2008 Debt

2009 is almost here, I wanted to close 2008 with a post about CITI. Our PremierPass year end balance is $3,685.90. I think we’ve made a lot of progress, I hope 2009 is a better year for us and we get this balance paid off.

The goal for 2009 is the same as it was for 2008, to get out and stay out of debt!

Happy New Year!

HS

Citi PremierPass Balance

Our homeowners insurance company decided to cover all our expenses for the new A/C unit at our house. The adjuster agreed that the damage was probably caused by Hurricane Ike. They covered the new compressor which was $2300 installed. They also paid for the service call which was around $100. To my surprise, they also covered some of the food that was lost after the storm, which was around $500. In all they paid close to $3000 and I sent all that money back to my CITI card:



So our new balance is $4647.00! I can’t wait for this balance to be zero so I can close this account. Check out the balance a year ago:

http://www.ourdebtblog.com/2007/12/citi-balance.html

HS

Holiday Shopping Expenses

Below is our Christmas shopping, we don’t really have a budget so when I added it all up I was a bit shocked, prices are without taxes, so I added that to the bottom. There’s still some items pending that I hope to get this weekend, best news of all NO CREDIT CARDS! All paid with CASH!


Click on image to enlarge
I am also going to donate some money for less fortunate families or I’m hoping to adopt a family so we can buy their children’s gifts.

HS

PineCone Research Link

Once again, PineCone sent me an email with a link to sign up. PineCone remains the best survey company out there, they currently pay $3 dollars per survey and I get a survey every couple of weeks. The money is paid through PayPal and I usually send it to my high yield savings account.

PineCone Research continues to grow and we invite you to help! We are offering select members the opportunity to recommend membership to a friend or relative who is NOT a member of their household.

Do you know of households that would like to join the PineCone Research Panel? If so, please FORWARD A COPY of this email to each household you would like to refer so that they may click on the registration link shown below. That household should complete the registration form themselves and submit it. REMEMBER THAT ONLY ONE PERSON PER HOUSEHOLD MAY REGISTER. Multiple registrations of the same Household will void all registrations.

Here is the link to the registration:

http://www.pineconeresearch.com/signup/ds530Referral1.asp

HS

The Good News

I called our home insurance company today and it looks like we can claim the air conditioning expenses on our home owner’s policy. The claim adjuster will be coming by the house on Friday to get copies of the receipts. According to the A/C Company the compressor was probably damaged during hurricane Ike. If everything works out then I can send that money to CITI and hopefully be close to $4,000 range in 2009.

Wish me luck,

HS

CITI December 2008 Balance

I have some bad news to report, the balance on the CITI Premier Pass card is up this month. The current balance is $7,993.14




What happened? I spent $2,500 on a new A/C unit for the house. I wanted to get this out of the way before the heat comes. My plan is to have CITI at $5,000 by the time I start to use this new unit. The goal for December is to pay at least $700 dollars.

Stupid? Yes! So why did I do this? Because I live in Texas and nothing scares me more than the thought of having no A/C in the summer.

Positive news: they’ve decided to increase my credit line to $29,000 dollars, I am hoping this helps my credit score, it is currently around 700.

Now some negative news, I received a letter in the mail stating that they are going to change the terms of my account, my new APR is 15.999%. I heard on the news that this was coming, so no surprise there. The goal again is to pay this off as soon as possible.

HS