I have only 7 payments left on my car loan!! I am so excited about this. I had no idea I was this close to paying it off. June is now my target date to finish paying this. I had to rearrange my debt schedule but it actually works out better.

I have one last payment for my CC in March and that's all done with, so I'll just take the payments I've been making to the CC and just add it to my car loan payments. That and any tax rebates or extra income will go directly to paying this bad boy off.

I can't believe I am right around the corner to paying off my CC and paying off my car! After those I have my college loans to kill off.

After years of having no coverage I finally can check one thing off my to do list. Starting February 1st, I will be insured with Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC. I got it in case of any emergencies and the monthly premium is $163.84, which isn't too bad. I'm glad I ponied up and did this, I've been having some terrible nightmares of going into more debt because of being in the hospital, even though I'm a very healthy girl.

I know it's the fifth but it's never too late to draw up a budget for the month, right?


Apt rent = $462.50
Phone bill = $20
Electric = $49.45
Cable/Internet = $41.33
Holiday Trip = $50
-------------------------
623.28
- 45 for what BF owed me
-------
578.28 --PAID 5 Jan 08

College Loans = $235 --Due 7 Jan 08
Car = $261 --Due 19 Jan 08
AT CC = $20 --Due 19 Jan 08
--------------------------
$516

It's easier with these bills a little spread out in January, but this coming pay day (11 Jan 08) is going to hurt because of all those days off from the holiday.

Also for line AT CC, I had planned to pay off this credit sooner than later but since this coming pay check is half of what I usually get I'm going to hold off and use what ever is left over in January to pay it off and only pay the minimum + 60% = $20 when it's due. Leaving the total left to pay off $220.

After bills I will have a little over $120 in my account from my Jan 11th pay check, and then after the neek week of bills I'll have roughly $340 left in checking until my next full pay check on the 25th. I think that's a good cushion.

Things I promise myself not to do during January: spending money at the bar or out on food... ok well I will atleast try to do this. I do promise not to go out for lunch. I will have to go food shopping but I wont buy things I dont need.

Once the 25th comes I plan to put $400 in my Roth and $200 in my iGO savings.

My goals are to put $4000 in my IRA before April 15th and have $10,000 in my emeregency fund by the end of 2009. Since savings acct rates are lower than what I want I'm going to put more money towards paying down my high interest loan debt.

I plan to complete my 2007 tax return as early as possible. One reason is because I dont want to be doing it at the last minute AGAIN, and another is because it's my money and it's not generating interest for me. Depending on how large my return is, I want to use more than half of it for my high interest loan, the rest for my Roth.

I hope my cushion holds out.

I went back to Target to return a shower curtain and spent 47.14, of course part of it was buying another shower curtain (which will be returned AGAIN because it just doesn't go with the bathroom) and then of course we went to Subway and that was 10.66.... While what I got at Target was nescessary, going to Subway wasn't. When I was spending the money I kept telling myself it was okay because tomorrow is pay day... Now I know it wasn't just okay. I've been working overtime, about 21 hours, just so I could catch up with the time I have off from xmas and new year's (I only get paid for the time I am at work) So today's check is cushioned but the next pay will only be about $800 which will suck. So I need to reign in my extracurricular spending, whic will be hard since I'm going to DC tomorrow, so I will stay a float for the first two weeks of January. I've been saving by not eating out but that money saved shouldnt just be spent pointlessly, I could have made a sandwich at home at a tenth of the cost.

I also immediately transferred $200 into my savings account this morning, I'm trying to pay myself first. This is my second attempt at paying myself first, this time I did 18% of my pay check. I also opened a Roth IRA with $200.

I think I'm going to go with Fidelity Investments' SmartStart Roth.

Does anyone have other suggestions or personal reviews of Fidelity?

I want to open it before the year ends so I can contribute $4000 by April 15th and then $5000 for 2008.

Saving more than $100 has been a foreign concept to me. I don't know how and I don't know why but I do know that had to stop.

I have one last credit card that is about to be completely paid off, which I am very proud of. One last payment and it's all done. I'm fairly sure I'll be staying away from high interest credit cards for a long time— if I do attempt to go down the credit card road it won't be for another year and it will be mainly for a rewards program and will get paid off every week. But that's a plan I'm not even going to attempt for another 12 months.

No, my immediate plan is to save. Like I said, saving never really sunk in before while I was growing up. Sure, I saved up for speakers or the Spice Girls CD when I was a kid, but saving for the future, HA!

Now that I'm living on my own, have a full time job, and no kids, I started to notice a sizeable amount of cash left over in my checking acct after paying all my bills. For a moment I thought about going shopping but then I heard about high-yield savings accounts. So I researched it.

And researched it and started reading about personal finance and that lead me to realize that I've been wasted money that could have helped me in the future. This was my enlightenment towards money!

So I've opened a savings account at iGObanking and have funded it with $515 and plan to contribute about $250 from each pa check to reach a goal of 6 months worth of expenses or about $10,000.

My other goal is to pay off my debt, which isn't as bad as you would think. I have just a little bit left to pay off my credit card which of course is a store CC, to Ann Taylor, so it is completely impractical.

I have a car loan which is $261 a month. Again it is completely impractical, I'm not sure what the terms are, what the rate is, and how much is left. Purchasing the car in 2004 was never really thought through like it should have—why bother when the bank just gives you money! So now I have to figure out how much is left and how quickly I can get it taken care of.

I also have my college loans to pay off. Currently I can't admit how much I owe, I just can't wrap my head around it. So I'll need some time I think. I've been making the monthly payments of $174 which I think is good. I've been doing that on time for about 6 months, since it started to come in.

So these are my goals for 2008.
1. Fund an emergency fund of $10,000
2. Reduce debt. Seek out car loan debt, pay it off as much as possible.
3. Figure out how to reduce college loan, pay off as much as possible and realize that it's not the end of the world. It can be done.
4. Live below my means.

And most importantly, create a spending log. The reason for this blog is to log my spending. At least for now the majority of my posts will be for a spending log, cause I really need to track what and where I'm spending and figure out what I can reduce and use that savings to conquer my debt.

I think this can be done.