DEBT

In the next week I’m going to write a debt update, but not today. Today, I just want to complain about debt and how much it sucks!!!

When all is said and done, we are actually going to pay a little more debt off this month than I thought we would be able to, but it’s still not enough.

With my next payment, which will be on Friday, we will have paid $3200 towards our credit card, but because we are still using it, it doesn’t all go towards our debt. In total, we will have only paid off $1100 worth of actual debt. I am hopeful for next month, because hopefully, we won’t have any unexpected out of town trips to pay for. For our trip to Oregon for my grandma’s funeral, we paid $215 for our hotel and $300 (or so) for food. That all went onto our credit card.

Although a decrease of $1100 in debt is good, it’s not good enough. I can’t wait to receive my “lump sum” payment on March 20 so I can plunk the whole thing down on our credit card. That check should be in the neighborhood of $2000. We are also hoping to get a small tax refund that could go totally towards debt as well.

Every time we get close to being out of debt, I do something to screw it up. We were doing so well paying for our kitchen and then we got our granite and December hit and our budget went out the window… now, we’re paying for it… literally. I know we only have ourselves to blame, but it still drives me bonkers!!!

Debt is a monster! It takes just minutes to accrue but months or years to slay. That, more than anything, is what I wish we could instill in our kids. Debt is not a tool. Debt is only a hindrance. Debt does not “help” you. Debt only helps the lender. Debt is not the best way to build credit. Debt is not your friend. Debt is only your enemy. Debt is baggage. It is a weight constantly pushing down on your chest making it hard to breathe.

Going forward, I’m hoping that, on average, we will be able to pay off $2000 a month (this is including March, which is going to be our best month). If that’s the case, we won’t be debt free until August. Ideally, we would be able to pay more, but we do have some planned expenses coming up. We have a trip to Washington D.C. in two months and a trip to the Grand Canyon coming up this summer. Both of these will be doable if we are frugal the rest of the time. I’ve said this before, and I want to reiterate it, as badly as we want to get out of debt, we don’t want to get out of debt at the sacrifice of our children’s childhood. 

So, the trips will be made and then we will reevaluate where we are and make a plan, or just keep working this plan. Pay as much as we can out of our paychecks and any extra each month that we can scrape together towards our debt.