About my job.. no fancy title.

I'm trying not to letter the bitterness take control of me but the past week I have been forced to do some serious soul searching.

My current job is for a big corporation. One that is one of the largest in its industry. I've worked there for going on three years now. It has been the best paying job I've ever had. When I first started there, things were a lot better. They seemed more, well, appreciative of their employees. But then management changed and they stripped away a lot of our incentives.

I had a conversation with upper management today that their perception is that I was "Just there collecting a paycheck" and that I'm "lazy." Of course, I never see upper management when we do most of our business. Considering I volunteer on my days off, pick up overtime, and I'm on extra committees and I'm active in our union. That should say enough. Then there's the whole "biking to work" thing which this person was unaware and surprised by. It's amazing how out-of-touch some people are.

I've always been a bit of a workaholic, and that's just how I deal with things. I've let go in the past few years go try and live life a little, but work, to me, isn't just a paycheck. It's about self-respect. It's about integrity. It's about earning my keep.

Thing is I don't have a college education I can fall back on and I cannot afford to go back to school. I really like what I do, but I'm really starting to hate the company. To put it mildly, the people making the decisions do not know what is really going on. Anybody who knows me knows I am one of the most dependable people out there, and my work ethic is second to none.

But then again, when you only focus on failure, how can you expect to be successful?

I am really asking myself if I want to continue to working for this company. I think I need to find an 'out.'

It just sucks having been buried in so much debt that this is kind of a perpetual cycle that may never end. But I am no longer going to just accept "Good enough." I am going to work whatever I can, a second full time job if I have too. And I am going to get 6 months to a year living expenses in the bank. Then I am going to quit this nonsense and pursue something I feel better about.

How I got rid of $50000 in credit cards

A few years ago we found ourselves in a really desperate situation.

Through a snowballing effect of bad luck, our own stupidity, and some small crime of one of our employers, we found ourselves in massive debt.

At the time my wife had just started a new job that had use move 300 miles away. I had no problem with that as I wanted to get away from where we were. I had been traveling doing shows. The travel costs were high but the pay was okay and it kept us afloat. That is, until things went sour.

When I left the job I was owed over $10000 in back pay. During a lapse of insurance coverage, my wife had a trip to the ER, the transmission in my car went out a few weeks later, and the list goes on. Things snowballed and we had one hell of a hole to dig ourselves out of.

Credit card debt alone was just under $49000. We had already been enrolled in with a credit counselor (who didn't do much, but I don't want to get into it.) We also owed $16000 on a timeshare, $9000 in student loans, and another $3000 on a credit line. This was July 2007.

I started loosely budgeting and we were making progress. Not much, but every step is important. It wasn't until I started bike commuting that I started visiting my local library and reading personal finance books. After enough reading, I started to really hate debt. But, when you have a big enough hole to dig out of, it seems impossible.

Then Chase Bank really pissed me off. They lowered my credit limit to how much was outstanding, while there were pending transactions (this was our everyday card for gas and other regular expenses.) They tried to jack the interest rate up to 30%, they tried to sack a bunch of fees on there as well. In the end, I said "Enough is enough" and by January 2009 I had my plan in place.

I listed our debts from first to last in the order of which bank I HATE THE MOST. Here was the list:

1) Chase Bank/Bank One
2) Bank of America
3) Capital One
4) American Express
5) Citibank
6) Fifth Third Bank
7) US Bank

Some banks I had multiple accounts but it was very liberating getting rid of them.

So March 22, I was able to pay off the last of the credit cards. The story doesn't end there though. As I write this I'm back $10000 in credit card debt.

Why?

The timeshare balance was around $10000. The timeshare company, Wyndham Consumer Finance, sucks. They did not give me online access to financial information, I had to call them to find out how much I owed. Interest compounded daily. And to top it off, if I wanted statements in the mail, they wanted a "$5 service fee." Furthermore, when I would send in an extra payment, they would put it toward maintenance fees instead of loan principal. Idiots. Screw them. So I want to be completely in control of my personal finances, so I found a way to get rid of them.

I applied for a bunch of new credit cards (after the new law passed) and transferred the balance over to 0% for 6, 9, and 12 month periods. Thus eliminated the interest paid on the timeshare. Thus no longer having to deal with the incompetent timeshare people.

So now I have to get my credit cards taken care of again, but this is less pressure since we have more cash flow and honestly we've gotten very good with our money throughout this process. Tuition in the school of hard knocks I guess.

We currently live (both needs and wants) on about 35-40% of our income PER OUR BUDGET. The reality our income is underestimated and the expenses are based upon the highest bill I've gotten in particular categories. So we always end up with a surplus at the end, which is put toward debt or savings.

I'll need a separate entry for the things we do to cut our budget.

I will not corporate

I am on a quest to completely change my life so I am only visiting local vendors and businesses for all my needs. No Wal-mart. No Target. No Meijer. Yeah it may be convenient to get everything at the same place, but when I spend my money it stays in my community. Not going to the pockets of rich people in Arkansas. Not going to support questionable labor practices throughout the world. I want to know where things come from and I want to know who they come from, so to speak.

A lot of people, when I mentioned this project, said it would be impossible. I didn't doubt it would be difficult, and I do not know if 100% I will be free of big corporations. Hell, right after I got the idea for this project my mortgage was bought by Bank of America. (Grrrr!!!!!)

But here is the basic project.

Throughout the year I will phase out the major corporations in my life. Instead of Petsmart, I will need to find a local vendor for pet food. Same for soaps. Dial will not be part of my life. I will not get my food at Kroger, either.

But then the argument comes in "All corporations are not evil."

I never said they were all evil, but I would like the money I spend to stay within my community. I have a bank, one that is in most states, who I will continue to bank with for the time being. They have not wronged me, and I feel they are worthy of my business. However, Chase Bank can go to hell. Capital One can go to hell. Bank of America can go to hell.

The first step in this process was to join a credit union instead of a bank, which I did in November. I will post about this after I have had my account open for six months to compare and contrast. But in the meantime, I am trying to get my life ready to make the adjustments necessary.

I'm off to a good start

So it's been over a month since I last wrote in this thing. Figures I'm two posts in and already blowing it off. That's the way I work, I get all excited and then I keep putting it off.

In reality I have been working a lot of overtime recently as I was fortunate enough to owe nearly $3700 in taxes for 2009. 2009 was the most money we ever made, and a lot of those taxes are from previous years because there was something called the "School District Income Tax" I was unaware of. I lived in an apartment, I didn't know about it. And furthermore, I was figuring between local and state taxes, some money would find it's way to schools. I already have been supporting our youth, since my wife cannot resist girl scout cookies.

I swear. If things go all to hell, we could get a month on tap water and girl scout cookies. We're stocked. Just kidding.

Anyway I'll try to be better about this in the future. Eventually I may get one reader and that would be a lot better than I have now. I'm going to do a separate post.

How $4 a gallon gas saved my life...

It seems so long ago that gas was about to hit $4 a gallon. I remember it well. Non-stop complaining no matter where I went -- At work, on the news, it was everywhere. I couldn’t escape it. It hit our budget pretty hard too and it annoyed me to fill up the tank and think “Wow, now I get to work my entire shift just to pay for that.”

It bothered me and I wanted to do something about it. But what could I do? Carpooling would help, but it only worked so well. I started telling co-workers that once gas hit $4 a gallon, I was going to start biking to work. Nobody believed me. Nobody.

Here’s something to understand. I had a really poor diet, I was near 300 pounds at the time. I was very out of shape, on blood pressure meds, I had barely ridden the mountain bike I had bought three years earlier and it was even sitting outside, so for all I knew the chain had rusted out. It was late May, temperatures were high and the trip would be 14 miles.

Not only did my co-workers not believe me, my wife even told me “Don’t even think about it.” or “You’re not still thinking about biking to work, are you?“ She said I was an idiot for even considering it.

But the thing is, and the main reason I did it, wasn’t to save money. It wasn’t to get into shape. It wasn’t to be better to the environment. No. The main reason I did it the first time was I had to PROVE TO MYSELF I could do it. Plain and simple. I had been through a lot a year prior. Quitting the road, moving, and being buried in debt and getting nowhere trying to get out of it had left me feeling defeated, and I needed a victory. Maybe it would be as simple at saving the $5 it would save in gas to make the trip, but I really needed to feel like I accomplished something.

So, on a 90 degree June day, with 80% humidity, I set out around 5:30pm to be at work around 7:30pm. It was pure hell. I was slow, the bike didn’t want to move fast at all (one of the tires was actually under-inflated.) I brought a half gallon of water with me. I had gone through it before I made it to the halfway point. I had to stop six times. Everything hurt. And I made it to work on time, but barely.

But the important thing was I did it. And I felt pretty damn good about it. When my wife found out she said “WTF were you thinking?” But I don’t think she understood at the time how much that trip to work meant to me. I did find a ride home that night.

After my muscles recovered I did it again the next week. And I continued adding more and more rides to work. I set a goal by the end of summer to be able to bike round trip to work (28 miles) everyday. I took a step-by-step approach to hit my goal and by the second week of August I was doing it. In fact, in that time frame I lost around 30 pounds. I felt a lot better about myself and my doctor was ecstatic. Eventually me riding to work became the norm instead of a complete freak thing. While all others did was complain about gas I became immune to it. I wasn’t going to put myself in a position where I am vulnerable to gas prices anymore.

If someone told me in April 2008 that I would be able to be car free by August 2008 I would have told them they were nuts.

But I had hit my breaking point and I decided that $4 was too much to pay for a gallon of gas, so I didn’t pay $4 a gallon.

I started being more active in my community and started going to the library a lot more often. I started doing things for myself.

But as I rode I thought of the other parts of my life that I truly don’t like to deal with -- debt and financial insecurity were eating away at me, so I used the same step-by-step approach to getting out of debt. Each dollar is like one pedal-stroke closer to my destination. I may not get there as fast as I could in a car, but my costs are so much less because I don’t have to spend a significant portion of my day recouping my commuting expenses.

And to think that if it wasn’t for $4 a gallon, I may not have been pushed to change my habits.

I’m writing this in March 2010. Not even two years later. And I’m thinking to myself that I am about eight months away from being (non-mortgage) debt free. I’m not comfortable sharing the numbers yet, but when I started this journey our consumer debt load was about 1.5 times our combined yearly salaries before taxes. It’s been one hell of a climb, and I can almost see the top.

How $4 a gallon gas saved my life...

It seems so long ago that gas was about to hit $4 a gallon. I remember it well. Non-stop complaining no matter where I went -- At work, on the news, it was everywhere. I couldn’t escape it. It hit our budget pretty hard too and it annoyed me to fill up the tank and think “Wow, now I get to work my entire shift just to pay for that.”

It bothered me and I wanted to do something about it. But what could I do? Carpooling would help, but it only worked so well. I started telling co-workers that once gas hit $4 a gallon, I was going to start biking to work. Nobody believed me. Nobody.

Here’s something to understand. I had a really poor diet, I was near 300 pounds at the time. I was very out of shape, on blood pressure meds, I had barely ridden the mountain bike I had bought three years earlier and it was even sitting outside, so for all I knew the chain had rusted out. It was late May, temperatures were high and the trip would be 14 miles.

Not only did my co-workers not believe me, my wife even told me “Don’t even think about it.” or “You’re not still thinking about biking to work, are you?“ She said I was an idiot for even considering it.

But the thing is, and the main reason I did it, wasn’t to save money. It wasn’t to get into shape. It wasn’t to be better to the environment. No. The main reason I did it the first time was I had to PROVE TO MYSELF I could do it. Plain and simple. I had been through a lot a year prior. Quitting the road, moving, and being buried in debt and getting nowhere trying to get out of it had left me feeling defeated, and I needed a victory. Maybe it would be as simple at saving the $5 it would save in gas to make the trip, but I really needed to feel like I accomplished something.

So, on a 90 degree June day, with 80% humidity, I set out around 5:30pm to be at work around 7:30pm. It was pure hell. I was slow, the bike didn’t want to move fast at all (one of the tires was actually under-inflated.) I brought a half gallon of water with me. I had gone through it before I made it to the halfway point. I had to stop six times. Everything hurt. And I made it to work on time, but barely.

But the important thing was I did it. And I felt pretty damn good about it. When my wife found out she said “WTF were you thinking?” But I don’t think she understood at the time how much that trip to work meant to me. I did find a ride home that night.

After my muscles recovered I did it again the next week. And I continued adding more and more rides to work. I set a goal by the end of summer to be able to bike round trip to work (28 miles) everyday. I took a step-by-step approach to hit my goal and by the second week of August I was doing it. In fact, in that time frame I lost around 30 pounds. I felt a lot better about myself and my doctor was ecstatic. Eventually me riding to work became the norm instead of a complete freak thing. While all others did was complain about gas I became immune to it. I wasn’t going to put myself in a position where I am vulnerable to gas prices anymore.

If someone told me in April 2008 that I would be able to be car free by August 2008 I would have told them they were nuts.

But I had hit my breaking point and I decided that $4 was too much to pay for a gallon of gas, so I didn’t pay $4 a gallon.

I started being more active in my community and started going to the library a lot more often. I started doing things for myself.

But as I rode I thought of the other parts of my life that I truly don’t like to deal with -- debt and financial insecurity were eating away at me, so I used the same step-by-step approach to getting out of debt. Each dollar is like one pedal-stroke closer to my destination. I may not get there as fast as I could in a car, but my costs are so much less because I don’t have to spend a significant portion of my day recouping my commuting expenses.

And to think that if it wasn’t for $4 a gallon, I may not have been pushed to change my habits.

I’m writing this in March 2010. Not even two years later. And I’m thinking to myself that I am about eight months away from being (non-mortgage) debt free. I’m not comfortable sharing the numbers yet, but when I started this journey our consumer debt load was about 1.5 times our combined yearly salaries before taxes. It’s been one hell of a climb, and I can almost see the top.

So it begins..

I'm starting this blog as it is something I've meant to do for a long time. I'll just rant and rave like the lunatic I am about whatever comes to mind. My journey in personal finance, my journey to no longer support the huge corporate entities that seem to have a stranglehold on everything. My journey to try and fix the body I've lived in but never taken care of. There's a lot of things I need to fix, and I don't really know where to start.

I'll also add some old blog posts from facebook and myspace to level this out since I do like some of the stuff I've put there in the past.

But I think the first thing I will have to put will be how this whole adventure got started.