Steps forward and back

I canceled a credit card today.

 I had intellectually made the decision to do it a while ago, but didn't for what I thought was a practical reason. I had chopped up the card and could not find the account number, which I thought I would need. Today, a new card for the account came in the mail, so I placed the call.

I learned during the call I would not have needed the number.

On the front of the card, it told me that I had the account since the year I graduated from college. It had to be one of the first credit cards I ever got.

It was harder to pick up the phone than it should have been. I haven't used the card in months. It was the third debt I paid off, following another gas company card and some money I owed a family member. But I've kept the card around "for emergencies." Well, I have taken a long road trip, and a few shorter trips since the card was paid of and haven't "needed" the card. I have been buying fuel with cash and doing fine.

I know it's just that it was a 20-plus year habit. I've relied on credit cards for most of my fuel purchases for years. It started when I moved to California. I liked the convenience of paying at the pump when I moved to California at the self-service gas stations.

The process of closing the account may have been harder than it needed to be because, in spite of my confident recent posts, I've been slipping on my budget of late. The food budget has been blown. I've cut into my fuel/car expense budget and been eating a lot of fast food. Not as much as I once did, but I was eating fast food several days each week.

I've just been so bored, living like a hermit in my apartment, eating cheap grocery store food.

It's a good reminder of how I got in this mess in the first place. Periodically, a few times a year, I would go on spending binges, often or always when I was feeling the most financially strapped. I'd pull out a credit card and splurge on something, like a nice meal, or gifts for family or friends, or some crap that I thought I really wanted/needed but didn't.

This time has been different. While I have blown my food budget, I have financed my misbehavior with cash out of other parts of my budget.

Now, the Labor Day weekend is here, and I'm looking forward to getting out of town for a few days. It's not really a budgeted expense, but I can do it, with cash, so I'm going. I shouldn't go, but yet I need to go in the worst way. I am profoundly bored and need something resembling a life.

I still have a long ways to go and it's going to take quite a bit more time. More time than I want it to take. I'm confident I can make it. Dave Ramsey would not approve, but I'm taking a weekend and spending time with an old friend. And I will be paying with cash. So maybe Ramsey can give me a pass on that.

Learning to bank on myself

The credit card companies, once a source of endless hours of stress, now merely amuse me. A few weeks ago I got notification from one of the banks with which I still have a card with a balance. The letter informed me that they were lowering my credit limit, due to information they had seen on my credit report.

I admit, I was briefly disappointed by the news, until I remembered I am no longer charging to that account and have no intention to in the future. So, oh well. No biggie.

Then this week, I get a notification from a different credit card issuer that tells me they are raising my credit limit.

I had to laugh. How can two different financial institutions look at the same financial information and come to two opposing conclusions?

Periodically, I still look for logic from these institutions. I still hold out some faint hope that a couple of the account holders will take note that I am paying down my accounts in pretty big chunks. The debt snowball is rolling and it is moving a little bit faster all the time. It sure wouldn't hurt my feeling is the interest rates on a couple of those accounts were reduced. But I now see that the best way to lower the interest I will eventually pay is to pay all the accounts off, one by one, as quickly as I can.

I still wish I could get the debt paid off immediately, which I can't. But I have increasing confidence I will get it all paid off. It will still take a while, but I've kept to the plan for more than a year. Just need to stick with it.

I am breathing easier. I now feel like I have options. For example, I've been putting off buying new clothes for work for more than a year. When the weather turns cooler this fall I am going to need some new long-sleeved shirts. Now, I know I can pay all the minimums on all my accounts and use part of the extra I pay for just one month's payment on my smallest account and buy a whole new wardrobe if I choose to do so. It won't be a fancy wardrobe, but it would be several shirts, a couple pairs of pants and a new pair of shoes, all of which I sorely need.

While I am at it, I should also get an eye exam and some new glasses. My current pair is several years old. I can afford to do that now if I wish to do so.

The thing holding me back on the new clothes and the new eye glasses is that I don't want to slow down my progress. I am reluctant to spend money on myself. In years past, I would have used credit cards for such purposes and not blinked. Now, I can, and will, spend cash.

Technology closes the book on pages

I didn't know this was even possible, but here is proof the federal government can actually close a program this is no longer needed. It was announced today that the House of Representatives will end it's page program.

Here is a link to the Los Angeles Times' version of the story.

But, of course, the Senate page program will remain.