September Debt Update

My last debt update had some real truth in it… some real painful truth! I was sticking my head in the sand when it came to my credit card and my debt and that’s no way to live life! And definitely no way to get out of debt. It’s only been a month, but I have seen some progress; not so much in our debt totals (though those have decreased slightly) but in my attitude towards debt and my rededication to paying cash and not relying on my credit card. I know what I’m about to admit is slightly pathetic, but it’s also honest, taking my credit card out of my wallet was one of the smartest financial decisions I’ve made in a long time! I wish I could say I had enough willpower to not swipe my card, but I just didn’t. I would swipe and then feel guilty afterward. Now I’m making progress.

Okay, on to our debt update!

The debt we owe our children has continued to (ever so slowly) decrease. We borrowed almost $1500 from each child and have paid back $1050 to each of them, which means we are just over two-thirds of the way through paying them back! Although once we have fully paid them back, we will continue to deposit $50 into their bank accounts, I will be so happy when I can no longer consider them a debt! 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; to that end, I don’t really focus on paying extra towards our car payment because it’s at 0% interest. I know that goes against what Dave Ramsey teaches, but I can’t see paying more interest on my credit card balance just to get an interest free loan paid off quicker.

Our constant struggle is our credit card. I have only been trying to do a cash only budget for about 6 weeks and The Husband is not on board, but I’m hoping to see some slow progress. Our credit card debt had increased mightily from April to August, but for the first time in several months, the balance went down; not by much, but it is progress. On the plus side the loans to our kids and the car loan are slowly decreasing. For the first time in literally months, our overall debt decreased this month! (I am so happy to get to be writing that instead of having to say again that our debt went up!)

Here are our current debt totals:

            $20523.18          Credit Card at 16.24% interest

            $450                 The Girl

            $450                 The Boy

            $6165.00           Car Loan at 0% interest

Our total debt stands at: $27,588.18. YIKES! I can hardly wrap my head around that number. I absolutely HATE seeing a 2 as the first number on our credit card and that is my first priority… get that number back under $20000. In the grand scheme of things, the actual amount of debt is not that much less but psychologically there is a huge difference!

Plus side: our debt dropped from 28K-something to 27K-something. We paid off over $750 of debt in actual dollars, which amounted to about 2.7% of our total debt.

Down side: we only paid off a little over $300 of credit card debt in actual dollars after stupid tax, er, interest.

Looking forward to: getting our credit card debt below $20000 and working towards my goal of under $18000 by 12/31/18. Bringing our car loan down into the $5K-something range. And bringing our debt from $27K-something to 26K-something.

Obviously all my financial goals for the year have been thrown out the window. There are only 3 months of the year left and I’m nowhere near where I wanted to be. However, I can’t change the past, all I can do is improve my future. Since our credit card debt is nearly $21000, my goal for the end of 2018 is to be under $18000 in credit card debt. My other debts will continue to decrease at their slow and steady pace, but I am going to payoff $3000 in credit card debt by the end of the year. That’s my goal. This is another one of these realistic stretch goals.

We didn’t pay off as much debt as I would have liked in total dollars. No-Spend September should increase our debt payoff numbers for next month, however. I’m hoping to almost double the amount of money we pay off next month.

In order to be successful, some things will have to fall in place for us. My raise and retro pay will have to go into effect as that is how I am planning to pay for Christmas this year, coupled with some Amazon gift cards. November’s three paycheck month extra check will be able to primarily go towards credit card debt. And The Husband will have to fully max out his 401K two weeks into December as we are anticipating so we will get extra money in his paychecks in the end of December.

Obviously, I’m not in an ideal situation. But if I have to get out of debt one baby step at a time, I can do that.

Some things I’m looking forward to: by our next debt update in October, we should be below $20000 in credit card debt and working towards getting it lower! And, through no effort of our own, our car loan will fall below $6000 and be in the $5000’s, (this is purely through our regular payments and not something we had any hand in), however it will still be a good feeling to see that number falling.

Also over the next month I will continue to try to live credit card free, throw any extra money towards our credit card debt and stick to our budget! This all combined with my only real financial goal right now, getting our credit card debt below $18000 by New Year’s Eve!

WOW! This was a long post! If you stayed around until the end, thank you! If you got bored and moved on, I totally understand.

Look out goal #1: below $18000 in credit card debt by 12/31/18… I’m coming for you!