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Recap week of Feb 15-21 2009 – FAIL
As you can probably tell by my lack of updates, my goals for the week of February 15-21 weren’t completed. Actually it turned out to be a very long week, more like the week of February 15-28. Let’s see what I did and did not accomplish.
Sign up for twitter – Actually I did this, I am here: https://twitter.com/ronmjtd
Comment on some great blogs — Nope didn’t do this yet, I did some reading though so I don’t know why I didn’t comment.
Signup for mybloglog — you can find me here: My Blog Log Membership and My Blog Log Community.
Pay a few outstanding bills –YES, this one was important. I got a cheque for $2000 and I spent the greater part of 1K on my old overdue bills, I would have spent more but I wanted to save some money for my car payment and my rent, which I am glad I did because my next cheque doesn’t come for another week or so.
Call credit card companies and let them know I’ve paid — I tried to do this, some I got through and some I didn’t however they stopped calling me so I think they are happy again.
Set up a weekly budget – I haven’t done this yet.
Update blog as frequently as possible – Nope, I’ve only done 1 post since my last update. Big fail. I will do better than this.
Add statistics – By this I just meant analytics and such to the site, and I did this.
Join various blog communities – Somewhat similar to the statistics – I don’t believe I’ve really completed this goal yet.
Add the dollar times progress bars – Yes, I did this as you can tell.
Start jogging – Nope didn’t do this.
Add some cool widgets to the site – I guess these are okay.
Bring some people to the blog – I’ve seen a few people here and I’ve even got a comment. So I guess this has been done.
Search for spread sheet templates – No, not enough time.
I am going to give myself a 7.5 out of 14, wow that’s only 54%. Hopefully tomorrow I will set a March goal as well as a weekly goal for next week. To be honest I haven’t even finished setting up my Google docs to use to track my spending and that only takes a few minutes. I don’t think I have completely failed though, I mean 7.5 is a pass, and I can only go up from here right?? Right??
I am going to use Google docs to track my spending
So I have decided to use Google docs to track my spending habits. Hopefully by using this simple tool I will have a greater understanding of where my money goes. I first read up on this a little while ago while reading lifehacker.com’s article on using Google docs as a way to track your spending (you can read the article here. If you read the article which was wonderfully written by Nick Espinosa you can see how easy it is to setup. I am also going to use it with my iPhone. I will keep you guys updated in how it’s working for me.
Some of my weekly goals (Week of Feb 15-21 2009)
Here are some of my random weekly goals for this umm… this week:
Sign up for twitter (Done I’m at https://twitter.com/ronmjtd)
Comment on some great blogs (hopefully get some traffic)
Sign up for mybloglog.. done (My Blog Log Membership and My Blog Log Community respectively)
Pay a few outstanding bills.
Call credit card companies and let them know I’ve paid.
Set up a weekly budget which includes going to the grocery store instead of eating out!
Update blog as frequently as possible, I have a few ideas on blog posts that I just need to type up.
Add statistics to blog
Join various blog communities (as many as I can because I know some don’t allow new blogs such as this one).
Add the dollar times progress bars.
Start Jogging.
Add some cool widgets to the site (hopefully I can do this without my techie guy as I’m getting used to using Wordpress).
Bring some people to the blog (hopefully that’s you reading this!)
Search for some interesting spreadsheet templates.
Almost Setup
So I am almost setup.. I almost have all of my credit cards calculated, well I do have them calculated but not posted yet. As you can see I have one of those nifty little NetWorthIQ thingys up already, and it doesn’t look good.
This is pretty damn scary because I seem to be over my limit on a few cards (well all of them but we will get into that later) because I wasn’t able to pay the minimum payments (I guess that’s why all those 1800 numbers have been calling me lately). The over limit thing really sucks because it f’s me doubly, every month that I am over my limit on my cards I get dinged with an over limit fee of between $20-$25 depending on the card, then I’m sure next month I will be paying interest on that amount… Oh to own a credit card company!!
Once again, I do understand this is my fault and I take complete responsibility, so I don’t need anyone to state the obvious, now I just have to get out of this mess.
Comments are always appreciated and welcomed with open arms!! I should be able to post a better over view of everything within a couple of days.
And I guess the next thing I should do is outline some goals for myself. I will try to do that very soon too!
Getting Ready
So I have never figured out exactly how much debt I have. I mean, I do have a general idea of what kind of debt I am dealing with, but I don’t have any exact numbers. So my first task (even before I finish tweaking this wordpress blog) is to find out how badly I am in debt.
Nancy Zimmerman has given me a great excel spreadsheet to get a handle on debt. I contacted her after i read her case study blog post and she immediately emailed me a copy of the spreadsheet. Now it’s time to put it to use.
So my next steps are to calculate all of my debt and figure out my net worth. I will be using various tools to do this until I figure out my favourite tool. These tools will be Geezeo, NetworthIQ and Quicken (this is an affiliate link). I can’t remember how I found Geezeo but I think it was through this Stepcase Lifehack article.
And at the same time I (actually my buddy) will be fixing up this blog a bit to make it a little nicer.
My New PF Blog
So the reason I am doing this blog is to motivate myself to get out of debt. I also think this blog could help others get out of debt.
So a little about myself.
One of the problems that I face when tackling my own personal debt is that I am an independent contractor in the film industry. I don’t have a set paycheque every 2 weeks. It also hasn’t helped me that the last couple of years have been really hard on me financially. Every time I get money I need it to live and pay minimum payments and when I’m not working I use my credit cards (I don’t have a line of credit) to live off of. I know this is never a good path and I’ve always known that, however I still did it.
Don’t get me wrong, I am definitely not anti credit card person, however I believe it should be used as a tool and not a funding source. That being said, I don’t use it as a tool, more often then not I use it as an extra bank account.
I have found that a lot of financial type ‘debt software’ doesn’t help me when it comes to my personal finances because I don’t have a standard every 2 week paycheque.
Now I’ve come to a point where I have let my debts get out of control and I am having trouble making even the minimum payments on all of my various cards. I’ve had a terribly slow last 6 months with little or no work whatsoever. I have let my credit go downhill.
I am going to keep this blog very anonymous with only a few people knowing who I actually am (a select few know my situation and of course my techie guy). I will tell you however that I live and work in Vancouver, BC and I will be turning 30 in 2009 (yeah, that’s a big one). I already stated that I work in the film industry but apparently there are over 30,000 of us here in Vancouver. I am following my dreams and have few regrets (if any), but I do know that I HAVE to get control over my finances. I have to control my spending and I have to get out of debt.
As this is one of the first blog posts, I hope you will be able to follow along and hopefully I can get some advice and also give out some advice. Because I will be anonymous, I will keep everything as accurate as I can as well as updating everything as often as possible. I also hope to keep this blog interactive, interesting and fun!
Remember I welcome all suggestions, ideas and help, and I know will have some suggestions ideas and help for you too!!
My New Blog
Welcome to my new blog. I am just setting it up right now (as you can probably see). Please come back and check it out in a couple of days when it’s completely setup.
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