On payday Friday I paid off our last VISA payment!!! $1,050! Hubby had made me wait until payday to pay it off. I am so happy as I have been dealing with VISA payments for years. Although we would pay off the card each month, I would have wildly extravagant balances each month to the extent that I was sometimes even afraid to look at them. We moved a year ago and have rental houses so it was not uncommon for us to have monthly VISA bills of $8-$10,000! A few times even more!
It was just terrifying as I was wildly spending money and not really paying attention to our finances. Hubby and I had quite a bit of money coming in and if I wanted something I just bought it. I am embarrased to admit the above as many of you are SO conscious of expenses.
Since February 1, I am proud to say that I have been one of you!! I am so grateful to all of you as reading your blogs encourages me to have a spending plan and write down everything I spend. I have been doing this and am amazed at really how little money it takes us to get by each month. With the spending plan we established hubby and I each have catagories for entertainment and personal expenditures, but we are saving a great deal of money. We are also now using the debit card exclusively so I am really watching what we spend.
We really need to follow this plan this year especially as we still need to save about $82,000 over the next 12 months. Hubby and I have an agressive plan to turn our IRA which contains rental houses into a ROTH IRA. This will mean that after paying $160K on taxes on the account this year, for the rest of our lives all the income in the account will be tax free. My goal is to create 100K in tax free income in retirement.
This will be a frugal year for us but we believe it will pay off for many years to come. Also, when we are able to do this it will have taught me to change my free-spending ways...one day at a time.
Last charge card payment!!
February 24th, 2013 at 01:37 pm
February 24th, 2013 at 02:30 pm 1361716200
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February 28th, 2013 at 09:38 pm 1362087525
Thanks for your kind words. Unfortunately, you can't move a rental into a tax free account. If you have an existing IRA you can convert it to a ROTH IRA by paying income tax on the money you convert. Then you can purchase rentals in your ROTH IRA account. It is called a self-directed IRA and it is legal.
March 4th, 2013 at 08:26 pm 1362428795
Jerry