At any rate, I am officially over getting late fees and overdrafts, and think I have a handle on things. It is tempting to not go back to spending a ton of money everywhere, but I’m still motivated. My only real difficulty is eating meals prepared at home, instead of going out. August will be my month to really work on that. I’m also excited because September 1 I’m going to make the call to all my creditors asking if I can have a rate decrease. Hopefully that will jump start my process. I decided to wait a few months to do that so I could make payments on time more often and decrease my balances, to show good faith so they will hopefully be a bit nicer.

I’m not feeling too bad even though I have more debt to deal with. I made some extra payments towards my higher-interest accounts, and I have two side jobs that may be bringing in extra income this time around. I have a solid budget I stick to well, and have really worked on all the psychological aspects of why I got myself into so much trouble. I start back to school in a month, and feel like I’ll have much less stress this time around, since I have a handle on other areas of my life.

So, my plan for August is to really work on eating at home and brown-bagging my lunch. In addition, I hope to collect another $200 in an emergency fund, and put an extra $100 towards my higher interest debt. In addition, I have a few more light bulbs to replace with CFLs, and maybe that will help the power drain. I feel like I’m in a good position, and well suited to finish this by the end of 2008.

So, let’s look at my current state. I began June with $8,486.40 in credit card debt, and ended with $8,680.16! What?! It really surprised me that since I have made all my payments on time, my balance would be higher. Totally unintuitive. However, I reviewed all my statements, did some math, and determined that there are 4-5 late fees from May that did not post until June’s statement, increasing my balance more than the minimums I payed off. Plus, I made no “extra” payments this month, choosing to get into a better payment routine over making more payments.

However, my biggest goal for June was to pay no bank fees, no overdrafts, no NSF fees. In this goal, I did wonderful, except for May’s credit card late fees seeping through to my balances. I had no overdrafts, even at the expense of digging deep into my pantry to avoid overspending. Not only that, but I have ended the month with $200 in my bank account to put towards July. It is my goal to carry a revolving balance of $500 before I make considerable extra payments to debt, because I need an extra $200 for the first half of the month anyway, and this can double as both a cushion to keep overdraft away, as well as an “extreme emergency” fund. Once I pay off some higher debt, I want to get a legitimate emergency fund going with a few thousand dollars, but until then I just need something in case my car’s water pump goes out, or something.

Overall, I think June was satisfactory, but I admit I was expecting that CC balance to start dropping. It makes me a bit disappointed I didn’t catch the late fees ahead of time. I am happy with my mental progress, as well as making better spending habits. And I am realizing this is going to be difficult work, not as easy as I expected initially.

My goals for July are simple. First and foremost, I am to maintain the lack of overdrafts and avoid all late fees from CCs too. I will be setting up automatic payment plans either with the CC or my bank. I hope to end the month with at least $500 in my account. Anything over that amount will be used in August to pay off more debt. In addition, I have a goal to do at least one or two side jobs for extra money. I will decrease yet again the amount of times I eat out (currently dropped 50%, plan to drop another 50% from last month). And most of all, I will continue to explore the areas in my mind that have a messed up view of money, and try to correct them. To top it off, I will encourage my friends who are also trying to become debt free and help them along the journey. July’s going to be a great month!