Never Thought I Would Care About the Dow!

Seriously. I think an old person has taken over my body. Last night I got home about 6:30 and I turned on the news but had it on mute while I had a very lengthy phone call with Sam in Sydney. Out of the corner of my eye I saw people reporting from Wall Street and so I knew something was up but didn't get filled in until I checked cnn.com this morning and immediately went to my 401(k) online account. I was down almost $400 from 2 weeks ago! Bastards! I know this is probably a good time to buy some stock but I had another epiphany today and it blew my mind and is now my primary financial focus.



I have a HELOC which I took out primarily to pay off my student loans because frankly making payments to someone named "Sallie Mae" disgusted me. "Sallie Mae" should hug you when you cry and make you creamed corn and country sausage and biscuits with red eye gravy, not take your money and screw you. Also not being able to deduct the interest disgusted me. Last night I started thinking ahead about debt payoff and so this afternoon I pulled out the last statement and found this ARM had "suddenly" gone to 10.25%! When I was in Japan, since this lender has no online payment option (SHAME ON YOU M&I BANK OF MILWAUKEE!) I set up automatic withdrawals so I would not default. I hate automatic payments because I prefer to be in charge but when one does business with a lender who in 2007 still keeps handwritten ledger books what can you do? Anyway, I realize even though the interest on this account is deductible I am no longer going to be passive about it. I have a firm plan to pay off some 0% interest accounts (promotional rate) before the end of the year and will then become extremely aggressive on this account. If I can do this I maybe can get it under control in two years.

I so encourage everyone to go over your finances with a magnifying glass at least once a year. You will be amazed at what you find out and will have the opportunity to re-evaluate your situation.