Reduce My Big Debt - Lowering my balances

1. Buy in bulk. While this might seem easy to say, it not so easy and not possible for everyone. Before I moved to a house I did not have the room to store bulk items. I was lucky to fit a 3 roll paper towel. Now that I have the room I am able to buy in bulk at a wholesale club like BJ's or Costco's. But even then, where I used to live going to the location and possibly enduring traffic and long checkout lines.. it might not even be worth the amount you save. For someone like me when I could have been working those 2 hours it took me to drive there and back I Could have worked (I'm self employed) and made some extra money. So really it depends on your location, your job and your availability if such is even worth the trip.

2. Use coupons. Why Not! You might be picturing the old lady in line trying to find the scrunched up one in her purse, don't joke.. If done right it could save you hundreds each week. While again it depends on your locations.. Some store offer double coupons while some don't but even if you use 2 coupons per month you could save a few extra dollars that could be put towards your credit card. Even better if you use them at the wholesale club and save even more...sites like Coupon Mom and Retail Me Not are a great start...

3. Save on Morning Coffee. Some of us are in a rush in the morning and even getting the cup of coffee ready we don't have the time. so we end up stopping at a Starbucks or other chain to pick up our cup of Joe.. Try saving the few dollar each day by waiting until you get to work and use the office coffee or make your own at home by programming a machine the night before.. Use a travel mug and take it with you. Small Expense now but you will save within a few weeks...

Coffee Travel Mugs

Mr. Coffee Programmable Coffeemakers


4. Stick to Your Shopping Lists.. and/or make sure you start using one.. The impulse buys or things you think you need are not easy. Go through your cabinets, refrigerator BEFORE you go grocery shopping and really see what you NEED. Anything else do not even look at. (of course there will be things you forgot but if you didn't miss it at home and you probably don't need it).

5. You don't need to buy book, borrow books from the library: Public library is free and the libraries are generally up to date with the latest. In my county the public libraries are connected and the available books can be checked online. If there something I cannot find in my local branch, I can make a request for it to be transferred from the other branches to mine.

6. Rent Movies. - Especially with release date of DVDs getting closer and closer to the time the movie was released. Does it matter that you have to wait a little longer to see the movie you want to watch? Not only do you have no sticky seats and a quiet living room... and with services like Netflix for the price of 2 movie tickets you can rent a full month of DVDs plus unlimited online viewing! Not to mention the popcorn is cheaper too!.

7. Check online deal sites. We always need something especially Christmas or Valentines day. While of course we are trying not to spend. We can't avoid it totally. Sites like http://dealspl.us , Antirebate.com and of course my own Amazon.com Deals (shameless plug) are a good place to find deals.

So I am sure you are all aware of the recent rate hikes the banks put into effect before the recent law changes went into effect last month. There wasn't much I could do about it unless I totally closed the card and even then it was only slightly lower. Even though I don't plan to use my credit card like before but for a family were no savings and no set weekly/monthly income is defined (I am self employed) the Card has been useful in emergencies.. So what can I do?

I tried calling the Credit Card which I have had the longest relationship and ironically has the largest interest rate to try to ask them to lower it..only to get cut off at their first line of defense operator who claimed there is nothing they can do and rates will be reviewed again in June.. (does that mean they plan to raise it again?). So any suggestion out there would be beneficial to hep get the banks to lower the rates? Shall I demand to talk to a supervisor, will that even help?

My other option is to try to move the card balances to one with lower rate but when my balance/debt ratio is not good who will give another card? and if so how much already will they be willing? I highly doubt a bank will open a new card for say $20k just to transfer a different balance nowadays..

I am somewhat glad they don't ask how much debt we are in.. or maybe they should? Maybe they can bail us out, if I write my name is Honda, GM or Toyota.. Do we actually need to complete this?

Well where do I start ?... My name is Mike, husband of a wonderful wife and father of two great kids. I am self employed and make enough to make ends meet each month..just! I guess I would say we are the MIDDLE CLASS! With one of my children special needs, the pressure of that alone but the extra costs, it's quite difficult at times... We got lucky in being able to purchase a home recently in this low market.. so while we are able to afford out mortgage every month..(for now) ..however our Credit Card Balance is sky high.. over $70,000. (not counting my mortgage). The home we purchased needed work and while we had some money set aside for this, buy the time the mortgage was needing approval that sum was needed towards our down deposit and thus forcing us to repair the home, buy furniture etc on our credite cards.. and slowly the balances went up and up... then of course the recent rate hikes of the banks didn't help much either...

The cost of living, health insurance, school education etc.. eats up my income leaving little to no room to finally pay off the minimums each month. So I am looking forward to finally getting these balances down and eventually out and start saving the funds toward a nice saving nest egg. but I guess slowly does it and we are tackling one thing at a time.

So this blog is here to hopefully help myself slowly get out of debt with your input while also my daily finding, musing, posting of sales I see will help you as well. Some of us are already saving and being as frugal as possible. so telling ourselves we have to pu more into the debt is not so easy...but if something is on sale or we can make an extra few dollars on the side. then why not put that towards our debt!

My first tip I try to do is pay a little more than the minimum payment due even if its a few dollars..i.e. if the minimum is $95 then try to pay $105.. every dollar now saving lot more in interest later.. CAN'T WAIT TO BE DEBT FREE!