Feeling Optimistic

I’m feeling optimistic about our debt.

I don’t know why. Nothing has changed. No windfalls to put towards our debt.

Just steady progress and a feeling of hope.

Because life went sideways for a while, our debt journey was no longer a priority. I stopped tracking our debt. I stopped strictly following our budget. I “bounced” three (three!) checks. (They didn’t actually bounce as our bank covered the check for us, at a fee of $36 each! It was entirely my fault, I was just not in a place of caring where we were financially.)

I am feeling reinvigorated to get out of debt. Although we still owe a ton of money, I see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

Our credit card debt is the lowest it has been in 18 months and going down. We still owe $16,000 to our credit card, but we are making definite downward progress! In just a couple of months, we will have the lowest credit card debt that we have had in three years. It will be a milestone month for sure! I’m not counting my chickens, I’m just looking ahead to where we are going and where we will be soon.

In February 2016 we were still living in our old house and had just finished a kitchen remodel. We had over $13,000 of credit card debt and for several years, the outlook only got worse. Moving was very expensive and although our bills and obligations increased, we never changed out lifestyle. We continued to live “high on the hog” and didn’t adjust for an increase in our cost of living. Now, we are more comfortable with our monthly obligations and what we need to do.  I feel like we can get out of debt. We can be diligent with our finances.

The Husband came to me one year ago with a plan to get out of debt. It didn’t work out the way we would have liked, but in that one year, we have paid off $5600 worth of credit card debt, continued to make progress on our car loan, and made many “big” purchases. Our debt is down by over $5000 and it will keep going down. Even with purchases that we made: computer, phone, jewelry… we were able to make progress. We are going to continue making progress and we are going to get out of debt.

I feel rejuvenated and ready to get out of debt. I don’t know why or what it is, but I’m all in. Progress is the biggest motivator! We had a good month last month. I didn’t have a “monthly debt update” to compare it to, but I had my totals from the previous month. We paid of 11.5% of our debt in one month. I know that’s not a normal month and certainly not sustainable, but it is repeatable. It was also great to see those numbers in black and white and to know that we did that. We made that progress. Each month, we are going to owe less and less debt and eventually we will be able to payoff 10+% of our debt every month!

We will get there! We will get out of debt!

I found my motivation: progress. What’s yours?