Citi Expenditures

One of my favorite hobbies is to analyze why we have debt. This morning I opened my Citi account, picked the month of May and sorted purchases from high to low. Below are the top 5 purchases that month. So let's analyze a few:



Willie G's is a seafood restaurant in Galveston TX. Galveston is our little playground. We love going there on the weekends. Our family has a beach house so we never have to worry about hotels. I remember going out to eat at this restaurant but I don't remember why this bill is so high. I guess I picked up the tab for the family? The total was $199.19. That one hurts!

The next purchase is HEB which is the grocery store close to our house. This charge is probably for our weekly groceries. The total was $144, I don't even remember charging it. I love salmon and steaks, probably why that charge is a bit high.

The next item appears to be a charge in Las Vegas. This is probably from the wife's last trip to Vegas in May. She loves Sin City and apparently had a good time at this bar or restaurant. I hope she left a good tip.

The next item is all me. Academy is sporting goods store. I needed a new pair of shoes and some golf accessories. I spent just over a $100. I still have and love my running shoes!

The last item is PF Chang's in Houston. I'm sure everyone knows about PF Chang's. It looks like we had dinner and a few drinks? Can't remember now...

Well that's how you spend over $651 dollars in a few days. The total for the month of May was around $2,000. Most of it was paid back and we are hoping to learn from our past pending and cut back on life stuff.

HS

What I'm Doing

I thought I would give a quick update on life. Since I'm a consultant I'm working at a client site. They are one of the largest oil companies in the world. This is a local role, working in downtown Houston at the Continental Airlines building. The nice thing about this role is NO travel. Usually most consulting roles require travel, but lately some clients will let you work remotely. The nice thing about consulting is you always have new projects with different people in different places. I'm never stuck with the same managers or team mates.

What I'm doing there: We are currently implementing a new trading system. I am one the project leads, I manage teams offshore who are working to go live with this system sometime next year. I also attend a lot of meetings and provide updates to the client.

On my free time I'm trying to make a better me. I would like to lose a few pounds so I've started running 3 times a week. I've cut back on my social smoking and drinking. The wife and I are also trying to have a baby before we get too old. I'm hoping we conceive in the next few moths.

I also have a new goal. I will not buy anything unless I truly need it. No more Apple products, no more computer parts. No video games or new clothes. I'm not buying anymore crap.

Well this is what I'm doing, does anyone have anything more exciting going on?

HS

We Cut Up Citi

We finally cut up our Citi Forward card, it took over a year but I finally said enough is enough. If you look back through the archives, I got this card late last year to earn some rewards. I thought I could control the balance and spend wisely but today the balance is well over $5000. I'm ashamed to even talk about it on our debt blog.

Here is what the cards look like now:



I hate debt, it controls our lives. I don't understand how we can make over $100,000 a year and yet, we still have to charge every purchase and live paycheck to paycheck.

Maybe I need to read Dave Ramsey's Total Money Make Over again.

Have a good weekend!

HS