How I screwed up my debt reduction plan for 2009
After I discovered that I only reduced my total credit card debt by $500, and added $1,500 to a high-interest Discover Card account, I started thinking about what I did wrong. I made $65,000 in 2009. I should have saved much more. Where did the money go?
Unfortunately, I kept horrible records, but I started thinking about where and how I spent my paycheck.
I didn’t go on any major vacations in 2009. In fact, for the first time in many years, I didn’t go snow skiing because I wanted to avoid paying $75 for lift tickets and hotel rooms.
My one major purchase was an LG flat screen TV. My 12 year-old Mitsubishi CRT television died in October 2009. I installed a TV tuner card in my PC and planned to watch television on my 19” Benq LCD computer screen.
But it didn’t work. The tuner card was not compatible with the cable set top box and I could only get the basic broadcast channels. I had also been drooling over flat screen TVs for several years. I finally broke down and spent $820 on a 42” LG LCD television. I wound up using some emergency funds and avoided putting this purchase on a credit card.
Thinking about it, I should have learned to live with watching television on a computer screen and used the $820 to pay down the Discover Card.
The other big expense was I spent $270 on Pat Metheny concert tickets. Yes, I know this is dumb. This is where emotion won over reality. I am big Pat Metheny fan. I have all of his CDs and DVDs. I love listening to him playing jazz guitar. I had been reading about his latest CD, Orchestrion. I got an email from his fan club offering to sell preferred seating for $135 per ticket. I caved in and bought two tickets, which turned out to be fantastic third row orchestra seats to see my favorite jazz musician.
With the benefit of hind sight, I could have lived without seeing Pat Metheny. Especially since I 
have seen him in concert at least six previous times. I would have been better off using this money to pay down card debt.
My next major expense was my cleaning lady. Don’t laugh. Every two weeks, I paid $100 to have a women clean my apartment. I could have done it myself, but I would rather spend my weekends and evenings doing more fun things. If I was smart, I would have used my free time to clean and put $200 that I spent every month for cleaning towards my Discover Card account. This would have reduced it by $2,400.
So, looking back, if I didn’t spend money on a big screen TV, expensive concert tickets and a cleaning lady, I could have reduced my credit card debt by an additional $3,490.
Yes, it is painful to look back, but I don’t have time to worry about how I should have done it differently. Right now, I have to take what I have learned from the past and apply it to the future. You can bet that I won’t be making any major purchases in 2010.