my condo

I paid the property taxes on my condo today. I try to focus on the positive aspects - paying proporty taxes means that I own property. I'm financially solvent enough to be able to write the check without sacrificing other stuff. There's the satisfaction of knowing that I'm being responsible enough to put the money away throughout the year and that it's working (yay for automatic transfers.) It's a great feeling of accomplishment and pride. However, that doesn't stop the cringe of writing out the biggest check of the year (two biggest checks, actually) or watching my carefully plotted taxes account go back down to near-zero.

I'm still doing the math& timeline on moving out of my condo so I can rent it out. I've been in my condo for 9 years, so my mortgage is pretty low compared to what it would be for something in my neighborhood now. But the jist of it right now is that renting it out at $1800 would probably net me $500+ each month after the mortgage, condo fee, property taxes, storage unit (assuming I can't fit all my stuff into a new place) and a condo maintenance account (because with someone else liveing there I'd have to actually take care of things pretty quickly). I don't know how some of those costs will change when I move out, esp. the condo fee & propoerty taxes. All I know is an extra $500/month would get me out of credit card debt in about a year and get me moving full steam ahead on some of the other goals like an emergency fund or a really nice vacation.

In order to rent my condo out though, I need to make some improvements. I've been pretty lax about maintaining it, since it's just me. But I need about $1200 - 1500, including a new stove. So I'm not sure how fast I can get it done. It's expensive in relation to my current budget, but it would pay off so quickly. I'm considering charging some of the stuff. We'll see. This blog talks about how the home improvement projects are coming.

Well. That's it. That's how my condo is the center of my financial life.

live and learn

I owe money on my taxes, more than I thought I would. I will rectify this for next year by increasing both the amount I have taken out of my check and and the amount I put away for taxes. Lesson learned.

In other news, I'm considering applying for a personal loan from my credit union to pay off my credit cards. I know it's just trading one debt for another, but if I can get a lower interest rate, it'll be worth it.

I just participated in an introductory session from Personal Finance 101. It was extremely helpful, more than I thought it would be even. As you might guess from the title of this blog, I've invested some time already in determining my goals, but this helped to refine them. I also got a lot more information on budgeting and retirement than I had perviously. My debt & cerdit situation aren't likely to change too drastically anytime soon, but it was nice to get some more information there as well.

As a result, I've rededicated some of my savins accounts at ING, and even added one (I already had half a dozen or so). But I now I also have a gift fund - because people just keep getting married, buying houses and having babies.

i have really got to pay more attention

So after 6 or so weeks of not being able to log into my cell phone account onlline, I logged in today to find that I have a negative balance (credit) of almost $200. I don't have to pay my phone bill for the next 3 months. I have it on auto-bill pay. It was set too high, because I used to go over my minutes all the time, but then I fixed that. Plus I finally got a refund i'd been waiting on for a big long story I'll talk about later. So, ta-da overpayment. Anyway, this is good. But if I'd been paying attention I could have used the nearly $200 a while ago.

Damn you, finance charges!!

So one of my credit card statements, the one with both the highest balance and highest interest rate, arrived Saturday. I was a little surprised because I had just called and obtained my balance, but when I got my statement it was considerably higher. Because apparently I called the day before my statement closed and finance charges hadn't been assessed yet. Boo. Hiss.

I've got goals!!!!

Hi there. My name is Joy & this is one of my blogs. This particular blog is focused on personal finance. My hope, as always, is that the shame of public scrutiny will force my off my butt and into action.

The big goal: pay off all my credit cards & get a mortgage for a house (probably a townhouse or larger condo)

I have balances on 3 credit cards. One has a really low balance (about $200) and no interest; I hardly count it except that it is there. The other 2 have higher balances (I'll get into specifics later, but the total is 5 digits) with really high interest rates. I have another card with no balance on it right now.

I also have about $60,000 in student loans from grad school. Blech.

To Do:
re-draft my budget & stick to it.
pay much closer attention to my accounts.
DO MY TAXES
Find out my credit score

For pretty much the first time in my adult life, the issue is not money. In the past I've always blamed my financial difficulties on not having money, but now I actually have enough money to put some away for retirement, put a little away for emergencies and to knock out my debt - you know, be responsible and forward-thinking. But that's not happening. I mean for the most part thinge are going ok. But, I'm not doing as well as I should be. The debt isn't moving very fast & I can't seem to hold on to anything for emergencies.

On what I consider good advice, I'm looking into a personal loan or credit card from my credit union to do a balance transfer for my credit cards. In general, my credit probably isn't good enough to go out and get a regular loan, but credit unions are usually more flexible about dealing with their members.

I'm working on a plan to have my credit cards paid off in less than 3 years and to start looking at houses in 2008. So here's hoping (& working). Wish me luck!