Aren’t I Just a SmartyPig

I have recently become addicted to a blog called Debtkid that is extremely insightful and realistic. If you haven’t read it yet, you are missing out. It’s about a guy that is 23 years old and has over $300,000 in debt; mostly debt from day trading. I love his blog because for one, it makes me feel better about my rudy-poot $32K deb compared to his whopping $300+K , and secondly because he has no gimmicks to get out of debt quick and he is really dedicated to getting out of debt. Check it out when you can.

He recommends using SmartyPig as a savings mechanism. Now trust me, I am very weary of letting my money go somewhere, anywhere at that matter since I need every, single penny for something but I checked it out a month ago and I have been using it every since. Needless to say, this is the most money that I have saved over such a short period of time. The APY is 2.01% every quarter which is better than any of the banks that I have heard of at the moment. It e-mails you everytime there is a draft and it keeps you on track by letting you know how far you have come since you started. I am all for mindless work!!!! WooHoo!

Where Do I Start

Tonight, I am trying to think of a plan to get started someway, somehow. I first need to come up with a strategy to get these freaking bills paid off. I also need to make a budget (UGH!!!!) that will work for me and my lifestyle (basically something that is realistic). Before the end of the business day tomorrow, I need to look at my regular rotating bills and see if there is anyway that I can decrease them.

My Verizon bill bill is averaging around $250 per month (that includes my cellular and wireless aircard). That is too freaking high I know which is exactly why I have to get that under control. My electric bill is running around $200 per month this winter and my apartment is only 1,077 square feet and we are rarely here. I always cut everything off when we leave the house in the morning and unplug things that are not in use (not sure if that helps but it can’t hurt). So what’s the deal?

My first question is what bills do I pay first? Some of my bills (which are all under $80) are not on my credit report (yet) but I’m afraid that if I continue to ignore them, they will later come back and haunt me. My basic bills are behind except for rent, water, and my son’s after school care so I feel that I need to first get caught up on my cell/ wireless aircard bill, electric, and furniture bill (all of which I will show balances and explain later). All of my actual debt is in collections so there is no APR to worry about right now. Crazy part is I have not received statements for some of the debt that is literally murdering my credit report. So I need to start making calls tomorrow to get up-to-date addresses and phone numbers for those items.

The only thing on my credit report that is in good standing is student loans and that is only because 1 of them is in deferment since I am currently in school and the others are still somewhat fresh since I am currently enrolled in school so no one asking for money yet. I have a long way to go to get this under control. Tonight I am going to research some online budget planners and see if I find one that is easy, manageable, and cheap dog gone it. Also, I need to research what strategy I will use to get my self out of debt.

Fashion vs. Debt

The issue.

I love clothes…..I mean I really love them. Not like I love my son but I do love them. I especially love shoes. The touch. The smell. The feel. The styles. I think I’m about to have a shoe-gasm just thinking about them. My love for shopping and fashion is what got me in this crap load of debt that I am standing in now. How did that happen? How did something so wonderful as shopping get me in such a hellacious thing as debt? Not to mention that I have another mouth to feed. My son looks up to me big time and if he understood what debt was, he would say , “OOOOOO mama, look what you did! I’m telling my daddy!”

The history.

It all started when I started college back in 2000 and I got my first credit card. Now understand that the card was for emergency purposes and honestly, no one explained how credit actually worked to me. I was handed the plastic, told there was a $600 limit, and sent away to school. Now I’m from a small town that doesn’t offer a lot of options for shopping; just Wal-Mart, Cato’s, and Fred’s to get the hottest trends. So when I entered the “big city” (which I now realize wasn’t so big after all), shopping wasn’t my first drug of choice. But then I clicked up with some chicks that stayed in my dorm that turned me on to the joy of shopping and boy was I hooked. It was my new found addiction. OMG! New clothes. Looking sexy. Being envied. What more could a girl ask for? A credit card where the bill didn’t go home to mommy and daddy. But what was a girl to do? I had to get new clothes stat!

I thought fate was on my side.

Little tables offering free T-shirts, free pizzas, $10 gift cards, etc. started to fill the pathways to and from class. The only thing you had to do was fill out this lil’ ol’ application for a Visa, MasterCard, Discover, etc. Easy. I got a free T-shirt and a Visa card 2 weeks later with a $500 limit. Awesome! I maxed that sucker out in less than 2 weeks. That following week, I picked a new table and got a Discover card with a $1,000 limit. Jackpot! That was followed by another Visa. And last but not least, a MasterCard. I hadn’t even made it through my freshman year of college and I was already $7,000 in debt and I didn’t even realize it.

By my sophomore year, I was in the hole $10,000 on credit cards alone but my credit was still decent so I started venturing out and acquiring new debt like cell phones, personal loans, and I even moved off campus and got my own apartment (to grown for my britches). I thought I had it made until I was denied cable service. What???? That had to have been a mistake right? Wrong. That was when the real the world came tumbling down on me like shoes off the top shelf…… now I understand what TuPac was talking about in his song “Me Against the World”.

The realization.

 I have now decided-after being denied credit so many times that I can’t stand it, realizing that I owe it to my son to get out of debt, and realizing that the economy is too damn bad for me to continue to keep putting this off. 2010 has to be a better year for me…..seriously.