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The rich rule over the poor,
and the borrower is slave to the lender. – Prov 22:7
We’re 6 months into our Debt Free Journey and here are our snapshots
August’s total debts came out to $120,686, it actually went up from July’s total of $120,099.64, due to losing momentum and succumbing to pressures of spending once again.
Needless to say, we had charged up one credit card that we hadn’t destroyed, in part because it was my wife’s birthday, we had family over from out of town, and it was summer so we spent a few days running up our budget, sorry excuses i know.
It seems counterproductive but like I said from the get go, we are going to see this through no matter what, we just have to get used to not having a life for a while, and that is the hardest part.
The solution is for me to make money on my side gigs that will eventually pay off the excess charges we racked up for August.
I managed to land a side gig doing IT consulting though, it’s a few hours a month, like 20 hours maximum but it pays well at $70/hr. So I’m banking on that to cover whatever mess we made the past month and promise not to mess up again for September 🙂
JULY 2017 NUMBERS
AUGUST 2017 NUMBERS
LAST AUGUST’S GOAL UPDATES
OT – I was able to work about 10 hours of overtime, GREAT!!! But, ONCE AGAIN, we messed up on our budget and overspent to the tune of $1K last month, OT was good and it sure will pay for most of this, that and with the new side gig I have, I’m confident we can clean this up for September and the rest of the year.
MONETIZING – well, nothing happened in July, or August, that’s because I haven’t been promoting at all. Of course, in order to have any sort of income, I have to have decent traffic and I don’t. I will invest in a Pinterest subscription though and devote more time to figuring out how to get more views, time will tell, but then again, I’m not into this for the money, although it’d be great, I’m more into this for the accountability and personal development more than any other. So we shall see.
GOALS FOR THIS MONTH
OFFER FREEBIES – I’m almost done with my Ultimate Guide to Buying Real Estate ebook, seriously, and hopefully should get that up by end of month, since we got sidetracked with family visits and other non-emergencies that ate up most my time.
KEEP TRACKING OUR SPENDING – Did I mention that Personal Capital is the bomb!!!! It really is. I prefer using it now from mint, It just gives a better snapshot of your financial picture, plus it allows me to track my 401K account from my previous employer which I rolled over to a Wealthfront account, MINT, unfortunately, did not let me do that, hence the switch.
WORK O.T.– Unfortunately or fortunately for me, I am now a full-time permanent employee, with that, I no longer can bank O.T. since I’m salaried now. I took a hefty pay cut, around $15K annually but it all came out a wash since I’m getting paid now for time off, holiday, sick and floating days, which amounts to a total of 32 days per year, WOW what a deal!!! So I’m saying goodbye for O.T. for now and focusing on my side gigs.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT – I’m giving myself a 2 book a month goal, I finished GRIT by Angela Duckworth, and currently working on The Millionaire Mind by Thomas Stanley, I also managed to sneak in podcasts by Pat Flynn “Smart Passive Income” , Nick Loper’s “Side Hustle Nation” and of course, Dave Ramsey’s “The Dave Ramsey Show”.
REFINANCE – Still haven’t done this since my FICO score is barely budging, plus I don’t know if it makes any difference, since the interest rates I’m prospectively being approved for is at or worse than where I’m at so it’s really not worth it, I’ll continue to look at other options and see if anything is worthwhile and will share once I find anything, but for now, it’s business as usual.
WRAPPING UP
I’m telling you, if renewing your mindset about money and how to handle it isn’t the top priority, you’ll continue to make stupid decisions like we did last month. As Dave Ramsey puts it, “The man in the mirror is the problem” until we deal with our issue of why we continue to spend beyond our means and not be content with sticking to our budgets, we will continue to have difficulty dealing with debt.
I know it and realize it, the best thing I can do is own up to it, regroup, and get back on with the program.
One day at a time, we will eventually get there.
Do you have a similar debt situation that you’re trying to overcome? Any strategies you want to share? Please send us feedback below and if you like to join our journey, won’t you subscribe via the form below.
Thanks for stopping by, and until the next post.
Peace and Blessing to you All.
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