Debt Update

This was not the best month for debt payoff, nor did I expect it to be. We travelled to Washington D.C. last month and because of that, my whole hope was that, after interest, our credit card debt did not rise. We paid our normal payments to the remainder of our creditors, so we will see a small decrease there.

Our trip ate up the vast majority of our debt payment. However, we didn’t go into any more debt to take the trip, and that was my goal. Next month our debt repayment should be more impressive and help make up for this slow month. Next month, we have no mortgage payment, due to the fact that we sold our house and are not in the new house yet, so our credit card debt payment should be big! Next month, we should be able to bring our credit card debt down under $10,000! Here’s to hoping!

As of my last update in March, we owed of $26549.32. 

Here are our current debt totals:

            $11439.33        Credit Card at 15.49% - current minimum payment is $279

            $1300               The Boy (To pay off our other credit card, we borrowed from him.)

            $1300               The Girl (To pay off our other credit card, we borrowed from her.)

            $11710.25        Car loan at 0% - payment is $345

Our current debt stands at $25749.58

We paid off $799.74, or 3% of our debt total; that’s even including stupid tax, aka, interest. I definitely wish it had been more, but some months are better than others and we financed a 10 day trip to D.C. without adding to our debt. I have to take the wins where I can find them. (And we’re still not willing to give up making memories and giving the kids experiences to get out of debt. Maybe people would call us stupid, but that’s our choice.)

Overall, our debt decreased. That is a trend we hope to continue. Next month, I’m hoping for a much larger decrease in our debt. I would love to be able to decrease our overall debt by 10%. I would love to gain some real traction and start knocking some debt out!

Next month I’m really hoping to be under $10000 of credit card debt when I do my debt progress report. That is my main financial goal for the month of June. I’m also hoping to be able to cash flow all our needs, not including furniture, for the new house… eyes on the prize!

We are continuing to make slow progress every paycheck, one per month for me and two per month for The Husband, towards savings and paying our children back. We put $50, per paycheck, into savings. We are ever so slowly building our emergency fund and adding money to The Kids’ accounts. At this rate it would take forever to pay them back, but at least we are making strides. Once our credit card debt is cleared out, we will be able to pay them back quickly.

When planning our June budget, I continued trying to fund our different budget categories, which has been the problem in the past. I didn’t fund those categories, but the kids still need clothes, hair needs to be cut, and toilet paper needs to be bought. Although by funding these we pay off debt more slowly, it also keeps us from accruing more debt because we have, at least some of, the money we need to buy essentials. For the month of June, we have tentatively allocated $800 to different budget categories, not including food or gas. In all honesty, it’s probably not enough, but at least it’s a start. As we pay off more and more debt, we will be able to fully fund all our envelopes.  Many of those envelopes are starting to have a balance carry over from month to month, which will really help as we need to start spending money from those categories.