Milestones
I'm marking some milestones right now, and no matter how much I have to gripe about, these are some damn important things to remind me of where I've been, and why now isn't all that bad.
The first milestone is money.
A little over 7 years ago, I was involved with someone who did a lot of damage to my psyche and my financials. Due to her actions, indirect and direct, and my dumb ass putting up with it, I fell a good $50,000 into debt, and sold off a hefty amount of mutual funds that were built up for me by my grandmother. I've paid off those debts to the best of my ability, with the final payments going down a couple years ago. My credit score is still in the toilet, but it's slowly improving. Around 2009, I expect things to look up for me there.
On a more recent note, 6 years ago, the car I was paying off with only a sliver of an interest rate was repossessed, as I couldn't make payments on it. It was a horrible way to wake up on Valentine's Day. I went without a car for over two years, which is no small feat in the suburbs. I vowed that this would never happen again.
Four years ago, I bought a car that I didn't love, and frankly got ripped off on the car and the interest. I was so thrilled to have a car, though, that I jumped at what the lot would give me. Note that this was a shady used car place which is now long since gone, I was buying a used rental car. Thankfully, it wasn't in as bad shape as it could've been. The biggest issues I had were that being a huge American car, it guzzled gas, the value dropped like a rock, and at around 70,000 miles everything started to go to crap. Well, that, and it had a propensity for getting stolen, which cost me another $1000 due to the fact that I had to pay the insurance company twice for that shit.
Almost two years ago, I finally dumped that crappy car on a trade-in. It was time for me to get something with better gas mileage, a better interest rate, and less likelihood to be stolen. So, I dropped that POS for the Honda Civic I drive today, which I love. Unfortunately, the old car wasn't fully paid off, and the value was nowhere near what I owed. Also, my credit history still wasn't great, despite paying down a car loan in that time. I was able to drop a huge down payment, though, which helped me add the cost of my old car's negative equity into the new loan.
So, in may 2006, I drove off the lot with a new car, and a slightly less ridiculous loan. I vowed to do it right this time, and since Seema isn't a crazy gold digger, and more importantly, I'm not the codependent bitch I used to be, I knew it would happen. So, I used the money from raises over the last two years, and money I'd been spending previously on old debts, and put that shit towards my car. I paid 4 months worth of payments a month when I could, which was often. It served me well.
As of this week, I fully own my car. No bank can take that shit away from me. I am proud, and need to celebrate when I can.
~EEE~
The first milestone is money.
A little over 7 years ago, I was involved with someone who did a lot of damage to my psyche and my financials. Due to her actions, indirect and direct, and my dumb ass putting up with it, I fell a good $50,000 into debt, and sold off a hefty amount of mutual funds that were built up for me by my grandmother. I've paid off those debts to the best of my ability, with the final payments going down a couple years ago. My credit score is still in the toilet, but it's slowly improving. Around 2009, I expect things to look up for me there.
On a more recent note, 6 years ago, the car I was paying off with only a sliver of an interest rate was repossessed, as I couldn't make payments on it. It was a horrible way to wake up on Valentine's Day. I went without a car for over two years, which is no small feat in the suburbs. I vowed that this would never happen again.
Four years ago, I bought a car that I didn't love, and frankly got ripped off on the car and the interest. I was so thrilled to have a car, though, that I jumped at what the lot would give me. Note that this was a shady used car place which is now long since gone, I was buying a used rental car. Thankfully, it wasn't in as bad shape as it could've been. The biggest issues I had were that being a huge American car, it guzzled gas, the value dropped like a rock, and at around 70,000 miles everything started to go to crap. Well, that, and it had a propensity for getting stolen, which cost me another $1000 due to the fact that I had to pay the insurance company twice for that shit.
Almost two years ago, I finally dumped that crappy car on a trade-in. It was time for me to get something with better gas mileage, a better interest rate, and less likelihood to be stolen. So, I dropped that POS for the Honda Civic I drive today, which I love. Unfortunately, the old car wasn't fully paid off, and the value was nowhere near what I owed. Also, my credit history still wasn't great, despite paying down a car loan in that time. I was able to drop a huge down payment, though, which helped me add the cost of my old car's negative equity into the new loan.
So, in may 2006, I drove off the lot with a new car, and a slightly less ridiculous loan. I vowed to do it right this time, and since Seema isn't a crazy gold digger, and more importantly, I'm not the codependent bitch I used to be, I knew it would happen. So, I used the money from raises over the last two years, and money I'd been spending previously on old debts, and put that shit towards my car. I paid 4 months worth of payments a month when I could, which was often. It served me well.
As of this week, I fully own my car. No bank can take that shit away from me. I am proud, and need to celebrate when I can.
~EEE~