I was watching TV this morning on my huge HD flat screen TV that I purchased with my credit card and a commercial came on about a guy buying a huge HD flat screen TV. The sales guy was giving him the hard sell about football season coming and how amazing it would be to watch it on this TV. The guy says "I'll take it" when suddenly another guy with a pig face reaches out and smacks his hand. The TV buying guy looks stunned, then says, "You're right, I don't need it" while the sales guy glares at the pig-guy. It was a commercial for http://www.feedthepig.org which is apparently a "national public service campaign from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and The Advertising Council." I'm not sure what the angle of the CPA's is, if any other than altruistic but the site looks like it has some good info and tools. Anyways, the commercial made me feel stupid for buying my TV so it worked. Oh well. I do like my TV though.
Anyways, I was playing around with this website's debt payoff calculator and was pleased to discover that, after plugging in my own numbers, their calculations for my debt free day matched the ones I created in my budget spreadsheet down to the month. :-) That's cool. Now I know my budget calculations work.
So, what is my debt free day? Well, if I put 1/4 of my credit card payments towards my emergency fund like I said I was going to and follow my budget religiously, I will make my final credit card payment on August 10, 2009.
If I don't put any money towards my emergency fund and give it all to my credit cards my debt free day is Feb. 10, 2009.
If I move out of my rental and live in my car, I'll pay off my credit cards on August 10 this year. Heh heh. Not gonna happen. Interesting thought though. I've known some people who have done this to save money. There was this guy in college who paid my neighbors $20 a month to park his pickup and trailer on the side of their house all year and the right of bathroom/shower privileges. With rents around $400 a room, my guess is he saved about about $3,420.
I heard stories about an engineer at one of my old high tech companies who lived in a motor home that he moved around every couple of days. With 2 bedroom apartments going for around $1,200, That's a savings of $14,400 a year.
Well, time to head out a fun filed day of not spending any money. I think I'll go for a hike.
Debt free day: 08/10/09
February 10th, 2008 at 05:57 pm
February 10th, 2008 at 06:21 pm 1202667716
Anyway, I thought the pig was a little creepy and haven't seen much yet (there are s'posed to be some PSAs - probably what you saw).
Nice to know it helped!
February 10th, 2008 at 11:06 pm 1202684792
I will check out the webiste.
February 11th, 2008 at 12:21 am 1202689283
February 18th, 2008 at 05:46 am 1203313581