Ending Debt: The Chronicle

new domain

matthewgwatts — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 16:16:38 +0000

i’m out of this free wordpress thing and gone to the big time.

check it out!

www.debtchronicles.com

being lazy… wait… being extremely busy.

matthewgwatts — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 02:59:33 +0000

okay. so i’m lazy, but i haven’t posted because i’ve been busy. which is good, right? well… maybe.

business has been slow. i have some projects out that should be coming in soon, but until then i’m going to be S.O.L.

i have to find a way to pull $920 out of my ass by monday. that should be interesting considering i have $400 in the bank. i guess i’d rather have to come up with $520 than $920. but it should be okay because i have $350 coming in and possibly another $2,500 tomorrow. also another $1,000 on friday. life will be okay. i just get stressed.

it doesn’t help that my stupid ass decided to go on a road trip with my fiance. i’m really glad i went, but my bank account isn’t since it cost me $220. but i think it was well worth the money because i’ve been able to come back and have a little bit of sanity.

i’ve got a lot of things with my business i want to change and redo so i guess i’ll get to work on that.

i’ll keep you all posted. i’m going to be redoing this blog very soon…

trying to get the motovation again.

matthewgwatts — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:49:03 +0000

i’ve been reading the blog over at debtkid.com and also at debtsucks.wordpress.com. debt kid has $300,000 in debt and jake has $37,000 (give or take i think) in debt. my $167,000 in debt doesn’t seem so bad compared to debtkid and seems like i need to slapped compared to jake.

i make all of my payments so i guess i never feel that crunch that some others may feel. my biggest problem is that i look over my monthly finances and eventhough i make all of my payments… there’s never anything left over.

maybe that’s the problem with the three of us. or maybe that’s the problem with us all in debt. it isn’t really the fact that we don’t have the money but it’s more to do with that we don’t have anything left over at the end of the month to attack the debt.

so rather than having a “debt crisis” its more of an “income crisis”. i know that’s more of my problem. all of my problems revolve around my lack of income rather than my load of debt.

it’s hard for me sometimes to find the motovation to get my income up. sure it’s easy for me to sit here and talk about what i need but it doesn’t matter if i don’t get off my fat ass and go do something about it.

i have a great business, but i just need to up my income. that’s where i get stuck.

guess i should work on that instead of griping about how i don’t have enough money…

living back at home equals MORE MONEY

matthewgwatts — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:44:22 +0000

well, i’ve been living at “home” for a week now and boy oh boy is it going to be great.

normally i would spend about $150 on fuel and another $100 on food. this week, i’ve spent $30 of food and $20 on fuel. hum… $50 compared to $250. not too shabby.

the best part is that my apartment is four rooms with a kitchen and a bath. i can finally spread out and stretch my legs a little. oh, not to mention my commute. 3 seconds. just walk down the steps and i’m at work.

okay. that’s all. check back later.

i’m officially back home.

matthewgwatts — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 22:23:55 +0000

and it sorta sucks. well, right now it does at least. i’m no where near any friends or things to do. but, i guess that could be a good thing.

went grocery shopping for the first time in years yesterday. spent $40 and got milk, orange juice, biscuits, bread, tuna and fish. milk and orange juice was almost $9 alone! chicken was $10. but i did buy some tea and bottled water too. i guess it isn’t that big of a deal.

i’ve got a few things to do around here in my new place like… run cable so i can watch tv! all day yesterday and today i have just been watching full seasons of the simpsons. i’m stoked about the season premieres tonight. maybe i’ll throw a piece of chicken on the foreman and sit in the floor since i haven’t moved my couch up yet.

i guess that’s all. nothing new to report since nothing has happened. now we’ll just wait and see if my bank account goes up for a change, rather than down…

i hate the end of the month.

matthewgwatts — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 15:28:05 +0000

this is the week for me that absolutely blows. it’s the week that all of the money i had at the beginning of the month is gone and it’s the week that more shit starts coming due. i need $200 by the end of the week and i don’t see it coming in until the end of next week.

i should say, however, that i do have some money coming in friday morning that should be enough to cover what i need to pay the bills. i just looked at my fuel total for this month and it’s $315. that isn’t bad. but, i would think it’s closer to $450 just because sometimes i pay in cash rather than paying with my debit card. food total wasn’t too bad, either. just $172. i’m really hoping that my move back “home” will save me some money so i won’t be sweating bullets this time next month. well, this time next month i’ll be in iowa. great. always something. but i gotta get away.

alright. enough crying about not having any money. i guess i better get to work so i’ll have some money.

moving back closer.

matthewgwatts — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:10:44 +0000

well, in a move that is purely business i’ve decided to move back to my hometown where my office is located. currently, i live almost 40 miles away and since i drive a large SUV that has a lot of miles on it (means an already gas-guzzler drinks even more) i’m spending around $130 per week on fuel just to drive into work. that doesn’t account for other trips i may have to make to meet clients and then just leisure trips. in all, my fuel bill usually runs up close to $200 per week. that’s $800/month for you folks who can’t add.

so we got $800/month spent on fuel, then there’s $225 i spend on rent. total: $1025

now we have food… i hate cooking so i eat out a lot. that totals to probably close to $400.

total: $1425

holy freakin’ crap. well, i figure i’ll at least half that so that means i’ll save $712.50 a month. since i have a $8,000 debt i could have it all paid off in… close to one full year. of course i might be able to settle on some of the debts so that $8,000 total could be closer to something like $5,000 or $6,000. pretty wicked huh?

so i’m going to be moving into the upstairs of my office. hey, it ain’t the nicest place in the world but it’s free (technically not because well… i’m paying a mortgage payment for the building… BUT, i’m not paying for two places.)

i plan to be moved into my new place on saturday. i have so much freakin’ packing to do… along with work.

guess we’ll chat later.

just when i get some money.

matthewgwatts — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 19:11:36 +0000

alright. so i collected on some work i’ve had out for a while yesterday and today. the total: $1600. the bad news… my laptop is completely dead. freakin’ wonderful.

actually, just the harddrive crashed so about $100 and i’ll be back in business. but seriously.

so i haven’t made any progress yet other than i’m trying to get my income to stay at a normal, decent level. this means, i don’t need to have months where my income goes from $1,000-$4,000. it needs to keep at some pace to where i can figure out just what in the hell is going on.

and, i don’t feel good. i havent in like two weeks. i think it’s the heat so i don’t really care about much of anything at all other than sitting in the AC.

damn. sorry.

matthewgwatts — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 03:51:11 +0000

on vacation. will be back monday.

possible ideas

matthewgwatts — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 03:04:04 +0000

i’m leaving for texas tomorrow so i’ll have plenty of time to think things through. i did have one idea, though… when i make my budget, put the money i need for different categories into envelopes.

dave ramsey does that so i’m sure it works. so basically it’ll be like this:

$200 in one envelope for food
$400 in another for gas
$50 for entertainment
etc, etc.

also, i know i need to get out of my apartment. it’s 40 miles away from my office and when i drive a roll over death machine that gets about 17mpg highway, it eats through gas quick.

so i can move into my office for free and save myself the $225 in rent and possibly about $200-$300 in gas. but, it’s kinda hard to move out with there are two other guys who count on my to pay a 1/3 of the rent. i guess we’ll see.

anyway, i need to get back to packing. i’ll check in later in the week.