“Personal Reflection” Archive
Sep
12
Well I am finally back from Singapore and as promised I am back to posting, including a long awaited update to the Debt-O-Meter. I have now paid off $4,788 of my debt, a good start but not as much as I had hoped for. I only have myself to blame. As some of my critics have pointed out (particular a reader nicknamed JJay) in my last post, taking a vacation was absolutely a sidetrack to my debt repayment. That said, it was a much needed break and has provided me with a lot of personal growth and clarity about my path in life. I’ll talk more about some of the negative reaction to my actions in another post.
Additionally, I have managed to get the nearly $6,500 debt I owe to Chase locked in at a 6% interest rate with very little negotiation. So, I have a very substantial portion of my debt locked in at either 0% interest or 6% interest. I will be re-posting the details of my accounts shortly as I have gotten the okay from my attorneys to do so.
On the AMEX front, the negotiations are continuing but all roads appear to be heading toward a settlement of 40% of the original debt. Getting these two accounts settled, would knock nearly 20K off my debt total, which would be a very substantial kickstart to my debt repayment overall. I hope to have some final news on the AMEX situation before the month is out.
I am still continuing with my plans to go car-free when my lease is up in April of 2008. I have been taking the bus to work more and more and have been making use of Flexcar to run some errands, all to preview what life will be like without the car. The extra $650-$700 per month that car payment, insurance and gas spending that will be “freed up” will ALL go to debt repayment.
I’ll be posting some more thoughtful responses to some of the recent criticisms I have seen in the comments section in separate posts. I want to ensure I give myself a fair chance to look at some of these comments constructively, even if the language and content is a little off.
Thanks to everyone who stuck around during the recent months where I have not been all that engaged with the blog. I assure you it will be worth the wait and some exciting progress and changes will soon follow. For those who have chose to remove me from their favorites, I ask you give me a second look. I think you will find the quality and frequency of the content to be better than ever!
Aug
21
A few folks have asked what happened to me as my last post was over two weeks ago. Well, let me explain what has been going on.
About three weeks ago, I was contemplating stopping the blog for a while and going on a hiatus. It wasn’t fun for me anymore to focus so much energy around my debt repayment. I was missing the things in life that were happening around me so I needed to take a time out.
I went on a ‘personal retreat’ for 10 days in the Redwood forests of southern Oregon and northern California. I did lots of hiking and spent lots of time in my own head ‘figuring things out’.
So I’m happy to say I’ve decided to keep blogging away and get back into a more regular posting schedule like I had been doing the first few months.
I’ve got some significant updates to share, including an update to the Debt-O-Meter so stay tuned for the news later today.
Thanks to all my loyal readers for hanging in there with me. My Feedburner stats have dropped off a bit but not too far.
Also, LUCY, if you are out there, please contact me so I can send you your prize. I sent you a note, but haven’t heard back yet.
Jun
9
WOW! Amazingly it has been two months since I started the journey of blogging about my debt situation and the twists and turns of dealing with it. To be certain it has been wild ride so far. I was fortunate enough to have an interview segment on CNN, which in turn generated some decent traffic to my site. Before that interview I was struggling to get 100 visitors per day, where I now get somewhere between 200-250 visitors per day. By no means overwhelming, but nothing to shake a stick at in just under two months. I’ve also had to take a long, hard look at my plan to eliminate the debt. Initially I did think I would be able to do it ALL on my own, while avoiding any kind of settlements or DMP type arrangements. Reality however, took hold and although not the ideal way to do things, it is probably the ONLY feasible way to do it without quite literally bankrupting myself. So to all those who encouraged me to put all the options on the table, thanks for keeping my eyes open and not letting my pride get in the way. As many of you have said, it took me many years to get into this amount of debt and it will surely take a fair amount of time to get rid of it as well. I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no quick fix here and only hard word, extra income, discipline and sacrifice will get me there. There are certain things I will ABSOLUTELY NOT sacrifice during this ‘debt cure’ such as frequent trips to visit my daughter, eating healthy and exercising, but other than that, I’m trying to simplify my life as much as possible while still trying to live a life not completely devoid of fun. The last few weeks have indeed been trying and somewhat discouraging, as witnessed by my lack of frequent posting, but the support and positive feedback from my readers has reinspired me to keep it all going.
So, as a thank you to my readers, I actually have a decent giveaway–a tangible product–for you to enjoy. I will be giving away a copy of Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, which does have the very cool 3-D Window toggle navigation that you have all probably seen.
There are three ways to enter and you can utilize any or all of them but you can only enter once via each method. Here is how:
- Leave a comment on this post; this gets you 1 entry
- Link to my site in a post/blog review; this gets you 3 entries
- Add me to your Blogroll (email me to confirm as I don’t always see the inbound links); this will get you 5 entries
The giveaway will run for the next 30 days, at which point I will announce the lucky winner. Am I using the giveaway to potentially attract some new readers. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. That said, I’m also trying to give my loyal readers something back, something tangible that will not put me in the hole. So, by all means comment, link, add me to your blogroll if you choose, but most importantly keep reading and inspiring me to continue the journey. Thanks everyone for a great and frankly life altering two months so far. This journey will one measured in years, so stick with me and witness a true transformation.
As an added bonus, look for the official lauch of my Weight Loss blog tomorrow. Some of you already know the URL and if you are saavy, you should be able to figure it out, but tomorrow I will make it official; there isn’t anything up there just yet.
May
30
My main focus over the past few weeks has been on getting things resolved with AMEX and in recent days exploring a Debt Management Program (DMP). What I have ignored and seemingly continue to ignore are the root issues that caused me to get into trouble in the first place. In an earlier post, I sort of glanced on this issue but I realize looking back that this post focused more on the logistics rather than the root causes. So, in the first of probably a two or three ‘parter’, let me try and address some of the root causes of how I got into debt.
“Keeping Up With The Joneses” — Like many of us these days, I fell into this trap once I graduated from college. Whether it was having the latest gadget, nice clothes, the latest bestselling book, nice car or big screen television, I always seemed to have a desire to impress my friends and neighbors. In addition I always seemed to want to go on a nice vacation, staying at fancy hotels that in retrospect I simply couldn’t afford. Throughout this period, I wasn’t paying any attention to my checkbook. my credit card bills or my spending overall. I’ve truly come to realize that “keeping up with the Joneses” will not only put you in a dire financial situation but it will also make you a fairly unhappy person overall. I’m learning to be thankful for the things I have and I’m also learning a hard lesson in “needs” versus “wants”. For those readers who are coveting their neighbors house, car, furniture, gadgets or gizmos, I would posit that those folks are in debt up to their eyeballs in order to support their lifestyle. Don’t fall into this trap.
Not Living on a Budget – Yes, this may seem like an obvious one, but living on a budget not only would have controlled my spending but it would have provided me a wake up call much earlier as to just how BAD my credit card situation was. I know this may seem hard to believe, but until I started this blog I didn’t know precisely how much credit card debt I had. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know just how bad. I didn’t know how much money each month was truly going to the credit card companies. Making a budget forced me to look at this and it was an amazing eye opener. For those of you in a mountain of debt, your first step, today, should be tracking your spending for the next 30 days, down to the penny, so you can prepare a workable budget. This will force you to confront your debt head-on and will enable you to examine ways to cut.
I don’t want to write a novel in this post, so I will continue with my top reasons I landed where I am today in another post. I’m anxious to hear some feedback from my readers as to why they have landed in debt.
