Freebies!

I'm spending a little time tonight signing up for free samples. Two of my favorite places to find these are Reddit.com/r/freebies and Slickdeals.net. The awesome thing about this is if I sign up for say, 10 different samples of various things today, I'll forget about it and in 4-8 weeks when they start arriving it will be like Christmas over and over again.

Occasionally I'll try my luck on the sweepstakes and contests. I've won some pretty cool swag in the past! My loot has consisted of a free stuffed animal from an Animal Planet daily contest, some personalized undies from #barenecessities that I used to pay homage to my #WoW days (Exhibit A), and my big boy prize was a round trip ticket to anywhere in the US from Southwest Airlines during an eBay holiday promotional game. I rarely remember to chain-enter contests and I'm kind of kicking myself for not making it a weekly or at least monthly activity. I could be cruising the streets of Whitehall, Ohio in a 2015 Mustang or just come back from an island getaway!

We've planned a trip to #Costco tomorrow where we'll sign up for a membership. It seems like buying certain things in bulk will help us save money in the long run. I know this is totally not new information and a trick people have been using for years, but for some reason I always thought places like Costco and Sam's Club were for families with like 40 kids. I never really considered it for us as a childless couple.

Also, apparently Sunday is free samples day at Costco? And I hear that there are so many samples you can make a meal out of it. And to top it off, if you show proof that you downloaded their app, #InsomniaCookies is offering a free cookie until 3am September 29th. Tomorrow is September 28th. Guess who's getting some free cookies tomorrow? MAN do I love free.

Game On!

I'll start this post off with a short introduction for myself. I'm Laura. I'm 28 and I'm the manager for Internet Sales at a pawn shop chain. I went to a community college for Graphic Design and Photography. I graduated in 2008 and started with close to $10k in #StudentLoanDebt. I'm now down to $3,484.53. I have 3 Federal loans with Sallie Mae, two with less than 3% interest and one with a 6.8% interest rate. I probably could have already paid off or be much closer, but I've mostly just scooted along paying my minimum payment. That's stopping now.

Joe and I have been together for two years now. In the beginning of our relationship we spent our extra money somewhat frivolously. We weren't out of control and racking up even more debt but we'd go out to dinner often, we'd buy little trinkets from artsy fartsy shops or go crazy at a thrift store just because "it's so cheap!" or "OMG I loved this when I was a kid!". Personally, I'd spend a lot on clothes from thrift stores that I would never wear, simply because I could finally fit into them after a huge weight loss. I ended up donating a lot of the clothes back or shoved into the closet with intentions of selling on eBay "one day'.

Until these last few weeks I've been pretty unfamiliar with loan lingo and finances in general, I just knew that I was making my payments on time and my credit was very good. My mother taught my that credit cards were bad, but you should occasionally make a large purchase and make payments, or make small purchases and pay them back right away to establish credit. I've done that and I seem to be doing all right, but there's ALWAYS room for improvement. I want to be "smart with money" and not just a smart shopper or a little frugal. With the reading I've been doing lately I truly feel that there is hope for Joe and his loan situation.

We plan to tackle his student loans hard. Like with a meat tenderizer and then dispose of the bodies in a bathtub #BreakingBad style hard. Joe has set a goal and I'll be damned if we don't put everything we can into this to either be Balance: 0.00 by his DFD (Debt Free Day) or very, very close.

After the reading we've done, I think the Avalanche Method will serve us best for his loans. We plan to kill off his smallest loan that just happens to have high interest first, and after that, tackle all of his highest interest loans first. We'll trickle down with the money left after each loan is paid off until they're all gone forever.

While we were chatting one day we both had the idea that we can make this kind of a game. We love trying out all sorts of games, so what's another one to play? We're making a game plan and starting with smaller changes that we can do IMMEDIATELY. For instance, Joe is taking his lunch every day and in the event that he forgets it, we have cheap ass emergency Cup O' Noodles that he keeps at his desk. Theoretically there should never be a reason he needs to go buy lunch at work. For breakfasts he's a light eater and we got some Nutrigrain boxes on sale. We're considering checking out the benefits of a Costco membership Sunday. I also will be getting the mats [ingredients] for a week or so worth of sausage & egg burritos that can be frozen and grabbed on the go.

We also switched out our apartment's light bulbs to energy efficient ones. This is something we've talked about doing and have even had the bulbs but just never got around to it.

We're selling a few things to kick start our extra money pool that will be pipelined into loans. His parents have been so generous - they are allowing us to sell some of their old exercise equipment and keep the money. We're very blessed when it comes to our friends and family. We are also preparing to offer up our extra room to rent out, which should save us about $400 a month!

Anyone who has ever played a game with me knows I can be quite competitive. This is a game I know we can win and that makes very exciting. We WILL be #debtfree.

Trimming the Fat

"Beware the small expenses" is a phrase I always knew but never really took to heart.  I never really had any qualms dropping a few dollars here or there on a snack, bit of convenience or even something that would entertain me for a few seconds (Thankfully, Laura understands she can throw out most of the stuff animals I win her from claw machines), but I never realized just how much I was truly spending until I started tracking my expenses.

Laura often said I should pack my lunch for work because it would save me a fortune.  I knew she was right, but taking a few minutes out of my evening or spending a few extra dollars at the grocery store was just enough for me to avoid it.  Had I really sat down to do the math, I would have made more use out of our last trip to the grocery store.

We looked at a few expense tracking apps to make the process easier.  We had a laughable experience with mint.com telling Laura she spent 7 grand on United Airlines which, after some research, turned out to be 7 dollars at United Dairy Farmers.  My sister recommended Toshl, and it's worked out pretty good.  However, what Toshl is finding has been a real eye opener.

I always thought I spent a little over 20 dollars throughout the week on lunch.  I'm not a big eater and usually get fairly cheap meals.  WRONG.  It's Tuesday, and I've already spent over 20 dollars on food alone.  Between pop, tornados from Circle K and a meal from Wendy's, I've spent in two days what I thought I spent in a week.  If this trend continues, that's 50 dollars a week, or 200 dollars a month!

I'm a little ashamed to admit that Laura and I were unassuming spendthrifts.  An extra few dollars here or there and we never batted an eye.  Buying a little something extra, wasting money on something we won't use, wear, eat, finish, the list is shockingly long.  

Hopefully, by looking into what we need, don't need and can sell, we'll get a good foothold on scaling out this pit.  

Here's the Deal

My name's Joe, and I'm about $140 grand in debt.  Most of it is my student loans, of which I pay about $1600 a month.  I wish I could tell you that the Bachelor's in Animation was worth it, but I think my career in IT would tell you otherwise.
I've been pretty lucky, however.  Surprisingly enough, every time Sallie Mae decided to bump up my minimum payment, I've been in a position that I could afford it.  Until now.  Recently, losing a job and taking a pay cut with a new one is starting to stretch my earnings a bit farther than I anticipated, on top of extending my debt into the wonderful world of credit cards, something I had avoided like the plague until now.
I've made the decision that I'm going to be debt-free by the time I'm 35, and I'm going to have fun doing it.  I'm tired of making only the minimum payments and living around the problems it causes.
My girlfriend Laura and I have started this blog to track our progress, share any tips and tricks we find and look back at this and laugh as we ride into the sunset on the yacht we're obviously going to buy after all the money we make once we pay our debts off.