Borrowing Costs: May 2008(-$105.07, YTD -$596.14)
I have come to the realization that these posts about obscure details of our family’s personal finances are not very high yield.
They take time to organize, time to post and they are definitely overkill when we don’t have anything interesting to report with our finances.
But.. we are already halfway finished with 2008 so I’ll keep it up for this year.
Here is the data for the month ending May 2008:
The only extra charge in May was an unexpected yearly fee for a credit card.
The good news is that this meant that we were doing OK at containing our costs of borrowing money. I did drop the ball earlier this month when I let my largest balance transfer expire. That $557 charge will double the interest we have paid so far this year.
Awareness has been our biggest asset.
We are lucky that we have developed an awareness of how much any debt costs before we managed to accumulate any more debt than we currently have.
As a young professional, I am in a stage of life where many of my friends and family have begun accumulating the large sums of debt that they will be repaying for many years. Clothing, cars, furniture, and electronics are everywhere and most of these things are being bought with future earnings.
Items normally bought by prior generations in their prime earning years are being bought by our peers, setting an unrealistic example of what our standard of living should be.
The problem is that future earnings are theoretical while debt incurred is a reality. I believe that our view of the future may not be based on the economic reality that currently exists.
We will continue to show some restraint while safe, simple investing will be our path to success.
