Debt $ense

My grocery store now has a gas station to help them compete with the store scheduled to open next week that *also* has a gas station. My store has an opening special for customers with a rewards card, so I got gas for $2.57 last night, when the best price elsewhere in town is $2.72. The rewards card also will save me 3 cents off the regular price/gallon all the time. So I’m enjoying slightly less expensive gas for the moment.

My other big gas savings is our new loop road around the city. I live near one end of it, and it opened last week while I was on vacation. It’s great! Now instead of dealing with a million downtown traffic lights, I can just hop on and cruise around.

We’re under a severe heat warning until 6 p.m. Thursday around here, so I might be breaking my “avoid AC” rule at home - for health reasons. I’m waiting to see what it’s like when I get home tonight. Fortunately, I’m on an earlier work schedule this week, so I’m spending the hottest hours in AC at the office. On the flip side, I get out mid-evening instead of close to midnight, which means my apartment won’t have as much time to cool off. We shall see…

I posted once before about karma, and events today have me musing over it again.

First, there’s a book out I want to read - to the point of being willing to buy it - by Linda Hirshman about women and working. It’s getting lots of attention, both good and bad, and the blog entries she did while guest blogging for TAPPED a few months back intrigued me. Last week I happened to mention to a co-worker that I read a few feminist blogs (we were discussing another subject all together). Today she brought me printouts of Hirshman’s posts from TAPPED and said she had bought the book. She’s letting me borrow it when she’s done. That’s some money saved.

The bigger issue is one I can’t say much about - I don’t want to tempt fate - but if things pan out, I’ll be in better shape income-wise because of some things I’ve been working on, and it will happen sooner than I hoped for. And from the sounds of it, if it doesn’t pan out now, I’m still in better shape for future opportunities than I thought.

It’s been a deflating couple of weeks. I’ve made good progress toward my goals, but mentally I’m just kind of blah about the whole thing. I think part of my problem is I’ve been pushing so hard to pay everything off by the end of the year and to do that I have to live so close to the bone that it’s making me panic over minor things.

My payoff goal was April 2007, down from August 2007 when I started. Then I started trying to hit the end of 2006, and while I think I’ll be close, I’m also thinking that the idea is spazing me out enough to be hindering me more than helping at this point.

So at this point I’m going to chill out, remind myself that Jan. 16, 2007 is eight months earlier than I was originally scheduled, and almost four months more than my goal and be happy with that. I’m hoping that by releasing the pressure I’m putting myself under, I’ll get back in a positive mood on this instead of the borderline panicking I’ve been doing lately.

The January 16 date is with my existing weekly payments, plus money from my “extra” paycheck in September. It’s very possible I could get there a couple weeks earlier, but I’m going to look on that as a bonus, not a necessity.

Summer always reminds me how lucky I am to live in my small town. There’s tons of free entertainment options, plus the nice weather makes my apartment complex pool and the city parks great options for hanging out.

One of my favorite summer activities is checking out the NCAA-sanctioned summer baseball league. We have one of eight teams in the league, and local businesses sponsor each home game. You can pick up free tickets at those businesses in the days leading up to the game, which eliminates the $5 admission. Oh, and a hotdog and pretzel will run you a whopping $2.25. For that I get three hours at the ballpark and dinner.

Tomorrow night is a home game and I’m not scheduled to work, so I picked up a free ticket today. I’ll be spending my Sunday night at the ballpark - for free.

As cheesy as the MasterCard commercials are, I have to admit they do have a point. Sometimes counting the dollars and cents cost misses the intangible benefits of an experience.

I was thinking about this today because I have my Red Sox uniform-style jersey on. (Schilling, for the curious, because they were out of Wake and Varitek.) I bought the jersey - yes, putting it on my MasterCard - in October 2004 when I drove up to Boston for the World Series victory parade.

I’ve never been a big one for spending excessive amounts of money on any one clothing item (except running sneakers), and I’m usually content with the less-expensive T-shirts. In fact, on that same trip, I picked up an official WS champions T-shirt. But I’ve always wanted a game jersey and in the euphoria of the once-in-a-lifetime victory, I decided to go for it.

I wore it under my jacket on that drizzly October Saturday when my sister and I woke up in the middle of the night to take the T into Boston and get good spots for the parade. I had it on when the duck boats rolled past, each carrying a few players and coaches. And every time I’ve worn it since then, I remember not only those memories, but the moments at the end of Game 4 when I sat in the newsroom, watching the game on TV and finally realizing my beloved Sox weren’t going to blow it this time. I was speechless after the last out, a condition those who know me will tell you I’m rarely if ever in. Instead of jumping around, cheering and screaming like I always thought I would, I just stood there in shock, watching the players celebrate on the field. When my boss (who had been looking for his camera to capture my reaction at the time they made the last out) asked me how they won, I had to search my brain for the words.

It’s a moment I’ll never forget, and slipping the jersey on never fails to remind me of it.

A lot of my credit card debt is for truly stupid stuff, stuff I had no business buying if I didn’t have the cash. But there are a few things that were worth every penny of interest, and the jersey is one of them.

I don’t know the name of this song, but it’s been on the radio a few times in the last couple days, and I think one line from it pretty much sums up the key to debt reduction and living below your means: “It’s not having what you want/It’s wanting what you’ve got.”

We can always want something more than what we have - there’s just so many options out there. Not to mention that what we don’t have almost always looks better than what we have. That said, the key to not succumbing to the “grass is greener” syndrome is to figure out what’s important to you and be happy with that.

There’s been a lot of research done that shows money doesn’t make you happier, and in many cases, all these luxuries don’t make people happier. You just reset your internal satisfaction meter to the higher level, and soon you want more, setting up a spiral to an unsustainable standard of living. About the only way to stop it, it seems, is to recognize that and make a conscious decision to be happy with where you are.

Now, there are exceptions. If you don’t have enough money to buy food, or to have enough shelter for your family, then yes, some more breathing room financially could definitely improve things on a long-term basis. And not always worrying about how to pay medical bills would certainly improve somebody’s outlook. But once you get beyond just covering needs (real needs - basic food, shelter, clothing, health care) the amount of improvment is minimal.

Which gets us back to the song lyrics: “It’s wanting what you’ve got.” How many of you want what you’ve got? Or are you still in the “having what you want” mode? Since I’ve been blogging - mid-April - I’m a whole lot closer to the “wanting what you’ve got” mode, but I’m not there yet.

I can feel myself starting to slip back into old habits, and I need to focus to make sure I don’t derail my debt attack.

Challenge: Now that I don’t have to put as much on my CC, I find myself thinking “I can use the money I saved to buy those orthotics next week when I pick up my sneakers.
Error: I’m not saving money; I’m just borrowing less from my CC company.
Solution: Sure, maybe in a month or two I can squeeze out the cash to buy them now that the dental bill won’t take as long to pay off. But until I can pay cash, I haven’t saved anything. Instead of charging it, I’m going to set aside $10 every paycheck until I have enough.

Challenge: I’ve taken to eating out way too much in the last few weeks. It’s been fairly inexpensive - pizza slices - at $5 to $7 a meal, but it’s adding up and cutting into my budget. With all the money I spent on new sneakers, it’s actually pushed me over my budget.
Error: I’ve fallen into the trap of running out the door without eating, then stopping by the pizza place on my way to work. I also don’t always remember to bring my frozen meals from home, or don’t feel like eating them.
Solution: Juggle my morning schedule so I can run earlier, then nap if I feel like it. That builds in a bigger window after my run before work. Also, I need to bring five or six frozen meals in at the beginning of the week and leave them in the freezer so I always have one handy. Finally, I need to remind myself that the alternative to the homemade meals is the couscous I keep in my desk drawer.

The only problem with rolling coins is that if you aren’t spending much money, you don’t have much change. I haven’t been able to get enough coins for a roll in a few weeks now, and it’s frustrating. But I have saved a bunch during the last week, and I’m hoping I’ll have enough tonight to get a roll or two, even if it’s just pennies.

In other news, my birthday weekend went well, even if part of it was at work. I now have a working toaster oven, thanks to my parents. They gave me a Target gift card for twice as much as I needed, so I took the chance to stock up on shampoo, conditioner and Gatorade, plus pick up a reusable drink bottle for my post-workout soy protein shakes. Since I have plenty of soy powder, the shakes should not only help me eat better and recover better from my runs, they’ll also fill me up for minimal cost and cool me down. (Milk, powder and frozen fruit mixed in a blender)

I enjoyed my meal out yesterday, and was so full from the appetizer that I brought most of the entree home, giving me lunch and dinner today. So that was a nice savings there. I still have most of the meals I froze at the begining of May still in my freezer, plus that pork loin is in there as well. Since I got a larger toaster oven, it will be big enough to cook the pork, which will save on the electric bill. It cooks remarkably quickly, probably because it’s a convection oven. (Well, everything but toast. That it does slowly.)

My dentist appointment is tomorrow, so I’ll find out what the damage is going to be there. It’s going to send my CC balance up again for several weeks until I pay it off from money that normally goes to my pinch-point account, but by the end of August I should be back on track.

Oh, and I have one gift card still unused (book store), one in the mail (craft store) and at least two presents that haven’t arrived yet. (I know one’s not a gift card, but I’m not sure about the other.) So I still have a couple of small splurges left from my birthday, and am thinking of ways I can use them to help me in my quest to vanquish this debt. More details to come once I know the final tally…

The good news is I bought new running sneakers today and saved more than $20 on them. The bad news is that still meant shelling out $87. And don’t even think about new off-the-shelf orthotics - they would have been another $52, and that’s with the 20 percent discount.

On the plus side, the store manager gave me a “rain check” for the discount, so I can still save the $13 when I buy them. And he was very helpful tracking down the right size once we figured out which sneaker was the best one. (It also happened to be the least-expensive one I tried on, which was nice.)

I’m going to try a sturdier brand of the cheap orthotics (the ones in the grocery store pharmacy) and see how those work. If they’re not holding up well under my higher milage, I might have to postpone increasing my weekly payment another paycheck and use the $40 to buy the better ones.

I just have to keep reminding myself that this will save me money in doctor’s bills down the road, both by preventing injuries and by helping me lose weight, something my doctor thinks will mitigate another health issue. But it’s stinging now.