Rearranging Money to Pay Off Debts

I posted a day or so, "I need a glue stick but I'm on a tight budget!" It was true, I did "need" a glue stick..but it turned out to be a want. I used a paper plate a puddle of glue and Q-tips to work on a collage. It is fun trying not to spend money.

We are going to take money out of investments. Not retirement benefits from work, but some other investments. At the high end they might be gaining 12 percent interest. But credit card debt. accrues 21 and higher interest. For us to pay off our debt, the smart thing is to take our money out of the low interest mutual fund and snowball it into our debt and we will be out of debt sooner except for the house. We have a small emergency fund. Once our debts are paid off we will build it up to a six month emergency fund and start working on paying off our house.

We figured out that $75 a week for food is not enough, unless we plan better. I know I talked about yogurt (no that is not all that I eat). I compared my 32 oz. container of fat free plain to Activia (which is lower in cost than yoplait) and 32 oz of Activia is $4.40 compared to the 32 oz. of the bulk yogurt at $2.00. We needed to go back to the store for more fruit and spinach. I like a nice spinach and mandarin orange salad with slivered almonds. Tasty and nearly free on the Weight Watcher's program.

While we look at taking money out of our mutual funds we need to look at the penalty if there is one. One lady refused to take her money out because there was a 2% penalty. We will look at what kind of penalty we will have on our funds. But according to Dave Ramsey paying off high interest creditors is more important than keeping money in low interest gaining (or staying stable) investments. I will be needing to do that because I am "gazelle intense" on getting us out of debt. So I will be the one doing the work over the phone.

The more I read the more convinced I am that living on credit is not the way to go. We have cut up our cards and have one that we have used for emergencies. We are going to close that account as soon as the debt is paid off on it and in the mean time and from now on we will get a Visa-secured debit card to carry for emergencies. Visa-secured debit cards can be used to reserve hotel rooms and pay for airline tickets. They work as well as a credit card but they are drawing on actual money that you have in your account.

We can start investing once we start putting $1,000 extra toward our house payment each month.

Nothing really new, except the fact that spending has really come to a halt for things that are not necessities. This week I am faced with a baby shower. That will have to come out of our miscellaneous fund, but it is a little unexpected. I'm new in the area and don't even know who it is that is having the baby, but they are from church and I want to get to know the people better, so I am going to go. I'm not sure what I will get, but most likely it will be something practical but cute.

That is all for today, I'm getting ready to send off more copies of my book, The Visitors of Pompadour, and working on my letter to send to reproducibles publications. Tonight I hear there is a good football game on tonight. We haven't gotten rid of our dish yet. I'll need to work on that tomorrow!

Have a great day!