The Hustle of Sistah Ant

competing priorities

From this month’s Net Worth Update: “I did OK, I guess. It’s home improvement season, so I’m not sure how much progress I’ll be making in the coming months. We got some landscaping done (paid in full up front), and we bought some furniture (No money down, no interest for 12 months – we plan to [...]

hate mail

So when I got home tonight, a letter from one of the companies that has issued me one of my credit cards. Let me let you in on my credit situation: I have four credit cards. The first is my first card from college, that I got because I wanted a free candy [...]

Broke.

You know why I’m broke? Bad planning and overuse of my AMEX. If I would think farther ahead, I would realize that racking up $500 of charges that have to be paid off right before graduation season is a bad, bad thing for my cash flow. You’d think I’d have gotten better at planning [...]

uneasy

Did you ever get the feeling that it has been too long since you looked at your bank balance? I’ve been doing the no-checkbook-register thing for a few months now, and it’s really hard. I went on a short trip recently and though we had a budget, I was often thinking about whether or [...]

Let’s try this

How about I try blogging on the go with my phone? This may make it easier to come back…

pleasant surprise

I updated my net worth (with a few minor details yet-to-be-updated, like the big reduction in my student loan amount and the actual amount of my stocks’ value) and lo and behold, there was a $6,000 net worth increase sitting there staring me in the face! Wow. Praise God! This progress, despite my newest material acquisitions [...]

y’all just don’t know

I’m doing better than I was. I should finally be out of credit card debt, AGAIN, by the end of this month. I’ve done the math. It was hard – there’s my account, there’s the Anthill account, there’s the W4 filing, saving for the wedding – all of that has to be coordinated. It took [...]

making progress

Newsflash: I don’t have to get everything done in one day. Just a tiny bit everyday is better than a whole lot all in one day. My checkbook is balanced. The household online bill pay is mostly set up. The little details are starting to come together, and when I get them out of the [...]

management

So… I haven’t done anything but spend money since my last few posts. No budget, no checkbook balancing, nothing. I’ve been so busy! This is going to be harder than I thought… Apparently time management is as important to money management as money management. I have to make the time to manage the money, or it’s just [...]

glad to be able to give

I gave to the Haiti relief effort. I hope you give too. I tried giving by text – “Haiti” to 90999 – to the American Red Cross. Seems to have worked just fine. You can give more than once, if you want. I find that I have the best of intentions sometimes, but life distracts [...]