Hey there, knock knock. It’s me, the 30 year old guy in Dallas paying off his debt.

Been a while since my last post and I wanted to bring you all up to speed on what I’ve been doing lately.

So I bought a brand spanking new 15” Retina MacBook Pro with Iris Pro graphics for $1929.06.

Laptop: $1891.49 (this is the lowest possible price I could find and no tax )

Overnight Shipping: 37.57

Grand Total: 1929.06

What is he insane? He owes $34,342 on his student loans?! Suze would deny you! Hypocrite.

So take the 1929.06

Subtract 810 for 13” MacBook Air (paid $1560 shipped June 2012), might’ve gotten more if apple didn’t cut prices $200

Subtract 40 for the Apple Wired Keyboard sold

Subtract 70.50 for the Apple TV I have listed (got this with my credit card rewards points)

Subtract $30.00 for the USB Foot Pedal I sold. Originally I was going to do speech dictation work, then I saw how much it paid. It goes back to valuing your time / effort. I’d rather learn something technical that could help me in my current career / provide backup it I were to lose my job tomorrow.

Leaves ~$1000 for a brand new laptop not including my shipping fees or the cut eBay gets. I also sold a PhotoReading speed reading course for $99. All of these items were literally collecting dust, even the newest of the bunch the AppleTV rarely got used with our PS3 / Chromecast I was given as a gift hooked  to the living room TV. Selling stuff on eBay that is worth money and I don’t use is a little bit of a high. My computer and phone are my two most used electronic devices. 

Why did I buy the 15” Mac Book Pro?

• Retina display. It’s super crisp, 220 pixels per inch, capable of resolutions up to 2880 x 1800.
• Bigger screen. I use a mechanical keyboard with my laptop to avoid wrist strain. This puts me an additional ft away from the screen. With the 13” it was a lot harder to read. I kind of went from one extreme to the other going from a 17” laptop to a 13 inch.
• Faster – Dual core vs quad core.  The CPUs are more capable at multitasking and running CPU intensive programs in general. The graphics are over 2 to 300% faster than what I was accustomed to with my HD 4000 graphics card. I’m starting to play more games to pass my time and the performance boost really comes in handy.

I wanted to buy myself something nice. I won’t be getting rid of my car for a while, my wardrobe is decent, I’m making more and more meals at home. Since I use the computer so frequently I could justify this at least in my own mind. 

I’ve been somewhat on a roll with regard to my overall cash flow. Just completed my taxes and I’m getting over $1600 back between my two jobs and student loan interest deduction. That will be at approximately the same time as my next paycheck and I spent almost nothing eating out this week. I’m starting get more acclimated to bringing lunch with me to work. Maybe not every day but four out of five isn’t bad. Making meals for dinner is sometimes more of a challenge but I work through it. 

I had a couple of exchanges back and forth with Sallie Mae, basically my account says it’s prepaid until July 2014 however I’ve been making payments towards the principle not future payments. Long story short when I make an additional payment that exceeds my monthly minimum payment it advances their payment to counter by one even though the additional money still is applied toward principal… Then there was a separate issue of my student loan interest calculation not matching my estimations, Apparently there was over $800 in capitalized interest paid by me on account of my loans being in deferment previously. Although it helps with my tax refund I’m still mildly annoyed about how it was applied. 

This month February I’m going back to my $1000 per month strategy since I’m well caught up versus wherever was at the beginning of January. After the money I’ve been waiting on from my old employer comes in I will use that money an emergency fund and apply an additional $500-1000 per month of each paycheck toward making principal payments. Time to get gazelle-like intensity as Ramsey puts it.

As of this writing, I have $155 in my wallet, 2435 balance on my credit cards and $1750 in my bank account. I scheduled payments totaling $1350 for tomorrow and the rest will come right out of my tax refund money. 

Having some bathroom faucet hot water issues. Hopefully I can fix it on my own and not have to rely on a plumber. Stay tuned…

A little late on this update, but I wanted to report on my progress so far.

I started this is in April 2012, at the time it was less than 2 months after I started a new job. Also on the heels of being screwed by a company I only worked at for a mere 6 weeks, bounced my paycheck and filed for bankruptcy. Those days are fortunately far behind me. Some highlights for the year..

• went on 2 trips for the year, New York for a wedding, Las Vegas with friends to just have fun
• quit a job that was paying an okay wage for another in the same industry making over 50% more
• paid over $7500 on the balance of my student loan, roughly 1800 in additional interest
• I pulled the money from my Roth IRA and will not be contributing to it again for the foreseeable future. Was doing $20/wk, but the past month I honestly couldn’t afford it. Paid off all my credit cards this past week and was left with less than $50 to live on and 10 days till the next paycheck. I also did a dumb thing and invested it all in one stock. I don’t think I will ever be doing that again for the rest of my life. Already gotten burned twice.

I put together a new spreadsheet on my budget. Came to the conclusion of two things.

1. I cannot afford to continue paying $1000/mo on my student loan with all my other financial obligations. Every month since starting this something has come up where I needed to use my credit cards and then did las minute scrambling to get it paid off. Instead I will go to a modest $700/mo. This will stress me out much less, allow me to build up some type of emergency fund and I can pay more as I see fit. 
2. My bf and I agreed that we eat out too freaking much. Gay men tend to have fancy / specific tastes in food and beverages, which means we spend a lot more money than the average person on dining out. Including the $40/wk I spend on eating at my employer’s cafeteria for December I spent $450 on food, not including any grocery shopping. That’s way, way more than I ever imagined myself paying. Before you ask, we stayed in for New Years and I didn’t buy anything. Our mutual goal is to eat-in 4 days a week and for me to start taking food in with me to work.
3. Speaking of bf, been thinking about when to take things to the next level. I recently saw a movie called Bridegroom. Short version, two gay men from small towns move to California, meet each other through friends, fall madly in love. One’s family is open and accepting, the other is very anti-gay and has threatened his bf. They then get married, one is taking pictures on a roof, loses his footing and falls to his demise. Marriage wasn’t recognized in their state, the family of the deceased deny the partner the ability to attend the service /  funeral, basically leaving no closure and illustrating the larger issue of why gay marriage should be allowed / recognized at the state level. That and explaining some of the challenges people face growing up gay, some of the most resistance coming from one’s own family. There were a lot of things I could relate to, the fear of retaliation in public bit in particular. Alas it got me thinking again when would be the right time to ask the question. I think of Oprah and Steadman as being happy together without getting married, then there are gay couples that are married, but not exclusive… All things not really the subject of my blog here.

   Long story short, I have commitment issues I’m still working through along with the childhood baggage associated with divorce… Gay marriage is not recognized in the state of Texas and I have no idea if it ever will be based on the conservative nature of the state. I also want to do this one time and one time only. As much as I have these issues, I’ve never met anyone like him, who has opened his heart to me and tries so hard to make me happy even when I am the most cranky person you can imagine.

I started reading a book called Debt-Free Forever: Take Control of Your Money and You Life by Gail Vaz-Oxlade (famous for the  Til Debt Due Us Part show on CNBC). Lots of good stuff inside. I’m only 7% done so don’t ask me too much about that. 😛 I still listen to Dave Ramsey’s podcast, but his whole evangelical Christian slant to things / discremenatory wording for FPU leaders on what constitutes marriage does rub me the wrong way. I was close to buying a ticket for his event in Dallas this spring but have since changed my mind. We also don’t plan on having / adopting children, so that part wouldn’t apply anyway.

Started doing scratchoffs again. Not an investment strategy, but a reminder life isn’t always about money and to have fun. First time around I spent $20 and got $40 back, 2nd time $10 and got $20 back.  $20 is the max I will spend an that’s typically 1-2 times a month. When I win I cash out the card and stop playing.

I wish you all the best in 2014 and keep up the work of paying off debts and breaking free from the shackles. 

To put things into perspective in case I forgot why I sacrifice. Courtesy of unbury.me.

So about $3,790 in interest savings and over 4 1/2 years difference. I think it’s totally worth it.

Sallie Mae Month 19 Update

No I didn’t forget about this. Student loan is down to $35,925.89 as of 11/9. This month has been a challenge as my credit card balance was $1k at one point, it’s $407 now, will be around $900 after the bill from the plumber hits. I have enough to pay the balance after my next paycheck (less than a week from now), but may not be able to do the ~$547 payment I do in the middle of the month and still have extra cash leftover. I could pay half of it now and the rest later. I hate getting behind on my plan though.

Anniversary date is coming up soon too. I want to do something special that won’t break the bank….

This marks my 100th post to this blog. I didn’t think I had it in me really to stay committed to writing a blog about getting out of debt and sticking to it. Giving myself an obligatory pat on the back. Now get back to work and keep making smarter decisions…

Ball still rolling… Big step for me to be under $37k

This past month has been particularly challenging. The trip to NY was kind of the icing on the cake, but at least I got to see a beautiful wedding along with my friends and family. Some recent expenses have

136.06 – Avis Car Rental
37.01 – Citgo Gas
6.79 – Breakfast on vac
50.00 – Lunch on vac
313.48 – Car Rotors
100 – Plumbing (bf paid 150 of this)
1000 – Sallie Mae
102 – AT&T Wireless
156 – Verizon

Total = 1901.34. These aren’t even all of my expenses. I would be totally screwed without my $1k emergency fund. Doing my best to build it up again. Think I need to cut back on some things…

My bf had a death in the family, which may mean he’ll be flying out to Florida soon, then flying to New York for work then a christening. Been super busy with work / life, but plan to post more. 🙂