The "Get Out Of Your Car!" Fund

Sunday, March 22, 2015

cleaning up credit reports

Two days ago at Kenya's house I had vegetarian meatloaf, cabbage, couscous, and cake with tangerine mango juice. I love her home-cooked meals! All week I eat cold store-bought food (like cereal and fruit cups) or fast food.

I'm participating in Budgetnista's Live Richer Challenge (Kenya introduced me to it). Sign up here.

Every day the Budgetnista talks about a new task to do to improve your finances. I have not found it very helpful because I started this journey about 18 months ago and have done everything she is suggested to do already. However, this week she focuses on improving your credit.

Dave Ramsey doesn't focus on credit building since that's a resource used by people who plan to be in debt (I know some people need it for jobs, too, but most of us don't). Some people need it for renting an apartment, but my poor credit scores (less than 620) have not kept me from renting in the past. So, I haven't been concerned about my credit score.

But, just to humor Budgnetista, I decided to go ahead and order my credit reports and work on cleaning them up.

I get my credit scores through the Discover It Card because Discover updates my credit score every 3 months. It was 619 one year ago before I paid off the credit cards and it was 629 today. By getting rid of debt, I have improved my credit score without even trying.

Sandwiches heated on engine block


I made sandwiches in my car. I heated separate ingredients on the engine block of my car, then assembled the sandwich in my car. Takes about 10 minutes to heat when the engine is very hot.

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Post almost a year late

5-6-14

Aunt Theo came over recently and saw my new room. I slipped and almost gave myself away. I told her I've been here since September, but then I told her Jasmine's mother-in-law came to visit in October and that this is her room when she visits. Oops! So, where did I sleep in October when the mother-in--law was visiting??? Well, Aunt Theo didn't ask.

My tenant is moving out, so I'll lose that income. More importantly, I don't want to lose her friendship. I appreciate her being there for me. She and her aunt gave me a place to stay one night so I wouldn't be in my car, then they went looking for me one night when it was really cold. (I was in Jasmine's house that night).

Without that rent, I have to take another look at snowballing my debt, but it's all good. I'm still way ahead of where I thought I'd be back in September.

I guess I'll move back into the condo, but Jasmine assures me that there is no need to rush out.

I haven't diligently been working on summer employment. That's strange for me. I hope I'm not slacking up.

Lately, I've been thinking about how to support my parents in their golden years and the best ways to invest money. I've been researching the stock market again as well as considering investing in real estate, but this time as a lender first. I want to save up the money for my next house and buy a really decent house and not the cheapest thing I can find. I want to have money going in - not trying to do the no money down, use OPP method. Tried that, now I'm past that.


Car productivity on a snow day



Thursday, Mar 5

Today is another super snowy day. School is cancelled and will probably be cancelled tomorrow, too. So that makes it a four-day weekend. Ihad not planned for that. Four days in a hotel is too much. Idid it last time because Ineeded the leectricity to do a project.

So, today Imade myself productive by adding oil and colant to my car (it was smoking last night, and Ican't afford for it to catch fire - this is my home). I bought some household supplies, made some business calls, empited the mailbox (Icheck it about once a month), showered (haven't done this in about 2 weeks, so that felt good).

I also made myself eat home-cooked food instead of eating out. I'm really trying not to buy fsat food, but to stick to the food envelope. Iran some errands although the streets are horrible. It's not the best thing to do with the streets looking like they do, but there's not much eslse Ican  do.

I've spent some serious time reading Think and Grow Rich, so that was productive.

That's waht Idid on this snow day.

snow day Musings about safety

Sunday, Mar 1

It's been raining and sleeting all day. Since the roads are bad ,I chose to not travel around much, so I've spent all day in my car in a grocery store parking lot. I've gotten out twice so far to buy groceries. I made sandwiches and heated them on the engine block. They were delicisou! I also heated frozen veggies (a vairety I have never tried before). They were pretty bad. 

This is my last month in the car. I need to get into an apartement some time in April. In warm weather car creimes increase, people hang around outside longer increasing the chanes of me being discovered, and it's too hto at night to sleep comfortably.


On the news, there is a guy who was charged with randomly shooting people. He's a former police officer going through a divorce. He said voices in his head told him to shoot randome people. He injured a 60-year old.

The #1 fear Ihvae of sleeping in my car is a mentally ill homeless person. It's not about someone trying to rob my car to steal something - they don't necessarily have murder on their minds. A homeless person thinking about hearing voices or sees me sleeping and think I'm the government spying on him. My biggest fear is that one of them will see me in my car and do something crazy.

Fears of getting arrested are way, way at the bottom of my list. At lesast officers are not out to get me. They may have a bad attitude but not necessarly crazy. 

Ihave made good use of today. I'm reading Think and Grow Rich and researching investing in Hud homes. I also caught up on the Live Richer Challenge which my friend invited me to join. We are accoutnablility parneres and we shared our goals yesterdya. Ihave to remember to ask her if she acted on her goals this week. 

 also on