November Debt Update

I still haven’t decided exactly how I want to share my debt totals every month, so for now, I’m going to stick with a middle of the month recap. 

As of last month, we owed $19439.77. Holy cow that’s a lot of money to owe to other nameless, faceless people!

Over the course of the last 4 and ½ weeks, we have made a payment to our credit card and towards our car loan.  For now, any extra money we have (which isn’t much because of the kitchen remodel) goes towards our credit card that carries a balance. Last month, I was able to make a payment that was about 2 times the minimum payment.  

Okay, here goes. The numbers for this month:

Credit Card 1: $4994.38 at 9.24% interest ~ the current minimum payment is $150

Car Loan 1: $13780.25 at 0% interest ~ payment is $345

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If you’re keeping track, (I know I am!) that’s a grand total of $18774.63

This month's debt payment saw a lot of psychological milestones. We changed the first digit on credit card 1. We now owe less on that card than we have available! To me, that in and of itself is exciting! Not to mention that our debt keeps going down! We also went from $14000+ on our car loan to $13000+. I noticed on the statement this month that we have made 20 payments and have 40 more to go. We are 1/3 of the way done paying off this debt! Lastly, we went from over $19000 in debt to under $19000 in total debt.

Next month's numbers aren't going to be anywhere near as impressive, but I'll take the win while I've got it. 

Last month we paid $705 towards debt, or 3.4% of our total debt. Stupid tax, (more commonly referred to as interest) ate up some of that; only $665.14 went towards paying off the principle. As always, I wish it was more, but the takeaway here is that our total debt decreased.  We did not add any more debt and we were able to pay more than the minimum payment.

The kitchen has really complicated our debt payoff. Any extra money at the end of the month is being diverted to pay for the kitchen. (The current balance on the card that we pay off monthly is $5600!!!) 

(This is copied and pasted directly from my last debt totals update from October 18, 2016.) I’m trying to keep my head up and remember that our total debt load decreases every month, if only by a little. I try to remember that we haven’t added to our debt total in 10 months and that we are better off now than when we started 2016. I try to remember that we choose to not let debt dictate our life or to punish our kids for our poor financial habits/choices.  That’s it in a nutshell, I’m trying.

We aren’t debt free, but we have a plan and are working it.  If we keep at it, we will be debt free.