mypfvoyage.org

The month of February was a very busy time for me again. Using www.mint.com has allowed me to see where my expenses are going and how frequently I am paying them. Another feature that I like about Mint.com is that it is always alerting me towards where my money is going and when my next bills are due. Those features comes in very handy. I try to update my information on the website daily. I cannot currently track my savings account with ING Direct or my brokerage account with Sharebuilder (a subsidiary of ING Direct), however that is fine because those accounts are very secure. I recently read that out of all the major banking institutions that ING Direct has the least amount of fraud being committed against them.

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The month of January was a very busy time for me. I was able to start to improve on my personal financial goals. In addition to my financial goals I was able to pursue some career goals. The lack of posts reflects this busy period. I signed up to track my finances with Mint.com. I also signed up with NCNnetwork.com to track my credit card debt and NetworthIQ.com to track my net worth.

There has been some improvement in the ability to start reducing my overall debt and in general my credit card debt. I will soon have figures and maybe graphs available on the site to visual show my progress. At the end of January my net worth was negative number which did not surprised me. However, it was not too bad. My January net worth was (10,120). The amount that I owe for my credit card debts was $3800 and that came down from $4000 in December. I am happy with my progress so far and hope to continue.

I just wanted to share some debt reduction methods. Most of these are common sense, however, common sense doesn’t seem to be all that common. The hardest thing do when trying to reach a goal is starting. So here are a few rules that will guide you along the way.

Get Out of Debt Faster List:

1. Stop using you credit cards.
This is the first step to get out of debt faster. Just remove your cards from your wallet or purses. Without this temptation in your possession the likelihood to go further into debt will be reduced.

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If you choose to only pay the minimum payment on a credit card each month you will not see the balance move to significantly. Not only will it take more time to pay off your debt, but the finance charges on your unpaid balances will increase the total amount of your original debt. If you were to charge $4000 on a 17% interest rate card and only make the minimum payments and charge nothing else, it could take you up to 23 years to repay your debt. So if you can afford to pay more than the minimum payment do that. It will help to reduce your outstanding balance sooner.