Wednesday, March 02, 2011

February 2011 Recap...

Well, I am two months into the year and I am still doing well. This was my annual bonus month so I was able to pay off a few debts and put a small amount of cash to the side. It was a good month overall.

There were 4 - $200/week challenges in the month and I blew it one month after wandering in the grocery store. Won't happen again. I also bought some much needed toiletry items and put away a little cash so that I can pay for some upcoming expenses. I have annual doctor and dentist appointments coming up which require co-pays and upfront payment. My insurance company will then reimburse me at the "reasonable rate" for services. What that means is that I don't get all of my money back. I also have to pay the fee for my taxes. That's about it for now.

It was a good month. My net worth is moving in the right direction and I expect it to move in a positive direction every month from here on out. I am also going to begin putting any excess cash from the $200/week challenge towards debt so Group D's balance should start going down.



5 comments:

trekerboy said...

Wow, I really like how detailed you are about how you're getting out of debt and the progress you've made! All the status bars on the side of the page are great!

Anyway, I found your blog linked from another blog about someone getting out of debt. I added your blog to my Google Reader list for the occasional inspiration!

I'm blogging about my debt free dive as well. I'm going to be doing a lot of charts, graphs, and spreadsheets as well, so I hope you'll check it out! I just started the blog, so there's only two posts so far.

http://thedebtfreedive.blogspot.com/

Enjoy, and thanks for sharing your journey with the rest of us!

Anonymous said...

Great job this month!!!! You are really making headway!

Just a question-- why is your cable/phone/internet bill so high?? Can you speak to the cable company to lower it? Do you have a landline that you can eliminate? This cost seems way above what most people seem to pay, even with an Iphone.

Also, what is TrueCredit? Does that monitor your credit score? You can get your various scores free every year, and because you won't need any lines of credit anytime soon, it doesn't seem like you need to monitor your score so often. That would be another $180 a year you could save!

Hope that helps, keep up the good work!

Chitown said...

@ Trekerboy -- Thanks so much for visiting my blog. I will definitely check out your site and encourage you on your journey. =)

@ Anon -- The $307 is for cable, house phone, internet and my cell phone. I am considering a smaller cable package. I need the land line for the internet usage at home since I work from home on occasion.

The credit monitoring is for TrueCredit. My sister was the victim of identity theft and my name is almost the same as my Dad's name. My name is Chitown and his name is Chicity. Almost the same since I am named after him once he knew sons weren't in his future. I get his mail all the time and often people address me as Mr. Chitown when I am a Ms. It's worth the cost for me to get the email each month that I am in the clear.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for explaining about all of that! That totally makes sense re: True Credit, I stand corrected!

As for the cable/phone/etc, if you can lower the cable, I say go for it! Also a lot of times you can negotiate it down without removing channels (I recently lowered mine $20 just by asking)!

Keep up the great work!!!!

Anonymous said...

Wow, $9,000 knocked off your debt. Great job ! ! !