August Coffee Date

I'll have you know that the whole Yeti coffee rambler trend is like, my life saver. Since it keeps my coffee hot forever I can just enjoy it throughout the day. On any given work day, I'm usually still drinking my coffee at like. 3pm. Same cup though. Just little bits at a time. So I thought we'd sit down and have a leisurely coffee date today. Also, I'm really disappointed in myself for not taking a picture of my coffee on the beach in Mexico...

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IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE I would tell you that I have my interview for Global Entry on Wednesday. Global entry is like TSA Precheck, but it also lets you skip the customs line when re-entering the US from abroad. After our quick trip to Mexico, I have the travel bug extra bad. I've been saving for another trip to Europe. I use this app, Qapital? to automate my savings (it rounds up to the nearest $2 and keeps that money in a separate account.) I've been going back and forth about switching to something interest bearing, but I don't know if that's reasonable for a short term goal. Any money-smart people have advice for me? 

Anyways, so I want to take a trip to Italy sometime in 2020. I've been working on a pinterest board that usually starts with me searching "Italy Pizza Travel" because priorities. We want to hit Naples (obviously), Sorrento, and maybe one of the wine regions. I assume we'll either fly into Florence or Rome, and spend a day on one of those as well. Like, we're in it for the pizza and wine and lemon cello, we can hit the Coliseum next time. Have any of y'all been to Italy? What should we add to the list? When is a good time to go? 

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE I'd tell you I'm so close to getting my Real Estate license. I just have to sit for the licensing exam. Which I'm a little terrified of. It's an important step in my debt free journey, but man am I rusty when it comes to final exams. Like, December marks 9 years since I graduated college (woooooof) and also 9 years since I took a real, closed notes, final exam. I took the final exam for the online class I took (I used RealEstate Express, if you're thinking about doing the online certification that link gives you 35% off the price. They're supposed to pay for my licensing test if I fail it, which somehow doesn't make me feel better..) 

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE I'd tell you that when all of the online sales were going on, Chewy had Albus's dog food cheaper for two bags than just one. Like, it was $40 off the second bag, but with the autoship discount, we only pay $37 a bag. So I jumped on that. Well, I forgot to edit the autoship back to adjust for having ordered two month's worth of food, so on Monday I woke up to the notification that my order had shipped. Two more bags, but at full price this time. So Albus has food until November. 

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE I'd tell you that my currently reading stack is pretty dark. I'm at the mercy of my library holds, and The Tattooist of Auschwitz AND Columbine both came off holds within 24 hours of each other. So I'll be needing some lighter reading suggestions for the rest of August. All of my holds told me like "36 weeks!" when I placed then and they're all coming up in like the next month. Say a prayer that I can get through them before I have to return them so someone else with a hold gets their turn.

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE I would want to know what is new with you? Do you think we'll see a day under 100 degrees any time soon? I don't want summer to end, but maybe just like, low 90s or something please. 

Some Thoughts On "Getting Out of Debt" Blog Posts

I realize that this in itself is about to be a getting out of debt blog post, so I want to say something that has been bugging me for longer than I've been fully committed to getting out of debt: there is no one way to do this. There is no right way that if you follow the steps you'll magically be rolling in money. I confess, I see the constant barrage of people making six figures selling fitness shakes, and I wonder could that be what I need to do? Even though I know that's not in my comfort zone, I am not an outward sales person. [THIS IS NOT AN INVITATION FOR YOU TO TELL ME "YES YOU CAN GIRLFRIEND! HERE'S HOW I DID IT! BE A COACH/REP WITH ME!"]

What kind of prompted this post was an instagram post I saw. It said that people are mistaken thinking coming into $20,000 will miraculously solve all of their money problems. That their money problems are deep seeded. That post was clearly not for me, but it made me feel some type of way. For me personally, if I could just come into $20,000, I would be able to pay off nearly all of my credit card consolidation loan. Which would then free up that loan payment I'm making every month ($613) to be used for real life things. If I had the extra $613 in my budget every month, I would run a surplus based on my current situation. $20,000 is a life changing amount of money for just about anyone. To assume that the only reason someone is in debt is because they're fiscally irresponsible or living recklessly above their means is, to me, quite insulting. 

I think I mentioned before, we run a zero line budget. Sometimes things come up that are over the budget, and they have to go on the credit card. That's not ideal, but I can't predict the gas bill from month to month, even if we're trying not to use the heat. I can't predict exactly how much gas I will need. I can't predict if the dishwasher is going to suddenly stop working, or the washing machine will suddenly start flooding the basement. If you have the inside on how to predict those things, I would looooove to hear your secrets. I didn't mean for this to be two very long paragraphs about something that wasn't for me, I'm not trying to boo someone's yay. I just had a lot of feelings about that particular gram. 

I just have come to the conclusion that I'm not going to find solace in all of the people publicly dealing with their consumer and student loan debt. Sometimes, it will bring me cool things though -- I ran across Debt Free Charts on Pinterest the other day, and now I get to color in as I make debt payments. It's a small joy, but it's a joy just the same. I can visualize the destination. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!  Plus, I'm a child, so I really enjoy coloring. 

A blog collection I would like to see, and will promptly scroll pinterest for hours later tonight for, is landscaping on a budget. I want ALL OF THE FLOWERS. I genuinely want our beds to be overfull, I love that cottage look. I am NOT patient enough to wait three years to plant bulbs, let them sleep the first year, creep the second year, THEN leap the third year. Come on little flowers! I've also decided to build a fence between me and the lady next door in our front yard, but the city expressively forbids using pallets, which was my relatively inexpensive idea. Do y'all have budget friendly yard tips? Right now, I'm honestly just splitting all of the lilies and hoping for the best.  

A Journey Out Of Debt

I'm sure you've read one of the articles about us millennials not being able to buy houses because of avocado toast or bottomless mimosas or whatever it is we're prioritizing over a money pit. I own a house, I can call it a money pit from experience. I don't fall into the avocado toast group because I do own a house, but I honestly only own one because it was so much cheaper than the rent I was paying. I do, however, fall into the millennial trope about credit card and student loan debt. I'm working on hashing out a five year plan, and paying off credit cards is Big Goal number 1.

this picture has nothing to do with debt, these are just some pretty flowers in my front yard that got no love on the gram

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I have been reading all of the money blogs and books and think pieces I can find. I once bought the Dave Ramsey money book, but it's almost like it's a solution for people who are just starting out in the whole doing anything with money business. Cash only isn't a good option for me because I feel the opposite way most people feel about cash. If I have to swipe my card, I'm thinking about what I'm spending, but if I just have cash in my purse? It's free money! It's weird. I think part of it is *knowing* the interest rate on those credit cards.

I'm not as worried about paying my student loans, house, or car off super early, because I have incredible interest rates on them. They're all simple interest under 5%. My main focus is the mountain of debt with the 25% compound interest. My current plans to tackle this particular goal are: obviously any money I can make from this blog, I'm studying to get my real estate license, and I recently applied for a bunch of a consolidation loan options, and finally found one I qualified for. That literally saved me $3,000 in interest, right off the bat and gives me an end date that I can literally mark on my calendar.

I also use a few cashback apps, Ebates, Honey, Dosh, and Ibotta. I absolutely recommend them all. I mean companies are going to track your spending habits no matter what you do, so you might as well get your cut of it. If you have any other suggestions, that I might not know about, pleeeeease hook yo' girl up. Obviously send me the link that gets you a bonus too. I always want whatever referral code helps us both out.

Now, I do want to get a little defensive here. In September of last year, the Wednesday before the Taylor Swift concert, to be exact, I was laid off from my job. Prior to that, I was essentially working two full time jobs, not using any credit cards, and paying them down. I had them so under control, I was super proud of myself. After I was laid off from my higher paying job, I started working full-full time for my dad's company again. It was a huge pay cut, almost $20,000 a year. There's room to grow and all of that stuff, but that was a huge shift, and some things had to be put on credit cards.

Anyways. I got my budget in order and have mostly everything under control now. It's just time to see if I can make some extra money on the side and eventually find out what it's like to be relatively debt free. I figured y'all might like to come along on this adventure with me. It won't be like the posts where it's all "See How We Saved $50,000 In One Year!" and then you find out that they make six digit incomes and have no outstanding debt whatsoever. It's going to be SUPER fun, right? Do you have any suggestions? Any hacks I might not know about yet?