tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71062705122654817242011-07-08T08:11:34.723-07:00Digging my way out of debt, building credit, managing finances...and coming into my own, every day.Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.comBlogger271100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-44020457598413334712011-02-26T15:39:00.000-08:002011-02-26T16:28:09.187-08:00

Out of the many unexpected expenses that were now my responsibility after becoming single, the need to purchase a new renters insurance policy for the apartment reared its head first. My ex's parents had generously paid for renters insurance while we had been living together. As a gift to me, his parents allowed the policy to expire on its renewal date of October 2010 instead of terminating it

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-66938036502865506602011-02-22T22:29:00.000-08:002011-02-22T22:29:53.754-08:00

It's been quite a while since I've updated this blog. I'm still passionate about digging my way to financial freedom, and figured I should resume my sordid tale by laying out where I've been, and where I'll be going in 2011. It's been an interesting past six months! In August of 2010 I PAID OFF MY CAR! :D Here is my victory by the stats: Total Amount Financed: $18,280 (Down Payment of $2,720)

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-22164909348563716042010-07-08T21:07:00.000-07:002010-08-06T20:21:41.754-07:00

May 25th of this year marked a milestone: 3 years since I crashed my first car one night coming home from work, and 3 years since I signed myself into $21,000 in debt buying its replacement. It also marked another important anniversary: the day that accident dropped from my driving record...and I could qualify for sane car insurance rates. When I first purchased my MINI I was paying $260 a

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-66444552250769170542010-05-09T11:27:00.000-07:002010-05-20T12:15:41.603-07:00

In celebration of gas again rocketing past $3 a gallon, I decided to put my recent automotive training to good use and compile a list of the maintenance you don't need a mechanic (and their hourly rate) to perform. I'll demonstrate on my car, a 2004 MINI Cooper S. Keeping your car decently maintained can save you thousands of dollars in unexpected repairs, lost time and towing bills. First Stop:

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-89250287775631865972010-05-08T12:30:00.000-07:002010-05-09T09:26:46.431-07:00

On April 30th I separated from my boyfriend of 3 years. We had been sharing residency of a 1 bedroom apartment for over 20 months, a melding of lives and expenses I thought was going to end in marriage as soon as I became financially solvent. A debt-free life and a marriage partner waiting on the horizon were very good motivators to get my financial mistakes gone, and as a result I've made

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-36351414736468040702010-04-21T20:47:00.000-07:002011-02-22T21:02:01.888-08:00

I was curled up on the couch one night last weekend and tuned into my favorite TV channel, HGTV. HGTV is a Must Watch for me because their programming line-up is perfectly suited to the home owner and prospective buyer, and in some way I hope to learn at least a few useful homeowner tidbits by osmosis. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled on a new show, "My First Sale." Intrigued, I settled in

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-18889385179161062702010-03-27T17:25:00.000-07:002010-05-09T09:33:33.976-07:00

No matter whether you're talking with a Wall Street finance guru or a random person on the bus, the term net worth has a universal definition. Net worth is the sum of your assets and liabilities, and to a lesser extent an overall snapshot of your financial health. The term asset, however, is a word with a broad range of definitions and expectations. That's a problem, because the way you define an

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-22344383717222644072010-02-22T22:44:00.001-08:002010-04-13T21:52:41.684-07:00

So far, February rocks. Since re-financing my highest balance auto loan in July of '09, I've thrown every available dollar I could toward paying off that loan while paying the minimum on the other personal loan for my car. This month (thanks to a healthy 2009 federal tax refund) I whittled my remaining credit union loan balance to just over $300. Staring at that payment stub was a surreal

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-213197971517343042009-10-12T22:08:00.000-07:002010-04-21T22:47:15.003-07:00

After re-financing my loan with OnPoint in July, I took the loan officer's advice to heart and went about selecting a new credit card to augment my credit history.When your only card is a Visa with a $750 credit limit (of which you only use 30%), it's hard to carry a balance month-to-month. So unlike people burdened with credit card debt I was free to choose whatever new card I wished. But how to

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-26171804380997507842009-07-04T20:21:00.000-07:002010-04-21T22:50:44.633-07:00

Friday things began to look brighter for my sorry self-imposed financial state.For months I've anticipated refinancing my car loan. Every time I signed my name to an extra loan payment, I thought about the 9.99% I was paying and what OnPoint would say when my chance to refinance finally came. Last Friday I decided to try my luck. Breezing into the local OnPoint branch, I told Member Services what

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-19319631385471222452009-03-18T18:47:00.000-07:002009-03-31T19:17:36.451-07:00

Oh, yeah, I blew it bigtime...but boy am I happy about it. Now my car is just a little closer to my end vision for it and my wallet is $500 lighter. What is this, you ask? A set of Wilwood engineered MINI big brakes, now sitting pretty on my car. I unfortunately have but one major achilles heel, and that is not Manolo Blahniks but pricy automotive performance add-ons. My first car was an MGB with

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-26164067625390419522009-02-21T21:57:00.001-08:002010-04-21T22:52:16.470-07:00

My sister blog Bargaingeneering recently highlighted a few of the on and offline tools available to help PFers manage their finances. Among those lauded was Mint.com, and having not touched a personal finance app since Microsoft Money 2003 was brand new (and entirely forgotten how to so much as make a pie chart), I decided to give Mint a try. This post is an overview of Mint.com for anyone who

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-81536937219112579742009-02-15T22:23:00.000-08:002009-08-08T18:17:25.099-07:00

February thundered in with a vengeance this year, as the previous post attests. Kaiser Permanente Northwest Region gleefully announced I would be celebrating my exclusion from my parents' health insurance policy on my 23rd birthday, leaving me a little more than a month to locate new insurance coverage (gulp!). Truthfully, it's about time I stopped freeloading. So I tried my hand at online

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-58759625073342461092009-02-11T20:23:00.000-08:002009-02-27T20:23:03.274-08:00

Kathleen Helen WoodNovember 3rd, 1918 ~ February 4th, 2009She was much loved by her family and friends.I'm in tears as I write this. This death notice falls short of describing just how remarkable a person my grandmother was. My grandmother was born in Canada and spoke English and French. She fell in love with an Army Air Force bomber navigator and moved to the United States to marry him in

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-70149745068416982752009-02-09T20:32:00.000-08:002010-04-21T22:56:55.988-07:00

Title: Love & Money: A Life Guide for Financial SuccessAuthor: Jeff D. OpdykePublished: 2004ISBN: 0-471-47658-7Category: Money and RelationshipsProfiled elsewhere? Wiley.com This title can be purchased here.Staying in my library? No."Love & Money" is the brainchild of Jeff Opdyke, finance reporter and author of The Wall Street Journal Sunday column of the same name. This book was not on any

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-50948456152139117062009-01-30T19:22:00.000-08:002010-02-21T18:01:06.885-08:00

I have read three of finance guru Dave Ramsey's books: Financial Peace Revisited, The Total Money Makeover, and The Money Answer Book. I do not contest his experience, passion or expertise, and in fact admire him greatly for all the success he's achieved and helped other people reach. But after reading his material I find I must respectfully disagree with some of his favorite sermon points.Sermon

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-67799533417125149762009-01-13T20:05:00.000-08:002010-04-13T20:16:06.884-07:00

I've been discovering the person I was a year ago was astoundingly naive. Itching to re-finance my car loan as expediently as possible, counting down the days to this August, I pulled out my credit union paperwork and looked it over. For the first time ever, I read the documents I signed 18 months ago in their entirety, and in the process got a full, merciless review of my past desire to John

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-23416026725835164182009-01-09T09:09:00.001-08:002010-02-20T21:23:03.710-08:00

I've heard many personal finance experts and experienced bloggers bemoan the tendency of most people to think of budget as a dirty word, something to be avoided at all costs because it either means you are a) poor, or b) prevented from spending as you wished by a piece of paper. To me, budget was never a dirty word; it was merely a concept I found so confusing and complicated I simply eschewed

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-73347052918754188092009-01-04T14:48:00.000-08:002009-01-09T10:11:55.175-08:00

I've joined the NCN Network! The gentleman behind No Credit Needed, a blog I follow (inspirational reading if you're in a financial bind anywhere near similar to mine), has kindly re-opened this feature to new members, and I jumped at the chance to sign up. You can view my progress here and below.It's a bit of a mental boost to see that actually, I've come a long way. I'm hoping that tools like

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-56700890084236072009-01-02T19:58:00.000-08:002009-01-16T17:35:48.667-08:00

My debt reduction journey began in a flurry of calculating and worry. I was going to be $5,000 in the hole for my car. I had nothing in savings, and the $320 a month I was paying out was evaporating, a resource I could no longer tap if I got into trouble. And I saw it as the beginning downward spiral of debt I wanted no part of at all, terrified that it would end with a sign that read PAYDAY

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-40827453841536895492009-01-01T16:14:00.000-08:002009-02-09T19:42:00.022-08:00

Title: The Millionaire Next DoorAuthor: Thomas J. Stanley, William D. DankoPublished: 1996ISBN: 0-671-01520-6Category: Wealth Accumulation, Investment StrategiesProfiled elsewhere? Budgets are Sexy, Get Rich Slowly, The Simple Dollar, Wikipedia.This title can be purchased here.Staying in my library? Yes.The Millionaire Next Door is at its heart two things: an impressive (if dry) compendium of

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-67198890353312009662008-12-23T10:30:00.000-08:002009-10-12T22:07:13.347-07:00

I'll remember 2008 as the year I became aware of something incredibly important to my future: the way I handle my finances. Even as recently as my birthday in March, I stumbled around in a vacuum of financial ignorance. Drawing out $5 at a time from ATM's and taking a $2.50 hit to do it. Writing checks and charging up my debit card, only stopping when it got declined. Being embarrassed and angry

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-19390709341950581162008-12-21T11:53:00.000-08:002010-02-21T11:20:55.069-08:00

No matter my grandstanding in this blog, you should know that I am not the suddenly perfect finance guru. My bad money habits have been embedded for years...since I was first able to first tap my savings account. It's true that I'm dedicated to getting myself out of debt, but I wouldn't be quite so dedicated if I hadn't had to restrain a lot of my frivolities out of necessity...with my current

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-78605098200456193982008-12-20T14:52:00.000-08:002010-02-21T18:08:54.293-08:00

In primary school, my way of solving math problems I didn't understand was to make the numbers work in my favor, no matter the process I was supposed to be using to get the right answer. The concept of Problem, Process, Solution is one I failed to learn, and as a result my math grades were always dismal. It's taken me a long time realize that "making the numbers work" is a phrase best left to

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-8504808154647482582008-12-18T10:46:00.000-08:002010-02-16T14:25:53.976-08:00

A lot of people I know are going to assume I've gone off the deep end. Anyone who knew me when I was younger and couldn't have $3 in my pocket without wanting to spend it is undoubtedly thinking, "What have you done with the Chrysta we know?" And trust me, it only gets more bizarre from here.I've done a little growing up this year. In the time since I signed name to my auto loan paperwork it

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-25524524383650797992008-12-15T17:13:00.000-08:002010-02-16T14:00:15.522-08:00

The MSN Money article "One Earner, Two Retirements: Yikes!" is the inspiration that got me worried about how little I was saving. Since I can recall having money, I've always spent it on something. Like most people of my generation, my motto was instant gratification and . The result? I had no comprehension of spending within my means. That's a big problem; I owe an awful lot of money and I'm not

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7106270512265481724.post-2364378615068898712008-12-15T12:33:00.000-08:002010-02-16T12:40:42.841-08:00

Let's keep this simple. For a member of the Internet Generation, I'm humbly computer illiterate. For the most part, I am awed and vexed by anything electronic. As a consequence, I'm about 6 years behind the current fads like MySpace, Facebook, and blogs. I have and occasionally update a Facebook page, and in fact I started writing about my financial woes there. But Facebook is an insular

Chrystahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02273955675584336438noreply@blogger.com0