My deposits and payments are all lined, up for the first week of February. So here’s my status as of February 5 (I’ve done the bills through that date).
Credit Card 1: $0
Credit Card 2: $0
Credit Card 3:$7216.44 (we cut the balance almost in half this month, so I’ll call and see if we can get a lower rate—it’s currently at 8.9%)
Mortgage: $159,267
We’re getting close folks—really close.
This time last year there were three credit cards, two adoption loans, some back medical debt and a second mortgage of $18,000.
In 2009 we increased our net worth by $34,599.95 (even after absorbing losses in our investments). Keep in mind that our income went down in 2009 by 30% (because I was self employed for all of 2009).
Now we’ve just got $7,000 to go on the consumer debt and we’ll be screaming debt free.
Typically, our budget includes about $500 towards debt repayment each month, but any overtime or extra profit margin in our business goes towards debt, so our debt payments regularly reach $1700 in a month with $500 as our minimums. Business costs should be very little in February as I believe I have two months of inventory on hand, so this should save me $300-$500 to apply also towards debt.
We’re still hoping/planning to be free of all debt except the mortgage by July!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Congrats!! You are slaying that debt!! I went to the Dave Ramsey Live event in Houston yesterday! It was wonderful!!
Keep up the great work Jessica!
Congratulations on your progress. You and your family should be very proud of yourselves. I’m curious- when did you start dumping on your debt and how much did you start with?
Alaya, we started on this about two and a half years ago thinking we should pay off some debt. At the time we had about $75K but we hadn’t sworn off using debt yet. when I started really keeping track was 12/08 and at that time we had $42K I think. (I just recently went back and examined these numbers to see where we were then).
When I wrote this, I’d done my budget but hadn’t actually written the checks. As of five minutes ago I wrote the check to pay off that second-to-last credit card snowball payment.
OH MY GOODNESS IT FEELS GOOD!!
Also, my small business has really picked up. Already this week, I’ve billed about what I billed all of last month (January was painfully slow). I’m really seeing the light now.