Monday, October 21, 2024

 Monday - early

I've been thinking a lot about finances and it just doesn't make sense to me.  I've got all of this credit card debt. I've been waiting for interest rates to come down to take out a loan to just pay all of it and have an end date probably 5 years down the road.   That's a long time.  And I don't know if/when rates are going to come down enough to make it worth it to take out yet another loan.

So what then.  Well I'm going back and forth in my mind about expanding the business in some direction and now just saying screw all of that and start focusing on paying down debt. Something along the lines of fix the driveway, be done with it and leave everything as is and focus on reducing my eating out and other things that can be at least temporarily eliminated, send that money to the CC companies and start getting my finances in order.  

I mean, I know the park isn't full and I don't know if/when it will fill back up, but in reality, I've got it pretty good right now.  I've got monthly expenses associated with the park, yes: electricity, water, trash, septic inspection, wifi, phone and a few other minor expenses. The only real expense in all of that is the electric and that is going to come way down now that we're entering a period of lower temps.  

In fact, if I shut all of that off and just said screw it, no RV park - it's all paid for I don't owe anything on any of it - I would be left with a $440 per month payment on 25 acres of land.  

I'm really thinking to shift my focus to getting rid of this debt and then, I won't be in such a position of financial slavery on cc companies to ..........

___________

13 hours later.  Got distracted, got busy getting ready to leave and that was that.  I was back by 11:45 am.  It took them longer than normal to load so I'm assuming it's going to take longer to offload.  I'm setting my alarm for 5:20 am, if I wake up earlier, I'll just get up and go.  Get it over with and have the rest of the day to do whatever I need or want to. 

I was on this thing about paying down credit card debt and I think it's an actionable plan, a very good goal and get started it on it as sson as possible instead of waiting for interest rates to come down. Which means significantly cutting back on recreational type of expenses.  It's mostly eating out stuff of which I had already been cutting back on.  But now, it would be cutting back to maybe my Sunday outing with the boys at Applebee's and that only on weekends when I am free to go to church.   I would like to try to pay down $400 per month, it may be too much tho.

The plan is Ramsay's, I think that's his idea anyway. Where you take the card with the lowest amount on it, pay it down, then start on the next one, and paying it down plus the payment on the previous card and so on and so forth.  If I could get out of this credit card debt I would have so much more money freed up every month.  And less worries.  

But who knows. Right now I"m so far out of whack with having had 2 weeks off with the severe pains that hit my body and then 9 days off with this vacation - it wasn't supposed to be that long but a load was cancelled giving me 3 more days off.  Take a while to make a comeback from that much time off.  And I still have 6 open lots; I'm getting some interest, people are contacting me about lots for long term but so far, none of them have shown up.

But, I have gotten over the exasperation of not getting any new people in. They'll come sooner or later, I hope they do anyway, but stressing over it is a useless waste of internal energy and mental resources.  I've got the ads running, the free ones anyway I stopped running pay ads for they weren't coming up with any results.  I have thought about posting a Google ad, they're a lot more expensive but it might be worth a try. I just hate seeing the park almost half empty and just staying that way.  

I dont really think a hot tub is going to bring that many people in.  It might, I can't say for sure it won't, but I am not going to spend a lot of money on it if I do go that route. There are some cheap ones available, just long drives to get to them.  One of them is near Dallas and I'm considering it.  I asked them if they had people that could help load it on to a trailer, I can't expect to take people with me for that far of a drive. It's a 2 hour and 20 minute drive each way.  I hate to go that far, tho, and then find out the people aren't home, don't have the people there to load it, whatever.  

Actually, there was a very cheap hot tub nearby, it was put up and sold in 10 minutes time.  And another that was close, they had it up for an hour and updated the post saying that 30 people were already waiting in line. It's one of those things where you just have to keep checking and hopefully hit it at just the right time when someone posts a deal like that. 

Dallas is full of them, cheap prices on good units.  People just get rid of them.  

No, the real answer, if there is one, is covered parking.  It's not just for the heat of the summer, it keeps the rain off the roof and keeps the sun from weathering it.  This is beneficial to owners of RVs for that is the most vulnerable part of any RV.  If you don't have a good roof, the rest of the thing is going to slowly fall apart.  

You wouldn't believe how much thought I've put into all of this.  And research. And more thought. And more searching. If I wanted to prioritize, it's fix the driveway and put up covered parking spots.  This park host kid told me today he would help me.  Okkkaaaayyyyy.  I don't really believe anything he says, especially if he's offering to help with anything.  

Anyway, it's getting late and I am getting up early. 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good that you focused on eating out as a money saving device. When money was tight for me, as it was for a good deal of my mid-life, it was the first thing to go. Now when we occasionally DO eat out, I am STUNNED by not only the cost but the appalling deterioration in service.
As for being in debt, you have much company. I saw a headline yesterday (recently I am trying NOT to read most so-called "news") that the world debt is one hundred TRILLION dollars. Incomprehensible. When it was US debt in the billions, I computed the cash would fill a train of boxcars with hundred dollar bills that stretched across the country...and back! Or I think I remember it would paper the entire state of Delaware with five dollar bills.

BenB said...

Yes eating out is a luxury. It isn't a necessity. We plan a week's menu in advance and they go grocery shopping once a week for it. It was too easy to just eat out all the time, but as you have stated, it's pretty expensive depending on where you go and what you are eating. Do it enough times per month and you have a significant expense that simply needs to come way down. I saw that there is a large number of Americans in credit card debt right now as people are using cards to pay for groceries and monthly bills. I didn't use it for that - well I did a couple time at the phoenix house - but a lot of it was finishing the park out. I neither regret it or hate myself for it, it is what it is, now I need to figure out how to get it paid off as quickly as possible and move forward.

BenB said...

And as for service, definitely there are places that just can't find good help anymore and they take whoever they can find. That all started with Covid and people not wanting to come back to work after the government said, oh gee, we are giving you permission to work now. They spoiled a lot of people's minds with the free money and now we are paying for it, especially in the hospitality/service industries.

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