The Impulse Spender

14 Months Later

2010-02-21T16:46:00.000-05:00

A lot has happened in the past year, and while I gather my thoughts about what specifically I want to share with "the world" I wanted to put up an "I'm Back!" message.

Things have been insane, with lots of twists and turns.

General Updates:
- I'm not 100% kicked of impulse spending. I still make the occasional impulse buy, but I have gotten better.
- I have taken on no more consumer credit. My cards stayed shredded, with all (but 1) accounts closed! No new credit card charges in 16+ months!
- I am trying to sell my house. I took on far more than I could comfortably handle. More on that later.

I hope to use this blog as my weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly review, to publicly display and evaluate my personal progress on the financial journey I began when I received my first allowance.

Frustration

2008-12-02T10:22:00.003-05:00

Arghh! I lost my $142.50 TransPass somewhere between the train and work this morning. Sorry to use harsh letters, but WTF?!

I can only hope that with my receipt (which I kept since it's a write-off for a contractor) I can get a replacement, or at least one at a discount. If I can't... I'll just kick myself all month long.

An important lesson in public transit riding here. It's worth the 2 bucks for a lanyard and pass holder!! What's worse is that I know I have a lanyard and holder at home somewhere from my previous job.

The level of personal frustration I feel about this is very high, almost to the point of being disproportionate to the problem. While "technically" I have enough money for another pass, what a waste of $142.50! Especially at a time in my life when every penny matters to me. There was a time when I would have shrugged it off and ate the loss, but in my present financial condition this is a major setback.

Hope everyone else's day is going better than mine...

Day One Success

2008-12-01T20:07:00.005-05:00

The day is nearly done, and the only money I spent was on a necessary monthly transit pass.

I'm not going out again, so there is relatively little chance of spending any money! As you may notice from the title, I am embarking on a Steve Pavlina-inspired set of 30 day trials. While I won't be detailing much about them here, I'm keeping my personal log and giving some low-hanging (but still challenging) trials a shot.

Another financial success today - I lowered my car insurance by 6.2%! I now have a $1000 backstop (and have for over a month) so I increased my deductible to save some cash. And since I'm not driving every day, I have less chance of being in an accident. I'm looking forward to the day that I'll make my insurance policy payment in one lump sum every 6 months, but I'm not yet there. (This will save about $48 / year.) Another option, depending on what happens in the next two months, is getting rid of the car all together. That would save around $500 / month but severely limit my options for part-time work. And it may be quite expensive for me to get out of my lease. Yes, I leased. And it was probably the best option for me at the time. And I'm glad I got the "new car" thing out of the way. It was nice to do once, but probably not again. Even if I have the means, "new" matters less than "awesomeness".

Working in a downtown metropolitan area makes it VERY difficult to not go out to eat for lunch. There are so many options, and so many interesting people... but you pay dearly for all of that. Today I stayed in - I hope I can continue this good start.

A Spender's Story

2008-11-28T20:20:00.002-05:00

I have credit card debt. Lots of it. Why? Because I suck at life. Just kidding, but being in debt as far as I am makes me feel that way sometimes. I got into credit cards knowing they were evil, knowing I was just digging a whole, and knowing I was make life for my future self harder. And I didn't care. Strike that, I always felt guilt putting "stuff" on credit - it just didn't seem to matter that much.

Fast forward nine years, a layoff, a house payment, and a huge pay cut later...

I know that this is my (huge) mistake, and I intend to fix it, but a very large lifestyle change is on the horizon in order to do that. I've been slowly meandering in that direction, but always with self-imposed setbacks. Now is the time to buckle down, knuckle up, and get rid of the debt once and for all.

I'm not sure how I'm going to reduce my monthly expenses enough to afford my house on my new salary (if there even is a "new salary", I'm contracting at the moment).

I have already dumped cable+HBO, all subscriptions and monthly-pay games (*cough*eve-online*cough*). I've gone from eating out almost every day to once per week. That one's going to go now too. I've just gotten out of my Cingular/AT&T contract, and while I'd like to scale back my service - I'm also not eager to sign another 2 year deal. I'd rather be a free agent. I'm going to shop around and see what I can do in person. I've found I definitely do not need the feature-rich package I currently have.

I'm a little nervous, since I've shredded the credit cards, about how all of this will work out. I know that at the moment I don't make enough to pay all of my bills, let alone eat, drive, etc. I'm pretty sure I'll survive, but I can already see that this is going to be very hard to do without going further into debt. A part-time after-work job may be in order. I want to see after a month or so how things are going.

So, this is how it feels at the bottom.

Today's Activity: Shredding the Credit Cards

2008-11-23T19:23:00.004-05:00

Now there's no going back. I've shredded the credit cards - and good riddance. Now it's just a matter of paying them off. A long road lies ahead, but I think I'm strong enough to do it.

Personal Finance Software - Mac Edition, Part 1

2008-10-17T19:51:00.006-04:00

Look for evaluations of the various Personal Finance software available on the Mac over this weekend. Depending on how much I have to say about each, I may or may not give each application its own post. I'm guessing I'll lump all the ones I have little to talk about together, and the ones for which I have more to say will have a separate post.

So far, I've been very disappointed with every personal finance application I've ever encountered. Whether it be from lack of reporting/analytical options, unintuitive setup, poor split transaction support, or just general "suckiness"; every single application has failed to be up to snuff on all platforms.

Currently, I'm double-entering my transactions into both Buxfer and a home-grown Excel spreadsheet. I've found a slew of applications online, and while the reigning champion is still Quicken in terms of use and familiarity it's reporting options always sorely disappoint. In April I began using Buxfer, and have been pleasantly surprised for the most part with it. The reporting is significantly more robust, and with proper tagging is ridiculously useful... BUT (and it's a big but), there was a hiccup sometime last week that wiped out all of my future transactions (I make placeholder entries for future bills, planned expenditures, etc); expense transactions in one account were all calculating as income transactions (with the reverse also being true) causing several balance inequities. The issue was resolved, but it's unsettling... and I was already leery of relying on third-party hardware to keep my data. So, off to look for software!

More to come..

UPDATE 12/2/2008:

This is on hold because of the current job situation. I'll definitely re-visit this at a later date. I've begun coding my own personal finance software. I have the database structure complete, but I don't have any experience building interfaces so the next part will be a challenge. When it's

Incorrect Change

2008-10-09T17:13:00.008-04:00

Count Your Change!

For lunch today, I joined my fellow co-workers on an outing to McDonald's. Yes, I know, this is not the most fiscally responsible (or healthy) lunch but that fact is not the purpose of this post.

I ordered three dollar-menu items, bringing my total to 3.18. I paid with a 5 dollar bill, which should net me 1.82 in change. This particular McDonald's utilizes the automatic change dispenser. Until today, I've typically trusted these things to correctly dispense change but now I'm not so sure. I received only 57 cents! I did notice the change was incorrect, but my on-the-spot math wasn't "on" (and I was really hungry and just wanted to get out of there), so I thought I was shorted a nickle and said as much. A roll of the eyes from the cashier and a nickle later I was walking away when I realized my mistake. I didn't go back for the remaining 20 cents, as that was my calculation error -- but I've made a mental note to ALWAYS count my change. It's only 25 cents, but if they're shorting even 10 people a day, that's $2.50 per day that McD's is essentially stealing from those customers! My personal guess is that more than that is incorrectly dispensed, and I would further guess that these machines are more likely to give out too little change before they'd give out too much.

Just a heads up, count your change. Last month I was missing around 3 dollars, that I can only surmise was from "missing" change, as I track every monetary transaction.

Sputtering to a Start

2008-10-08T20:34:00.000-04:00

So over a month has passed, and I'm still not "blogging". What to put out there is a challenging personal question for me. I am proud to say that I haven't made an impulse spend since my birthday; that's a win. If my projections are correct and I stay true to my intentions, the end of July was my financial "rock-bottom". I had very small gains in September and aim to continue that trend from negative to positive. Something I now feel very strongly about is living debt-free, and while I know the road ahead is long and will be fraught with temptation and set-backs, I am now more determined than ever to get out of debt.

I've decided that debt is too heavy of a psychological burden for me to bear, and I shouldn't have to carry it. The phrase "carrying debt" is literal, I didn't understand that until just recently.

I hope to write more frequently than, well, monthly. My goal is to post (at least) once weekly through October. Now begins the work.

Some Wins & Losses

2008-08-14T01:37:00.000-04:00

Scorecard:

Impulse Purchase of new computer: Win! (Did not purchase)
Lunch Out (today): Loss (Mini-win: No beverage purchased with lunch)
Monster: Loss
Clear/Amber-lens motorcycle glasses: Win! **
Dinner Out (today): Win! (Eggs & Toast. Don't laugh, I can't yet cook many dishes...)

Today's Tally:

3.5 W - 2 L

After both feeling under the weather, and recovering from some computer downtime (filesystem failure = fun!) over the weekend I have returned. I must begrudgingly admit to briefly considering ~~purchasing~~ financing a new computer out of frustration. (I'm currently using a 2005 PPC Mac Mini*)... The good news is that I did NOT pay the impatience tax this time. A reinstall and some TLC to my application preferences and it's running like new!

Even with my small lost battles, I feel that I've begun taking the first steps forward and it is invigorating. Sparing the whole cliché, "Even the longest journey..."

All things considered, since internally committing myself to this blog I've paid much more attention to every purchase. Saying no to myself is hard, but not as hard as I thought.

On an unrelated note (and contrary to what I wrote in the introduction blog) I have no initial expectations of anyone other than myself really reading this blog, an ulterior motive for writing is to refine my style -- I may have something interesting to say someday and I'd like to have at least a basic ability to express myself. But, on the off chance you're reading this and you're not me... let me know what you think. I'm all for some constructive feedback!

*I have to say until this past weekend it has performed spectacularly!

** Going to the local Honda & Harley dealers over lunch today was such a tease... Don't go places where everything is a fabulous, expensive toy...

Step 1: The Catch-Up

2008-08-08T20:34:00.000-04:00

I've been terribly lazy about my finances of late, and as a result, I'm pretty much back where I began. I was doing well, making great headway all things considered - But in two short months I undid what I had worked six months to achieve.

So - Here it begins... again. I'm not going to post expenses until the end of the month, but an interesting note - I've spent $20 on Monster drinks already this month! They are the first thing to go. OUCH. (Not to mention the probable negative health aspects of drinking those things...)

I'm going to try to get the "low-hanging fruit" savings first. Lunches out, bar, and such will have to be on hold for a while. I know that at the moment this blog is totally generic. I agree, it sucks but I figure that I will have some spare time on my hands as I begin reeling in the social life a bit. I have a handful of social obligations left to fulfill for the summer (Concerts for which I've already paid, and family gatherings) but they should be of modest expense - hopefully just gas.

On the subject of gas, I have to say - if you have the means, get a motorcycle or scooter! What more fun could you have getting to work?! On a 25-year-old motorcycle I get twice the gas mileage of a newer car, and really enjoy my ride to work. I'll admit, it's not for everyone, but if you've ever thought about it - it's time.

The "Know Where Your Money Goes" Challenge

2008-08-07T10:02:00.000-04:00

I think a good first step on this journey toward Financial Freedom is encompassed in the "Know Where Your Money Goes" challenge.

I'm a bit of a nerd, and do already track probably 90% of my purchases and spending, but I have a bad habit of slacking off after several weeks of diligently tracking my expenditures, causing "gaps" in my spending analysis and worse, "missing" money. Which is really just money I've spent but cannot recall where or what I spent the money on. So for this month, I'll be watching my money like this:

I think here is a good place to mention that I've been using Buxfer to track my income/spending in generic terms over the past few months and I'm overall very happy with it! While there are a handful of improvements on current features that I would like to see implemented (*ahem* multiple account transfer transaction entry and better split-tag-item entries), it is overall a very good and flexible method of tracking your spending. I should say that it does store your information "in the cloud" making some people very nervous. I combat this by using generic terms/abbreviations to de-personalize the information a bit, and I do not use the automatic downloading of statements (though I understand that their plugin stores all account information locally, not in the cloud). I also very much like the ability to export my data to standard CSV/Spreadsheet formats for even further detail analysis not available on the website. In my opinion, it's friendly and easier to use than Quicken -- And does a better job with reporting (though I have to say, I miss the forecast function from Quicken).

The Impulse Spender

2008-08-04T14:51:00.000-04:00

Hello, and welcome.

As the name of my blog implies, I am an impulse spender. I hope that by the end of this exercise I will be in control of my purchases and out of debt!

I feel that keeping an ongoing blog of my progress, trials & tribulations, and (hopefully) successes will keep me focused on the end goal: Financial Freedom!

A little background on me:

I'm a very late-twenties computer professional. I was good about not collecting any credit card debt until later in my college career but made up for it by buying an endless supply of DVDs, nights out on the town, and making larger-ticket impulse buys on credit card before graduating. The move to a major metropolis area for my first job required an unsecured loan and my combination of lifestyle and living in a city really hurt my finances. While I've not yet been in serious trouble because of my finances, I've begun feeling trapped by them. I'm currently in no position to handle an emergency, and with a recent house purchase and birthday (with the accompanying feeling of mortality associated with birthdays), I've decided it's time to change my ways.

Since I've found so much help and inspiration from other "personal story" finance blogs, I'm going to contribute my story for the greater good!

With my birthday money I made an impulse purchase of a 1/10 model RC car... It's very cool, and goes VERY fast, but had I waited even a day to make the purchase I would still have the money and not made the purchase as that is something I definitely do NOT need. As such, I want to make it my very last Impulse spend.

I hope anyone that joins me on this journey finds at least some nugget of hard-learned wisdom or inspiration to improve their own personal finance situation. I'll also be calling out to the "cloud" for advice and personal stories of successes and/or failures, etc. as I determine what works and doesn't work for me!

I'm excited to begin my path toward a debt-free existence and see what transpires...