Update on my Financial Restructuring Goals for 2013

Whomever may have been following through my old thread here - http://slickdeals.net/f/4731482-D...-relatives - I've made some advancements and also learned a few more lessons which I'm listing below. The point of this post is basically to welcome any advice or opinions with what I am doing. I'm open to different ideas and always looking to improve.

Here is a quick summarized update in no particular order:

- After much thought and research, I decided not to re-enroll for health benefits for 2013. Way too much of a price jump on premiums and I pay for myself and girlfriend, since we are both fairly healthy thankfully, I've took on the risk not to go forward with this.

- With the money I'd be saving not getting health insurance, I upped my ROTH IRA contributions to $175 on a semi-monthly basis - (I get paid semi-monthly) in efforts to get as close to maxing it out. I'm now HIGHLY considering on upping it to $225 to just end it off all together and not worry about putting in the remaining manually as I originally planned with the $175.

- My employer reimburses up to 5k in educational expenses, so I've decided on going forward in getting my bachelors for 2013, which means I might have to change my contribution amounts. I'm still going through the admissions process with the college at my area, once i find out on my transcript status and how much of my credits is transferable, I'll be able to get a good idea of what my expenses will be.

- Transferred the existing 10k+ balance with 21% or so interest rate with Bank of Americacard that is under my name that my dad piled up on to the Discover Card 15 Month no interest offer. (I was approved for 9k with Discover, so I paid 2k off the BOA balance before transferring it over) Went through a few hurdles but got this taken care of with automated payments of $350 each month from my dad. I basically plan on paying off the remaining at the end of 13 and half months, then having my dad pay me back what he owes.

- I spent a month trying to get an old creditor I had, which also was under my sister using my name to remove a 30 day late payment off my records. They finally took it off and I officially have a perfect credit history....

- Since that worked, now's the best time for me to apply for a good card to get the balance off the lowes card and setup similiar payment plan with my sister. And boy did I get a rude awakening. I applied for the Chase Slate card with no balance transfer fee and was DENIED. Tried going through reconsideration lines about 3 times and could not get them to budge. Reasons are simply: Too high credit utilization and too many inquiries within the past few months

- This is where I got my huge wake up call. By closing the bank of america card which my dad opened under my name back in 2004 (all on time payments), (which i pretty much forcefully had to close because I was worried my dad would continue using it), I effectively removed any credit history I had with them supposedly with credit bureaus. I thought this would help me but apparently creditors put more emphasis on open cards and remaining balances. I even tried to see if I could reopen the same account under the same credit history, they said I can but would have to do another hard inquiry since its been over 60 days and apparently my dads also been paying a $90 annual fee on it (ugh). No way am I doing that. My last ditch effort was to attempt to open up a costco american express card since me and my girflriend spend so much there and that was also denied for similar reasons.

Lesson learned and Plans for 2013:

- Keep doing what I am doing - Make sure all payments are on time and scheduled accordingly.

- Keep my own usage with the discover card as minimum as possible or use only if absolutely necessary.

- In 4 months I will request a balance increase with my discover card to help my credit utilization ratio. (I opened my discover card about 2 months ago. Total credit on it is 9k)

- Don't apply for another credit card for another 6 months or at least until after I can completely eliminate the 3.8k balance my sister still owes on the Lowes card under my name and get my Discover card credit utilization to under 50% or 35% (It's now at 86%).

- Get my bachelors, use it to negotiate a better salary increase during my next review

- Putting forth more emphasis in getting certifications and increasing overall knowledge in my IT field for better job security, etc in case I get a promotion or a possible job change.

- Meet goal of Maxing out Roth IRA for 2013 to 5500

- Consider on increasing my contribution with 401k from 5% (Employer matches up to 4%)

- Meet goal of making at least $150 of monthly residual income from some of the things I've setup through freelancing. It's not much, but there's nothing better than having money come in with little to no labor on your end. +Will help offset a few things and make my aforementioned goals more of a reality.