Close Encounters of the GAIL kind

Gail, soon to be hosting "yours truly"

 Welcome back my loyal readers! This weekend I started my first shift at my new second job as a receptionist at the yoga studio. That's right, I'm finally on the payroll! Now if only I could find some time to do yoga... The best thing about having a second job is that now I have some kind of backup plan in case my job goes south. These times are certainly uncertain for so many people, so I want to make sure that I have a plan in place to keep the bills paid around here!

And speaking of bills, I managed to rack up a hefty credit card bill this month (close to $900) so that I could get out and spend during my staycation. Good thing I have another source of income to help me get this debt paid off a little quicker! Sorry, I'm kind of being a bit of a tease now! I know that most of you are tuning in to hear about my fantastic news! 

Today, I almost peed my pants with excitement! Not only did Gail tweet back to me about getting the author of the book I was reading on her radio show this week, I got an email from her office after I wrote a little email to Gail Vaz-Oxlade about my "story" and what I have been doing to get my debt paid off.  It went a little something like this (yes I did a little bit of copy/paste from my blog):

From: John
Date: Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 11:11 PM 
Subject: John's Bio
To: Gail

Hello Gail!

My friend Inez sent you a tweet that I should be on your show and then you asked for me to send you my biography, so here it is!

My name is John; I'm 29 years old and I currently live in Ottawa with my partner Rob. In October, 2010 I began to tackle my debt and have been blogging about it ever since. Your book; Debt Free Forever has been my debt repayment bible and I always sing your praises. I had tried budgeting in the past and had zero results. It got to the point that I had stopped opening my bills, especially my credit card bill. I was receiving letters from Student Loans almost every month to tell me that I missed a payment (it's only $107.99 a month)! I couldn't understand what I was doing wrong. At 28 years of age, I came to the harsh realization that I was almost $40,000 in debt!

How the did I get nearly $40,000 in debt? Here’s how: In 2002, I decided to go back to school and take a course on web design. My choice to go to school came with a hefty price tag of $14,000 for a 1 year course. Out of school a year later, I worked my butt off and got my debt from school paid down from $14,000 to $8,500. I was really on track to becoming debt free. Web design didn't make me any money, so I decided to go to school without any financial assistance. Thanks to my (former) amazing credit history, I had been approved for 3 credit cards, an American Express, and Ikea Credit Card, and a MasterCard. I was always paying off my balances in full for the Amex and the MC, but I forgot about the balance on my Ikea card and got taken to collections over $300! I was so mad since I had never received a bill from Ikea. I quickly cancelled my Amex after that and stuck to one card – my MasterCard. When I first got the card, I started off with a limit of $1,500. In the end, that limit was at $15,700!! The interest rate on this card was a disgusting 19.5%! And to top it off, I fell for their stupid “balance insurance” scheme which made my balance climb higher and higher! I had that idiot insurance for years. Combine that with last minute emergency flights home and using my credit card for crap and restaurants, my current owing on my MasterCard is a disgusting $14,581.45 in credit card debt!!

As with most students, I built up more debt when I went back to school. I was living in an apartment I couldn’t afford on my own; eating at restaurants like I had been debt free forever; and flying home whenever I felt like it without any paid vacation and paid for nothing with my own money. Over my time as a student, I hit $4,991.57 (out of $5000) on my regular line of credit (10.5% interest), took out another $9,174.74 (out of $10,000) on my student line of credit (4.5% interest), and after paying down all the interest on my previous student loan it remained at $8,445.36. Add it all up and we’re talking $37,193.12 of debt!

I really didn't know what to do until I found your shows and your amazing book. I set out to pay everything off in 3 years on an income of less than $50,000 per year, and I have been doing it very successfully. As of today, I have paid a whopping $23,593.84 (or 62.4%). That's all been done in a matter of 19 months! Now I only have $14,216.67 to go!

You truly have been an inspiration for me Gail. Not only have you been helping me get my debt under control, this process is having a domino effect on my friends' lives as well. They too are inadvertently saving money because I have the power to say no to expensive nights out and am able to come up with cheap sources of entertainment with the same or higher level of enjoyment that we had before.

If there is any way that I could be on one of your shows to share my story or even if you wanted me to write a guest post on your blog, I would be beyond excited! I recently found out that you tweeted about me and I was ecstatic (it was the post with the Gail heads).

If you want to know more about me and how I got to where I am, my bio on my website is here:http://fightforfinancialfreedom.blogspot.ca/p/about-john.html

And here are some posts that give you a taste of how I am getting my debt paid off:

My new Roommate, Gail:
http://fightforfinancialfreedom.blogspot.ca/2010/10/my-new-roommate-gail.html
Going Anal over my Analysis:
http://fightforfinancialfreedom.blogspot.ca/2010/10/going-anal-over-my-analysis.html

I hope you like it Gail! Sorry for the long email, I don't know where you find the time!

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To which Gail's assistant Tracy responded today:

Hi John...I am Gail Vaz-Oxlade's Admin Assistant and we would like to book you on her radio show "News1010" to share your story.  Are you available on September 10th at 10:25pm EST for an on air interview?

Tracy
Administrative & Marketing Assistant to Gail Vaz-Oxlade

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And obviously I said (with a BCC to Inez):

Hi Tracy!

I would be honored to be on the show. Do you guys need me to be there in person or would I call in? I would be willing to do either. How long is the interview? 

This is such a cool opportunity, I can't wait to chat with Gail. 

Thank you

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Then Tracy swiftly responded:

Hi John...the interview would be about 30 minutes with commercial breaks in between.  We would call you at a specified number (landline preferred, or cell phone if that is all you have) around 10:20pm EST so please send me your numbers.

What we would like you to do is answer the following 4 questions and send them back to me.  Gail will prep for your interview from these questions:

1.  Where you were:

2.  What you did:

3.  Where you are now:

4.  One tip you have for listeners:

Thanks and we look forward to having you on the show.

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I haven't responded yet, but holy guacamole! I cannot believe that I will ACTUALLY be talking to Gail. I had my doubts in the beginning that maybe she would find my story a bit "too much of the same thing" but it turns out that I had nothing to worry about. This isn't an actually meeting with Gail, but it's pretty darn sweet at the same time.

Also, how does one get to be Gail's admin assistant?! I want that job! Maybe she needs an Ottawa admin or a fabulous gay sidekick. It seems to be standard for almost every other reality TV show that I see!  Part of me wants to ask Tracy if she's planning to take any maternity leave or something in the future...

Ok, that's enough of me being crazy and sounding like a squealy girl at a Beiber concert!

AH! So Happy!

To Halifax, With Love

John and Kate minus all the effing children!

I’m not gonna lie to you, like a drunk sorority girl at a fraternity party, I was out of control (with my spending this week). On Wednesday, I headed east to the Halifax (aka Hali, or HFX) for a business trip, followed by a weekend of local beer and seafood – and it was freaking delicious.  Hate to say it, but I strayed far from the budget in a few ways so I think it would be best to go over the reasons for my financial fudge-up in order for you to learn from my mistakes.

 

The beginning of my financial demise is that I had been depriving myself of shopping and spending on me for far too long, which leads me to my first point – everyone breaks at one point or another. Like a fat kid deprived of candy for a few hours, as soon as I saw that sweet temptation, I filled my hands with the sweet sweet satisfaction of shopping. Can you believe that it has been since the end of October since I bought myself ANY clothing? Now, those of you who know me, know that I am the kind of guy who has a lot of clothes; perhaps too many. I’ve taken the time to count up some of the numbers just so you can understand how unnecessary it is for me to go shopping. I have:

20 Dress shirts

18 pairs of pants

20 pairs of shorts (including gym shorts)

9 scarves

15 jackets

14 non dressy button-up shirts

5 sport jackets

6 hoodies (or bunnyhugs for all you Saskatchewanians)

80 shirts (sweaters and cardigans included)

Oodles of underpants

Stacks of socks

Piles of Pajamas

Bundles of belts

Too many ties

And the list goes on

So as you can see, I really don’t need to buy anything else for myself as far as clothing is concerned, but I have been depriving myself of the rush of how good it feels to put on and buy a new piece of clothing. This is where I have run into a problem. For 6 months, I have been away from shopping malls and clothing stores for month because I know that if I remove the temptation, I won’t be tempted, however by not ever treating myself, when the temptation is there, I am shopping as if everything is 90% off!

The second factor in my overspending evaluation was being on travel status with work. Admittedly, I am new to this whole travelling with an expense account process and since I was allowed almost $90 per day (whoo!) to spend on meals and incidentals compared to my usual $120 for an entire week of living, so I quickly got used to spending like one of those insane couponers on TLC. I was right back into eating out, drinking too much, and buying any odd thing that I “needed” because I knew it was covered (very much like those crazy couponing ba$tards). This spendy spenderson mentality seemed to stay with me after I was off my work travel status and into my personal weekend of fun! I kept spending as if it was all covered by some magic money wand that would automagically fill my wallet with cash. The problem was that every morning when I opened my wallet, that $100, $200, or even $300 that I had in it, disappeared. Had my money turned into food, and my wallet Rita MacNeil’s mouth?

Donairs in Halifax are EPIC!

Alcohol is my worst friend when it comes to making logical spending decisions and believe you-me I drank a lot more of it than I usually do while I was in Halifax! With every great meal, you need to have a great glass of wine (I tell myself that it brings out the flavour). See Alcohol is happy to point out that the server is hot and they deserve a 20% tip for being hot, or that cab driver let you bring a leaking donair into the back of his cab, so he deserves a $10 bill for a $5 cab fare, or sure I can spend more money on booze, that’s why I took it out of my bank account, right? Oh Al, you get me every time!

So what does that translate into dollar amounts John? Well, let’s see, without factoring in my meals and incidentals:

Wednesday:

$50 for swim trunks from American Apparel

Fancy new clothes from H&M ($36 for the shirt and cardi)

Did you know that employees at the Halifax American Apparel are actually helpful and not pretentious d-bags? I didn’t know that was possible. Usually you get eye rolls for asking for something on the top shelf. And why swim trunks you ask, well I wanted to go swimming in my hotel, and of course when I did, I lost a contact lens and there were annoying children in the pool who never actually swam, but preferred to throw a ball around my head while I was trying to relax in the hot tub.

$20 for a case of beer (to share with my friend, and an attempt at trying to get people to want to hang out with me in my hotel room (I ended up drinking 4 on my own – sad face).

Friday (gotta get down on Friday since everyone is looking forward to the weekend):

$244 at H&M. Now to my credit I made out very well; with this money I bought 1 pair of pants, 3 pairs of shorts, 1 cardigan, 4 t-shirts, and 15 pairs of socks.

$50 on supper – but it was the best duck confit and pizza I can remember having in the past forever.

My awesome owl art print!!! 

$30 to see Hey Rosetta!

I was so drunk I didn’t realize that they were on stage and then ended up meeting the bass player at another bar afterward – so ridiculous.

$75 on beers throughout the night

$5 for the best donair I ever ate

$10 for a drunk taxi ride home

Saturday:

$40 for yummy in my tummy food at the Market.

$15 for an art print of a kicka$$ owl!

$15 for more beers to go with my amazing supper made by the loveliest hostess ever - Kate.

For a grand total of: $554 on a really fun trip. Obviously I need to learn to get a little better with my money when I’m travelling or only take out a limited amount of cash when I’m hammered, but honestly, I feel like I needed to reward myself for all the hard work I have been doing. It doesn’t look like I am going to be getting wooden Catan soon, but I have learned a valuable lesson for when I travel – make a plan and stick to it! If you’re ever planning on going to Halifax, I highly recommend going – the people, scenery, and food are all marvelous!

6 Months Later...

I love Happy Socks!!

Can you believe that it has been 6 months since the start of my departure toward becoming debt-free forever? I am really amazed at how much I have learned, not only about how to spend my money wisely, but how much I have learned about myself. Okay, yes, there’s that cheesy line that we hear in just about every reality TV show, even from the stupid contestants that get kicked off in the first week: “I learned so much about myself, like how people are threatened by how beautiful I am, and how big my breast implants are…”, but I really do mean what I said, this experience has been eye-opening.

Six months ago, it was actually a challenge for me to go more than a week without spending my money on some kind of “thing” for myself that I really didn’t need. Whether it was a $15 pair of socks (that were really awesome btw) or another new shirt (because it was such a good deal and who cares if I already have 45 other ones) or even just a $6 cup of coffee (which, although delicious, has zero added nutritional benefit), I felt that I was justified in spending that money to reward myself for the hard work I had put in at my job. The reality is that the things I really need are food in my belly, a roof over my head, and friends to share my successes and struggles with.

Clean tank = happy fishy!!

Yesterday, I tackled a task that I had been putting off for far too long – cleaning out my fish tank. To be honest, I don’t remember the last time I had given it a good cleaning. It didn’t smell bad or anything, but the water was getting a bit murky and I couldn’t stand to see my poor little fishys swimming around in their own toilet water. Those of you who have had fish know that sometimes things can get a little funky with fish tanks, so I took out the filter to reveal what was like the equivalent of 100 dirty fish diapers – that’s right my friends, lots of poo. With a strong stomach, I got all the $hit cleaned up, changed the water and now my fish are swimming in a clear-water paradise.

This got me thinking about how in many ways, my debt had become that filter full of $hit that I had been neglecting for far too long; it got to the point where it was unavoidable. Managing my debt became something that I felt had gotten so out of hand that I was getting to the point of no return. I would let myself believe that by once or twice a year, throwing $1,000 on my credit card was actually accomplishing something, but the reality was that nothing had been changing except how large the problem had become. If I had kept avoiding cleaning my fish tank, I could have ended up with some stinky dead fish and a pile of regret for not having done something sooner.  This is so much like my debt. If I just keep avoiding it and waiting for something to happen in my life to make it go away on its own, then I will get nowhere and feel more hopeless. The only one who can help me out of the debt-hole is me.

So it’s been six months, and I am very pleased to tell you that I am right on track to becoming debt-free within three years! The numbers don’t lie; check out the figures for yourself at the side of my blog. With a sixth of my journey to financial freedom complete, it was time for me reconnect with Gail and have a heart-to-heart. I checked back in with her to make sure that I am following my plan and to remind myself of anything I’ve forgotten along the way in my road to debt-recovery. Gail reminded me that every few months you need to check in and see if your budget is still working for you. There is no reason that you should start alienating your friends and not doing activities you love for the sake of staying on schedule, what you really need to do is change your behaviour and attitude and get there when you get there. When you’re embarking on a financial transformation, you will absolutely feel the pressure of changing your spending habits, which is why you need to review your budget to fit your life.

Don’t get frustrated and give up on yourself simply because you didn’t meet your goal in the timeline that you had set up for yourself. Annoying lines of regret have come out of the mouths of so many of my friends: “when I was 25, I was supposed to have 2 kids” or “I should have a house by now”. Gail has said it best, “you can have it all, just not all at once” which has become more and more evident has I progress in my repayments. It takes a lot of time to get to where you want to be, especially when you’re working with one income. This brings me to another fantastic quote from a former boss. She was in her 40s and had just enrolled to go back and get another university degree. Her friends and colleagues were critical and told her that she was starting too late in life and that by the time she finished she would be 50! To which she replied “who cares? I’m going to turn 50 anyway, at least this way I’ll be 50 and have another degree!” That phrase has stuck with me ever since. Not everything always happens within the timelines we set for ourselves, so why let it stress you out or bother you?

Taking Gail’s advice, I did a little reevaluation of my budget to make sure that it was still working for me. Realistically, living on $100 a week has been pretty freaking difficult sometimes; especially when I have anything to do that falls outside of my typical week (birthdays, repairs, and any other random thing that pops up). The part that I find most difficult is living on only $40 per week for groceries; so I have changed my weekly allowance to $120 per week, making my food budget $60. This has enabled me to add a bit more pizzazz to my meals. For example, now I can add some grilled vegetables to my pasta sauce, or put some sour cream on my perogies and even splurge on some beers every now and then! If I want to go to a restaurant every couple weeks, it is something that I know I can afford to do. The bonus is, since I know that I am capable of living on $40 per week for groceries so that if I ever want to increase my saving for something, I can cut back one week and be just fine!

All the pictures are happy this week!

Doing a reassessment should come every time that you have a change in your financial status as well. For example, if you get a raise, buy a car, gas or food prices increase, your kid joins a little league, and so on, then sit down and re-work it, gurl! It is important to remember that life doesn’t stay constant and neither does your budget. So, go back to your budget and reevaluate what your goals are and whether or not you are on the right path toward achieving them (don’t stress about the timeline). I cannot emphasize enough how important it is not to get stressed out by your budget. Checking in every couple months will reinforce all the great work you are doing and before you know it, another six months will come to pass and you’ll be even closer to your financial freedom!

Thanks again for following me in my financial journey. If you like what you’re reading, share this with a friend and encourage a dialogue on debt. Let’s take ourselves our of consumer debt together!

xoxo