A Bagua Map, used in Feng Shui to determine what sectors of your home are affecting which areas of your life.
I love Feng Shui! Truly, I feel there is something to be said for stagnant energy, moving energy, positive energy, negative energy... what are we afterall... as souls, if not energy!?
I know, deep... but stay with me!
You ever notice how rearranging your furniture, or clearing a pile of clutter... emptying your inbox, whatever it is... it shifts your mood, your perspective and often times the energy in a space and/or a person!
Well, that is the very idea of Feng Shui.
Creating a positive space with free flowing energy.
I am very much aware of this concept and yet I struggle to keep up on all forms of clutter in my life, be it physical, emotional, psychological, financial... it all gets cluttered! I dread clearing it, even though I know I'll feel better once I do. Kind of like working out... feel good when I do it, but dread it when it's been too long since I last worked out!
All this to say that sometimes you can take the same "stuff" and move it around, you haven't gotten rid of it at all, but just that simple task of moving it creates available resources, space and energy.
Case in point. Our Credit Card Debt.
If we had continued to live in our home in Illinois, paying more on our home than it was worth... literally we were losing per month 3X what our payment was... where else in life would you voluntarily throw money away? And so why were we here? It's not like it was our dream home, it was a starter home! So you can't keep doing what you've always done and expect a different result! And with as much debt as we have, we couldn't make small moves and expect to get anywhere quickly! So, our first major move was Jeff, my husband finding a better job! The next major move, was literally moving... down here to Texas... where we were able to get the same quality of life, a single family home with the same square footage... and by the skin of our nose qualify on it as a second home! Because the cost of living is so much lower here and the economy strong... we were able to cut our mortgage to nearly half of what it was freeing an additional $800 per month! Now the $800 in free money quickly turned into $400... since my husband had to buy a new car with a higher monthly payment... and insurance is twice here what we paid in IL.... but still, an extra $400 for sacrificing nothing.... (other than my sanity temporarily while moving across country) is pretty good!
I called my credit card company to see what they could do about lowering my interest rate.
It's 14% and I thought that if I could get it lower than I could pay more towards the principal of my balance. Well, they offered me 12% but I would have to close my card and it would only save me $8/month.
Ummm, not really worth it. They justified their 14% rate, saying it's actually a really good rate.
Maybe it is, I don't know... but my goal is always to pay less in interest. She suggested that I make an appointment with a Debt Specialist at a company they work with that can actually negotiate a lower rate for me... all of which was free of charge to me, so I figured... why not?
I came to my appointment prepared with paperwork and a list of questions. It quickly became clear to me that this man (respectfully) knew very little beyond credit card debt and negotiating rates. I believe that is all they do?!
But I wanted to discuss our home in Illinois and whether we should be short selling, doing a Deed in Lieu, or just claiming Bankruptcy and wiping all our debt out in one full swoop?! He couldn't answer any of my questions about real estate and in fact, it appeared that through my interactions with my parents who are knowledgeable in real estate that I was able to educate him on a few things.
For example, he suggested we just rent out our home in Illinois. I pointed out that it would cost us an additional $300/ month to rent it since we can't rent it for what we owe on it per month. And also, we would no longer be eligable to walk away with out paying out of pocket or paying taxes on the write off of the short sell, if we received a form of income on the home. Also, the bank wouldn't even discuss short sell or otherwise with us until we were 3 months past due on our loan.
In the end, he said he couldn't negotiate much better than I could on the rate and that it wouldn't be worth their $50 fee to do it. So I got pretty much no where and learned nothing from the meeting.
BUT, I did get him to do a soft pull on my credit where I was able to see that our new home we purchased here in Texas, hasn't hit my credit report yet... therefore, my credit rating was much higher than I was expecting it to be!
Armed with this nugget of information... I began applying for 0% Interest rate cards for 18 months on balance transfers and was approved for one with Chase and one with Citi Cards, transfering $10,000 off of a 14% Interest rate card to 0% Interest until July of next year.
SO, these two big moves... one across country freeing up $400/month and transfering balances to free up $204/month... it didn't get rid of any of our debt (financial clutter)... but just that simple task of moving this stagnant, costly, financial energy around.... changed the energy to positive and freed up $604 a month that we were paying in interest that we can now apply towards our principal! Tadaaaa!
Positive Financial Chi!
I also hung 3 Chinese coins at equal distance apart on red ribbon on the back of the door in the financial sector of our home according to my Bagua... and in turn, Jeff received a promotion and a raise! Coincidence? I think not! ;)
So taxes are due here in a few days and we still haven't filed our return, tomorrow for sure!
Eight grand of our tax return will go to paying back my Mom for the loan she gave us to buy this house here in Texas. I'm not expecting much left over beyond 8 grand.
Then we'll be paying between $800 minimum and $1100 / month towards our debt, depending on what we can afford each month. In addition, my husbands quarterly bonuses.... with the exception of $500 of it will go entirely towards our debt.
With these calculations... as long as he makes all of his bonus's for the next year.
As long as we don't grow weak and purchase a Golf Club Membership, expensive watches or an I Phone S5 etc... (ehemmm, Jeff) :)
And as long as we have no major unforeseen job losses or medical emergency's (please Lord, NO!)
THEN, we should be completely rid of the $39,000 in remaining debt we have currently by around this time next year! Then we can take all that extra money we were putting towards our debt and begin building our nest egg again... and maybe even purchase that Golf Club memebership, I-Phone S5... whatever... it just wont be on CREDIT, ever, never again!
