Credit Card-Necessary Evil or Necessary Tool

So as I look back, I see numerous errors I have made with my credit card, here are just a few:

• Purchase my Spring Break Cancun on my C.C.(this doesn't mean Country Club)
• Do balance transfers with the hope to pay off the bill before interest rate goes up, while still buying stuff on my C.C.
• Living off my C.C
• Not keeping track of what I actually spend

Trust me the list could go on, but this hits some pretty major violations on what credit card companies want you to do.  I have since paid off my credit cards, with the help of my wife and have begin using my credit card as a tool.  There are many things I don't like about using a credit card, but I have decided to stick by these 3 major rules:

1. Keep track of what I am spending
2. Make sure I have enough money in my checking/savings to pay the bill by the due date
3. Be very careful, remember how much I dislike Citibank I do not want to give them any money ever

So just recently I went through and put together a spreadsheet on what I spent(We are using the card for Housing expenses only with one exception of our most recent Hawaii Trip).  I noticed that per our savings we are able to cover the entire balance.  So I followed Rule 1 and 2 with paying extra attention to Rule 3.  Now we do need to be very careful because the card was intended to be used for house purchases only, so if there was a Rule #4 I would have violated it.  I did however follow all the rules and know that the balance can be covered. 

The lesson I take out of this is I want to not use my Credit Card ever again and it may be possible in the near future, but as of right now I am treating it like both a Tool and Evil, if I do use a credit card in the future it must be this way!

Owning a Home-Weekend at the Home Depot aka More Work

As my weekend winds down, which means me laying on the couch watching some shows online, I realize my life has been taken over by the Home Depot!  I guess it's not so bad, plus this is what we want, to have our home look nicer and do it  at a low cost by doing it ourselves.

We woke up Saturday morning with the plan of buying some doors for the house, just the major exterior doors.  I figured about $200 each  for the side exterior doors, which had an ugly color and needed new locks and the front door in between $300 and $400 for a nice wood door.  All of this would be installed by none other than D & G Construction(Donovan and Garcia or me and the wife).  So $800 worth of doors sounded a little crazy to me, so we looked over the doors and decided that they were in decent working condition, just needed some help to make them "PoP" or by my definition have them be noticed.

So we could paint the side doors and install some new door handles and they should be good to go, sounds easy, ha ha I laugh at that statement.  So after some help from the Home Depot and some brushes, paint, locks, we were in on the side doors for about $50 total.  That's a savings of about $350!  Read that again, we had working doors and we needed some paint and some locks and we have a fresh new look.  My wife gets 99% of the credit on painting and the locks.  The color next to it is what it looked like, we still plan to update the trim, but we are heading in the right direction.

My project proved to be quite harder and probably a bit more expensive, but I did get an electric sander out of the deal.  My door is an old door that needs some TLC, or whatever is greater than that.  After trying out a couple stains on the door, which should look pretty nice.  We realized that the door hates us, it took me about an hour to get the screws out of the door, to take it off the hinges.  This could be from painting of the screws about 45 years ago, maybe the screws being a little stripped, not sure, but I am sure that's sarcasm.

What did this all mean? More Home Depot visits.  Here is a list of stuff we bought to hopefully make this work.

• Deadbolt and Handles-$50
• 2 Cover plates(covering the 1945 handles that are know where to be found)-$15
• Extra long door plate to close the door(I'm new to this, I'm sure it has a real name)-$12
• Stain-$12
• Sealant-$10
• Sandpaper-$5
• Drill bit for my 12 Volt drill(this didn't work out to well BTW)-$8
• Electric Sander with Sanding paper-$56
• I'm sure there is more but that's the bulk of it

So this is just an estimate, but about $175, which means another savings of about $225!  I'm gonna take it. 

Now I learned a lesson that apparently I did not in 6th grade Tech Ed class, thanks Mr. Larson, but if you are stripping the paint from a door, don't do it by hand or with your battery operated drill.  But I made some headway and I'm about 75% done with the sanding I want to get done.  The inside of the door frames is what the original color looks like.  Take a look, not bad.  So this is how some of my Saturday and Sunday were spent.  I'm hoping to finish up the sanding and staining by Tuesday and have this door hung and ready by the end of the week.

A Day at the Gym

So I had big plans of waking up early and heading to the gym close by my work so I could workout and go for a swim. Well since I stayed up a little late the alarm clock and I did not agree it was time to wake up. However I did go to the gym with limited time and did a complete workout, swimming will be after work:) Did I really just do a smiley face, I’m rethinking my sexuality after that, but I digress.

So I had less time to workout so I switched up. I decided to combine exercises to give myself less rest time this way getting done faster. Just remember to lower your usual weight so you can get through both exercises. Here is an example of what I did 8 To Be Great Of Course:

Incline Press>Bicep Curl

Lat Pulldown>Tricep Press

Pylo StepUps>Shoulder Press (with Kettleballs, I love those things)

Pylo Jumps>Ab wheel (Pylo with Kettleballs)

I was able to get my workout done in less than 45 minutes and that includes a warm-up and stretch. Also a couple last pieces of information do not leave ice on a leather couch overnight your girlfriend will despise you for at least a week(general estimate of course) and I lost 3.5 pounds this week. So I am getting closer to that 225 pound goal where I want to be. Stay Consistent with Steven Donovan.

Back to Basics

So I have been going at my diet and exercise for either 5 or 6 weeks and have a weigh-in on Wednesday(I skipped last week's weigh-in so it's 2 weeks worth). But what I have noticed is after the initial weight loss or the initial portion control we slowly go back to our old ways. Now I have done a great job of keeping the workouts fresh and new switching them up every 3rd workout, ie incline dumbbell press Mon and Wed, then Fri and Mon I will do side crawl push ups. I do this with every exercise, so nothing gets stale or old, why not switch it up with my diet and tracking of my meal plan?

So I have decided to get back to basics and switch things up. I was tracking my daily food and exercise and things I would accomplish during the day and then I started missing a day here or there and now I'm not even carrying it around. That is why I'm losing a pound and not 5 pounds, my mind and body have gone back to my old way of life. You have to have a lifestyle change when you change something that you do everyday.

So my major changes will be:

> Writing everything down in my journal

> Blogging more about finance and fitness so I stay motivated.

> Keeping my diet strong for the whole week with portion and measurement control

When I weigh in tomorrow I hope I will have lost weight at least a couple pounds, but if not I will truly get back to basics and start off with that 5 pound weight loss like I had in week 1. Steven Donovan working hard.