In Debt Blogger Our personal blog about finances and breaking free from our consumer debt

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March Madness - Made it through Round One
2008-03-06 18:16:35
This year I’m participating in FreeMoneyFinance’s March Madness. I submitted my post about Saving Money by NOT Changing your Own Oil and voting for Round One has ended and my post has made it through to the next round. Hopefully everyone that liked it will continue to vote for it in Round 2. The winnings from [...] ...

Car Trouble: Update
2008-03-05 17:23:04
Well some good news has come out of this whole ordeal with my car. I was able to score a new (slightly used) rear end on eBay for $385.00. The even better news is that the seller is local so I didn’t have to pay any astronomical shipping charges. I did end up using my Emergency [...] ...

Car Trouble
2008-03-02 20:01:34
On Thursday the rear end in my car blew up. I always knew this day was coming, but didn’t expect it to come so soon. The car only has 65,000 miles on it. I’m scrambling trying to figure out a way to get my car back on the road and spending the least amount of money. [...] ...

Avoiding Credit Repair Scams
2008-02-25 19:04:55
Having trouble getting approved for a new house or car loan? You’re not the only one. And now, the Better Business Bureau is warning that some companies are using the credit crunch to take advantage of consumers who want to clean up their credit. The BBB reports that complaints against credit repair companies have risen [...] ...

MoneyNing’s Wedding Giveaway Update
2008-02-22 18:57:11
MoneyNing has reached 1000+ subscriber count for his feed. If you recall from the original post, this means that he is going to be giving away the extra $500 between March 11th and March 15th. You still have plenty of time to get in on this.  Check out MoneyNing’s post for tips on how you can [...] ...

Telemarketers Drafting Your Bank Account without Permission?
2008-02-22 03:02:19
FreeMoneyFinance has a very interesting and very scary article today about telemarketers (and scammers in general) being able to draft your checking account without your authorization by using a little known, obscure method called “demand draft” or “remotely created check”. A very good reason to be sure to always check your bank statements for any “weird” [...] ...

Five Fridays
2008-02-21 00:40:03
I noticed something today that should have been obvious but has taken me at least the past four months to realize:  my wife has five paydays this month. And not only this month, but four months of the year. She is paid weekly and gets paid four times a month eight months out of the year [...] ...

Ready to be Rewarded for your Good Credit?
2008-02-19 23:44:09
For months now we’ve seen foreclosure after foreclosure and people getting relatively painlessly bailed out of their mortgages that they could never afford to begin with. Signed your life away on an ARM? Don’t worry, the government will step in and freeze your rate so, even though you don’t pay your bills, you can still [...] ...

Paying off Lowest Interest Debt first?
2008-02-19 21:40:17
I’ve read a lot of blog posts about paying off your high interest debt first. That by doing this, combined with the ’snow-ball’ method, will get you out of debt the fastest. I’ve been following this methodology for some time, but I’ve often wondered if it’s not the best solution for my particular situation. Let [...] ...

And then there were four.
2008-02-19 00:29:49
As I previously mentioned, we were going to use our tax refunds to help pay down our credit card debt. And today, we have paid off two of them in their entirety! Yay us! We no longer have to worry about making payments to Wal-mart or PremierBank. I would have paid off a third, but [...] ...

MoneyNing’s Free Wedding Giveaway
2008-02-18 18:32:02
David over at MoneyNing.com got hitched. And to celebrate, he’s giving away up to $1500 to his readers starting March 1st. First off, I’d like to say congratulations to David and his wife. And secondly, what a creative way to get a lot of free press for your blog. Bloggers are coming out of the woodwork [...] ...

Saving Money by NOT Changing your Own Oil
2008-02-17 19:44:40
Today I saw an article on About.com about Changing your Own Oil and it got me wondering just how many people fall for this scam to save money. For those that don’t know me, I’m really big on car maintenance. I have a fully stocked garage and do most things myself. One thing that I won’t [...] ...

Eating PB&J to Save the World?
2008-02-16 17:18:53
I’ll admit it. I’m a big fan of making peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. They’re easy to make and they’re cheap. But did you know that eating one can help save the environment? Well, if you believe everything Larry West says, that is. In his article, he outlines the following points: By eating PB&J for lunch over a [...] ...
Eating 

Emergency Fund
2008-02-16 03:39:04
Well I decided to add another graph to the site for my emergency fund. I’ve wanted to start an E-fund for a long time, but always had other priorities that would get in the way. As you can see, I’ve got a long way to go to get it anywhere near a comfortable level. I decided [...] ...
Emergency 

Thanks IRS!
2008-02-15 23:28:37
Checked my checking account balance today and was pleasantly surprised to find that the IRS and California Franchise Tax Board both made their direct deposits this morning. Today is also the weekly payday for my wife, so this should give me a little bit of money to work with in paying off some of our bills. I [...] ...

Want to earn a million dollars? Make jam.
2008-02-15 21:53:08
Sounds ridiculous, right? I thought so, too. Yesterday, I read an article on Forbes.com about five people who’ve made more than a million dollars. What’s so special about that? Well, the fact that all of these people are under the age of 20. Read it here for yourself. Of the five: One kid made a couple [...] ...
Jam 

EmigrantDirect dropping rates… again.
2008-02-15 02:44:58
I was surprised to see this week that EmigrantDirect.com now offers only 3.60% interest on their online savings account. I moved my savings accounts from Bank of America (at 0.2%) to EmigrantDirect when their rates were 5.15%. I guess the “Dream” couldn’t last forever, right? I have heard good things (and of good rates) with E*Trade’s [...] ...
Rates 

Finished our Taxes and… A burning question.
2008-02-14 17:36:39
This weekend was rather slow and I took the opportunity to, what else? File our taxes! We moved to Nevada from Oklahoma in October and my wife has been working since we moved here. I am employed out of California and have been since I lived there in 2004. Since then, I have been filing a [...] ...
Taxes 

What a cute (and expensive!) new puppy!
2008-02-14 03:37:43
Ever since we moved to Nevada we’ve been looking for another Dachshund. We already had one (a male named Jasper) and we wanted to get a female to give him some companionship. I know it sounds crazy, but ever since my wife started working Jasper has been very depressed. Most days he just lays on [...] ...

February Bills
2008-02-14 01:52:08
Well I just sent off the last of this months bills. I’m somewhat relieved but I know in the back of my mind that I only have less than 2 weeks before I have to start paying down the bills for March. I honestly think this is the time of the month where we get [...] ...
February 

5 Valentine’s Day Ideas
2008-02-14 00:21:18
I’m not going to lie. I’m not a big fan of Valentine’s Day. Never have been. But my wife, on the other hand, she loves it. And tomorrow will be our second Valentine’s Day that we’ve celebrated during our marriage. Last year she gave me a new tackle box (she knows I love fishing!), some [...] ...

5 ways to be a Millionaire
2008-02-13 20:51:39
Found this neat tool today on CNN Money. Basically it lets you plug in your own financial details and determines how much you have to save and how long it will take to become a millionaire. For me, at my current savings, it would take me 52 years and 5 months and adjusted for inflation at [...] ...