When will I feel Financially Secure
When we have a secondary income source that is equal to our primary income with our needs remaining the same and obviously without any debt.
After Tax Interest Rate
If my mortgage interest rate and car loan interest rate are the same, I know it is best to use my extra principle payments towards the car loan due to the tax advantage I have on the mortage interest. If there is a slight difference in their interest rates, how would I calculate the interest rate on the mortgage after taking into account my tax advantage? Knowing this would let me pick the next worst debt that I should look to pay off.
Weekend catch ups
I was determined not to spend any money on my hobbies this month. Until friday last week, I had spent about $11 (non-hobby related) from my miscellaneous spending amount. And I think I spent another $6 during the weekend. I bought 2 books from my library book sale. A book of needlepoint crafts printed in 1961. I spent $5 for the book. And bought ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’ for $1. I love books and I should go to these book sales more often. And the most important thing of all, I should take BB along. He gives me a horrible look with a ‘Really?’ tag when I pick books at random.
Another amazing thing happened when I was grocery shopping this weekend. Two small girls (mabbe between the age of 5 and 7) and their mom (I think so) were at the shop near the freezer section. They were picking something when I heard one of the girls go ‘which one is the cheapest?’. I couldn’t believe a kid could think like that at that age. Kudos to the mom!!
Another week of work has started. I started to go to the gym today. I am not promising anything. I just have to go everyday. Whatever small amount of time I workout, it is better than nothing. Have to apply the same concept of saving little by little to getting in shape little by little. I am fairly proud of our debt reduction lately and I am hoping I would achieve a similar success with fitness.
Credit Card Paid Off
One more debt out of the way. We paid off the credit card balance that was on the 0% interest rate card until August 2008. From now on, we will use the credit card to get reward points and pay off the balance at the end of the month.
Also our emergency account stands a little more than $5,000. IRA for 2008 is at $1000. And we have also started to make extra principle payments towards our second mortgage so that it would be paid off by Oct 2012. It sounds like a long way to go. But once we reach $20,000 in our emergency account, we would probably pay more towards this loan.
The bad news we found yesterday was that the ‘check engine’ light is active in my car. Don’t know how much it’s going to cost. There is about 90,000+ miles on it and we have also been thinking about replacing this car. But we also know it’s not a good idea until we save some money to put down.
Debt paid off since 01 Nov 2007 : 31,452.53
Increase in assets since 01 Nov 2007 : 15,561.61
Change in networth since 01 Nov 2007 : 47,014.14
