Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Bye bye 2016, bye bye personal debt

So this was it for 2016. It was a moving year. Literally since I moved from one town to another city. Figural speaking since I moved most of my money from being spend monthly to being freed-up to dump into the deep dark abyss called personal loan to finally being all mine as from the first salary payment in 2017.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

The Last Dive In The Abyss

It's prepared. I've made the final call to the nice people of Freo who told me what this months' interest would be and which amount of money I had to throw in the deep dark abyss of personal debt to make it leave my life forever and always.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Saving myself

With self-leadership on one side and a little bit of the flu on the other side I'm right in the middle of them here on my couch.

I calculated I can live of about 50% of my monthly income without really having to not-do anything beside traveling, eating out and join personal courses. With all those fun things my saving rate goes down, of course. I am still trying to find a balance between those things. Without some kind of free period every now and then I'll go crazy, yet it IS crazy to spend all your money ON and IN those free periods leaving you with nothing but to work for the next one. For now, the focus is on killing my personal loan by the end of the year.

40 days to freedom... and then what?

The timer on the right tells me I'm 40 days away from freedom. At least, freedom of debt. Nothing to do about it anymore, it can't go any faster (and why should it?) and it's nearly impossible do be done any later.

Basically, with reaching my goal, I've been wondering what do do next. I feel like I'm pretty comfortable with living below my means, so I am not too worried I won't save a lot of money the upcoming year. What I'm wondering about now is what drives me. What is my deeply intrinsic motivation in life. I am feeling a bit lost there.

I've recently picked up a new course in self-leadership from non dual perspective, I hope this will bring me closer to what really inspires me. It's not that I can't come up with things to do; I can think of hundreds of things to do, but all of those things don't seem to really touch me or give me energy anymore. And that feels somewhat depressing yet at the same time like the moment in my life to go and look  deeper into my own self. Why do I do what I do and what happens when I let go of all the things I used to do?

Monday, October 10, 2016

What it feels like

Have you've ever wondered what it feels like to pay off a loan?

In most cases, people take on a loan to pay for something they want (or, something they consider a need, but I won't go down the road of explaining the difference since those subjects are covered on most financial blogs). So, you basically ask someone (the lending party) to pay for your want and the next couple of years you are paying for your want every month and you pay a little bit extra because the other party wants to be rewarded for the fact they did have the money for your want when you wanted your want but you didn't have the money for it. Sounds fair enough, and at least you get to play with your new toy every month. Unless it's a brand new sportscar which you already wrecked. In that case, you're probably pretty much feeling the same as me.

Friday, September 30, 2016

Patience

And now we wait...

My debt kill plan is rolling on fine. It's practically guaranteed that I'll be done with the housing debt by the end of this year. Even if that somewhat magical finish line for some reason won't be passed by then, it'll be January next year. I don't have to do anything but dump everything into the great abyss of debt. Those transactions are made automatically by my bank account so there's nothing more I can do.

Monday, September 19, 2016

Mileage

Recently I had to fill up my gastank for the second time since I had my 'new' car. 

Friday, September 16, 2016

A solution for decluttering

While posting my last post about attachment, a thought hit my mind. The reason I keep my cd's in a drawer, for instance, is so I can't see them. They are nicely tucked away and when I open up the drawer, I feel a bit of the attachment and emotion there is in that drawer.

I think this happens with a lot of stuff people tend to keep close, but out of sight. Sometimes even not so close in a storage, but out of sight anyway. I think it's not a 'maybe, one day, I could use it'. I honestly believe it's the attachment to the piece of stuff. In an ongoing consumerism world, what we 'have' shows for who we 'are'. I have, so I am. For some reason I manage to become a staring time traveler whenever I see stuff from the (even sometimes not so) good old days.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Attached

So I put up my cd's on market place. Around 88 of them. And someone offered me 40 euro's for it. And even though that's just about the utmost fair price I can get for them, my mind is screaming 'nooooo'.

They take up one drawer in a closet that is fairly empty for the rest of it (despite of my socks and underwear). I think with ditching the cd's and relocating the rest of what's in the closet, I might even be able to ditch the whole drawer closet completely. More space, less stuff.

All of the cd's are also on my computer in mp3. What's even worse, I don't even have a way of playing a cd anyway since I don't own anything that eats cd's anymore; selling off my mac usb superdrive was the last of it.

While I think of it, the last time I ever listened to a cd anyway was over three years ago. In a different life, it feels.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Rolling on

Whenever there’s cash, I dump in into the great abyss called Debt. Not so long ago I managed to give my motivation and my down payment a giant boost by taking it under 10K. Now I'm even further down to less than 1/3... What a great feeling that is! Now to continue for what ever is left over... in a pace I hope to hold until it’s completely gone.


In the mean time I’m also selling stuff out of my home. Still don’t know why this suddenly hit me, but I didn’t feel happy with having big closets around filled with stuff I seldom use.

So bye bye vintage cupboard, electric drumset, studio monitor speaker set, apple accessories and so on.

I hope to get a lot more to go. Maybe even the digital piano, too. I am trying to learn and play the guitar. Far more mobile than a piano, I must say. So maybe I can sell it and get myself a small second hand guitar or something. Or just sell it. Period.

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Couldn't stop myself

I just couldn't stop myself updating the countdown timer and debt kill plan. With my recent calculation I could be debt free with maxing it out untill the end of this year. It will take up near all my savings, but I think every penny is worth getting rid of my debt.
Just watching the countdown timer show a number I can relate to was such a relief!

I know I've been kind of obsessed with it lately, buy I just couldn't take it anymore. (I guess only miss Struggler knew how bad it was, and my best friend since I kinda went underground in my appartement calculating and counting...)

Monday, August 29, 2016

Closer and closer

So I needed a holiday and was willing to spend some money on it, even though I actually am still in debt. Reason was I never been away longer than a week for the past three years. This also was the first holiday with me and the GF where we were together for so long. We had a wonderful vacation (road trip style living in a car and tent for three almost three weeks) and really enjoyed the different landscapes of the parts of Europe we saw. Of course, we ran into some interesting confrontations with each other and ourself, but I think it's better for all of us to get ut of our comfort zone and be confronted with our own way of going through life and question why we do what we do. In the end this will bring us closer and closer.

Monday, July 25, 2016

I am going to nail it!

Hell yeah. I am going to nail this son-of-a-debt like a Tasmanian Devil in warmode.
Just made an extra transfer which will get my debt under the magical 10K border.

I guess it's all psychological, but with me picking up my new car recently I finally have got the feeling that I'm getting back on top of things. Freeing up another 100 per month, watching my monthly spending go down and down, makes me feel confident about killing this idiot debt.

I just updated my graph on the right which now looks like the coolest thing ever*. And the beauty in it all is there still is money in my savings account and there still is enough money to get through next month anyway. This feels GREAT! Because, I will be done with this debt by the end of MAY next year!! That's in less than a year!

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Possessions taking possession of me

Since a while I'm trying to declutter. And guess what... the more I look around me the less I feel like I really need al this stuff.

It doesn't make me any happier at all, it just stands around keeping me from being able to move in a day if I wanted.

I have got no clue where this thought came from, but I think it has everything to do with me trying to let go of my old patterns and me feeling stuck in life and the never ending circle sleep-eat-work-repeat. I was looking for myself in my mindfulness courses the past two years, and all I can see now is all the little patterns that I set up for myself to feel safe or needed or wanted or whatever. 

It's time to let go of all of my habits and for some reason owning less and less stuff makes perfect sense to me right now.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Speeding up!

I've got a new goal. I started going through my stuff in june and used the obvious rule:
"Haven't used this item for over six months (or didn't even remember I had it): get rid of it!!". This makes space in both my home and my head. And it puts another dent in my debt since I also managed to sell some items on Craigslist. Still not having sold the e-drums bothers me though, since it's quite some value that's just standing around without any equity. Using that value to decrease my debt (and interest) would be nice. But, still hoping I can make someone happy with it one day.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

And we call them crazy

I live in the south side of the city. Across the street there's a institution where mildly "mentally ill" kids reside. Today, they are playing outside in the little playground. Looking up from over my laptop I noticed them walking around, riding a trike bicycle,  sitting on a skippy ball, but what mostly hit me was that the seem to just "be". One of them just walks around, wiggles from one foot on the other, walks back to the nurse, wiggles around, and repeats. Another rides the trike while his friend simply follows him, untill he sees something else that interests him and he walks in that direction. Another one just sits on a skippy ball and looks up to the sky.

This is in no way a judgement of those kids! The whole display really, really touched me. And it felt as if I saw my own brain in those kids. My mind wonders around following whatever comes up. My mind wiggles around, to return and wiggle around some more. My mind feels like rolling around on the floor or hobbling a skippy ball too. All together, at once.

Monday, June 27, 2016

The Big Car Hussle

It's going to happen. A 1m89cm guy is going to be driving around in a Dihatsu Cuore soon.
I might have to cut a hole in the roof but hey, it's summer anyway.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Little more cash, little less spending

I am lucky for being employed at a stable employer. Of course, no more need for employment is one of my long term goals (starting with no longer being financial dependent on work but being able to pick the jobs I like for how long I like them), but untill that day comes I can't really complain. If I do my job I'm supposed to do I get a small raise every year, and with our company having a new collective work agreement everyone will get 3,2% more from this day on and another 1% next year february.

This leaves me with the possibility to pay off more of my debt. I am thinking about raising the step up to 600 a month, where this was 500 a month. I think this will hardly be a difference in my current budget / spending, but over the next 18 months I still have to go that will mean I'm done about 3 months earlier.

Monday, June 6, 2016

Be careful what you wish for

Remember my last post, stating "this car will never ever fail on me"? Well. It did.
Not some major issue that got fixed for around 500 euro's. Still hurts, but my emergency fund had no problem fixing that.

Yet ever since I calculated my possible savings by changing cars of quit driving a car completely this has been on my mind. Not like a light breeze but like one hell of a big hammer hitting me in the head every time I blinked my eyes.

By simply switching cars I can save >1K yearly. That means 50K over the next 50 years. That seriously adds up. Even if this new vehicle gives up on me every 5 years that would still be profitable. And as I stated above... even a Volvo can break down.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Kill 'em!

I am on the move. As you can see in the debt-O-meter and the graph at the right I nailed my 2K down payment a month ahead. Saves me 10 bucks in the end lowering interest payments. I must admit, being down for a couple of weeks because of the confronting financial review and the clouds above my head until the end of next year seems to have moved on into seeing the beauty of recognition of my situation in the current world. Where they dark clouds, I can now see how they will slowly (truth, very slowly) begin to dissolve into a beautiful debt free blue sky.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Life costs per second

With my current investigtions and spreadsheet it occured to me I could quite easily calculate what my life costs me per second nowadays. Turns out, my current yearly budget (in which I am trying to get out of debt and without saving really anything) my life right now costs me 0,107 cent every second. Even though that sounds like hardly anything, this adds up to 6 cents a minute; 3,86 an hour (still seems like nothing) yet this ups to an mindblowing 92,66 per day!

With me glued to my screen for the past tho days reading a very interesting blog of a man capable of living of only around 500 a month, paid through rents he gets paid from property he bought after a couple of years of hard labour and frugal living while only somehere in his mid twenties this makes me very, very aware of the fact that I, at 33 right now and still only paying of a debt and hardly saving, am ages behind.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Couldn't sleep

So. This is new. With me trying to get up every morning at 6:30AM (and hopelesly failing at a rate of 50%) I woke up this morning at 4:15. Morning? Middle of the night I guess.
I woke up out of a weird dream which had something to do with me gathering funds from anywhere to pay of my loans.

After whooling around in my bed for almost an hour I just couldn't stand it anymore and got out of bed. Strangely enough my body feels quite awake. Maybe it's a new rhythm setting in; maybe it's the stress and worry about getting debt free. And I'm fairly sure its the latter since I don't feel calm at all lately.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

First big downpayment! (And it hurts...)

So. This week, my tax reduction came in. And, as I promised myself, I would use this and a partion of my vacation fee, to make an extra downpayment next month. But, since I already have the money to do so, I made the transaction today. In the end, this will save me a little more interest and every bit helps! 

This was the first time I got a litte "extra cash" which I immediately transferred into the bottomless pithole called "debt" and I must say, it feels strange. Yes, I do feel the joy of reducing my debt by a total of 2K this month. But on the other hand, it also feels uncomfortable because normally this kind of extra cash would give me a little more breathing space in my savings account and could make me do some fun things.

Fun things. That's interesting because when I think of it, last years where years where I didn't go on a long summer holiday or bought a new car (or something like that). So what DID I do with my money back then?

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Damn those loans

As you could all see in my monthly expenses, I also have a student loan. I didn't pay that much attention to it since it's a fraction of my long term loan and interest is fairly low.

Yet, it still is a form of debt and I really would love to get rid of that one, too by the end of next year.

Luckily for me, there is a possibility to do so! This week, we heard there was going to be a raise. It's a fair 3% and that would leave me with enough breathing space to create an 'emergency fund' and double up my student loan down-payments.

Here are some figures...




Monday, May 16, 2016

Here's my plan!

Ok. So after moving, I supposed to save some 3K extra annually. That would mean I could more than double up my downpayments on my long term loan... take a look at my new figures...

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Debt-O-Meter

Ok. This is where I am right now. With my current downpayment rate, I still have 84 months to go. 84 months! For me being 33 years of age, that feels like a 'lifetime-in-jail-card' for my game right now.

Here's how this looks in figures...

Monday, May 9, 2016

Fears and cravings (1)

Okay, there is no (2) yet, but I'm very sure this is an ongoing theme in my life at the moment. One of the aspects of spiritual growth is that you are being confronted with your fears and cravings to only discover that you've created a hell of a complicated way around them to not feel pain and to hold on to happy feelings. Happy happy, joy joy...

Anyway. The more I realize my fears and cravings, the more confused I get. I thought this was all about self exploration and heading towards all-time happiness? Well ok, I'm not that naive, but I do feel I'm at some sort of intersection in my life. I feel like I have a choice. The choice of choosing for safety, adapting to my old habits and my surroundings and be a chameleon for the rest of my life, or the choice of going for myself. The long trail of personal and spiritual development, fast forward killing my debts and being an independent man. Wow. To just say that sounds heavily and scary responsible. But I'm done with being done with it and I can only blame myself if I don't use this somewhat harsh time for personal growth.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Done with it.

I’ve closely monitored my emotional, physical, working and financial situation and I’m done with it. And to be honest, I’m also done with being done with it. It lacks productivity, motivation and gets me nowhere. So no more complaining and time for change. I’ve come to realize that I lack goals in my life at this moment and the lack of a goal makes me be lazy, unproductive, feeling down and wanting to sleep all day. Heading towards a bored-out you could say, with some serious aspects in my life that need attention. No more hiding my head in the sand, but time to pick myself up, dust myself of and give myself the highly demanded ‘kick-under-the-butt’ forward. 

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Movement!

Yes! Movement!

After my confronting personal finance investigation, leaving me with a spedings which kind of makes my stomach go a little shaky for the least, I felt the urge of movement. Some of my biggest expences where rent and my car. Especially travelling to and from work kind of kick in, as you could see. Problem is, where I lived (in Dordrecht) there was no way I could get to work in time using public tranportation. By bike wasn't an option eather with times up to 1,5 hour single trip.

This got me looking for a place closer to work, but I didn't want to spend more on rent. Well, that made things a bit more difficult since rents in Rotterdam are 750 and upwards (more 1000 and upwards if you don't want to rent a place you never ever want to be). Excluding utilities, that is.

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Private Investigations

Dududududumdumdum... always reminds me of the Dire Straights... Cool song. And I love cool songs.

What I don't love is my recent confrontation with my personal finance situation. I wanted to get a grip on things, and since I'm working with yearly budgets in my professional life, why not apply them to my personal life too? Well, because of what I told you... it's confronting.