Tuesday, June 9, 2009
A big step!
I just wrote the check to the credit card company. Now it will be just about $1000!!! $5,185.34 now paid on it!! Woo!!! Next month it will be gone and we will never again have to see a credit card!
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Goal for 2009
After talking a little bit tonight, we have a goal for the end of 2009.
1.) Pay off Credit Card-we will pay off all but $1000 this month, so it will be brought down from about $6200 to $1000. I am super excited about this. The rest of this will be paid off in July, which is a 3 paycheck month so we will use that "extra" paycheck for our debt only.
2.) Pay off Phil's last student loan-it is hovering right around $1000. So we are hoping to pay it off with July's money. We will use the rest of the extra paycheck, and then the extra money that we squeeze out of our budget.
3.) Pay off the hospital bill-even though it is at 0% interest, it will then be the next lowest by then and we would feel better just getting it taken care of. Plus, it is up against a $3500 loan and then the other two which are even higher :(. We would rather get it knocked out and have that extra $100/month for the other loans.
So that should be another $10k paid off by the end of this year. Granted we have an appx. extra $5k in tax return and 1.5k in an extra paycheck. We will be down from about $30k to $20k in debt!!
Also, in January 2010 we get another "extra check" and then a little later, hopefully a decent tax return, because Phil ended up claiming less than he should I think. So we will be on our way to knocking out my first student loan. So I hope that by March or so we will have my one student loan taken care of and only the two big ones to go!!
We can do it!!!
Edited to add: This is all assuming we have no mini emergencies, or ... big ones. Pray that doesn't happen!
1.) Pay off Credit Card-we will pay off all but $1000 this month, so it will be brought down from about $6200 to $1000. I am super excited about this. The rest of this will be paid off in July, which is a 3 paycheck month so we will use that "extra" paycheck for our debt only.
2.) Pay off Phil's last student loan-it is hovering right around $1000. So we are hoping to pay it off with July's money. We will use the rest of the extra paycheck, and then the extra money that we squeeze out of our budget.
3.) Pay off the hospital bill-even though it is at 0% interest, it will then be the next lowest by then and we would feel better just getting it taken care of. Plus, it is up against a $3500 loan and then the other two which are even higher :(. We would rather get it knocked out and have that extra $100/month for the other loans.
So that should be another $10k paid off by the end of this year. Granted we have an appx. extra $5k in tax return and 1.5k in an extra paycheck. We will be down from about $30k to $20k in debt!!
Also, in January 2010 we get another "extra check" and then a little later, hopefully a decent tax return, because Phil ended up claiming less than he should I think. So we will be on our way to knocking out my first student loan. So I hope that by March or so we will have my one student loan taken care of and only the two big ones to go!!
We can do it!!!
Edited to add: This is all assuming we have no mini emergencies, or ... big ones. Pray that doesn't happen!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
I'm feeling some progress!
We got our tax return a couple days ago and I deposited it into the bank today! I figured out that this month, we can pay off all but $998!! So, its on the top of our "debt snowball." It'll be good to get rid of it!! From $6200 to none, will be such a big step. Then Phil's student loan he has left is under $1000 right now, then we'll be done with that too, and left with one hospital bill (which shouldn't take too long because 0% interest, and my student loans, yuck!) I feel like we're making progress :).
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Refunding baby e-fund
I know its been forever, but we have finally made it through the move! Now we can finally refund our baby emergency fund, then start our snowball again. Everyday I wish we could just have this payed off, that it would just happen overnight. Its getting really old, and it even hasn't been that long. I'm looking forward to our tax refund, but I'm torn whether or not to put it towards the credit card. Part of me wants to knock out a few of the smaller ones, but I know the credit card would probably be more helpful. Its going to take a bit longer than I thought, because here Phil doesn't get mileage, they use company trucks. I'm going to really have to play with our budget now so we can have a decent chunk to go towards the snowball. It'll be interesting.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Renting a car and we're using the baby efund!
I have officially closed my credit card!! I got the confirmation letter in the mail the other day, and it is a DONE DEAL! Now we have NO credit cards to even tempt us!!!!
A funny story, Phil's company reserved a rental car for us to use while in Florida, and since neither of us is 25, we called to make sure it would be ok. Turns out for this company... Payless... that you HAVE to have a credit card to rent a car if you are under 25. A debit card (with the VISA or whatever symbol on it) won't cut it. Thankfully, they got it transferred over to a company that will let us (Enterprise). Stupid rental car companies!
If you haven't been keeping up with my other blog, we're moving to Florida this weekend... so its a good thing that we have that baby e-fund. It all came so quickly. We went down there the 21st to 23rd, and then they said, this weekend would be great (beginning of May)!
So, we're going to empty out the baby e-fund, use what money we haven't paid towards our snowball the past few months, and we're going to have to use what we've stored in a few envelopes, ie: pets, charitable gifts (we have no church here), gifts, etc. I'm keeping track to whats in each of them, and we're planning on filling them back up to what they were once we get the tax return. Phil's company is also giving him $1k to start, and will reimburse the other expenses afterward. I'm sure that we'll have some of this money left over, but its good to know that its there just in case.
Unfortunately, the branch Phil will be working at doesn't travel as much, and they use the company trucks, so we're not going to have any more big expense checks.
After our move, I'm seriously considering finding a part-time job (if I can find one!). I'd probably do it for 6 months, then reevaluate for another 6 months and go from there. I feel that would help a lot in our snowball. I CANT wait to get that done!
A funny story, Phil's company reserved a rental car for us to use while in Florida, and since neither of us is 25, we called to make sure it would be ok. Turns out for this company... Payless... that you HAVE to have a credit card to rent a car if you are under 25. A debit card (with the VISA or whatever symbol on it) won't cut it. Thankfully, they got it transferred over to a company that will let us (Enterprise). Stupid rental car companies!
If you haven't been keeping up with my other blog, we're moving to Florida this weekend... so its a good thing that we have that baby e-fund. It all came so quickly. We went down there the 21st to 23rd, and then they said, this weekend would be great (beginning of May)!
So, we're going to empty out the baby e-fund, use what money we haven't paid towards our snowball the past few months, and we're going to have to use what we've stored in a few envelopes, ie: pets, charitable gifts (we have no church here), gifts, etc. I'm keeping track to whats in each of them, and we're planning on filling them back up to what they were once we get the tax return. Phil's company is also giving him $1k to start, and will reimburse the other expenses afterward. I'm sure that we'll have some of this money left over, but its good to know that its there just in case.
Unfortunately, the branch Phil will be working at doesn't travel as much, and they use the company trucks, so we're not going to have any more big expense checks.
After our move, I'm seriously considering finding a part-time job (if I can find one!). I'd probably do it for 6 months, then reevaluate for another 6 months and go from there. I feel that would help a lot in our snowball. I CANT wait to get that done!
Friday, April 17, 2009
Town Hall for Hope
If you haven't already heard, Dave Ramsey is doing a "talk/question-answer session" called Town Hall for Hope. I highly recommend you to check it out and get some hope for this economy!! I can't wait!!! I know it'll be really inspiring and hopeful. Many churches all around the country are hosting it, and I've even noticed that some have free childcare (and of course the event is free), so no excuses, go listen and watch, and get some HOPE!
For more information or to find a location near you, visit http://www.townhallforhope.com/
Oh and its April 23, 2009 and 8 p.m. Eastern with a west coast delay at 7pm PT.
Friday, April 10, 2009
A few random thoughts...
So, if we don't have to spend any money moving (fingers crossed), or can just pull it out of our budget, then we'll have $5649.44 to put towards our debt snowball (we just learned how much we're getting back in our tax return, yay!) That number is from what we have now and our tax return.
So, we've been playing with how to use it. We could pay off Phil's last student loan, the hospital bill, and half of my lowest student loan... or we could pay off ALMOST all of the credit card with $591.64 left on it. Plus, its at 15.99% interest, which would save a lot of money because of interest over time. Either way, it would put the same amount of money to roll into our debt snowball, $155 (credit card) or $50 Phil's student loan plus $100 hospital bill. Then of course, the CC would be our lowest debt, and we'd hopefully be able to knock it out in one month, and knock out the other two pretty quickly.
Any thoughts are always appreciated and welcome.
So, we've been playing with how to use it. We could pay off Phil's last student loan, the hospital bill, and half of my lowest student loan... or we could pay off ALMOST all of the credit card with $591.64 left on it. Plus, its at 15.99% interest, which would save a lot of money because of interest over time. Either way, it would put the same amount of money to roll into our debt snowball, $155 (credit card) or $50 Phil's student loan plus $100 hospital bill. Then of course, the CC would be our lowest debt, and we'd hopefully be able to knock it out in one month, and knock out the other two pretty quickly.
Any thoughts are always appreciated and welcome.
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