As of the end of February 2009, my total credit card debt is down to $8,969.87. This means I have paid a total of $16,589.95 from the time I started this blog with $25,559.82 in credit card debt.

My pay-off pace has slowed a bit lately, but I expect to be making a rather large payment in the next month or two and possibly eliminating the third credit card of the four that I started with.

It won’t be long until I’m done with credit cards for good!

By Eden, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 1 Comment, Categories: Credit Cards, Debt

This is a great way to start off the New Year! As of the end of December our total credit card debt is finally under $10,000 ($9,776.07 as I write this). The balance has been just over $10,000 for about 2 months now, but I have slowed down payments recently as we may be facing some uncertainty with jobs and other things.

One of my goals for 2008 was to pay off all the credit card debt. We didn’t accomplish that, but I knew it was a rather lofty goal and not hitting it isn’t so bad. The good news is that we paid off $8,728 and eliminated two of the four original credit cards—including the highest interest rate card (was about 11%). Our remaining two cards are both locked in at under 5% interest.

One of my goals again for this year will be to eliminate the credit cards entirely. We’ll have to come up with a little more money than we did last year, but with more hard work and a more intense focus on frugality I know we can do it.

By Eden, Fri 2 Jan 2009, 1 Comment, Categories: Credit Cards, Debt

I started this blog in September, 2007 with about $25,000 in credit card debt. As I write today, I’m down to about $10,000 remaining. I did not add any new credit card debt and I focused my efforts on paying extra on my credit cards before any other debts. Along the way, I have paid for some car repairs, dental emergencies, and two new computers. All with cash of course!

So how did I, a credit-card-crazed-consumer who had spent $25,000 beyond my means, make such a great change?

• I made a decision to stop living beyond my means.
• I made a budget and started to follow it.
• I destroyed my credit cards (all but one) and I don’t carry the one remaining card in my wallet*.
• I used my budget and extra income to reduce the debt.

You may think you can’t get through life without credit cards—I admit that it was a little scary and difficult at first, but it is entirely possible. I’ve stayed in hotels and rented cars without credit cards. I’ve booked airline flights and handled unexpected car repairs. All you need is a debit card and actual money and you’ll be just fine.

Credit cards are tightly woven into the typical American lifestyle these days. Surely the banks would like us to believe they are necessary judging by the advertisements they flood us with. However, thanks to the current financial crisis, some of us are finally starting to wake up and realize that our current path will only lead to failure.

I’m writing to you as a normal guy who was once part of the credit-card-crazed, consumerist culture. If I can break free, you can too.

Don’t let the media fool you into thinking you need credit cards and don’t think it’s normal to spend money you don’t have. At least give the credit-card-free life a try—you can always go back to living in debt if you find you miss the feeling.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I currently have 2 active credit card accounts (the two remaining cards I am paying off) and I have 1 physical card in my possession. I don’t carry it with me and I haven’t used it for more than a year now, but it is at home and available if I every truly ‘need’ it. I plan to get rid of it as soon as I have a fully-funded emergency fund (6 – 12 months of expenses).

By Eden, Mon 8 Dec 2008, 2 Comments, Categories: Consumerism, Credit Cards

I wish losing weight was as easy as paying off credit card debt. Of course, for the person buried in credit card debt without enough money to eat or enough time to sit around and get fat, I’m sure the opposite would be true.

I guess we all have our strengths and weaknesses. My weakness is clearly food. I wouldn’t quite say budgeting and reducing debt is my strength, but I have found that except for a few things that I really enjoy doing I have found it pretty easy to cut expenses. In fact, as time has gone by, I’m continuing to cut my expenses and October 2008 marked my lowest spending month since starting this get-out-of-debt project over a year ago.

As an example, I just made the ’sacrifice’ of cutting cable TV. I did this while my wife and I are earning more money than we ever have in our lives. I’m absolutely not trying to brag about that, we aren’t rich by any means, though we would probably fall into the above-average category for income. My point is that we could easily continue to spend the money on cable TV, but our priorities are changing. The more I work for other people, the more I realize that is not what I want to be doing and the fastest way I can see that situation changing is to continue to cut expenses, pay off debt, and save up cash. I’m getting off topic though. The point of this post is a long overdue update of my credit card debt progress.

When I last wrote about my credit card debt (as of the end of August 2008), I owed $14,338.45. As of the end of October, I owe $10,271.09. Not only did I pay off about $4,000 in two months, but I also bought a brand new MacBook Pro during that time!

So how the heck is this possible? We didn’t win the lottery or find a few thousand dollars of change in our couch. It’s simply been a matter of hard work and cutting spending more and more every month. I’m fortunate that my career easily translates to freelance work. I basically sit on my couch at home and build websites on my laptop. And I make pretty decent money for my efforts. It can be a drag sometimes, but it’s hard to say no to the extra money. I don’t make a lot at my day job, but the money I earn on the side is a nice supplement to my regular salary.

If you are working at getting out of debt I strongly encourage you to find something you’re good at doing and then find a way to get people to pay you to do that for them. It may be related to what you do for your day job or maybe not, but if you can find a way to make some money on the side for something you don’t mind doing it can really accelerate your plan to get out of debt.

At the start of the year, I had hopes of paying off all my credit card debt in 2008. It’s not likely at this point, but I’m not going to rule it out either. At the very least, I’ll be close and it’s starting to feel really good. I was able to pay off two different accounts and that makes life a little more simple too. Just two more cards and $10,000 to go!

By Eden, Fri 7 Nov 2008, Categories: Credit Cards, Debt, Monthly Report

Fortunately, the Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights passed the House of Representatives on September 23rd, though it still must pass the Senate and the President.

I’m glad it passed, but I’m also concerned about the 112 morons representatives who voted AGAINST this bill. What is wrong with these people? I don’t know if they are all in the pockets of the credit card companies, but really I can only assume these people are much more interested in the rights of credit card companies to rip us off than our rights to not be ripped off.

Check this link to see if your representatives voted yes or no and take action to kick out the fools who voted no on this bill. Three representatives who voted no are from Arizona (where I live), but none of them are from my district (thankfully). I did write to the one Representative who accepts email from someone outside of his district (I can see why the others don’t want to hear from anyone else). Please take some time to let these people know what you think of their actions.

By Eden, Thu 25 Sep 2008, Categories: Credit Cards

Update: Looks like the Flash chart didn’t load properly at first- should be corrected now.

Now that I’m 1 year into the blog, I’d like to get back to tracking my credit card debt payoff progress monthly. Included below is a chart of the progress I have made.

The good news is that I have paid off $11,221 of credit card debt over the past year. The bad news is that my progress slowed down greatly over the past 6 months and my average paid off per month is only $863. Toward the end of 2007 and early 2008 I was typically paying off between one and two thousand per month.

Basically, my spending has crept back up over the past 6 months and I just haven’t been as tight with the budget as I was at the beginning. I’m working to get my spending back in line now and hoping to get closer to the $2,000 per month of extra payments range going forward.

Credit Card Debt

Credit card debt progress since August 2007

By Eden, Mon 8 Sep 2008, 2 Comments, Categories: Credit Cards, Debt

Warren Buffett suggests avoiding credit cards.

If I borrowed money at 18 or 20 percent, I’d be broke…. So if I had one piece of advice for young people generally it would be to just avoid credit cards.”

Read the whole article from CNBC.com.

I think it is more wise to follow the advice of the world’s richest man than it is to follow the advice of our in-debt friends and family or Visa and Mastercard commercials.

By Eden, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 2 Comments, Categories: Credit Cards