Debt Free or Bust

Debt Report December 2008

Debt balances:

• Dentist: $415
• Attorney: $449
• IRS: $2,480.02 (TY 2007)
  
• LDR: $2,735.00 (Louisiana Department of Revenue, TY 2007, no payments scheduled yet)
  
• Chase HELOC: $4,815.82 (two months behind)
  
• CFCU Visa: $4,987.86 (one month behind)
  
• Capital One HELOC: $21,504.57 (caught up)
  

First mortgage balance: $116,283

Debt Balance excluding co-signed student loans and first mortgage: $37,387

Total debt including first mortgage, excluding student loans: $153,670

Student Loans:

• Co-signed student loans, approximate balance: $48,318 (got a letter this week from these folks; need a complete audit on these accounts; not sure this balance is correct)

Possible total balance including 1st mortgage: $201,989

Discussion

I get a lot of people commenting on my posts who tell me I can’t earn a full-time income online. Bull. An online colleague of mine is doing it and her site is in my sidebar. The site is My Debt Free Goal. I’m following her model and my monthly online income was increasing each month, until the recession hit so hard. When she started, she was working online 10-12 hours a day.

I don’t have that much time to spend online. I haven’t been able to ramp my online income up as fast because I work away from home. When you can’t do something full-time, it slows the progress of that work.

My first goal of earning $100 or more online was achieved in August 2008. My online income was $230.38.

• July 2008 – $50.00
• August 2008 – $230.38
• September 2008 – $222.66
• October 2008 – $294.89
• November 2008 – $133.15
• December 2008 – $90.60 (Sales were down in November and I didn’t make the payout threshold on some of my sites. Those amounts are held by the payers and not included in this total because I keep my books on a cash basis. I’ll get paid for it all In January because I’ve already made payout on January payments.)

Online and Other Income Goals

My next goal is to make $750-$1500 this month, January 2009, online and keep that upward trend going. How am I going to do that? I’m getting more website building work, and I’m getting as much of that work as I can during the first 15 days of the month before tutoring kicks back in. I’ll make this goal if I build just 10 websites at discount prices. If I charged full price, I could build 8, but I get more business if I offer a discount.

What tanked was/is my tutoring income and offline jobs. I barely made any money tutoring in September and October. November was half what I normally make. December was 2/3 of what I normally make. Pizza delivery was off then, too. I’m used to making $1500/mo tutoring those months and several hundred dollars delivering pizzas (amount varies considerably but it’s between $500 and $1300). But we had a hurricane, Gustav. Tutoring and every offline job were hit hard.

Making a $750-$1500 goal in January online may be challenging since we are in a very deep recession, and perhaps even a depression. But I stand by those goals and I fully intend to reach them. Even if I don’t quite reach them, I will greatly exceed my highest online income figure of $294.89.

So here are my three online income goals for January 2009:

• Exceed $294.89 in online income
• Meet or exceed $750 in online income
• Meet or exceed $1500 in online income

Offline income goals for January 2009:

• $1000 from tutoring (January isn’t a full tutoring month)
• $500 odd jobs

Tax and Economic Stimulus Hopes

I hope any Main Street stimulus package will lower my taxes, and that I will be eligible for a refund for 2008 that can be applied to my 2007 tax bill. If it’s enough of a cut and enough of a stimulus, it could pay off my IRS bill. That would be wonderful and allow me to work on paying off my state tax bill. I also made over $30,000 less in 2008 than in 2007. That should lower my tax bracket as well.

Why Pursue Multiple Income Streams

I’m continuing to pursue multiple streams of income because I don’t want to be in a position where any more than 10% of my base income requirement comes from any one source. That way if a stream dries up I only lose 10% of the income we need to live, and I can easily adjust for that loss and make it up quickly. When 100% or even 50% of your eggs are in one basket, a loss of a stream is a financial disaster.

Right now I have the following sources of income, and I’m working to increase the lesser ones considerably to pull more weight:

• Scribe Fire affiliate advertising
• Amazon affiliate sales
• eBay affiliate sales
• Squidoo product sales and advertising
• MSNBC Sponsorship
• Other affiliate programs (all too small to count by themselves)
• Text link advertising
• Writer’s fees (freelance)
• Website building
• WordPress consulting
• Tutoring

I throw in lawn mowing and pizza delivery when I need cash fast, so those are my back-ups when other things fail. My largest sources are currently website building, WordPress consulting and tutoring, so I have most of my eggs in 3 baskets. I’m working on spreading that out considerably over the next 3 months by substantially increasing the other sources listed, or find new ones, to make up a larger percentage of my income.

Cost Reductions

With the hard hit to my income, my son qualifies for SCHIP and I qualify for the Medicaid spend-down program, so that will save us over $400/mo in medication costs alone, let alone if one of us gets sick.

We also qualify for refunds for August, September and October for me, and all out-of-pocket costs since August for my son. I have to mail that paperwork today.

If you do not have medical insurance and you make an income of 250% or less of the poverty level for your family size, your children qualify for SCHIP and you may qualify for Medicaid spend-down. You can usually apply online at your state’s department of health and hospitals website or department of social services website. SCHIP is a federal program but it is administered by the states.

Catching Up Late Payments

Since our medical expenses will be lower this month and we are due some refunds, I plan to use that money to catch up on any payments that are past due after covering our basic necessities.

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Technorati Tags: debt free or bust, Debt Reports, Dec 2008, Goals

January 2nd, 2009 Posted by joubess | Debt Reports, Goals | one comment