Advice from an Albatross

I’ve created a whole separate page for sample letters! So far I’ve put on an exampe of a revoking ACH authorization (with revoking wage assignment) to provide to a PDL if you still owe on the principal amount. Remember if you borrowed it I believe you should pay it back. But I feel you shouldn’t pay them the illegal fees they charge. If they wish to make money, then they should invest a little of it into getting licensed.

You can find the link on the right side under “Pages.” And please look it over and if you see anything off with it let me know. I hope to add a letter for those who have paid more than enough, revoking ACH and asking for a PIF. And remember this is just what I used, modify it to fit your needs.

And remember if you are looking into getting a Payday Loan or know someone who is, tell yourself or them “NO! DON’T DO IT!” Most of the operate illegally, and plenty of them don’t even follow their own illegal contracts when they say they’ll automatically start paying down your loan on the 5th payday. They will keep debiting your account til the end of time, even after you’ve paid them well enough and even after you’ve sent them a letter telling them they can’t do it anymore. They will be sneaky and submit ‘paper’ checks to your bank, which are hard to reverse, or take out money under a different name and an unusual amount to bypass a block on their name. It is not until you’ve called in the big guns (your state AG, the BBB and/or the FTC) and gotten that letter from the PDL stating ‘Paid In Full’ that you can feel safe again and not worry about it anymore.

I can’t wait for that day…

Because of my bankruptcy I was forced to take a class. And in this class we learned about budgets. I think I’ve got access to more budget resources than a buget analysist. Do you know where all of this information is located? In piles in the spare room with all of my other junk.

What is my biggest spending problem? I don’t have a budget. I don’t have any plans on what to do with my money and because of it I go and spend it willy-nilly. And when it is done spent and I realize I have more stuff to pay for, like important stuff… I panic.

If I had planned in the first place, especially when it come to prioritizing where the money goes first, I wouldn’t be in such a mess. My one problem with creating a budget is that I don’t know how much to plan for certain items. And some budgets get really specific. It is because it is so specific that I’m turned off. I can’t guess how much I plan to spend on clothes in a month, I can’t even think to the year and then divide by 12. I have no idea how much I’ve spent on clothes in the past…. The only time I get new clothes is usually at Christmas and usually from my parents.

The closest I’ve come thus far was when B forced me to sit down and at the very least plan out my bills and when they were do. See I love Excel, or any spreadsheet for that matter, I like merging cells and adding colors. So I created my months added my bills, their amounts and dates. I had static dates (those always occuring on the whatever-th day of the month) normal and changing dates in blue (unless I had actually figured out the cycle). I had installment payments normal and those that varied in blue. And when I was done with my little table/calendar I was very happy. I could print it and stick it somewhere and even create check boxes for me to check off when it was paid. This is an important part of being financially stable, getting those bills paid. Also assess your bills, stuff that you don’t need, or can at the very least cut back on, do that… Or make trades. If you really really want the internet then trade it for the cable instead of having both.

And then I got inspired. See there are many people who live paycheck to paycheck. It is not a fun way to live and it is even scary. Very scary. Because one little hitch can throw you so far you are tempted to just give up. So I thought I would budget my paychecks. See I already had a list of what bills were do when and I could subtract the ones that I needed to pay with each paycheck. This method also allowed me to see where my bills were uneven. I’d have a lot coming out of the first paycheck each month, but then not so much the next one. That made me aware that I’d have to save some from that other paycheck to go towards the bills on the next one. Or I could check with the bills that I had and see about different pay dates to help even it out more.

Here is an example, it isn’t the one I actually used because I don’t have it with me, but it is the general idea. I kind of just put it together and am not real proud of it. But please create your own, try stuff out and see what works best for you.

Also, here is a one stop shopping link to all you’d ever want to know about bugets: About.com