Thursday, August 05, 2010

July 2010 Recap...


See the change in my cash balance? Well I realized that I inflated my cash balances by including my monthly paycheck. Since pretty much the entire thing goes to pay bills, I decided not to include it going forward.

Debt levels are slowly but surely going down. Everything was paid and paid on time. I cannot wait to see the credit card balance gone...maybe early next year. Chase asks me for $425 but I make sure that I pay the accrued interest and $400 towards principal each month. I am going to try to make it $500 in August. Wish me luck!!!



***A further budget breakdown is below.

This is the first month I stayed within budget....probably since I started working 10 years ago. The part-time helped out a lot. I made a few adjustments in July. For starters, I decided to pay for my transporation costs including parking, train and gas with my credit card so I can better budget that category each month. Secondly, beginning in August, I started to save each month for my quarterly water bill and my annual home insurance so that I don't have to pay the lump sums I had to pay in July. Those expenses can be budget busters for sure (see below).



My credit scores are great and steadily improving. They have never been this high before so I know I am moving in the right direction. My goal is to continue to pay everything and everyone on time, to keep improving my credit ratios, to improve my spending habits, pay down debt and learn to balance living and financial responsibility.

Not a bad month Chitown!!! =)

3 comments:

Eve said...

look at you, you are doing great!!!

Anonymous said...

Accruing for lump sum payments is going to be a great relief for your monthly budget.

How do you get your credit scores on a monthly basis?

Congrats on the progress and good luck moving forward!

Chitown said...

@ YBP: Thanks girl. I am seriously trying over here in the Chi.

@ Broke by Choice: Thank you. I suscribe to True Credit by TransUnion. My sister was the victim of identity theft and my Dad and I have similar names so companies get our names and addresses mixed up all the time. I can get my credit report and scrores every 30 days and they give me monthly alerts to let me know that my credit is clean and there have been no new inquiries or accounts.