Interest as inspiration, and other random things

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I’ve mentioned here before that I plan to move in with 2 friends of mine when my lease is up in November. I made that decision prior to finding out about the new job and great new salary, but still decided to go ahead with the move. Then today I’m chillaxing in my apartment, and looking around and thinking how much I love my place. It’s a cute little apartment right intown, surrounded by cuteness and convenience. It also holds sentimental value for me as it’s the first post-college apartment that I’ve loved, and it’s also where The Boy and I fell in love. So all this afternoon I started rethinking my decision to move, though I have to be honest and admit that part of it is sheer laziness. I absolutely hate to move. I was lucky when I moved here that my job paid for those great movers that come in and pack up your house, but this time I won’t be so lucky. I was rethinking, and crunching numbers, and trying to rationalize to myself that it’s not that big of a deal if I stay in my apartment. But it is that big a deal, it’s at least $500/month that I don’t have to spend. To ignore that plain fact is to keep living in that financial delusion that I can do whatever I like because I “work so hard for my money.”

Further inspiration came when I checked my mail today and started sorting through some bills. Now I rarely closely examine my statements, beyond checking the overall balance. Today, I took a good hard look at my Dell statement. First of all, completely ridiculous that I even have an account with Dell, considering I’m a diehard Apple fanboy, but they extended me credit so I took it and promptly snatched up a digital SLR that I rarely even use. But I digress..

Looked at my statement and realized that while I paid $55 on the account, as I do every month, $40.36 had been leveled in interest (remember, I have horrible interest rates), giving me a grand total of $14.64 toward the actual principle, which is around $1,500. With interest rates like that, I have no justification to write off $500/month for convenience purposes. So move it is. Look at that, bad credit card interest actually served as good motivation.

Couple other tidbits:

• Chase sent me a “Pre-Approved” offer for a card with a 0% introductory APR on balance transfers til July 1, 2008. I think I’ll skip it. For one, the purchase APR is 21.24% and for two, I’m simply not interested in another card, even if it will save me interest. *pause* Blasphemy, I know. But I told you, I think I subconsciously kind of want to punish myself to make sure I’ve learned my lesson. You got in this mess the fun way, now climb out the hard way. Plus, the last thing my credit report needs right now is another inquiry. I have a couple that should fall off of my report by the end of the year, and I don’t want to add to it.
• CitiFinancial sent me a “Pre-Selected’ offer for a $5,000 personal loan. This one actually gave me pause, seeing as how I still haven’t heard back from my old Credit Union at home. The CitiFinancial offer claims I’m all set up to “Come and get my check today!” lol, but also claims there’s no pre-payment penalty. I think I’m going to pass on this one also, though it’s tempting to follow up…
• Paid for This Twice Already just brought to my attention that November will be a 3-paycheck month for me. The timing couldn’t be better really, because now I should be able to afford a plane ticket for the holidays, and some reasonable Christmas gifts. Though I think I’m asking/telling all the family to save their time and give me cash, so it can go towards the cards, woot! When November gets closer, I’ll do a more detailed workup of how I’m going to allocate that paycheck.

Happy Humpday!

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Filed under budgeting, credit cards, spending