Debt Free Kid

I felt so alone when I began our debt free journey at the end of 2008. I was exhausted from going to work every day and the evenings felt excruciatingly long while I was at home on my own with my two year old. Up until that point I had my old friend Ebay to keep me company, but when the VISA bill came in with a balance over $20 000 and the minimum payment was $250 (which I could pay, but then not pay the hydro bill), I broke down and admitted to myself that everything had to change. A few months later we were settled into our apartment and I started dating a man I met at work. As I got to know him I became extremely self conscious about my financial situation. He came from an upper middle class family, and his parents paid for his post-secondary school tuition, up to his Master's degree. When he received scholarships for his PhD, they gave him the rest of the saved education funds to buy a house. By the time I was getting to know him, his house was sold at a profit and he was liv...

I just updated the side bars and I noticed - unless I made an error previously - that my student loan balance is going UP instead of DOWN. I have read about this happening to other people, but because I have diligently applied and been accepted for the Repayment Assistance program every six months, I thought my balance was actually going down. This puts the pressure on me to shift my fast-track payment from the car loan to the student loans. This is starting to feel right, because the student loans are old, so old, from 1996 - 2005 and I don't want to deal with them anymore. I am making an extra $20 a month car payment and now I am going to increase the student loan payments. I haven't increased the mortgage payment yet. The big news is that I started a full-time job in August, and I saw my first, full, real paycheque on Oct. 28. I saw an increase of $588 in my take-home pay, which is nothing to sneeze at, but our expenses for before and after-school care will increase dr...

In three years I will be 44. Bean will be 13. In three years our car will be paid off. As soon as Bean's legs are long enough, I will teach him to drive it, and we will share it until it no longer runs. I don't plan to buy another car. In three years I will owe less than $10 000 on my student loans. In three years I will owe just over $110 000 on the mortgage. In three years I will either be working full-time, or I will take the leap and reduce my work hours and practice living minimally and mindfully. In three years we will be thinking about which high school Bean will attend. Will he go into the international baccalaureate program at our local school, or will he commute to the other end of town to continue French Immersion? We will have another year to decide. In three years I will have hopefully reached my savings goal. In three years I will have struck another couple of items off my bucket list in the sidebar.

  http://play.nintendo.com/themes/holidays/nintendo-valentines-day-theme-2016/ Bean has decided that he is a geek/ nerd, and I'm having fun indulging him with comic books and watching great superhero TV shows with him. We don't have cable TV, so we wait until the shows air and then catch them online the next day.  He loves the Nintendo characters (even though I bought him an XBox last year - d'oh!) and I printed off a bunch of free Valentines from the link above for him. Tonight we are going to watch The Flash, glue the Valentines onto construction paper hearts, and make sugar cookies for his classmates. I received statements for two of my four student loans the other day, and the smallest loan was at $1650 at the end of December. I'm tempted to use part of one my savings accounts to pay the loan off completely. It's been a part of my life since I started college in 1996, and I want to see it gone. Twenty years! Currently, I'm in an assistan...

So far not off to a great start. I misread a letter from the student loan company and was $4 short for one of my payments. I started off the new year with a $45 NSF fee in my "no-fee" account. It was a really stupid mistake, since the line of credit they granted me is sitting there unused, and I could have transferred an extra amount from there just in case ... could have, should have. The mistake will eventually be forgotten, but not my grudge against that bank. I have already pulled almost all of my money from it to use another no-fee bank that is serving me much better. It felt great to end 2015 with all my bills paid, thanks to the "Xmas Saving" account I set up, where I deposit a small amount each month to cover December (extra) spending. However, I forgot to leave a little bit in there to visit a friend before New Year's, and ended up having a larger than expected credit card bill to pay in January. So I'm playing a bit of catch-up this month and not...

How did I pay off $20 000 in 2.5 years? - Started tracking my spending (I use Excel). - Took advantage of balance transfers to lower-interest cards and line of credit. - Moved into a small apartment, shared a bedroom with my son (the first year). - Stopped buying coffee and a muffin each morning, and a cola each afternoon. - Stopped shopping online and in stores for clothes and other distractions. - Used a subsidized food box program once a month. - Kept my appointments with social services for a child care subsidy. Also kept to their guidelines to keep the subsidy. - Bought used car. Tried to keep up with repairs, but when it became too costly, parked it and took the bus. - Let my sweetheart at the time pay for my outings (as a feminist, this was really hard for me, but it was the only way I could do anything that cost anything). Why didn't I start riding a bike to work? - I don't know how to ride a bike. - But if I did know how, I would have to put my son in one ...

Thanks to this post on The Simple Dollar , I learned about a site called unbury.me , which gave me something to think about regarding my debt repayments. I plugged in my minimum amounts: 1) Mortgage - $862/month at 2.94% (paid bi-weekly, but there was no place to show the two months of the year where I pay $1291 - I guess I could have used $933 as the average); 2) Car - $250/month at 1.9%; 3) Student Loans - $144/month at 4% (I guessed, since there are actually four loans with different percentages - the most common one is Prime + 1.5%). The result told me that I should continue making these minimum payments until March 2021, when the car will be paid off, and that $250 can then go onto my student loan payment. In October 2024 the student loans will be gone, and the combined $250 + $144 goes onto the mortgage, paying it off by October 2030. This is pretty cool because I have decided I want the mortgage paid off in 15 years so that I can think about early retirement. October ...

Last night before I fell asleep I was seriously contemplating selling my bass guitar and my violin. I own a 1974 Fender MusicMaster bass that I used in several punk-rock bands in the 1990s. I also own a 1902 Stradivarius copy that I have never really played. A few years ago I took it in for repairs and was told that if I played for 20 minutes each day that the violin would repair itself. I never did it. I could probably get $600 for the bass and maybe $50 for the violin, so it might not be worth it. That amount would be spent pretty quickly with nothing to show for it. I still owe $2900 to my debt. $650 would barely make a dent. Yet I don't intend to play either instrument any time soon so I would do it for two other reasons: 1) to de-clutter a bit 2) to break from my past. I played the violin in public school from grades 6-9. I went to music camp for a couple of weeks for two summers. I was actually pretty good by the time I quit. I was supposed to audition for a sch...

The light at the end of the debt tunnel is beautiful and warm. Just in time for a well-deserved thaw, I will be credit-card debt-free. With my income tax refund I paid off the line of credit. With the child tax credit I will put $200 on the credit card, bringing it down to $3000. The good news is that I was asked to house-sit for three months!! Without having to pay rent (or bills) this spring and summer I will be able to pay the debt off in full, several months before my self-imposed deadline. Then in the fall I can begin to pay my student loans. I am trying to come up with a strategy to get around the consolidation agreement that stretches out the payments over 14 years, doubling the amount borrowed. So, that is my good news. In other news I am grateful to have a little bit of savings into which I can tap to make a donation to MSF . Seriously, Karissa

My blogger friend Grace  struck a chord with me today when she posted about being the "go-to" person in the family, especially when it comes to money. Currently I am financially responsible for only myself and my son. However if something bad happens and I can no longer work and earn, it will force his dad to become more responsible with his own time and money, if possible. So in an indirect way I am the go-to parent, even though at this point in time no one is actually asking me for money. I get bills that the dad doesn't: Daycare - which is subsidized but there is a monthly bill to pay plus I have to meet with the social worker twice a year to insure continuation in the program Dental and prescriptions - which I have benefits to cover but I have to pay the bill before I can get reimbursed. School - always seems to be nickle and diming me for fundraisers, PLUS I have to come up with a lunch the kid will actually eat, which I try to keep cheap and healthy ...

Happy New Year everyone. I have been working on my budget for 2011 and I am confident that I will have the last of the credit card debt gone by the end of the coming year. I can't say I will be debt-free because I will then have the $30 000+ student loan debt to tackle, however I am feeling pretty ecstatic to see the end of the credit card era of my life. It was nice to receive my paycheque on the 28th of December and be able to allocate it entirely into my new budget. I didn't have any credit card bills to pay since I managed to use some savings for all my xmas gift purchases. I also bought way less this year than in previous years. My sister and I agreed to buy nothing for each other and instead got together on xmas eve for a nice visit. I also didn't buy for any of my step-siblings' kids (of which there are now 6) because they keep multiplying while I responsibly keep my number of offspring to just one :) I kept my traveling to a minimum this xmas and when I di...

The dreaded debt rut. I think I'm in one. I recently posted that I switched my focus from paying the credit card debt as quickly as possible to building a proper emergency fund, which I expected to deplete either if I went on strike or if I got the car repaired. I didn't go on strike, but I did get the car repaired. Yet my EF still sits at just over $1000. The thing is, where recently I thought having savings would be detrimental to my aggressive debt repayment schedule, instead I decided I liked the look of a nice four-figure number in my bank account. I changed my mind, and that's ok. The debt gurus would be proud, because I now have a minimum EF. So not only had my debt sat at $6500 for over a month, it's now actually increased to $8000, because I decided to use my line of credit to pay for the car repair, so that I could keep my little EF intact in my savings account. The other thing I have decided is to re-visit the "Debt Diet," which I think Opra...

Anyone following my progress bars might notice that for this month so far my debt has stayed at $6700 while my savings has increased to $500. Normally I would put most of the savings towards the debt but for the next few weeks I just can't. Now I know I'm supposed to have at least $1000 saved for emergencies but for a while I was doing it my way and throwing almost every cent on the debt. I'm just that desperate to get it paid off. However this month I'm halfway to a proper EF because the threat of a strike is looming at work and I don't want to rely entirely on my Line of Credit. If the strike is averted I will probably use the money saved to fix up my Ford, which is still sitting at the shop waiting for a quote. I've asked the mechanic to keep it under $1000 but he thinks it might be more like $1200 - $1500. Hope to find out within a couple of days since I have to return the Honda to its owners tomorrow (with thanks, and hope that they don't mind I did...

So my Ford is still sitting in my parking lot, and I'm still driving the borrowed Honda. I can't say I've saved much money, since I have paid $130 for a new (used) tire and a replacement brake line. Both situations leading up to these repairs were costly in terms of stress and slight trauma as well. I have a feeling I should bring the Honda back to it's owners' house and say "thanks!" If I do that I have three choices: 1) Get back on the bus 2) Buy a new(er) car 3) Repair the Ford The mechanic who installed the Honda's new brake line said more lines are rusty and are going to break, and will need replacing. He's willing to take look at the Ford for free. He thinks $3000 was a high quote for the repair, but admitted that it will still be expensive. I hope to have the credit card balance down to $7000 and in a couple of months I will transfer it back to the LOC (5.5%), before the interest rate on the card goes back up to it's normal 19%....

April was a little too spendy for my liking (two impulse shops + one trip to the Capital + one trip to have my snow tires removed + Bean's fourth birthday = $500) so for May I have switched to cash only. I withdrew $400 cash ($200 for food & household, $100 for car-gas, $100 spending money) and divided it into a couple of old spagetti sauce jars. So far, I hate this system. I am just not used to cash. I like cards. I don't know if I'll get used to it. I'm going to try my hardest, because I can't rely on the security of my line of credit anymore, since I transferred the balance of my debt onto a low-interest master card (0.99% for ten months). Previously I was depositing my monthly paycheque into the LOC account and removing a weekly amount for expenses (usually $100 a week or $200 when car insurance was due). This system seemed to work really well for me: I was paying the balance down and feeling secure about access to my funds. Now that my debt is sitting...

I called Master Card to check the status of my application for the new card. It was still pending, but the rep informed me that I had a deal on my current card for 0.99% for the next nine months. I decided on the spot to go for it, and now my diminishing debt is back on the MC for a little while. It changes my strategy of pooling all my resources into my easily-accessible LOC, and means I will have to be more diligent to put a large chunk onto the card rather than hoarding it in a savings account with fear. However it will be nice to use my neglected savings account again. Hopefully I can keep some funds in there for once! Seriously, Karissa

Well, my debt is under $10 000 and settled nicely into my Line of Credit at 5.25%. The only strategy I had planned for the next year-and-a-bit is to plug as much money possible into that account to pay it down to $0. I was looking forward to starting with my next paycheque on the 28th (I get paid once a month, right?). I figured at least one of my credit card companies would come sniffing around since they all have zero balances. So I don't know why was I surprised today to receive an invitation from MBNA to switch to their PremierRewards card. Normally I shred these invites but today I sat down and looked it over. If they approve me for $10 000 I can move my LOC balance over and pay 1.99% for ten months. The "small" print at the back of the page tells me that there is a balance transfer fee of 1% of amount transferred with a minimum fee of $7.50. So right off I will pay $100 to transfer over. Interest on $10 000 is $16.58 per month, which would go down if I continue ...

Received my T4 at the end of February and immediately filed online. Received my income tax refund by direct deposit today and PAID OFF MY MASTERCARD. Looky at the pretty sidebars. I moved up the debt bar because I'm so proud. People have been asking me how I cleared $11 000 worth of debt in 15 months and to be honest, I'm not quite sure how I did it. I'm making a mental list and hope to type it out and post it soon. Hope you're having a great weekend. Mine just got that much better :) Seriously, Karissa

I'm proud. Hell, I'm bragging. In fifteen months I have paid off 50% of my credit card debt. Over ten thousand dollars. I don't know how I did it. I didn't take a second job and I didn't sell anything online. I still have a social life and a car. I even paid off a huge car repair bill ($1400+) and bought two pairs of orthopedic shoes ($500). I bought a crappy new cell phone ($300 with all the bells and whistles). And still, I managed to pay HALF my debt in just over a year. I'm psyched I tell ya. If I can keep this up, I'll be paying off my student loans in no time, and then I can start saving up for a bigger and better life for my son and I. Seriously, Karissa

I cleaned out my TFSA and put it on my MasterCard. I am so close to paying it off I can taste it. I will probably move another $400 from my LOC to bring the MC balance down to $1500. Then it's the waiting game for my tax return which will go right on there as well, hopefully paying it off. I'm not putting anything into my RRSP this year. I want this debt gone. After fifteen months sharing a one-bedroom, Bean and I are moving into a two-bedroom on March 1st. We're staying in the same building, just moving down to the ground floor. I'll be paying about $150 a month for the extra bedroom plus a small backyard behind our apartment. Plus the super said they would give us a basic cable account for free for one year. I will have to sign another one year lease, which I think is BS considering I just finished one with them. Seriously, Karissa