Goodbye for a little while

My blog is going on a little hiatus.

I have been struggling to keep up with things of late - nothing is wrong, but with work and an enormous amount of study, keeping posting unforunately isn't at the high end of my priorities.

At the moment, I work 35 hours a week, and with the number of courses I'm doing, I "meant" to study a crazy 60 hours a week. In about 2 weeks, that will drop back to 36 hours a week as some of my courses are finishing, but with full-time work it's still a struggle. I don't actually study 60 hours per week, but particularly as I took a weekend "off" last week to go away, my life for the last few weeks has been work until 5ish, go home, and work on assignments until anywhere from midnight to 4am because not having studied the amount I should be, I have left them to the last minute.

I'm not closing my blog and hopefully once study cuts down a bit I'll have more time.

I'm still keeping track of my spending, but with my insane hours of late I have been buying too many "little luxuries" - i.e. fast food/magazines etc.

I haven't even updated July figures yet, but a quick overall picture:

I currently have 3 credits cards, owing around $19,000.

Next pay I will get my regular pay plus $2,000 for study costs, so I will be paying off Credit Card 2.

When my tax refund comes through, (i.e. when I finally finish my tax), that should be almost $10K. So I'll pay off Credit Card 3.

Then, it is just Credit Card 4, which has a balance transfer rate.

My aim will be to start the new year with less than $5,000K debt, which is more than achievable.

Goals for May

May for me is about 4 things:

1. Studying
2. Working
3. Losing weight
4. Saving money

Studying

• With my Masters & Grad Dip, May is a very busy month. I have 7 assignments and 2 exams. Eep!!

Working

• We are putting out an issue of the Journal I am production editor off. First one I have worked on, so I think it is going to be a steep learning curve.
• I will also have more marking to do (in good news, I put in my time sheet for the other marking I did, is about $470 before tax. Yay! :)
• I have a conference paper to write
• And my normal other 50 million duties!

Losing weight

• This week I went to the gym 3 times, which for me is pretty good! But I haven't been losing weight as often as I would have liked because I keep having bad days in between good days.
• I want to keep up the gym, keep on with the healthy eating and hopefully I will lose around 5 kilos.

Saving money

• I haven't done my April summary yet, but I know it wasn't a good month. I realise that although my finances are in a better state than last year, I'm keeping track of everything I'm spending, paying my credit cards off (slowly!), I'm really not living frugally or living like I'm on a budget. That has to change.
• With May being all about study, work and losing weight - I really shouldn't have much of a chance to spend money!

Weekend things to do

I have a fun-filled weekend of work, study and household chores. Actually, that's a lie, I am going to see a Dylan Moran concert tonight. Love his work. I bought the tickets back in January for myself and a birthday present for my brother, so already paid for. I'm getting a bus to where the show is, and I already have a prepaid 10-trip bus ticket. The concert doesn't start until 8pm so will eat before I go... overall cost should be $0.

But seriously, I have so much to do this weekend.... making a list ....

Study
Prep for trust accounting exam
Sit trust accounting exam (online - must complete between Sunday 9am and Monday 9pm - aim to do it Sunday night)
Catch-up on reading for Commerical Law Practice
Work on Tax Course 1 assignment - mainly reading
Work on Tax Course 2 assignment - reading/notes
Reading for Tax course 2

Work
Prep for lecture next week (my first one ever!!!)

Houshold
Washing/ironing - I hadn't ironed for about 2 weeks. Did a basket this morning but have a load of washing on which will also need ironing.
Quick apartment clean - mop/vaccum/wipe surfaces (shouldn't take too long - times like this I like living in a smallish apartment!)

Other
Gym - body pump class
Dylan Moran concert

Financial
List a minimum of 4 things on Ebay (some things I already have photos for so hopefully won't take too long)
Update blog with April summary/expenses

I think that's it! Don't think I'm going to get through all of it but will see how I go.

I have some hard-core saving to do

Obviously my first financial priority is to pay off my debt. But after that, I have some hard core saving to do.

It's a dream of mine to study tax in the U.S. - there is an international tax program at NYU; and an LLM with a tax specialisation at Harvard.

This is from the Harvard website:
"A year in Harvard Law School's LL.M. program is expensive. Tuition for 2007-2008 is $39,325; in addition, the costs of dormitory housing, food, medical fees, books and supplies, activity fee, and personal and travel expenses for a single student come to at least $23,097, for a total of at least $62,422".

And that's US dollars! I feel so depressed about it, it is something I really want to do, and although I will be trying for a scholarship, it seems like unless I get one (and they are extremely competitive) I will never get there. I'm expecting to take until the end of next year (2010) to pay off my debt, and that was "only" $25K. (Yes, I know it is still an incredibly high amount but compared to approx $100K AU which the program + living expenses would be, it isn't much!)

Unless there is a kind reader with almost $100K AU reading this who feels like helping me out?? ;)

Credit cards, interest rates, plan of attack

My credit card interest rates are as follows:

I haven't updated my list of credit card debt as I usually only do it at the end of the month. But essentially:

• I received a 6 month balance transfer promotional rate offer (3.99%) for Card 2. As Card 2 only had about $1,500 available, last month I transferred that balance to Card 3 to free up the credit.
• Card 5 was my highest credit rate, so I transferred part of that to Card 3 last month and paid some off.
• I have now transferred the rest of Card 5's balance to Card 2, so have reduced the rate from 15.49% to 3.99% - but I HAVE to pay it off in 6 months.

So when I next update my credit card list, Card 5 will have a balance of $0 (I know this is mainly due to balance transfers, but since it has been sitting around $9K for some time it is a nice feeling to get rid of it!) and Card 2 will have a balance of close to $5K.

My plan of attack is:

1. Pay off Card 1 (now down to about $1,500) - smallest balance and highest interest rate
2. Pay off Card 2 - need to pay off within 6 months or the interest rate will increase dramatically. I first about tackling it first but I should be able to pay both Card 1 and Card 2 off within 6 months - and if worst comes to worst I am expecting my tax refund before the 6 months expires.
3. Pay off Card 3
4. Pay off Card 4 - low(er) interest rate for the life of the balance so out of my credit cards, this is my lowest priority.

Goals for week: Big FAIL already!

I posted on Sunday about my goals for the week (or at least Monday to Friday) which involved spending no money except paying my rent and for a remedial massage.

Well, it's already Tuesday and I have already failed....
Monday: Having bad day at work, ending up buying far too many snacks (some of which I still have): $7.05
Today: Boss and some of "higher ups" at work invited me to lunch so I said yes. Good part is the lunch I was going to have was in the work freezer, so I can have it tomorrow, it won't go to waste. I spent $5.00 on rice paper rolls (trying to be healthy).

I have exams at the end of this week for one of my post-grad courses, so I have pushed my massage back until next week, which will save me some money this week.

Goals for the coming week

My goals for Monday to Friday are:

No spending except.... (yes there had to be a but):

Rent (I pay rent weekly)
Massage (I have been having some remedial massages, but the one this week should be the last one I have for a while)

I bought some food today, but it was a whole $3.20 (2 tomoatos and a lettuce).

Saturday and Sunday I will be going out. Saturday probably doing something with some friends from uni; Sunday I'm going to a Star Wars exhibition with my brother and Dad.

Goals

I realised that as yet I haven't outlined my goals in terms of my debt apart from saying "I want to pay it off".

One thing I learnt in my old job was all about SMART goals. That is: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. (Check out http://www.topachievement.com/smart.html for some more info on each on the letters).

SMART goals can be applied to basically anything. A non-monetary example would be losing weight ... it is all well and good to say "I want to lose weight" (which by the way, I do!) but if you put it in smart terms (eg: I will lose 7kg by the end of March 2009), it becomes much clearer what you need to do and how you are progressing.

I have 2 main debt goals:
1) To have my credit card debt down to $10,000 by the end of 2009.
2) To have my credit card debt paid off by the end of 2010.

The new job I took (and moved interstate for) is a one year contract. There is a strong possibility of an extension, but obviously funding (I now work at a uni) is going to come into play, so I am concerned with the impact the failing economy will have. Having said that, considering the industry I was previously in, there is every likelihood that my old firm will start making people redundant if the economy doesn't improve.