Dear Reader: Since this is a holiday week I’m going to flip the script a bit. Instead of three articles this week, there will be two. One today and one on Wednesday. Also, I normally post my Debt Beatdown Report on Fridays, but since this week is Thanksgiving & Black Friday, I’m posting my progress on Monday (today). Enjoy!

Whew! It’s been an exhausting month. I have officially finished the pre-work I had to do before kickstarting the debt beatdown adventure. There were three areas that I needed to handle: lower my housing costs, automate expenses, and sell anything I didn’t need. Here’s how it went:

Lower Housing Costs

First, let me state that I’m never moving again. Ever. I will hire movers even if I have to sell my unborn child to pay them. Okay, that’s drastic but now you understand how I feel about moving.

This weekend we moved into our new apartment. It took thirteen hours and no, it was not fun. Neither were the two flights of stairs at our old apartment. Fortunately for our backs, our new place is on the first floor, so we managed to get all of our stuff unloaded and into our new apartment in only three hours. That might sound like a lot of time until you realize that it took us over six hours to move everything out of our old place. But being on the first floor isn’t the only benefit our new place has:

• Same layout, less space, more money saved – We downsized from a 2-bedroom to a 1-bedroom, saving $240 in monthly rent. The new place has a den that I will use as a workspace, so I still get to have an office. It’s almost the same layout as our old place, just “brought-in” about 150 square feet. Money Saved: $240 per month/ $2880 per year.

• Free furniture! – The previous tenant at our new place moved to New York and didn’t feel like hauling her heavy sofa and desk, so she left them for us to use. Why is this amazing? Besides the fact that she didn’t ask for a dime, our sofa was in serious need of being trashed replaced. We’d only had the sofa for three months before it started sagging in the middle. (World Market you have some serious explaining to do.) After the spring popped four weeks ago, I just shifted my seating preference to the other cushion, determined not to fork over any money until 2012. But deep down I knew I couldn’t put off replacing it much longer. And now we have a FREE sofa that is ten times better than our old one. It’s old and plaid, but sturdy–and I can sit on any cushion I want! She also left a great old work desk that I’ve already fallen in love with. Score! Money saved: Approximately $400 – $600 for a new sofa.

• Faster AND cheaper? I’ll take it! – When I made the call to transfer our internet service to the new apartment, I found out that our ISP, AT&T, didn’t offer DSL at the new location. I also found out that we’d been paying too much for too little, but that’s another post. AT&T offered to set us up on an alternate service, but after doing a little research, I wasn’t satisfied with the reviews for that service so I declined and canceled our contract. Comcast is the only other option at our new location. I found a promo for $29.99–11 dollars less than what we were paying AT&T–plus the speed is about 15 times faster than what we were getting with DSL. I also bought a modem instead of renting one for $7 a month and opted to set up the Internet myself instead of having a tech come out. Money saved: $66 the first six months; Modem – $78 vs $84 per year for renting one; Installation service fee – unknown.

• Small change – We will save 25% on our laundry costs by making this move. At our old place it was $2 to wash and dry one load. Here at the new spot it’s only $1.50–hey, every little bit helps! Money saved: Approximately $3/month or $36/year (assumes wash & dry two loads each, three times a month)

Automate and Eliminate Expenses

I still need to do a little investigation for this step but for the most part all of my expenses are set up to directly debit my account. After reviewing my account statements from the past 60 days, I realized that I was making too many small purchases at Amazon. It’s so easy to just click the purchase button! This month I’ve only purchased two things, including the cable modem. After I made these purchases, I immediately made a payment to my credit card in the amount of the total. By doing this, I’ve turned off the credit faucet for online purchases.

Other expenses that I needed to eliminate were my work expenditures. Although the company I work with reimburses me for them, having to put things on my personal credit card and wait for a check was not the best, or most efficient, experience. I didn’t like the idea of charging large amounts on my credit card and waiting for a reimbursement. I don’t like the idea of charging things that I don’t have the cash to pay off immediately. Fortunately with my recent promotion, I now have a company card and will be reimbursed within three days. Problem solved.

Sell Whatever I Don’t Need

My success rate on this was about 33% but I still came out ahead. After getting back from a work trip two weeks ago, I finally cleaned off my old laptop and sold it. I initially listed it for $500, then decreased it to $450. I got a call the next day from a guy who wanted to buy it for his 14-year-old daughter. When I met him, he shared with me how she had always wanted a Mac but that he couldn’t afford to buy her one. Call me a sucker, but I dropped the price to $425. I stood there watching as he walked outside to meet his wife, holding a gently loved, immaculately cared for 2007 MacBook pro in his hands and carrying a huge, heartwarming smile on his face. Sold Macbook Pro – $425; helping a father make his little girl’s wish come true – Priceless.

What I did not sell were two items: My old desk and HP printer. I can blame the desk on moving. There just wasn’t enough time or interest in moving one more piece of furniture as we neared the 12 hour mark this weekend. My solution to this was the same as every other time I move: ditch it.

The original plan was to take my old desk to the new place and sell it, but I just didn’t feel like hauling it. Hopefully someone grabbed it from the alley. The printer I have no excuse for. It sat in my closet for almost two months, but I never tried to sell it. How much could I have gotten for a 6-year-old HP printer with brand new ink cartridges? Maybe $30 bucks? Who knows.

Reflections

This has been an exhausting month, but I think I’m off to a good start to this adventure. Lately I’ve been thinking about the fact that I’ll need to use some unconventional strategies to create the income I need to pay off all $45,000 in one year. I don’t think I’ll do anything like crab fishing in Alaska, but I’m open to exploring other options.

If you’re still reading, thanks. I’d love to hear your inspiring stories, strategies or plans about eliminating debt. Or you can just say hello.

Photo Credit: 0621 emptied/David Morris/CC by 2.0