Stays at home and beats back death, or debt, you decide

(title is lifted from Ben Folds "Where's Summer B")

We have a nice amount of money in our checking account for the first time in our entire relationship. For a lot of people, it is not a lot of money, I'm sure. But for us, it is pretty great. 

Since the pandemic came, we haven't traveled. We haven't had fun. We (ahem, I) have not bought concert tickets, paid for hotel rooms, dinners, bought all the drinks at the bar for 20 friends in NYC (yes I did, annnnnnnnnd it was expensive), not for a good long damn while. Not being a drunken octopus (which is my sister's nickname) helps not spend your money. 

While having zero fun is a down right drag, it's nice to have some cash.

Sidebar story: I had a dream recently where Doug and I went look at a condo that we were going to be renting, and the husband in the couple was Doug's boss (not in real life now currently for real). 

It was on a pier in a super hip and active seaside town. Maybe like Astoria, Oregon or something. The building had four units, it was humongous, and used to be a warehouse or cannery or something. It had been rehabbed to the studs, soundproof/weatherproof/waterproof giant windows with shades inside the window that you could move up or down.  Rough, worn wooden wide pine floors that were completely refinished, rehabbed, sealed and shiny. Exposed brick, rusty beams and pulleys for doors to rooms and pantry enclosures, but they glided silently and perfectly. Bookstore style floor to ceiling (12 ft) shelving with a ladder that glided along just like the doors. It had amazing skylights, and a beautiful gourmet kitchen with indoor gas grill, huge patio off the back on the second floor. It was very exciting and beautiful and everything I'd love to have in a place to live on the ocean.

We were signing the paperwork and the wife said "okay go in there and start boxing up our things, and you'll be moving the couch to the elevator and ..." She was giving us orders like we were the moving company. 

I looked at Doug and said "wait a second, we have to do the move too? Don't they have enough money to hire movers? We are hiring movers? Why aren't they hiring movers?" 

She heard me and turned around and said "oh honey, how do you think I got rich? It wasn't by paying for moving companies to move my things! Now go over here and wrap all these dishes. You can do the kitchen." 

How do you think I got rich. Huh. 

By not spending any money at all, being frugal, and sitting on anything you have. No buying rounds for all the friends at the NYC bar after a Guster rain out. 

So this past year, I guess that's been us. Only we did pay movers, but I packed our stuff.  (Still would have loved to move into this imaginary wharf warehouse thing. I think about the place often. Maybe it exists. It was that real in my dream. Well. Maybe someday). Sidebar story complete

Looking at our bank balances, it is nice to know we can afford to get some of the things we really need to upgrade. 

We need:

• A nice new sofa/sectional situation in the living room. We got a free Ikea couch from a co-worker when we bought his bed (also Ikea) when he moved to Spain. No one wanted the couch so he told us to just take it. I insisted on giving him money. It's the nicest couch we've ever had.
• A patio set instead of just camp chairs and a weird little wicker table thing Doug found while out for a walk when we lived in Massachusetts. It was in someone's trash.  But my patio dreams may have to wait until after the invasion of the Cicadas.  More on that later, I'm sure.
• A new bed. Our box spring/platform sucks and we've slept the hell out of this Tempurpedic over the last 20 +years. I would kind of like a king sized bed, but we should stick with a queen because the chances are it'll fit into more bedrooms in the future. But a king would fit into my fantasy condo.
• Other stuff and junk to make Chrissie happy. I have a stack of things to frame, I need pants.You know. The usual day-to-day living things.
• eventual travel maybe. Someday.

We have one credit card. 

We have had this solitary soldier for years. Right around the time we were about to lose the house, I rolled everything into this one particular credit card after trying to get rates lowered on like 3 others that we had. And they refused.  So I called this bank, asked if they could raise our limit, told them my plan to consolidate all my debt onto one card, and they gave me a really high credit limit in case I had to spend some money. They lowered my interest rate, and let me do what I felt I needed to do. 

I said kiss my ass to CitiBank, Discover, a BOA card, paid off those balances with the transfer from this bank, and started a journey to just pay shit off. That was 2008. I thought it was going to go much faster, but things happened, setbacks occured, and we did our best.

I had gotten it down to about 9k in 2017. I was on track to pay it all off, right up until Doug got laid off from his first job down here. We slowly ran that up again. Not all the way to the limit, but it was used. 

Gotta buy groceries, put gas in the car, feed that boy...all that happy horseshit. 

After his layoff, he worked for a while doing healthcare record audits, so they sent him all over the place. The only problem with that job was he had to buy all of his tickets, hotel, everything on his own dime and then get reimbursed. Doug would get his reimbursement for the trip, book the next trip with the card, we'd keep the money it in the Checking account for groceries and all that, and pay the minimum due on the credit card. Because the Credit card was the only thing hotels or rental cars would accept, he couldn't use the bank card we'd been using which was attached to our checking account. 

Things were balance and equilibrium, steady on, and then Doug got his job that he has now. Finances started to get better. We'd have 5-7k in the bank at a stretch. Hell yeah. We bought a car with cash, (not a lot -3k) because Doug refuses to get a car loan anywhere. "No bank is going to make a penny of interest off of me" says the man who got financially ruined by A Certain Bank. 

And I have to agree. 

We'd go to Massachusetts or New York. We would comfortably order dinner and not worry. Guster Tickets and the like. And I was happy with 5k in the bank, but realizing if he got laid off again, or if I got laid off, we'd start the cycle all over. 

Then the pandemic came to visit. With no travel, no fun, since December 2019 really, we've just been pulling down money. And we have been a lot healthier financially.

I have been throwing 800 bucks a month at that one credit card (minimum payment expected? 350.00.... ) this last year. We are back down to about 8,000 bucks, and today while I was looking at the account and setting up the online payment, I said "why the hell should I take 10 months plus probably another month with the (relatively small) interest charges to finish paying this off? I should just do it." 

I pointed this out to Doug and he agreed. Just do it. 

It felt wild to do, but, I paid it off almost in full. The system wouldn't let me pay 100% of the balance because math and computers and weekends and stuff. The payment will go through probably Monday, and then I can then pay it off in full the following day. 

And for the first time since about 1987 when I got my first credit card through BayBank in college (and I bought a scarf and an , I will have no credit card debt at all. Read that again. None. Zilch. Nada. Zero. Done. 

That 800 a month I've been throwing there I can shift into a savings account. I can just let it all pile up like Daffy Duck and I can scream I'm rich! I'm comfortably well off! 

I'll be reaching out to my local bank to set up that savings account next week. 

It's a nice feeling to not have to think about this like I have had to for so long.