"And Alexander wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer"

[jamethiel]

(Yes, I do realise that's the most pretentious subject line ever. Moving on)

I am in an unusual position at the moment. I am two months away from getting out of credit card debt. Easily, with no extra repayments beyond what I'd already budgeted for. My other short-term goal, a yearly train ticket has been achieved. It's sitting in my wallet right now and I've got an automatic debit into an account that I can't touch that empties once a year so I've got next year's ticket set up.

What do I do now?.

I do have longterm goals. Of course I do. But the thing with longterm goals is that I can't concentrate on them too much or I go crazy. They're so far away! My short-term goals are finished, my medium term goals are now short-term goals and they're either achieved or a blink away from being achieved.

I do have another medium-term goal which I'm going to start--building a cushion of three months salary as savings. I think I can make progress on that but it's going to take a while. I could break that down into smaller goals and then look into places where I can shove the money so I can't touch it? Term deposit or the like? Does anyone have any suggestions?

I suppose I could start saving for a computer as I think my laptop is getting to the end of its life? I might also set aside a small amount of money for a celebration of some sort, only I've retrained my brain to such an extent that I don't really WANT anything. Maybe I should save for a good suit.

I don't know! Tell me what to do!

Comments

[jamethiel]

oh my god, I NEVER thought it would happen. In August of last year, I was 3.5 GRAND in debt. To have it down to $407 and KNOW that no matter what happens it's gone in 2 months time is incredible.

That CD ladder is a good idea. They're called Term Deposits here, but the formula still applies. I think I'll do it in $1000 increments

I.. don't think the second link lead where you wanted it to. But when my internet is not playing up I will google the snowflake method.

[merrily]

Whoops! I accidentally added an extra quotation mark to the end of the link re: snowflaking. It should've gone here, to the website Get Rich Slowly. (That website has lots of great "what do I do next?" help, too.)

What I was trying to say was that the CD ladder (or Term Deposits) are a good idea AFTER you've got a comfortable liquid amount. If you're worried about your cash being somewhere that you can access [and that therefore you may break into it for non-emergencies, like pizza (not that you'd do that! ... I did, though)], try putting it into an online bank like ING Direct, where you can't directly withdraw the cash.

Anyway. Good luck!

[jamethiel]

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I'm basically dividing my spare money into three right now. One third goes into the homeloan account, and the remaining 2/3 is divided between "Computer" and "Emergency savings"

(I would totally break into my savings for pizza. Om Nom Nom Pizza)

Anyrate, once I have $1000 each in Emergency savings and computer, I keep saving. And then when I have $2000 in there, $1000 gets shoved away into a CD.

(I don't know what would come up that I would need more than $1000 but I suspect I don't want to find out)

[merrily]

Good plan! Brava!