Green Panda Treehouse

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Photo Credit: bnhsu

There are 5 Fridays in March, so I got an “extra” paycheck this month. How will I spend it?

• 54% will go towards my emergency fund/snowflake account (I’m also putting my extra car payments here)
• 18% will go to my IRA
• 14% will go for gasoline for the week
• 5% will go towards eating out (so far I’ve been under my budget this month)
• 9% left over will go towards padding my checking account

The credit union where I have my car loan isn’t budging, so I’ll send one large payment for March so the extra cash will go towards principal.

I’m going to get aggressive on killing this car loan. I’m seeing if I can work a few extra hours a week (from my home). I can do 5 of my reports from my computer at home and that would open up 4-6 hours of my office time for other projects that require my physical presence. Wish me well as I try to convince my manager next week.

 I’m also getting more focused and organized on the site. As you noticed I have some ads and will try to increase my income with them without cluttering up the site. Please give me feedback. My intention is to make this a win-win situation where we pick up helpful financial information and I’m able to eliminate my debt.

Right now the pay-off total is $5,108.97. It grows each day with interest (something like $1.76).

If you have any suggestions for paying this loan off quicker, please let me know. What debt are trying to ‘kill’ this year? What’s your strategy?

Photo Credit: Rojer

I’ve been trying to pay down my car loan faster, so I’ve been making extra payments. I use my local credit union’s online bill pay which let’s me put a memo on my ‘checks’. I write that the extra payment is supposed to all go into the principal. Apparently that is not the case. I called customer service and I was informed that I couldn’t make a payment directly towards principal.

Every payment I make goes towards the interest accrued from the last payment and the principal.  She suggested that I just put the extra money with my regular payments. I don’t want to do this for a couple reasons:

• The extra $40-50/week (snowflake money) that I save I want to immediately put it towards the loan to make sure I don’t spend it.
• I’m worried about the interest accruing between monthly payments.

I guess I’ll spend this weekend and see if I can find the cheapest route with this. I’ll being digging around Paid Twice to learn more about snowflaking.

Photo Credit:  The Consumerist

Ramit from I Will Teach You To Be Rich posted this photo with comments on ridiculous credit card offers. I decided to look into it and the two credit cards Wal-Mart offers:

Here’s the fine print:

Benefits for the Wal-Mart® Discover® are only for cards issued by GE Money Bank. Cardholders may not be eligible for benefits offered by other Discover® Network Issuers. ¹Rewards apply only to net card purchases - not to balance transfers, cash advances, quick cash advances or fees and finance charges. The reward percentages will depend on your total spending during a calendar year and will be .25% on total purchases up to $1,500, .50% on total purchases from $1,500.01 to $3,000 and 1% on total purchases over $3,000. A rebate check will be issued each time you accrue $10 in rewards. All cash rewards are provided by GE Money Bank. See “How to Earn Cash Rewards” terms in your Credit Card Agreement for details. ²Available at participating gas stations. Not available in Puerto Rico. Look for the 3¢ Discount Sign at the pump to see if the gas station in your area is participating. 3¢ off per gallon offer applies to the regular street price. ³Get up to $100 cash back when you make a purchase with your Wal-Mart Discover® or get $60 cash back when you make a purchase with your Wal-Mart Credit Card at Wal-Mart owned registers in Wal-Mart stores. Limit of one per day. This cash advance will appear on your monthly billing statement like a purchase. Subject to credit approval.

Out of these two the Discover looks to be the “better deal” (air quotes because I’m being sarcastic).The interest rates according to them are:

As of 5/07, variable APRs for the cards offering the promotion are: 12.37%, 18.37%, 21.37%, or 22.37%. Variable delinquency APR is 27.49%. Variable Cure APRs are 21.37%; 22.37%. Minimum Finance Charge $1.00.

For less than $8 I can personalize my debt trap so I can feel better when looking at my bill! I like shopping at Wal-Mart (just did my monthly groceries today), but I’m not a fan of these credit cards and the incentives.