Hello friends.

It’s 11:21 p.m. I should be sleeping.  It’s Father’s Day. The family is in bed.  I have been up working on a new photography assignment and reading email. This is a case of using what you have.

I had received a note from the co-leader of the class that we took which led us on this journey. We are having a get together later this month to check in with each other.

It has not been all uphill and we do not sing debt freedom folk songs. Jennifer has been a rock. We are only 90 days into this journey. It is still hard. We have a budget in place. We have a plan of attack on the debt. We have eliminated a few dollars in debt already. It has not been easy, but we are blessed in that my wife and I are of one mind what we have learned thus far. Now, on to bed. I have a long week ahead. Sack lunches are the order for the week.

90-Day Update

Getting away

We are heading to San Diego this weekend. Not for the U.S. Open, but to visit the Fair and then my brother-in-law. It’s only 90+ miles away. Part of the GW stimulus check will fund this weekend as we had planned many months ago. Today is Friday and I have taken a vacation day to prepare. Come Monday, Jennifer will be off on summer vacation. Her last day with students was this Thursday. She has a last day luncheon today and then we are off.

90-day update

I just wanted to check in to share that it was a bit over 90-days ago that we began the financial fitness class which in turn started this journey of debt reduction. We started out strong and have lost a bit of the enthusiasm, but the principles of snowballing debt and no new debt has held firm. I stopped listening to Dave Ramsey with Jennifer in the car. I have many excuses, but we are still committed. I will try to explain later, but for now, my 15 minute break from house work is about over. One thing I really enjoy is cleaning the house without the family under foot. Back to work.

Quote and Tip

A quote and a tip (hut)

I was once a lumber yard manager. I worked for a mom and pop lumber company/True Value hardware store. The owner of the store shared this quote with me on purchasing and pricing lumber. I use it to this day. He said , “Watch the nickels and dimes. Let the dollars take care of themselves.”

We are planning on having a garage sale later this month. I just read some great tips on hosting a garage sale over at Tip Nut. I plan to price low watching the nickels and dimes and allowing the dollars to take care of themselves.

Free Car Every Five Years?

Just found this video over at My Crazy Debt It’s only 3:30.

Dumb Little Man

Dumb Little Man

I have to share with you another blog that I found called Dumb Little Man. This is a fun site with helpful tips on finance. Having spent the past 90 days or so in the mindset of debt reduction, I have been searching and reading other PF (personal finance) blogs. These are simply other bloggers with the courage to share their debt stories and their road to recovery. Check out the blogs that we have linked to.

The Price of Backups

The Price of Backups

Not even 24 hours later, I am second guessing joining mozy.com. I have over 80GB of digital photos spanning back to 1998. I have years 1998 through 2006 backed up on DVD/CD. I would prefer to protect this 10 year body of photographs by creating an off site backup. I did some research between carbonite.com and mozy.com as offline backup in the event that a disaster occurs at the home. I chose mozy.com.

This was a commitment of $4.95 per month. I have paid the first month, but found that it took 12 hours for the mozy software to upload and encode 2GB of files. I have over 80GB to backup. That is just photos. Music backup is another story altogether. My math shows many days of uploading whilst not being throttled by Time Warner as a BitTorrent seeder. Eehh. I had to try it. It does look like another external hard drive stored externally would be the better choice.

UPDATE: 6/5/2008

I’m holding off on dropping mozy.com at least until I get a full month of use. I have noticed how much bandwidth the backup devours when the backups are running. I already have 9GB of 80GB backed up. I will do the obvious and schedule the backups overnight. Oh, and I did by an external 500GB WD My Book anyway. I had been backing up our DVD collection to the computer, but was rapidly running out of room.

1/2 way on CC#1

Debt Snowball Update

Jen and I are working the debt snowball. We had paid off one credit card before developing our snowball, but we did not add that to the list of six creditors that when paid off, would set us debt free with the exception of the mortgage. Well, the lowest creditor received our payment of $1,250.00. The remaining balance of $1,126.15 is the current target. I cannot wait to get this company paid off. I want to taste the freedom of paid off technology. I want to make that phone call to cancel that account and then to focus on paying off CC#2.

Wait to receive

Don’t buy it. Wait for your birthday. That’s what I did.

The family celebrated my birthday on Sunday. Rather than hunt for a Wii Fit, I asked and received. Same deal with Wii Mario Kart. Being a guy, I fall into and have enjoyed the hunt and kill of shopping. The Wii Fit was said to be selling out. I wanted one. I could have fallen into an old routine of driving around in search of one. If not today, then the search would resume the next time I had some time to spare. I could have done this with the Wii Fit. I have done it with other purchases in the past. The point is that I waited, asked, and learned.

Urban Hunting

I waited to receive as a gift. I learned to stop and in doing so, reviewed in my head a past enjoyment which is urban hunting. Planning which stores to search for the latest want. Lining up an alternative location if the item could not be found. Making small talk with sales clerks about product delivery days. Then……making the kill and stuffing it into my trunk then driving home…sometimes with buyers remorse. Not this item. I waited and received. As for the Wii Fit, the kids are having more fun with it than I am. Yea, I know the birthday comes only once a year, but if it’s close, wait to receive.

Work Worth Doing

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing – Teddy Roosevelt Speech in New York, September 7, 1903 – 26th president of US (1858 – 1919)

I had Columbus Day off a few months back. My wife had to teach and the kids were in school that day. I went to the local Barnes and Noble book store and found a Dave Ramsey journal in the finance section. Having found a chair near an open window overlooking other shops and people walking by, I came across this quote reading that that book and froze in thought. I am fortunate to be doing work worth doing. The work however; leads me to make purchases that I justify as work related and later write off as a work expense.

I don’t golf so I don’t justify a new club or golf shoes because the deal is made on the links. I listen to stories of people who believed that have been wronged. I take pictures of work they claim is poor or not completed. I justified a new digital camera for that. I drive to where the work took place and to where the other parties operate or live. I justified a new GPS device for the car. I am called to testify in court and can always justify new clothing for that. Hopefully soon the camera, the added lens, the GPS, and projector for the laptop will be paid off when CC#1 is clobbered. Yes, I did claim partial use as a business expense in the tax years, but I am still paying for them years later on credit.

I don’t have an answer to the dilemma other than to be reminded to recognize the excuses that I use to justify buying work related ‘tools’ using credit instead of cash. That is one tool that I need to leave debt end street.

Half way mark on CC #1

That feels good. I have just completed a $1,250.00 payment towards the lowest credit card balance. We tripled the minimum payment then added $1,000.00 from the stimulus check provided by GW. That should knock the balance owed in half. Another 5 payments of $250.00 will have that debt paid off never to look back again to Dell to finance ANYTHING. My goal is to have the Dell account eliminated by the end of Summer and not settling on 5 months.

It has been almost 90 days since my wife and I began our Total Money Makeover. I have honestly lost some of the gazelle intensity, but worked from new learned behaviors and new skills of discipline. I read on another PF blog recently that a purchase of want should have a wait time factored in.

Here is the example. I have been itching to replace my 2-year old cell phone. The cell phone that I wanted would have cost me $200.00. I have taken on the discipline of placing 1 day of wait for every $10.00 of the wanted purchase. So, rather than spend the $200.00, I divided $200.00 by 10 which is 20. I then decided that I would wait 20 days before making the purchase. The 20 days have not finished yet and I have already come to the realization that I don’t need a new phone.

So far so good. Another help has been to read other PF (personal finance) blogs. I found a good one last night over at From Mike. This blogger is a young 30 something dad raising 2 girls. His posts are personal, open, and honest. He caught the Dave Ramsey gazelle intensity and has shared his short journey to this point. His recent post is raw and shows a back slide based in part on a couple of personal loses. His readers have commented to his post. The PF community is very supportive. Now on to a long Memorial Day weekend and a family budget meeting tomorrow before we leave the house.