2 months without blogging! Disgusting!

I haven't blogged my finances for almost 2 months, simple reason is that my finances aren't as bad as they used to be so I guess it's not a priority in my life but I am sure this will be the cause of me falling back where I started so am going to try blog at least twice a month. I have been living rent free for the past 2 months and been saving about R2500 but my car broke this month which also set me back about R2500 so even there. I need to have major repairs to my car in the next couple of months including a R5000 service in January. Next month is my 3 week long trip to East London and then I have got a small job in January and will make R1000 babysitting my nephews for a week that will cover my travel costs for this trip! How cool is that. I am also joining gym this next week too which will be my new entertainment for a while or until March next year. A new problem I have is that my healthy living is a bit hard on the finances so I need to relook my eating plan and budget accordingly.

The end of an era!

My shop cards...I already said goodbye this year to any loan I had that was killing me with interest (that was over R20 000 in personal loans). I still have an interest free loan with work and my student loan that is almost interest free and costing me R200 a month. The beginning of this year, I also closed and cancelled 2 shops cards and had 2 left that totals to about R10 000, I am very happy to say that both those shop cards will be closed by the end of this year. I have also updated my side bars and have am proud to say that my accounts are under R60 000 now, I have a R5000 bench mark to feel good about myself, I actually do the same thing with weight, everything is in 5kg goals. I am sure to have it down to under R50 000 by January. Anyway...will keep you posted!

Snowballing

So much has happened since I last blogged and I apologise for the lack of posts but I have had an absolute crazy time at work, and so the money keeps rolling in! The unexpected income...Since my last post, my work has so graciously allowed me to rent a townhouse from them till the end of the year for R1000 a month, that is R1500 less than what I was paying, it is fully furnished and has DSTV (cable, I think it's the same thing). The next thing that happened is that I cleared up a bit extra money last month with the cellphone credit I received from the mobile company and I decided to pay it off on my Kilimanjaro credit card, my interest on that card alone is about R500 a month! But even though I paid more into it last month, the interest didn't go down! That ticked me off and now I've decided to snowball from the lowest balance so that I can snowball that money into the next lowest balance. My lowest balance at the moment is my one shop card, I don't have the figures with me at the moment but I believe it's standing on around R3500, I will update it tomorrow when I am back at work, I plan on paying about R3000 on that card by the end of this month, that would mean I can clear the balance by the end of next month and have an extra R170 to put into the next shop account which is standing on around R5500, plus the R1700 I'm saving on rent and petrol, so that would be an instalment from R350 to R2220. My car is also breaking, so that might mean car repairs soon, but I've decided not to let that worry me for this month, hoping to just get all my car repairs done in December with my major service.

Yes, yes, NBS!

Okay, my heading to most will not make any sense. It's a old South African bank that had the cutest little Cockatoo that nodded it's head and a voice went "yes, yes, NBS". Now the reason for the heading...my cellphone (mobile) company has knocked almost R700 off my phone bill. What that means for me is that R700 will be going into my Kilimanjaro credit card. It may not be much considering that card is just sitting on R29 000 but I was already going to pay R800 into that account this month so that will make a payment of R1500 into that account this month! Can anybody say awesome! Please watch those side bars on the 15th of this month to see what a difference it makes to my credit card section, oh, and I sold one of my cellphones this month and got R650 for it, so in actual fact, I am going to pay another R300 into the very same credit card...just because I can :), that makes a grand total of R1800 off on that card this month. They are so going to love me this month!

Feel good poeple!

Totally Bleak

I try every 15th of the month to update my debt balances on my blog, because of a busy week and a trip home in between I could only do it today. Most of them have gone down, not much but at least by something except the credit cards, they have gone up! How is that possible when I pay them R13oo a month? Well apparently it is and they said they will take more money out my cheque account this month so I've had to ask my car to debit their money the day I get my salary paid in or else they won't be paid.

I am going to think long and hard this weekend about my debt goals and what I have for them for the next 6 months. Finances I believe should be planned 6 months in advance as to avoid getting any surprise expenses that you know are either annual or some how periodic.

Finances are supposed to be a happy thing to bring down but how do you bring them down when the charges are exceeding the actual payments? I am going to try bring my cellphone bill down by R200 so that I can start putting that money into my credit card (Kilimanjaro of course). I'm sure that will make some sort of difference.

You Live and You Learn

Since the last time I blogged, I have had two bad things and one good thing (financially) happen. The bad things: The credit card company (Kilimanjaro) went and took R3200 out of my bank account without my permission. I was devastated and it felt like I had gone into shock. After much crying, screaming and begging, the bank manager came through and refunded the money (which was my rent money so you can understand my stress). Secondly, my mobile company did not disconnect my cellphone contract and charged me for a whole month that I wasn't using the cellphone. That is still an ongoing arguement and I'm hoping to get it sorted it out in the two weeks that they promised.

Now for the good side...my company have got me a cellphone which they are paying for, so basically I don't need to use my phone anymore. I want to cut that billing to the bare minimum, so I should save about R200 a month.

I'm feeling quite despondent about the whole debt free thing. I am starting to think that living life is a lot more better than punishing myself for living it in the past. Not sure if that makes sense but I miss my reckless days. Maybe it's just a phase at the moment, but I'm tired of just dealing with creditors and giving them all my money and they are never happy, they just want more! If only they would just spend a week in my life and see what I'm going through to pay them and get the fools to understand.

That is my news!

Going going gone!

Okay, the tax refund is almost finished because I went and bought 8kgs of cat food for my cat, that means I don't have to buy cat food till the end of October. I bought my plane ticket from East London to Johnnesburg because I'm catching a bus down as it's half the price and I also bought the bride's pamper party gift and my sister's birthday gift. Otherwise, I had a good weekend with my cousins. I also bought 2 new pairs of earrings. some head bands and a lovely clip in the shape of a dragon fly. I also bought some nice food stuffs for the home and feel quite content watching Sex and the City Season 2 disk 1. I probably didn't do the most wisest thing with the tax refund but I know that if I didn't go to my friend's wedding, I would regret it in later years and the plus minus R1500 this trip is costing me would seem like change.

I have a cousin who rocks, she is more than a cousin to me and is treating me to go to a ladies night next weekend for my sister's birthday party and she is also throwing out her old bed to me! Yeah yeah yeah! I hate my present bed, it is low, as it has no legs and it the wood hurts my back as my matress is so thin. I must say that I was very lucky that my mom had a sister who met a man that made my cousin my cousin.

At the moment, I am busy waiting for my sister to arrive and have made a poor man's paella - some sausage and tinned muscles fried in peas, onions and a yellow rice. There is nothing better than a warm cooked meal on a Sunday night and the shopping spree really did bring back memories of credit card shopping without a budget - better than any drug I tell you.

Happy saving all!