But one thing I did in 2014 was I kept track of money. A simple excel spreadsheet with bills (income/expense) and threw money at debt in a consistent monthly manner (in one month I was able to pay over $750 on CCs !). Basically I cleaned that shit up. Credit score is well over the magical 720 mark and now I get the cream of the crop 0% interest credit card apps in the mail 2-3 times a week. Even though ON PAPER I have over $25k in available credit, less than 20% of it is used.
So I start to get end of the year statements. Discover shows that in 2014 I paid $1500+ IN INTEREST ALONE. I don't blame Discover... I made those charges. But guess what? Discover is paid off so that means I just got a $100+/mo raise. That's right. An extra $100 a month just magically appeared on my balance sheet. In 2013 I sold my 2012 Caliber ($320/mo) for a 1997 Jeep ZJ (got a $3000 loan, bought a $2000 used car and paid off the loan in 3 months) so that works out to ($320x12=3840-$2000=$1800) another $110 a month pay raise. In 2014 I SAVED $3840 in car payments! That's a $320/mo pay raise!! Went from AT&T ($65/mo) to Straight Talk ($47/mo) that ALONE puts $200+ in my pocket each year... get 2 or 3 of these smaller things piled together and its another $1000 a year saved... almost $100 a month!!!
Oh, yeah, paid off a Chase CC (another $75/mo pay raise) and I also cut back on on part buying. I have more than enough 'stuff' to do that is already in the garage and just needs elbow grease, not cash, to finish up.
So 2015 I start off with over $700 more each month (I did a lot more w/r/t paying off debt, but the above are the big ones). It's amazing how just an extra $5k or $6k a year 'found money' can change your life.
So now my house remodel is picking up steam, my girlfriend has moved in (not sure if that is a liability or an asset
) and my dog's cancer has not progressed. My car (164,000 miles) is getting long in the tooth but is solid as rock.. knock on wood. Getting my financial house in order took a year. It kinda sucked, but after just one year I am MILES ahead of where I would have been if I sat and wallowed in debt blaming Discover and Chase for my woes.
I start off 2015 with less weight to carry personally (figuratively... I lost 40lbs due to dieting... YAY FRACKING ME!) and my financial life (I 'make' over $6000 more in 2015 than I did in 2013 due to cleaning up debt) is much healthier, too. My smoking hot girlfriend (really, like no kidding, she's hot) has given me a purpose other than MVs and dogs and makes it all worth the extra work.
So what's the moral of the story? Make small, consistent changes for the better. You cannot move a mountain, but you can move small rocks. Mountains are made of small rocks. Pay off a small debt, bask is the glory of your accomplishment and then pay off another one, and another one. Make one small spending cut. Then another and another. AND KEEP WITH IT. It will not change overnight. It took me a year to get where I am now and I still plan on another 2-3 years of work. But it's worth it. Every night when I go home and see Andrea happy all the pain and suffering of going without for a year is completely forgotten.
So yay me.
