Debt Reduction 101

I’ve been mystified lately by my bank – or actually, my bank’s website. I do most of my banking online and for the first time today, my savings account actually had a negative balance. Now, I’m not saying that there’s usually a lot of money in savings – in fact, I’m usually in the single digits, but to be negative – truly mystifying.

I’m chalking up this latest annoyance to my own idiocy. Because I had some extra money that I needed to combine with one of my cab checks to pay some bill or another, I had transferred about $100 or so dollars into my savings account. And then over the course of three or four transactions, I then moved the money back into checking. In a perfect world, that would have worked fine, but not according to my bank which slapped me with a couple “Excess Activity” fees to the tune of $10 a piece. And then I had an overdraft fee … on my savings … for $35. I looked at that this morning with a mixture of shame, regret and a little bit of annoyance. I get their point and I’m not happy about the money that just got pissed away over the course of this last week, but I’m waving the white flag and calling a truce with the bank. Yes, banking institution, I’m an idiot. Please don’t charge me anymore fees.

OK – so the latte factor for my idiocy (and man, sometimes I hate being so honest) – $65.

Otherwise, my spending hasn’t been too dastardly lately:

Friday, November 28
$32 for Christmas gifts (I don’t dig Black Friday, but I do dig shopping online and this was for two of my loved ones. I’d tell you what I buy, but one of them reads my blogs.). 75 cents – Diet Coke to get me through my afternoon.
$35 – cash withdrawl … and for some odd reason, I got nicked with a $2.50 ATM fee from my bank. Usually, they don’t charge me for taking money out of the ATM at work (which is not affiliated with my bank), but this time I was caught. OK Bank – I’ve been chastised.
$12.35 – groceries
$100 – towards one of my credit cards
$150 – towards my dental bill.
Total: $332.60 (Cash went $12 toward flour, etc., at the natural foods store and $17 towards taking my dad out for pizza on Saturday … he took me to a Bob Dylan concert. I think that he actually gets the short end of the stick on this deal.) (But having said that, $20.52 could be called “dribble” spending. This is the pizza, ATM fee and my Diet Coke addiction)

Saturday, November 29
$25.55 – combination of gas, milk, eggs and $4 wasted for soda for Future Husband’s and my road trip to see my family. But, I also saved about $2 using coupons from the gas station that I frequent.
Total: $25.55 (out of this, the $4 on soda was the “wasteful” spending.)

Sunday, November 30 (The day that will make people howl.)
$79.59 – face cream bought from my buddy Steph who is an independent consultant. OK … I wasn’t going to come clean about this, but in the interest of being honest with all of you, I’ll tell you that I was seduced by face cream. But here are the circumstances – a) I have extraordinarily dry skin and it is difficult for me to find stuff that actually works and doesn’t cause me to itch or break out. I’ve tried samples of this stuff and it actually works for me. B) I’m getting married in five months and darn it, my face is going to look stellar. The pictures that will commemorate that day, like my marriage, will last forever. C) It was 50% off regular price, so I bought the night cream and the day cream. D) My friend does this as a side job and she’s currently transitioning from her full-time job to (hopefully) another one at the end of the month. If commission from this sale goes toward rent/groceries/whatever, I am OK with it.
.63 – onions for some bulk cooking I was doing
$11.55 – groceries, again …
Total: $91.77

Analysis? Well, I need to be better at banking in general. The face cream wasn’t an impulse buy because I’ve been thinking about doing it for the past month or so. I was just hemming and hawing over it until Steph called me and told me that all products were 50% off. I don’t usually go grocery shopping twice in one weekend, but it was a holiday and I did a lot of cooking this weekend to stock up our freezer. I also made two payments towards my dental bill ($150) and one of my credit cards ($100).