Looking Back on a Year Without Credit Cards

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?

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).

Simple Steps for a Cash Only Christmas

Christmas 2007 was my first cash-only Christmas. That was a great experience and I would never dream of using credit cards to pay for Christmas again. However, this year I’ve made the cash-only Christmas even better by starting a ‘Christmas Fund’ back in January of this year. My Christmas Fund is a savings account at ING Direct with a monthly auto-transfer to cover this year’s Christmas spending.

It’s a great feeling to know that not only will Christmas shopping not put a dent in my normal monthly budget, but thanks to the spirit of frugality this year, I’ll actually have a fair amount of money left over that I can save or pay down debt with. Nothing makes personal finance easier than a little planning and proper execution.

If this wasn’t your experience this year, I’m sorry and, believe me, I can relate. Everything I’ve just talked about would have sounded rather nutty to me up until about a year ago. It’s not too late to prepare for next year though. If you start now, you’ll be ready for Christmas in 2009.

How to prepare for Christmas 2009:

  1. Plan how much you will spend in 2009
  2. Divide that number by 11 (assuming you will save from Jan – Nov)
  3. Open a savings account and call it your Christmas Fund
  4. Set up a monthly auto transfer
  5. Your work is done until next December!

This is a great way to cut down on stress during the Holiday season and it makes it easy to keep your budget under control.

Saying Goodbye to Cable TV

I’ve been tossing around the idea for a while now and I finally cut the cord on cable TV.

I had a package deal that included digital cable TV, a DVR, high-speed Internet and digital telephone. Of course they sell you on the package deal and they give you a pretty nice discount for bundling everything together. Years ago when we first started with the bundle the monthly cost was about $110. Prices have risen, not to mention we added the DVR service, and lately our bill had grown to about $140 per month. I finally grew weary of paying so much, especially considering the lack of quality content offered by cable TV. I would be happy to pay for about 3 of the cable channels and that would be all I need. ESPN, The NFL Network, and The Food Network are the only stations I miss. I would happily pay a fee to have those 3 channels, but of course that isn’t an option. I felt it was better to stop paying for all of the crap I didn’t want to watch and give free TV a try.

Not that I was ready to give up TV completely however. Especially this time of year with the NFL going strong. With digital TV broadcasts becoming more popular and mroe and more content available online, I’ve found that I miss cable a lot less than I thought I would.

Here’s what I’m doing to replace the cable:

My first step was to buy a cheap rabbit ears antenna and see what kind of reception I could get. I’m about 20 – 30 miles from most stations in my area so I have a bit of a challenge right at the start. I did some searches on Amazon and decided to buy the Terk Technology TV-1 Passive Indoor TV Antenna first. I was pleasantly surprised by this antenna, considering its low price. I immediately picked up NBC, CBS, and ABC. However, I couldn’t get much reception from FOX and that really hurts when it comes to the NFL on Sundays.

My next step was to try a Digital TV converter box and see if I could do any better. I had already requested DTV coupons a while ago so I was ready to make a purchase. Next I went to the Consumer Reports DTV converter box guide to find the top rated convert box. I decided to buy the Tivax STB-T8 Digital to Analog TV Converter Box and I’m really happy I did. This is one of the more expensive boxes available, about $40 even after the coupon, but I think it was well worth it. I’m now getting NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS, and several more stations and the picture is crisp and clear.

Some of the great features of the Tivax STB-T8 are component cables output, a program guide that shows you the next 4 hours of programming on a given station, a signal strength meter, and a nice-looking small hardware profile. It does not have S-Video out, but that is the only feature this unit is lacking. From what I could find, it looks like you have to spend a lot more for S-Video so I’m okay with skipping it.

I’m really shocked at how much higher the picture quality is now. However, I think I can do better than the cheap rabbit ears I’m using, so I also ordered a more powerful indoor antenna. Finding an antenna is a big project in itself. I highly recommend starting at HDTV Antenna Labs to start your research. You’ll find reviews of antennas, features you need to look for, and a link to a map that will pinpoint your address and signal strength in your area. This step is critical as it will help you determine how powerful an antenna you need to buy and this site will even color-code signal strengths and match them to specific antennas.

I decided to rule out outdoor antennas- I just didn’t want to be bothered with the installation and I’m not crazy about putting a huge antenna on my roof. I’m somewhat limiting myself by only looking at indoor antennas, but based on my experience with the cheap rabbit ears, I think a quality indoor antenna will be sufficient for me. After much research, I decided to go with the Winegard SS-3000 Amplified Indoor U/V Antenna. This antenna is about $60 and based on the reviews I could find it should greatly improve my reception. It hasn’t arrived yet, but I will be sure to write about it after I have it set up. I found this antenna to be a good compromise between price and features. Take a look if you can’t get by with simple rabbit ears.

I’m only a couple of weeks into my cable TV free life, but so far I would say it’s a success. I’ve had to spend a little money getting set up to receive free TV, but these costs will quickly be recouped after just a few months of smaller cable bills. Overall, I’ve cut a nice chunk from my fixed expenses and I had to give up very little in return. If you have been considering quitting cable I encourage you to give it a try. I think the digital TV transition has made the switch easier than ever, not to mention the large amount of content available on the Internet. I’ll write more about what I’m watching online soon.

Getting Out of Debt is Boring, or…

What I’ve learned in one year of my debt reduction plan

September 2008 marks one year since I started this blog and made my ‘official’ commitment to getting out of debt. I remember one year ago making a budget and seeing that my spending exceeded my income. I had large piles of debt and very little confidence that I would ever get out of the mess. Once I learned about how to live below your means I began the slow process of chipping away at the mountain of debt.

It’s easy to make a budget at the start of the month and make a plan to pay off X dollars worth of debt. However, once you make that plan, you have to sit and wait. You have to wait for paychecks to arrive, statements to come in, money to be transferred, payments to be reconciled and finally the new statement the next month that validates your progress. This is all very boring!

Not only is it dull to wait for everything to progress from month to month, but what if you need to repeat the process for 24 more months? It can become very difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel and it is very easy to doubt that you will really get there. I speak from experience as I have doubted my efforts just about every month. 🙂

How to overcome the boredom and keep working your plan:

  • Track your progress regularly
  • Be Patient and Expect mistakes

Track your progress regularly:

This can be as simple or sophisticated as you want. Anything from pen and paper to spreadsheets and graphs will get the job done. Use what is most comfortable for you and what you are most likely to update regularly.

I keep a budget and track my debt monthly on a computer, mostly using Quicken and Excel. I also update a whiteboard on my refrigerator each month with my new debt total and how much I have paid off so far. The whiteboard is something I see every day and that is the most effective way to stay motivated to stick with my plan. I highly recommend putting your debt progress somewhere you will see every day.

Be Patient and Expect mistakes:

Patience is great, but no matter how patient you are, you still need to prepare for set-backs. You will make mistakes as you work your plan. You will slip up and buy something that breaks your budget that you know you shouldn’t have bought. You will have emergencies come up that drain your emergency fund and maybe more and stop you from making as much progress as you had hoped that month. Know ahead of time that these mistakes will happen and don’t let them destroy your plan.

Acknowledge your mistakes, but move on to the next month and do your best to get back on track. Believe me, I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, but none of them have been as devastating as quitting would be. You’ll never look back and wish that you had quit, but if you do quit now you know you will look back and wish you had not.

In Summary:

  • Make a plan
  • Track your progress
  • Be patient and expect mistakes

It’s not easy, but you have to keep working at it. I don’t like the fact that I could be looking at another year until my credit cards are paid off, but I have no other choice. Giving up isn’t an option. I have a plan, I know it works, I just need to keep going and do my best to speed up the pace every opportunity I get.

There are no secrets and there is no quick fix, but if you follow my advice you will be better prepared to stay the course and survive the long journey to debt freedom.

How to Stop Borrowing Money

So you’ve realized you’re spending more than you earn and you want to stop borrowing money. It can be a hopeless feeling—one that I personally know very well. How to stop borrowing money, of course, is simple—but actually doing it isn’t easy. But there is good news—if you’re asking the question, you’ve already taken the first step toward solving the problem.

The solution is figuring out how to live below your means. Again, this is something that sounds easy, but personal finance isn’t easy. There are two ways to start living below your means:

  • Increase money coming into your life (usually income)
  • Decrease the money going out of your life (usually spending)

Doing them both is ideal, but getting there from a big financial mess will take time so look for low-hanging fruit and quick wins to get the ball rolling.

You probably can’t just push a button and increase your income tomorrow. Although, you can ask your boss for a raise. If you aren’t at least asking, it’s probably not going to happen, and the worse they can say is no.

But, you probably have an easier way to quickly increase your cash flow and stop the financial bleeding: You can sell all the junk you bought with debt. I suggest using Amazon (you can sell used stuff on Amazon), Ebay, and Craigslist. Anything small-ish (easy to ship) and worth more than $10 should get listed on Ebay or Amazon. The best approach is to search both sites for the item you want to sell and get a feel for prices. Generally, I find selling on Amazon to be a lot less hassle than Ebay, so I prefer to list there if I can. If you bought the item you want to sell on Amazon, just search for it in your past orders, click the link, and check used prices. You can get right to listing your item for sale from this page. Bulky things you can’t or don’t want to ship should go on Craigslist.

The most common debt problem is credit cards. If you are serious about getting out of debt you need to stop using credit cards and that probably means you need to cut them up too. If cutting the credit cards isn’t enough to stop you from using them, then close the accounts. This decision comes down to personal responsibility and how well you can resist the temptation to use your credit cards. *Important- don’t destroy or close all of your credit cards until you have an emergency fund! Lets be real here, most Americans have no savings- what would you do if your car broke down tomorrow or you lost your job? Cash is the ideal way to handle these emergencies, but most of us can’t just snap our fingers and have an extra $1,000 in the bank.

If you have accounts that are behind, make getting current your top priority. Late fees or over the limit fees are only going to bury you further. Call the banks and try to negotiate. It costs you nothing but a few minutes of time and aggravation to ask for help. They are likely to at least cut some of the fees and give you a chance to get current. You will have more luck here if you can also promise to send an immediate payment when making the phone call (just don’t give them direct access to your checking account).

Once you have stopped using the credit cards and everything is current, you will have gone a long way toward slowing the growth of your debt balance. However, you are likely still being charged monthly interest on your credit cards. Make a list of your cards and order them by interest rate. Start calling the high rate cards to ask for a lower rate or look at transferring balances from high rate cards to low rate cards that you already have (consider the balance transfer fee first) . You can even go out and apply for new credit cards if you can get a better rate- a 0% introductory rate would be wonderful if the terms are decent. Just be aware of fees for balance transfers and how long these lower rates will last. Do a little math to see if you will really be saving money when all is said and done.

Putting an end to your borrowing is the most important step toward getting out of debt. Look at every dollar you are paying in interest as your enemy. Compound interest is a wonderful thing when it is working for you, but against you it is devastating. If you haven’t already, take the time to total up all of the money you spent in interest over the past month. On a personal note, I was really sickened when I did this. I had no idea how much interest was really costing me. Think about the number of hours you have to work in a month just to pay interest if you need some extra motivation to stop borrowing.

This step is where you ‘stop the bleeding’ and figure out how badly interest is hurting you. Without doing this, all other efforts would just be covering up the real problem, possibly making the symptoms look less menacing yet not treating the source of the pain. The next step, making a budget, is where you can start to take control of your money and treat the debt problem at its source.

9 Steps to Get Out of Debt