#Reverb10 December 28th

The Prompt: Achieve. What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today.

This seems very very similar to the prompt from the 18th.  But I committed to finishing this project so I will, dammit!!

There are a few things I want to achieve in 2011.  But lets stick with the one I already mentioned, that I want to take a significant chunk out of my credit card debt. I think it will give me a feeling of freedom, and lift a burden off of my shoulders, getting rid of some of the financial stress that I've felt over the past couple of years when my situation wasn't ideal.

As far as getting that feeling today, I mean, that's not really going to happen today.  It won't happen until I get it done. However, it helps me to really think about the plan that I have to make it happen, so here are the things I'm going to do to get there:

1.  My mortgage interest rate just reset, and so my payment has gone down nearly $260. That $260 is going straight onto credit cards, in addition to the payments I was already planning on making.  First, I will be paying off a store card that I am paying way too much interest on, but was good for buying work clothes when I first moved back. 
2.  My car will paid off very soon, July I think.  Once that is done, that $320 will be going onto credit cards every month. Most likely it will go first onto the regular card on which I have the higher balance, which also has the higher interest rate. It will take a while to put a good dent into it, but I will be patient.
3.  I will be cutting down on unnecessary expenditures and putting at least the minimum payment plus any charges incurred that month on my cards, so that every month the balance is going down.
4.  I will not be using my credit cards at all, except for purchases where I can immediately put the payment on to it. The only reason I will do this is for the rewards points on my Visa - those iTunes gift cards I accumulate are a nice thing to get! But there will be no purchases without immediate payments.

I know that's not 10 things, but its 4 solid things that will make my life easier, and bring me closer to my goal.

Oh, and the other thing I want to do - record at least a 4 song demo with Matt of music we write together. We're both too talented to not be working together, and we have the capability now to get it done.