In my haste, I completely forgot about a three week pay period in my semi-monthly pay.  My paycheck was much larger than it normally is, 120 hours of work, 9.5hrs of overtime and 8 hours of holiday pay.  It would be great if I got that amount of money every two weeks.  Thinking big picture, people take home more than that all over.  I want to figure out how to make that a reality for myself.

Moving is ongoing, a major pain in the ass still carrying tubs of clothes, shoes and miscellaneous belongings down 3 flights of stairs.  We have made significant progress, with over 50% of the non-furniture items moved already. Found some movers online and the rest of our stuff is being shipped out Monday for about $77/hour.

My car needs new tires.  Hankook Ventus V4s have a 40k warranty from PepBoys, and I have 31k on mine.  Only thing is if I get a pro-rated replacement, I can’t use their Buy 3 get 1 free offer.  I also never take my car to PepBoys… Visited Discount Tire and the guy said it would just barely pass inspection.  Did some comparison shopping and decided to take advantage of my regular dealer’s buy 3 get 1 free coupon.  I get Road Hazard coverage and Free Lifetime rotations.  Might as well do it since the car is under warranty for another 2 1/2 years / 60k and the tire warranty is for 50k. It’ll set me back 4 and change once it’s all done, but safety is important…  Also need an inspection, new in-cabin micro filter.

Decided that I’m over my Mac laptop.  3 years old, 17″, 6.6 pounds and gets crazy warm in my lap.  It’s annoyingly heavy to carry around. It was great when I watched movies on my system and didn’t have a TV in my room. The 15″ Retina display model is 4.46 pounds for 2199 (a bit outside my budget, but then again I have held onto this one for so long) and the Air is 2.96lb.  I’m confident I can get a good $1100 for this model after the upgrades to it between 8 GB RAM and a 128 GB SSD. so my upgrade would be 4-500 for a system that is fast, light and actually comfortable to use. I use my computer everyday so while it seems like a lot of money on the surface I’d gain a lot from it.

My bf and I got a $140 skillet for 49.99.  Had to drive 20 min out of the way to get it, but totally worth it once you look at the long-term value of a purchase.

Some of my readers may wonder where I went (all 10 of them lol). Decided to rename my blog to emphasize more of the focus.  The original name ‘No More MBA Debt’ was a bit misleading.  Under 50% of the debt I incurred was from my MBA program.  The rest was from undergraduate studies. Also as much as I would love to meet Joe Mhalic in person and have a beer, the original name always struck me as a cheap knockoff of what he was doing.

Why Debt Free 32?  After giving it some thought, my original plan to be out of debt still stands.  Debt free by April 7, 2015. I will be 32 in August 2015.  So wouldn’t it be nice to celebrate my 32nd birthday without having any consumer debt? Hence the name Debt Free 32.

Apple released a series of new laptop products today.  I’ll be honest I really want a new MacBook, either an Air (1499) or a Pro 15 with the new crisp Retina display (2199).  I can likely pull 1100 on eBay for the model I have now with the SSD upgrade. I keep going back and forth on it though. Something newer and greater will always be on the horizon.  However this behemoth is not very portable and is a pain to type on in my lap since it gets so warm.  I may upgrade only if I find a great deal and I am out of credit card debt at the time.

New computers don’t hold the same appeal to me they once did.  I used to buy the newest model of whatever Apple put out, somehow justifying it subconsciously that I would find a way to pay for it.  It never happened and I slaved away at a low paying job for a month in some cases just to buy this shiny new toy.  I also use computers all day at work.  Granted they’re boring Windows 7 Dell machines but still.  Life is about variety and I can think of far more entertaining things than sitting in front of a computer.

I know I keep harping on it, but in two weeks I’ve worked ~96 hours. In NY I only put in 75hrs on a good week.  Getting more work done, but neglecting exercise and much wind-down time in general. Every hour of it was justified though, my team is somewhat understaffed compared to others and the new-hires are still in training.

Get paid Friday.  Updating again then.  Cheers.

So stoked about moving into the new house, even with all the items to worry about leading up to the final move-in date. Just a couple of pictures before I go to bed. It feels amazing to have a place to call our own.  Especially with this heat building up.  My car read 100° today.  A/C on full blast and I’m not looking forward to that bill.

I have a bunch of low quality pics, but these are the better ones I have. 🙂

Some pictures of the new place

This week coming up is a particularly rough one for me, some unexpected expenses combined with a need to not use my credit cards at all.

I’ve been through tough times before and this is like no other. Come Monday I will have approximately $4 left in my bank account.  Over the past week I did the following things:

• went out with my coworkers for dinner, paid my way to the tune of 27.89
• registered my vehicle for another year at our new address 63.75
• bought some items my partner’s coworkers birthday party 16.08
• spent 50.26 on fuel
• spent almost $70 on eating out, as we have not had ample time to go grocery food shopping, totally exhausted after work (we’re also beginning to move items out of the apartment).

On the plus side I’m really racking up the overtime which will definitely have a positive impact on my next paycheck. Been feeling a little bit stressed and burned out though.

I may be a nerd, but I like to look at the progress I’ve made since moving. My net take-home pay when I lived in New York was between 850 and $900 every 2 weeks. Now it is several hundred dollars higher and for once I feel I am able to make traction in my debt payoff efforts.

Other than that, there’s not a whole lot to report, I’ve been pretty disciplined in my spending habits. Still trying to figure out what to do around here that’s fun and economical. Getting out of debt isn’t sexy and I don’t have any patience…

Oh boy, so much going on.  The last work week I got Down to 2551.90 in credit card debt as of today June 3, 2012.  I’ve paid 500 in the last week.  Making some major headway.  This week I worked crazy hours, almost to the point of burnout.  49 hours in a week, when I typically work 40.  Got to work an hour early, stayed a half hr to an hour late.  On Thursday I worked through my lunch break.

Spent $20 on a VGA cable (yeah, crazy I know) so I can hook up my spare monitor at home. One thing I have noticed about myself is that I can’t watch TV and work at the same time.  I am wired to do single-tasking.  Focusing on too many things at once literally drives me crazy.

Snapshot of my current debt:

Student Loan – 42053.67
Credit Card – 2551.90
Total = 44605.57

I went to a restaurant downtown for a friend’s birthday.  My partner paid for my meal as he often does, had a blast. My car was valeted.  Went to start it up and the only thing it did was click. The windows wouldn’t even roll down. One of the managers at the restaurant was kind enough to give me a jump.  Brought the car to AutoZone since my Duralast Gold battery has a 36 mo free replacement guarantee and 8yr/96m warranty which would be prorated.  There has been no problem with the car starting up since.  Hopefully I don’t have an unpleasant surprise in the morning. I still suspect the attendant left the accessories on while we were eating for 2 hours.  Between my 2 amps, sub, radio and a/c that would kill the battery quickly.

We completed our closing on Thursday!  We’re financing 135k at an interest rate of 3.75%, total est monthly payment is 1020, plus HoA of 99 so 1120.  Our rent is 1285.  Still have a lot of things to do like move everything, setup the electricity, tv / internet, water. Met our neighbors recently, they seem really nice.  One of them is from New York, not too far away from where we used to live.  Small world eh?

I also need 4 new tires in the near future.  Been pricing out some deals, but I really don’t want to go into an extra $500 worth of debt.  You can see the top of Lincoln’s head which isn’t a good sign.  Should be fine in the dry, it’s the wet I’m concerned about. Holding out for a crazy deal before I buy.

Off to bed now, a new week awaits and I need to be refreshed!

I made the realization this week that most of the debt I’ve been carrying on my credit card goes back to 2011, all I have done is shifted it around from a high interest credit card to a low interest one.  The decision to eliminate debt has entered my subconscious and is affecting my behavior.

June 29, 2000 a game called Diablo II was released out into the wild and earned record sales for a computer game at the time.  Almost 12 years later on May 15th, the sequel was released to much fanfare.  The game is $65 with tax if I ordered it through the open beta program and the best deals I’ve seen offer it for $59.99otherwise.  Although I’m excited about the game, for as long as I have credit card debt or it’s not on some crazy sale I will pass. Not to mention the time investment.  Between my new job and a pending move, I don’t think it’s smart to start playing a game that will suck up 8-16 hours of my time to complete then just sit on a shelf and collect dust.

Been continuing to look at side gigs on CraigsList.  One that came to mind was installing printers for a company and getting $40 a pop per printer.  I got no response when I sent a friendly e-mail and my resume.  They wanted what sounded like a single person to travel around the state doing installs and reimbursing them for gas and hotel expenses.  Not the first time I’ve gotten ignored / rejected, but I’m no longer taking it personally.

Still a bit short of making my extra $100/week in OT.  I underestimated how much energy it has been taking out of me.  Need to keep it all together and plan ahead more so I’m not running around like a crazy person in the morning.  I am so looking forward to tomorrow, feeling a lil sensation of burnout.  Dinner out with friends, immediately after my shift ends just outside Downtown Dallas.

In other news, I’m still a bit in shock at the number of musical celebrities who have gone before their time . Donna Summer, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Adam Yauch, Luther Vandross.  People I grew up listening to and are almost part of my identity.  Coming of age moments, as a high school student confused about my identity, dealing with parents divorce and bad breakups.

I still don’t know where my peak is in life.  Things are looking up and getting my finances in order is the first step.  I do crave more and still feel like a bit of an outsider in Dallas.  Building friendships of people with similar interests takes effort and I’m not sure how much I have in me right now.  Just venting….

Maybe I’m in a slight funk right now, but this too shall pass. I want to buy some new clothes too, most of what I own is 2 years old and fading.  Down to $500 left for the downpayment.  It’s all happening quicker than I would’ve imagined.

Touched on this briefly, but I have been actively thinking of ways to accelerate payoff of my debts.  The most significant one has been underneath my nose, overtime.  If I can get an extra $100 per week net I can stay on track without depending on any of the other contingencies such as a promotion or getting hired at another company down the road.  This will only take a couple hours extra each week and is the easiest way I know to make some extra money without having a significant impact on my livelihood.

Biggest hurdle is getting an ample amount of sleep each night..  Typically get about 6 hours and am super stubborn about going to bed on time. On a side note, I went out with coworkers for a get together and company paid for our food less drinks. Extremely thankful for the generosity.

After calling AT&T I found out I won’t pay any Early Termination Fee, on account of moving to an area where their service isn’t offered.  I didn’t have to fight for it at all.  Much better than the 180 early termination fee I feared. This home is pre-wired for FIOS and I’m quite fine with that.  Almost 50% faster downloads and uploads up to 600% faster.  The monthly charge is about the same even without a telephone since we’re adding Multi-Room DVR (39.99/mo) and HBO (8.50/mo for the first year, then 16.99/mo).  Still on the fence about that for now.  Would be super nice if PS3 had HBOGo support since I could use my Verizon e-mail on my parents acct, but alas it’s Xbox 360-only.

In an unexpected turn of events, my partner is only asking for another 1000 for the down payment instead of the 1500-2000, so 1500 total without getting any money back.  Welcome news to me and will enable 33% of my credit card debt to go away this month.

Still curious about the bonus structure at my company.  I know what it’s based on, but the company is making tweaks to it so it’s hard to really determine a calculation.  Over the years, I’ve learned what you bring to the table should determine earnings ability.  Each day I focus on doing the best job I can, focusing less on the money alone.  I want to show my boss and team that I’m a valuable asset and make them want to pay more because I deserve it. Less than 2 months in, I’m doing a pretty good job.  Couple hiccups along the way, but that’s expected.

That’s the view of our apartment tonight.  For the 1st time since moving in July, we have no electricity.  Two buildings in the complex have power, but ours doesn’t.  Not a happy camper.  Hope the food in our fridge is still good, we went shopping over the weekend.

Lightbulb went out on Friday, only one part of the front gate opens, a big pothole that I used to hit all the time in the lot was finally fixed about two weeks ago. My knees are starting to hurt (tendonitis?) after walking up 40 stairs each time I go in and out.  Writing on the wall..  It could always be worse though.

New kitchen will require induction cookware, which means buying a new set for the kitchen.  We went shopping around.  Williams Sonoma has super high quality cookware but the prices I’ve seen are out of this world.  Gonna keep on shopping around.

In other news..

We’re getting about 800 off at closing in exchange for doing it two weeks early, something with the first month’s payment and the seller not wanting to leave it vacant for 2+ weeks. I’ll also be switching my auto policy from Geico after 10 years to AllState.  Got quoted less than I’m paying now even without a multi-line discount or joint policy holder discounts applied and what appears to be more perks (accident forgiveness and what not).  I believe it’ll drop from 85/mo to being 40-50, for full coverage.  That’s freakin’ sick.  When I was 18 under my mom’s Traveler’s policy in 2001 insurance was $200/mo.  Age, credit score and being responsible is definitely working in my favor.

I’m still figuring out an intelligent way of graphing this data over time.  Right now I have a clunky graph from Microsoft Excel.

My overall debt is 45099.65 right now, but I have 500 set aside for the townhouse and will be adding 500 a week for the rest of the month.  That will eat up a huge chunk of the money I would have otherwise applied to my credit card.  Some more observations I have made about behavior…  I tend to want to spend money on items I feel I deserve as soon as I get money.  Staying in line with goals can be a real challenge.  I want to see that graph get lower over time.

Actual spending in all different categories has been lower than I would’ve expected other than $85 spent (somewhat foolishly) on fixing the cable from my battery to the subwoofer.  Spent only $113 on gas for the month and most of my dining out expenses were paid for.

Cinco de Mayo was great.  Had a $19 dinner, then drinks at a local bar with a $10 cover.  Drinks were around 5 and change, I bought one and a friend bought the other.  Was worth it to get out of the house.  I discovered I’m uptight sack of social anxiety if I don’t drink at least a little. I’ve never really liked crowds of people.  Part of being an INFP I suppose.

It’s really insightful to see how spending can vary between social circles.  Paying $1000/mo to lease an expensive SUV and $200 for prime tickets at a car race. Even if I made double my income I wouldn’t do either.  I was raised to get as much value as possible from my dollars.  Others seem to be more concerned with image or having the absolute best experience possible regardless of the cost.

Started watching a show on Bravo called Million Dollar Listing – New York.  Type A personalities selling Real Estate.  All the glamor, the charm, the competitiveness.  I see common themes where all of the agents have families with a lot of money and of course the heavily inflated prices for real estate in Manhattan. It’s very entertaining to watch at the least.

The first month wasn’t easy and this second one won’t be much easier.  Brown bagging it each day or going home on my lunch break until I have the $2000 deposited into my partner’s acct for closing.  This experience is making me a stronger person for sure.  Off to bed now… Another update soon.