>Featured at Carnival of Personal Finances
What do you want for Christmas????????????????????????
This is a very popular question this time of year. I have been asked several time and I have asked the question more times than I like. My goal each year is to give my friends something personal that I know they want and/or will like. As we get older I have noticed that it is harder for us to answer that question because the things we want come with a larger price tag. It is also more difficult to know exactly what someone wants since we are spending less time together as life happens.
In the spirit of giving people what they want instead of what I want them to have, I have stumble across my best gift giving idea yet.
Yesturday, my friend couldn’t answer the question “What do you want for Christmas?”. She told me that she has to be careful what she tells people because she will end up with multiples of the same thing. So, I asked her is there a big ticket item that you have been wanting that you haven’t purchased that I can contribute to.
The idea here is that she will will me something she wants (i.e. TV) and I will get a gift card from the place she plans to purchase. This was everyone is happy. If you want it to be a surprise, ask your friends & family to tell you multiple things.
My solution to my gift giving dilemma is to help all my friends with big ticket items for the holiday. This year I am giving gift cards with meaning and thought and without the guilt. So, far the response has been good. I imagine it will ease the pressure on the budget 
What are you thoughts on this idea?
>Today as I was scanning the Carnival of Personal Finance I came across an article titled The Debt Free Treadmill on Beating Broke.
The author talked about what happens when you get out of debt. While we are getting out of debt we look for deals, budget every dollar and do what ever we can to get that number down as fast as we can. What happens when there is no one else to pay back?
This is something that I am curious about…
…Since I am following Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps I know that I will direct my efforts and money towards building my 3-6 months emergency fund then I will open a roth IRA and schedule monthly installments towards my 401(k) and Roth IRA. After that…I am thinking down payment on a home or wedding or both.
…On another note, I wonder if I will continue to blog or will I fall off like so many other bloggers. I have followed a few blogs that stopped abruptly after the person didn’t have the pressure of debt repayment looking them in the face. I really like MPP at My Pretty Pennies (who is currently planning a wedding and preparing to merge finances) and MIM at Me In Millions both ladies are out of debt and still blogging about life after debt. I hope to join them in the near future.
What about you? What are you plans after debt? Will you continue blogging?
>This week my post “Who says you have to use envelopes?” is featured in the Carnival of Personal Finance #250 hosted by Four Pillers and it made the editor’s pick list.
Editor’s Note:
Broke by Choice from If I Were a Wealthy Girl gives us some envelope alternatives..She says that envelopes are too bulky so she has her own interesting system set up.
>
I found a new tool to love…
This week’s Carnival of Personal Finance featured a post from My Debt Relief Options called “Setting Up A Debt Elimination Plan For Beginners” In this article Chris explains how to use the Debt Snowball Worksheet. Download the tool and play with it , it is so worth your time.
The tool gives you guidance on which strategy to follow:
- Pay lowest balance first (debt snowball)
- Pay highest interest first (debt avalanche)
Even though, I am almost down to one debt I dug up my original numbers and plugged them in. Here is what I found
- If I didn’t use a debt snowball or avalanche approach I would be paying on my debts for more than 30 years, so the program couldn’t calculate the interest I would pay.
- If I used the DEBT SNOWBALL approach my estimated get out of debt jail date would be June 2018 and I would have paid $46,572.87 in interest.
- If I used the DEBT AVALANCHE approach my estimated get out of debt jail date would be November 2010 and I would have paid $45,653.63.
The Avalanche option looks better, but I had two accounts that had low balances and had 0% interest for an initial time period. If I would have gone this route I could have expected the new interest rate to kick in resulting is estimated additional interest in the amount of $30K.
I chose to go with the DEBT SNOWBALL. Given my efforts to apply the debt snowball and pay extra payments it is estimated that I will pay a total of $25,733,47 in interest, which is about $20K less than both plans. Sometimes the difference between the two options may not be worth worrying about, but other times it may be the deciding factor. Regardless of what you chose to do, it is worth doing your homework.
Now you know my strategy, what strategy to you prefer?
>My post Annual Financial Start-up or Check up was featured in the Carnival of Personal Finance #235 on December 15, 2009.
This was my first submisson and it was selected as an “Editor’s Pick”.
Yeah!!! This is exciting.
