February was a busy month and somehow I completely missed
doing a debt update. (*It’s probably for the best, as our debt increased.)
The debt we owe our children has continued to (ever so
slowly) decrease. We borrowed $1500 from each child and have paid back $750 to
each of them, which means we are half way through paying them back! Our car
loan has continued to decrease as well. We have a 0% loan so it’s nice to see
the payment actually affect the bottom line.
For 2018, my only resolution, or goal, is to have our credit
card balance below $10000 by the end of the year. I obviously started with 12
months, now I’m down to 9 months to go.
Here are our current debt totals:
$16,379.55 Credit Card at
15.74% interest
$750 The Girl
$750 The Boy
$8235 Car Loan at 0% interest
Our total debt stands at: $26,114.55. YIKES! That is still a
huge number! The only thing that makes me happy about that number is that it is
smaller than the last time I did a debt update! I hope it keeps going down! We
managed to decrease out total debt by about 6%. We did take a lot of money out
of savings to send towards debt this month. It was nice to get some traction.
In order to meet my goal of under $10000 for the year, we
need to pay back a minimum of $604.03 per month, not including interest. It is
a doable amount if we are diligent with our money. And in all honesty, we
usually aren’t. Including interest, we need to pay back closer to $800 per
month and I am a little nervous about reaching that amount. I will shoot for
$604 per month first, and then go from there.
Again, we are going to get a little boost here as we got a
larger-than-ever-before tax refund and so are planning to use at least some of
that towards our credit card debt. Originally, my plan was to send half of our
refund to debt, but further thinking has reminded me of some upcoming expenses
we have on the horizon: Japanese foreign exchange student, season tickets to
the theater in SF, and The Husband’s 40th birthday. We will,
however, still send some of our refund towards debt.
I’m also waiting on about $250 that a friend owes me. When
she pays me back, I will take that entire check and send it towards debt. It’s
not much, but every little bit helps. I just want to continue making progress
and decreasing our debt load.
I will try to keep track of my progress each month and find
out if I am meeting my goal of paying off over $600 of debt per month and
therefore on track to meet my goal of credit card debt below $10000.
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