Closer (not that kind)

Well I'm not sure if anyone will be reading it, since the two people that I think read my blog with any regularity are both on spring break right now, but I'm up and it's sunny in the living room and I've got a few peaceful moments to p0ast an update.



For one thing, I'm getting closer and closer to finally being done with This Stupid Portfolio. I've got exactly 6 little evidence pieces to finalize (3 of which I can easily finish tomorrow but have to be at work to do it, 1 LaRue is going to help me with when she gets back, and 2 will take a little work - but not too much). I've also got a "summary reflection" paper to write - absolute BS, but it can say whatever I want it to say and really only has to be like a page long. And then all that's left is getting everything in order, printed, and in the binder! I think I will probably be able to finish it all by the next mandatory class, which is May 1. I wonder if I'll have to go to the June class, then :) Man I'm such an overachiever. Well, actually, in this case I just want to stop the pain sooner.



In Resolution news, we are almost to the end of March. If you remember way back to my saving vs. debt payoff conundrum, I had to choose between paying off a chunk of debt on a 0% card immediately or keeping that money in savings until the end of April to get interest and paying the card off before its interest restarted in May. Well, I chose the latter, and so the money's been sitting around in my savings account and the end of March represents the 1st quarter .... thingie where they give you your interest. This is the first time I've ever had a substantial amount of money in a savings account before (where "substantial" is greater than $50), and I am excited to see my interest reward. After I get it, I'm going to splurge a little bit next week and get my hurrr did, as Missy Elliot would say. For those of you who are not "hood," that means to get my hair done. With a cut and some color it's a pretty expensive proposition, but I could really use a cuteness treatment and I haven't done it since October. Ha ha. Oops. Anyway I get paid next week and will be getting several bonus checks for doing awesome at work this month, so it'll all be taken care of without representing a setback to my goals.

Now just two more paychecks left to stockpile before the big payoff day! Between the pr0tfolio, the resolution goals, and Airbear's birthday, April should be an exciting month. Oh, yeah, Airbear's birthday. If anyone has any stellar gift ideas, pass them along!

Second-most important blog p0ast of the year!!!11!

Ok, so this is not going to be as exciting as the Big May 1 Update (TM) - you know the one where I am going to take all the money in my savings account and pay off that 0% card before the interest rate starts on it - but it is almost as big. Ready, sports fans? Here come the highlights:

1) Because I have enough in my savings account already to pay off the 0% card, I've been able to pay down some on the remaining cards. Remember, at this point the only cards I have left were locked at 5.99%, 3.99%, and 2.99% respectively. So I focused on the highest of those, because its rate is higher than my savings account interest rate and so it's still better to pay it off fast.

2) I just paid that card off today :)

3) That card was held with a card-provider that I hate and the only reason I had opened it or kept it was the fixed-rate-for-life balance transfer offer. Everyone I've ever talked to at that company has been a giant a-hole, including transgressions like repeatedly spamming my email account with offers to "go paperless" but then not letting me sign up for it because "my particular account was not eligible," insisting upon sending me those blank balance transfer checks in the mail even though I requested on like four occasions that they not do that (I hate having that kind of shit floating around in the mail), and not lowering my rate or increasing my limit when I asked them to. The only time they've ever tried to be even slightly accommodating was when I was closing the card (I had a different card with them a long time ago and they did the same thing). They tried that again today, and I told them to eat me. Just kidding. I was actually very nice to the lady on the phone, but it did feel GREAT to enumerate the problems I had had with the card/company and close the card. The lady even congratulated me on paying off one of my credit cards, and said she was working on doing the same thing herself. It was really nice. :)

3) Speaking of paying things off, it's been awhile since I p0asted a total update figure, since I have been mostly saving and not making huge payments and the update figure hasn't seemed to grow very much. I was going to wait til May and just p0ast one huge update figure, but then I calculated what it actually was at this point and it looked so awesome I wanted to share it. Are you ready? *drumroll*

.... total debt paid since November 16, 2007: $7418.21

:D

Plus there's still the big chunk left in the savings to pay off that %0 card by May, so look for another huge update in April! I'm feeling pretty proud of myself at the moment, and I'm going to go eat a celebratory quesadilla. Thanks for all the encouragement so far, and keep it up! There's still a ways to go :)

Mid-update

The exciting updates of course occur after the mid-month paycheck, so there's not really much to report yet. But since I don't have to pay any giant bills this month, I am excited that my mid-month paycheck will actually get to go toward my debt and not toward dumb stuff I don't want to pay for.

One nice thing I noticed is that when I was jotting down my totals after paying bills at the beginning of the month I accidentally subtracted something wrong and I just discovered that my credit card balance is actually $100 less than I thought. Yay :)

Keep your fingers crossed for a big mid-month bonus check so that I can make huge leaps of progress on my resolution!! Just imagine, after I get this crap paid off, you will finally get to read about something else on my blog :)

Tired, tired, tired

I have had like 6 enrollment meetings already this week and have four more tomorrow (and an assessment). In other words, busy, busy, busy. Hopefully that will make for a nice mid-March paycheck, but we'll see. Lots of enrollments, but most of them are pretty small, and February seemed like a quiet month. So who knows.

In the meantime, I found another blog about money, which has some motivational tips for keeping one inspired on one's journey toward financial independence. Thought I'd share it, since I am too tired to write anything clever and inspiring of my own :)

Update

I found my last quote! It's just one small step, really, but it means that the really irritating quote-searching process is at least now over and I can focus on my last 4 entries. Hooray!

Pr0tfolio

So I think I am driving Airbear crazy by updating him on the progress of my portfolio every time I get one tiny aspect of it done. But it's hard not to, because it is stupid and excruciating, and every little step is one step closer to Blessed Freedom (TM).

So I will update all of you instead. Since I am not technologically capable enough to make some sort of fancy graphic thermometer that would visually demonstrate my progress, I will just do it like this:

There are 12 entry essays.
7 are totally done
1 is done but needs a quote [1].
4 still need to be written but do have a quote

So that's actually a lot of progress! I did 4 entries last weekend, but it was a long weekend. So we'll see how many I can get done this weekend, but having almost all of the quotes done takes a lot of the irritation out of it. Imagine having to find a quote to prove why a goal is a good goal when the only reason you're pursuing the goal is because some group of legislative douchebags decided you should. Anyway, all of those are done but one so I can focus on just writing four articles worth of bs, gathering and organizing my little evidence pieces, and finding that last quote. Or paying someone to do it for me.

[1] By the way, if you want to find me a quote about why it is important to "remain current in your teaching subject areas, theories, research, and best practices" that would be awesome. Anything from any kind of book or educational journal article would work. Thank you!

Quick update

So I'm trying to go with that "save all the money and pay off at the end" option, and most of my hard-earned cash is still sitting in my savings account. But I did pay off another $850 of debt in the last 30 days, so yay to that :)

But that's all for now, folks, as I have to get back to trying to work on my stupidporftolio. Ugh. Wish me luck!