook. 

That negative outlook comes with you everywhere and clouds your vision like dirty glasses. All you will see is dirt and filth, yet it is just in your own personal perception, not life itself.

I have to remind myself how far I have come and how close a year is to be free, not just debt free, but truly free, free to chart my path and go and do what I want, when I want.

It is this vision and it is my decision, my choice to be a positive person that keeps me going.

I chose to be someone who not only builds myself up but others around me as well, and that is someone I can be proud of, proud to be.

The question I ask you is: who will you be, and will you be proud to be them?

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

Trying For The Trifecta!

With this payday behind me, and the dust of this current Payperiod’s budget-crafting settling, I can (and have) look ahead to the next two Payperiod’s budgets.

Since this current paycheque was a little larger than expected (yay), I could rearrange things and take a larger bite out of my Low-Interest Credit Card.

This means that it will take an even smaller bite to finish it off next payday. That money saved means I can actually shuffle that over to my next goal: Building up my Mid-Term Savings Account.

I looked at my budget and with a bit of extra cash coming in from another source within two payperiods I can do something amazing.

I can (just barely) manage to:

1. Pay off my Low-Interest Credit Card

2. Put $1k into my Mid-Term Savings Account

3. Put $1k into my Long-Term Savings Account

4. Keep $1k in my Main Account

This will be, for me, the Trifecta! Meaning I will have at least $1K in each of my accounts. 

This is more of a psychological barrier for me as it will mean that I have, what I consider, the minimum amount in each account.

This is also so as I don’t see a large fat wad of cash sitting in one account and start wondering what toy or nifty thing I could buy with it. (Not that that has happened . . . nope . . . never . . . not yet . . . nu-uh.)

It is also a bit of a safeguard against being greatly financially “attached to another object by an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis” if either: my boss decides to pack it in and shut down the company, or I find myself “actively encouraged to seek other employment opportunities.”

This will, most importantly, mean that I will have $3K available to me for emergencies or for that last push to meet Total Debt Freedom Day (Nov, 7, 2017).

I plan, and intend, to stay above $1k in each of these accounts, but know that I may drain down on my Mid-Term Savings Account, in order to keep the Wanda Paydown Plan on schedule. 

I may end up dipping into my Personal Overdraft in order to put the $2K in the other two accounts. I will, however, pull my hiney out of my Personal Overdraft with the paycheque of December 7. 

If I can actually achieve this, I will be in a much more relaxed frame of mind as I put those large payments directly on the Wanda Loan while at the same time trickle save into my Mid-Term Savings Account, building that up.

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

The Payday Surprise!

As many of you know, the secret to my success lies in my (hard earned) ability to budget and stick to that budget. 

A wise man (or woman who knows) once said, the secret to budgeting is to overestimate your expenses and underestimate your income. Basically, that’s what I do.

Since my paycheque is based on an hourly wage, the number of working days within that payperiod, with a commission based on something out of my control, and you have a crap shoot as to what my paycheque will be.

I have an add on spreadsheet that I have tacked onto my timesheet spreadsheet that estimates my paycheque based on what I put into that timesheet spreadsheet. I call this my “can I make rent” spreadsheet. 

To estimate what taxes will be taken off, I have found that you can average about 24% of your gross will be taken off for taxes. 

What I have done with this spreadsheet is take 25% off for taxes. This way I think that my paycheque will be less than it actually is. 

I base my overall budget for the upcoming paycheque on a safe, lower number than what I might get. Why? 

This way, if I can make my budget balance (even if a bit tight) on a lower estimated income, then I have a happy moment when I open that paycheque envelope and find a slightly larger amount. 

I also avoid the shock and horror to find out that the actual number is less than I had estimated. Then I have to scramble to find a way to cut back and balance the budget, but in a negative way. 

The other way, I have the happy joyous feeling of “what will I do with this extra money?” (giggle-giggle). That, my friends, is the payday surprise!

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