7/25/2006

Attacking Credit Card Debt

Over the past 6 months or so credit card debt has been my biggest enemy when I open my mail or go and pay my bills. It has only been the past year or so that I began carrying a sizeable balance on a couple cards. I will admit that moving to a new place, a west coast trip and some of my adventures with Ms. C. added to these balances, but oh well. What is the point of life if you don't live it.

Anyway I have been wanting to sell off a few positions of Dow Jones companies that I hold in Dividend Reinvestment Plans. I have been watching for a while trying to walk the delicate balance of finance charges accruing versus stock price appreciation. Well ExxonMobil (XOM), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Pfizer (PFE) and to a lesser extent Home Depot (HD) have all been enjoying mini rallies and I thought now was the time to sell off and take the proceeds and eliminate a nice chunk of that credit card debt. The only company I took a loss on was the Pfizer, notching decent gains on the XOM, JNJ, and HD.

This means lower balances on the credit cards which in turn leads to lower (or in some instances no) finance charges and of course lower monthly payments. In a couple months I should have all cards down to zero and can than take that extra money and put them right back into the market.

I've also been crunching the numbers regarding $3.00 gas, my 120 mile daily commute, the 10 car payments I have left on the Hyundai, and the gas mileage on the Hyundai versus the mpg of a Prius or a Yaris. Trying to figure out if I want to just pay off the Hyundai and have no payment in 10 months and pay the $3.00+ for gas and get 30 mpg, or do I trade in the Elantra (while the trade in value is still decent) and go with the 55 mpg of the Prius or the 40 mpg of the Yaris. I flip flop on my decision regarding this like the wind.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

120 mile daily commute. You are crazy to do that. You are killing yourself. Life is too short to spend on 128.