My Journey to Eliminate Debt

Mum's budget files has awarded me the coolest blog award! thanks Budget mama :) your blog is one of my faves also. I'm awarding this to Dawn from Facing Foreclosure. Dawn has a goal to make an extra $900 a month and it's always an interesting read to see how she does it and what new frugal tips she has posted. Congrats dawn!




On the home front, well DH got a phone call today asking him to go in tommorrow and do a days work as a trial! I SO want him to get this job! It's part time, 26 hours a week and it's the first real chance anyone has given him at work in tha last three years. He will find out if he gets the job next week, I think I'll cry with relief if he does. You just get so sick of puttting in endless applications and never getting anything. So fingers crossed this works out for him. I would love for us to be a two income family again.

I'm having trouble with blogger and I can't seem to get any answers. I can't see the comments when I click on the comments box, a padlock shows up in the bottom right corner. Also I can't comment on some other blogs ( saving for a home of my own &1 mans money are two of them) because when I click on their comment box the same thing happens. If anyone can tell me how to fix it I would really appreciate it.

Well I got a lot done in my yard yesterday. We need to get a skip in for all the rubbish so we will do that this week. We are also trying to re-use and recycle what we can to save money so we have been piling up the old bricks, the rocks and offcuts of slate that were lying around. We will try and use these to build the new garden beds. We are going to go and look at the recycle place next weekend and see what we can find there to use on these garden projects.

I've also been looking into making a compost heap. I had one many years ago but I think I'm going to make a compost tumbler out of a plastic garbage bin this time. I'll put lots of holes in it to aerate it and then I can have a couple of bins going and just roll them over a few times each day.

On the financial front I bought Fabulously Broke's Budgeting Sheets yesterday. I really like what I see so far. I will do a review once I've used it a bit longer but so far it's great. As a result of what I found using the sheets I will be changing how I do a few things next month and tracking personal and business finances in detail. I am shifting some money back into the business account to maintain a higher balance.

The debt repayment charts are just brilliant!! I love the colours and the graphing is MUCH more motivating than just numbers. I also like that it calculates the % I am spending on different things and that was an eye opener. The biggest % so far this month were:

Personal income: $5735
Mortgage: $1300 23%
University DS: $1010 18%
Credit Cards: $1580 28%

Groceries were just under 10% followed closely by the council rates, electricity (3 month bill) and holiday deposit. On the business side I have a $1400 tax bill to pay soon as well as rent. I'm determined to track spending thoroughly from now.

need a laugh? I stumbled across this great post this morning, written by a mum of seven,Top 10 Reasons Why Sex is Financially Rewarding the comments are worth a read as well!

Well according to my flylady based garden system I've been working in Zone 4 this week : the pergola area. I've been picking up rubbish for 15 minutes each day and this morning I'm going to spend some time out there doing a few more jobs. This is the main area that we ripped up a couple of years ago and have done NOTHING with since as we had our income cut.

Today I want to get rid of all the old pots, rubbish, hanging baskets with dead flowers in them, spiderwebs and 'stuff' that has accumulated under here. You can't see it all in the pictures, it's in the corner closest to the house which I didn't photograph.

Once we have cleaned it up we need to fix the drainage, lay pavers, replant the garden beds and extend the pergola to give us shade over the kitchen window. I also want to add more clear panels to the pergola as it has cut out a lot of light to the house.

Here's the before pics of the pergola area:


The picture above is of my beautiful Kuan Yin Statue, she sits, serenely in my garden and can be seen from our dining / lounge /kitchen which opens onto the pergola area. She is nicknamed 'Mrs Buddha'. Years ago I had been going to buy a life size statue of her to put in my 'meditation garden' (yet to built) but when I went back to the nursery to buy it someone had beat me to it. I decided if I ever found her again I'd make sure I didn't miss my chance and so I eventually found this bust and I love it.

I also have some Gargoyles on each side of the steps leading from the pergola up to the backyard, poking out from the bushes.














This shows about one half of the area.






This is looking back from the view above, it leads into the lounge / dining area that is mainly all windows looking out into the garden /pergola.




This is from the top looking down into the area above, these garden beds used to be full of flowers! The brown rubbish is whats left of a beautiful potato vine that covered the entire side fence. It died of neglect a year or so ago.




This is where the pathway used to be and I had it all edged with violets and a lovely green vine which trailed down over the fence. We threw down some old grey carpet in winter as it was just a puddle of mud. I can't wait to get this fixed! It's been a miserable reminder of DH's job loss for too long now.




Here's the view looking back the other way.




I love my wooden fence. It is the one thing that I would miss most if / when we leave here. When we first moved in this was the very first thing DH built for me in our new home, just the kind of rustic fence I really wanted.






This is the near the steps leading up to the backyard



So this is one of the bigger projects we have to tackle, I'm looking forward to getting it done and blogging about it. I'm off to start cleaning it up. Have a great weekend !

I am starting to see the impact of the financial crisis filtering through in my job. What's really sad is that kids are starting to worry about the financial situation because of all the TV and newspaper coverage and that is affecting some kids badly.

I had a little 11 year old girl in tears yesterday worrying about the recession, global warming, job losses, losing the home. She really shouldn't have to be taking all this on but they hear it on the news, they read it in the paper and they they start imagining the worst. Often when they ask their parents they get told 'don't worry about it". But they DO worry until they get reassurance that they and the people they love, AND the planet will be OK.

Pre teens and teenagers are very concerned about the world around them, and though it may not always feel like it, they worry a lot about their family. They are much more susceptible to message of hopelessness about the future than adults and they need good role models around to teach them how to cope and survive difficult times. They also need to feel that they are listened too and that their concerns are taken seriously. They need to feel that they can DO something to make a difference.

If you have kids please think about turning the news off at night at tea time. The news is one of the most violent shows on TV. And at the moment it's full of doom and gloom, foreclosures and job losses, not to mention war and violence ad nauseum. Here's a few other things to consider with your teenagers and pre- teens to help them weather this financial climate.

• Be aware of what you are saying in front of the kids, they taking it all in and they need explanations to help them put what they are hearing in context.

• Ask your kids what they think about what is happening and if they are worried.

• Kids need reassurance that even though times are tough, they and you will be OK. Just telling them not to worry does not reassure them a lot. If they could stop worrying they would have.

• Give them some basic information about what is happening financially for your family, be calm and reassure them that if there is a job loss the family will stick together and sort things out, that you will make sure that they are OK.

• Use it as an opportunity to help them plan for financial security. Help them open a bank account and start saving a few dollars a week.

• Talk about the stories on TV and in the paper, ask (and then please listen) for their ideas and opinions, you might be pleasantly surprised at how deeply kids think, and care about whats happening in the world

• Find examples of people who are doing something positive about the crisis, challenge the idea that the situation is hopeless, it is difficult, yes, but it is NOT hopeless

• Make it a kids project to work out how the family can save money and help save the planet

• Set up a savings plan where you match them dollar for dollar

After this little girl had gotten out all her worries we made a colourful poster of all the ways the family could help save the environment, stop poverty and save money at home. We did an imaginary exercise where she went 50 years into the future to see the world as she would like it to be and then we talked about what she could do to make a difference. She skipped out the door full of enthusiasm.

I spoke with her mum, they are a lovely family who had no idea she was worrying about all these things. The family is not in any type of crisis, financial or otherwise. This is a result of the media. The parents will do a great job at reassuring her and helping her through. They just didn't know, because she didn't want to worry them.

When I started this blog our family had two incomes. I set a goal to pay off the mortgage in five years and it was do-able on the two wages. We had recently dealt with a family crisis that meant my father, who has Alzheimer's, was living with us. Soon after I started blogging my husband lost his income and everything had to change. The ups and downs of that journey ARE this blog.

And here I am, 16 months later, self- employed, working four days a week doing something that I just LOVE to do. I'm in the right place.

Outside of work I am finally getting back to the things that give me peace of mind, gardening, bush walking, drawing and meditating. I'm finally catching up with friends again, something that was impossible when Dad lived with us. Regaining my health is the other priority and I am on track to go back to a mainly raw diet.

I'm simplifying my life, and my blogging. I have been spending time prioritising what's important to me and where I want to focus my energy in the second half of life. I'm cutting down on my commitments that distract me.

My blog layout and what I post on it is changing a bit. My goals are still to eliminate debt, but not at the expense of having a life. I would still love to meet my five year mortgage target, but it's not the end of the world if I don't. Quitting my job was the best decision I ever made. I still work hard but I feel free to make choices. I realise not everyone has the choice to quit, and I've been there myself, but making that choice has changed so many things for me! And those changes get reflected in what I blog about.

I took the photo at the top on the way to see my friend / colleague who as injured a few weeks ago. I spent the whole day with her yesterday. She has a beautiful, 600 acre bush retreat, and there were canola fields flowering on the way there, she lives a bit over an hour away.. She will not be able to walk for at least three months so I''l be out to see her regularly. Here's a few more pics.

Well today the gardening reclamation begins! I've got my garden plans organized, I've just been out and taken a heap of before pictures and I'm kitted up, covered in sunburn cream and ready to get stuck into it. I still can't believe what a mess it all is, but there are still remnants of the lovely garden I used to have. Anyway no point thinking about the past now, time to move on.


Here are some pictures of the back garden which is the current zone.! And as I work in each section I'll show you the changes I make. I plan on doing 15 minutes a day in the zone for that week and then on the weekends about an hour each day on a project or a detailed task.

This first picture shows where there used to be a huge flower bed, it was full of plants to attract butterflys and it was lovely to walk out and have butterflies everywhere! Now there are a few shrubs and perennials left. The plan is to plant all fragrant plants here, probably jasmine so that the scent drifts into the house and pergola area. At the top left , byou can see some overgrown shrubs in what used to be the vegetable garden. On the rightottom corner is part of the area that we had ripped up a few years ago and never got to finish.













Below is part of the backyard that is going to be turned into a herb and flower garden under the apple trees. This is my first project, to take down the wooden fence, get rid of grass and plant it. I want put hellobores under the trees in with the herbs and a little bench to sit on with forget me nots. The view from here is really nice, you can see out to the mountains.











This picture below just shows more of the old vegie garden, the roses survived nicely. I want replace the retaining wall, plant vegies and clean up the overgrown shrubs. In front of the garden I'm going to dig up some of the grass and plant bulbs.











Basically I'm a cottage garden, farmyard person living in suburbia, so my garden looks pretty out of place compared to the neat and tidy ones surrounding us. But I think gardening is soul work, at least it is for me. And the freedom and randomness of a cottage garden is where I feel most at home. An hour in the garden is probably worth about 10 hours of therapy for me! So there is minimal order and lots of spontenaity here.

When I'm in the garden or in the house I don't feel like I live in surburbia at all. I have huge windows with fantastic views in every room, I wanted to create the effect of being outside even when you are inside. Here's a few picture of the views from the front windows, we are quite high up. Enjoy!

I want to start building investments at the same time as I am eliminating debt. Lately I've met a few people who are asset rich and income poor, and I don't want to end up in that positionI've been watching the sharemarket, following some stocks and doing a bit of research on the sharemarket for a few months now. Now that my income has increased I have been allocating a portion of it to put towards investing.

I opened my online share trading account today. I am getting ready to invest in the next few months. One of my clients is a financial planner and she has been explaining and teaching me about different strategies and the importance of diversification and balancing a portfolio. At the minute I am working on developing an investment plan and learning about different investment strategies. I listen and watch a lot of podcasts from the ASX, they are really helpful.

I'll post my share investing and progress here when I eventually get started.

Is anyone else planning on getting into the market soon?

The weather here is glorious at the moment. Perfect spring days and regular rain so everything is green and flowering. My neglected garden is crying out for my attention and I am really relishing the thought of getting back outside into it.

I used to garden every day and my garden was really beautiful. Pottering in the garden, growing vegetables and tending the flowers is something I find very soothing and peaceful. But over the last few years with everything that has happened I have not done a thing in it and it shows. The garden beds are overrun with weeds, fences and retaining walls are broken and the whole area that was ripped up in preparation for some major work is still ripped up almost 3 years later.

So over the last week I've been working on adapting flylady to use in my garden and I'm really pleased with the results! Here's what I came up with:

Flylady divides the house into zones.

I have divided my garden into five zones

• Front garden

• Side A (street)
  

• Back yard

• Pergola area

• Side B (neighbour)
  

Decluttering for 15 minutes a day is the first task to do in each zone.
Decluttering tasks in the garden will include:

• putting things away

• tossing away light rubbish

• light weeding

Daily routines are important with flyladys system so I have devised a list of Weekly and Seasonal routines. These include:

• weeding
• planting
• watering
• fertilizing
• propagating plants
• harvesting veggies
• mulching garden beds
• composting

In the house there are detailed cleaning tasks to be done once the de cluttering is finished so my Detailed Cleaning for the garden list includes:

• repair / build garden beds
• repair/ build fences
• repair paths / pavers
• pruning of trees, bushes, shrubs
• large rubbish removal
• projects work

I have added a section for working on garden projects. My projects for the garden are:

• vegetable garden
• finish pergola area
  
• herb garden
• propagating, potting area
• move the side fence
  
• build a courtyard once fence is moved
  
• replace grassed area in backyard with garden beds
• new area for the dog
  

When I first discovered flylady my house was filled with Dads stuff, I was getting a few hours of broken sleep a night and I just felt overwhelmed by the task of cleaning up. I couldn't think straight enough to even get started on sorting out all Dads 'stuff'. Now I sit here in a relatively clean and tidy house, all the clutter is gone.

The garden and yard has felt overwhelming too. A reminder of how good we felt a few years and how it just all went downhill fast! It just had to take a back seat for the last few years. But now that I have my flylady garden system thought out it doesn't feel overwhelming at all! Why? Because I know that I can do anything for 15 minutes (except whine!) and starting this weekend I'll be putting my system to work.

It won't take long to see the results and I'll post some before and after pics here as I get it done and show you what zone I am working in each week.

.. and flylady if you every happen to read this Thankyou!!! :)


* if you are new here and want a bit of background read My Financial Timeline

Phone companies!!! I have a hate / hate relationship with them! All I've ever wanted from a phone company is to get the service I've paid for and to have decent customer service if there is a problem.

I'm pretty patient and reasonable but my experience this week just left me gobsmacked at the joke they call customer service at Australian phone companies. The ineptitude and attitude to their customers is unbelievable!

I recently upgraded my business account and increased the cap on my calls when I took out a new contract several months ago. Each month I have received a bill with the old cap still on it and excess account charges for going over the cap. Each month I have rung, spent ridculous amounts of time on the phone waiting only to be told it was all sorted out.

Next month the same thing happens, again.

I have refused to pay the bill unitil the erorr was fixed. Well last week, after half an hour on the phone I was told to fax a copy of my contract and it would be fixed. So I sent it and waited for the return phone call I was promised.

Yesterday I received the overdue account and was basically about to be disconnected if I didn't pay.

Well I'm telling you it was the last straw after a very long day!

I phoned, gave all my details, waited for 25 minutes and spoke to someone for 3 minutes who put me back on hold. The next person ( 20 mninutes later) told me there was no record of my call, no record of a fax being requested or received, just go back to the store where I bought it. Flippant, couldn't give a damn and didn't listen to a word!

I immediately demanded to speak to a manager to make a complaint. Just insisted, and told her she was not to put me on hold she was to get a manager for me to speak to. I already had her name, and the names and dates of everyone else I had spoken to and that they had no record of.

She carried on with a lot of b/s that simply isn't true, I have a friend who works for a phone company so I know what they can and can't do, and she was full of it.

I told her that she had just cost me over $200 in lost business because by this time I had been on the phone (mostly on hold) for over an hour and that this was the third call I had made about this issue. Again I demanded to make a complaint to a manager.

The key is top just not back down, just use 'broken record' technique.

It only took five minutes of this stand off and suddenly when she realised nothing was going to change my mind my problems were solved really fast. I had the correct cap restored to my account. I had the fees readjusted and some extra credit offered as well as a 'bonus'. I was given free phone calls to 3 numbers and offered extra time to pay my account if I needed it. I saved myself several hundred dollars on overcharges.

To actually solve my problem only took five minutes. To get to the point of getting someone to solve my problem took over three hours of my time. Thats $600 at top rate!

I honestly think that phone companies use these techniques so that you give up in frustration and pay the extra charges.

If you have problems with them document every call, ask for the name of the person you are speaking to and ask them to read out what is written in your account file. Then don't get sidetracked by their questions, just repeat what you want until you get it or tell them you want to make a complaint and refuse to be put on hold.

And check the details of your bills each month to make sure the charges are correct

So be persistent if someone is ripping you off.

The Australian dollar dropped to it's lowest level in five years overnight:  64.51 cents.  We were just about to put in a big order for products (hubby's bus) today but we're going to wait a week and see how it goes. We're going to have to take a good hard look and reconsider the prices. The problem is it's already a luxury priced item and the most expensive item in it's category. Both hubby's small business ideas are related to luxury or lifestyle items. They are usually the first things that people stop spending money on when times are tight. Orders are drying up just when they should be increasing for summer.

I love Getting Things Done. over the weekend I've been working on getting my office system s up and running and I'm really pleased with the result! Because of my change to self employment recently, I had the contents of three different offices all sitting in my home office waiting to be sorted. There was a lot of duplication of files and paperwork and I needed to set up a office system that suits me and my husband (who is turning out to be a great secretary!).

I'm also big fan of flylady. I've been using her tips and ideas for quite a while now and it's made a big difference at home for me. I wanted to combine both systems and I'm pretty happy with the results.

My huge A4 diary is now gone and it has been replaced by one I designed and printed to suit me. It is A5 size, sits inside my old A4 leather zip case and has these sections:

• Action list (like a To Do list. but GTD style with only NEXT action listed)
  
• Daily Appointments, week to a page (used to be a day to an A4 page!)
• Referrals (as each referral comes in I enter all the data here
• Call Log ( every call I receive or make is logged here
  
• Clients (contact details)
• Projects
• Shopping
• Notes
  

I printed these out on A4 paper from the DIY Planner site. I made dividers with lightweight card and cut them to A5 size. On the left side is a sticky note reminding me to:

• Do it
• Defer It
• Delegate it

This combines my previous flylady control journal with my office and home diaries. And it is so much smaller!! Anything that takes more than one step to complete is listed as a project. Specific next actions that I need to take are on my action list. Now home, office and online are all combined.

Now if you are familiar with the GTD system you will have heard of the Hipster PDA. This is used to record anything that needs to go in your inbox and if often useful for when you are away from your desk. I have updated and improved on my previous Hipster PDA. I actually use two.

The first is a soapbox. It contains old business cards. When I think of something I need to do or remember I write it on a card. At the end of the day I go through the card and either ' do it, defer it (which means it gets written on my action list or on my project list) or delegate it'. All the cards are tossed out and I have a clean soapbox for the next day.



The other hipster PDA I use is made of a curtain ring, old business cards with a hole punched in them and a tiny texta with a ring on the cap. This fit's in my pocket when I'm wearing jeans which I live in outside work. So when I'm out of an office I just pull it out and write on it. If I'm in the backyard, or the shop or out on a walk and something pops into my head, it goes on a card. When I get back home I put them in my soapbox

One of the things I love about GTD is that you adapt the tools to meet your own life. It is not complicated unless you want to make it complicated. Truthfully, I think a lot of people complicate it as just another way of procrastinating. The idea behind it is that you need to capture all the information/ tasks/ undone jobs/ concerns that race around in your head and put them in an inbox. This is called a mind sweep. And you can do a mind sweep at any time and as often as you need to.

Your inbox is just the place where you keep all this information. Then you have to process the inbox which means actually making a decision about your next action on each item. I love next actions! They are not the same as a To Do List. Ask yourself 'what is the next action I need to take to get this done?'. So instead of writing down: get dishwasher fixed, i would write down find the number for a dishwasher repair service.

For me this makes tasks much more manageable than a To Do List. If I have a spare few minutes I can find the phone number and tick it off my list. I might add: phone repair service and get a quote to my action list then.

There are other parts to the GTD system including the Tickler File, where you have one folder for each day of the week and one for each month of the year. You put in here reminders and bills or jobs that need to be done on that day. Merlin Manns blog 43 folders is named after this. Merlin has a lot of great GTD information and podcasts on GTD.

I think GTD and flylady combine well. They both have a 'get on with it' attitude. The control journal was easily adapted to fit into my GTD system. If you are trying to get organized I can recommend both. It won't happen overnight but if you keep plodding away at it, it will happen!
Here are some more great links for more information:

Flylady control journals to download and adapt

How to build your own flylady control journal steps

Getting Things Done Podcasts

The old business card are a result of insomnia. I was meaning to order 500 cards online in the middle of the night and accidentally ordered 5000! My details have changed since then so I won't be running out of cards anytime soon.

One of my very all time favourite sites is DIY planners. I love it because I can set up a diary with exactly what I need, and that suits my lifestyle. I also use it with clients for a lot of different situations.Right now I'm in the process of overhauling and organizing my business paperwork systems at my home office. I like the Getting Things Done System and am getting back to following it properly after a bit of a 'slip' over recent months. I'm designing my own diary that will have sections for my home, business and online projects.

I thought I would share some useful pages and some of my favourite pages on DIY planner. The site is free to use.

start here: A Beginners Guide to Making a DIY Planner

Financial

weekly receipts envelope

monthly receipts

one year of zero based budgets Dave Ramsey style

Matt's budget on a 3.5 index card

net worth worksheet

Debt elimination templates

Weekly menu planner


Getting things done system

Diary pages and planner templates

Even more GTD stuff!!


Misc.
Planning your way to health

Pocket sized mood diary with cognitive restructuring worksheet

Daily Mood Journal A fantastic tool for monitoring bi-polar

square foot garden planting list

radiotherapy & chemotherapy side effects journal

flylady planner (I love this!)

the mom planner

and that's just the tip of the iceberg!

This month has been a bit of a whirlwind! I think we are still spending too much on groceries, but we have had to go back to my husband and daughter doing the shopping as I am well and truly the fulltime worker.

On the business front I think I need to set some kind of limit for how many reduced fee clients I see as the numbers are starting to creep up. A lot of my colleagues won't do any reduced fee work at all, I need to keep it in balance.

I have to say I feel much less worried than the last few months where our income was not covering our expenses. I was able to have a trip away for a few days which was great!

This month I have quite a few bills to pay, $1400 tax, the last PAYG installment, and university fees $900 + some costs of textbooks.

I also changed my blog layout and have not really had time to restore all the links or set it up with everything, I just don't get as much time to blog as I used to :(


HSBC credit card: $ 2130 paid $2570 off in the last month
Bankwest: $6930
Mortgage: $150,620
Mastercard $15000 (blame my husband!!)
Tax bill $1400
Emergency Fund Home: $2,489
Emergency Fund Business: $600

I am finding that trying to adjust to a variable income is not easy and I'm working on trying to automate some things. My goal is to reach a point where:

• I pay as many bills annually as possible
• the rest of the bills are paid one month in advance
• I have no credit card debt
• I have three months of savings

The Good

• lots of work, I am fully booked a week ahead
  
• well the HSBC payment of course!!
• I feel a lot less stressed than I was for the last few month
• one holiday taken and another booked

The Bad

• not really any bad

The Ugly

• our homes value has dropped hugely! our neighbour has dropped his selling price by ... $40,000, all the homes is this area were worth $350,000 $440,000 when I started this blog, we had not long had ours valued at $380,000. Now there are many homes for sale here and prices are falling fast.

Goals
I am finding that trying to adjust to a variable income is not easy and I'm working on trying to automate as much as possible. My goal is to reach a point where:

• I pay as many bills annually as possible
• the rest of the bills are paid one month in advance
• I have no credit card debt
• I have three months of savings