Pay Days

I love the way our paydays are falling right now, and it will be this way until the middle of April.

As a public school teacher, I get paid on the last working day of the month. The Husband gets paid every other Friday and right now it’s working out that we are getting a paycheck a week for three weeks. He gets paid, I get paid, he gets paid. Then we have to wait two weeks for the cycle to start again, but it’s a nice way to spread out the money. I love that if feels like no matter how much money I spend, or how much money I pay out in bills, it’s only a week until our next paycheck.

At The Husband’s old job, he was paid every week. When he switched (albeit a long time ago) his paydays switched to every other week. It was a difficult adjustment. Even though it’s been over 7 years since he started his “new” job, I still miss the frequency of his weekly paychecks.

When our paydays fall like this, nearly every week, I feel like we are making more progress towards our debt. In reality, the money is the same, but paying a small payment towards our credit card every week gives me a psychological boost.

It will be a nice cycle to follow for 4 months.

Small Wins

On a run recently I found $1.35! I know it doesn’t sound like much, but besides the $10 bill I found once, it’s the most I’ve ever found on one run!

When I started out, I found $.30, a quarter and a nickel, and I was so excited. Then about half way through my 3 miles I found another $1.05, as four quarters and a nickel.

I feel like it was a reward for going out and running.

The Husband’s car needs new tires. His current tires have just over 70,000 miles on them, which is awesome but it’s time for new ones. Currently, we don’t have quite enough money in our Car Repair envelope. However, on the plus side, he worked a ton of overtime this week and the extra money he made will help pay off more of our credit card debt and be enough to cover the “extra” cost of his new tires.

Assuming the next 10 days go as planned, this should be a good month for debt payoff. Part of that is The Husband having overtime this month and part of that is we reigned in our spending this month; both wins!

Debt Update

Our last debt update was really good! (This one won’t be as good, but our overall debt did decrease.) Last month we paid off over $1300 in debt and 5% of our total debt! It was a great month for debt payoff and we did keep our debt going in the right direction. Due to Christmas, I know we didn’t pay off nearly as much debt, and in fact had to borrow from our savings to make progress this month; but our debt total didn’t increase and we even funded some of our cash envelopes.

The debt we owe our children has continued to (ever so slowly) decrease. We borrowed almost $1500 from each child and have paid back $1250 to each of them, which means we are over 80% 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.

Although we are not paying off our debt as fast as I would like, I am happy to say that for the fifth month in a row, our overall debt decreased! (I am so happy to get to be writing that instead of having to say again that our debt went up!) We are not making giant leaps and bounds in our debt repayment, but slow and steady wins the race. This month, due to Christmas, we had to use some money from our savings account to put towards our credit card so that we didn’t increase our debt. Now, in addition to paying off debt, I need to work on replenishing our savings account to over $10000.

Here are our current debt totals:

            $18,958.93        Credit Card at 16.24% interest

            $250                 The Girl

            $250                 The Boy

            $4785.00           Car Loan at 0% interest

          

Our total debt stands at: $24243.93. YIKES! I can hardly wrap my head around that number. I absolutely HATED seeing a 2 as the first number on our credit card and I’m so happy that our credit card debt is back under $20,000 and at least our credit card debt only has a 1 in the front! In the grand scheme of things, the actual amount of debt is not that much less but psychologically there is a huge difference! I’m hoping for a much bigger decrease next month!

Plus side: our debt decreased! We paid off over $400 of debt in actual dollars, which amounted to about 1.8% of our total debt. I haven’t charged on my credit card since before New Year’s. When I didn’t have enough cash to buy something, I used my debit card instead of my credit card (for the win!). Our car loan fell another thousands place, from the 5s to the 4s (through no extra effort of our own, it was just through normal payments).We continue to make progress on both our car loan and the loan to The Kids and the fact that we haven’t borrowed any more money from The Kids is a plus.

Down side: we didn’t pay off as much as I would have liked because Christmas is expensive. We had to transfer money from our savings account to cover our credit card (Christmas) spending. I didn’t make our goal of under $18,000 by the end of the year. L Of course I also hate that several hundreds of dollars went towards interest on our credit instead of towards the principal, but at least our credit card spending was basically a wash.

Looking forward to: getting our credit card debt below $18000 and finally hitting my goal of under $18000 if a month late. Making continued progress on our car loan and decreasing our overall debt from 24K-something to 23K-something. I’m also looking forward to fully funding our envelopes and using a cash only budget!

If we have a really good month (which is mildly possible due to some overtime The Husband worked) we might be able to go from owing 24K-something to owing 22K-something. I’m not counting on it, but it would sure be nice!

I finally recently posted my 2019 financial goals. They are all doable if I work at them. And if I am successful with each one, I will definitely improve my financial situation.

Clearly, 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.

WOW! My debt update posts are consistently my longest posts. This was another one.  If you stayed around until the end, thank you! If you got bored and moved on, I totally understand.

2019 Goals

My 2019 goals are pretty basic and all include improving our financial situation.

I came up with 6 financial goals I want to meet in 2019. Some are repeats, some are new, but I feel they are all realistic. So without further ado, here they are.

2019 Goals

1.       Decrease debt/no new debt

2.       Pay kids back (including interest)

3.       Pay off car by 12/31/2019 (about 2-3 months early)

4.       Credit card debt under $10000

5.       Save/budget for Christmas

6.       Stick to cash only budget

Goal 1: Decrease debt/no new debt

Our first goal almost, almost, goes without saying. We don’t want to accrue any more debt and we want our current debt to continue decreasing. Last year we not only added credit card debt but also financed solar. This year, the plan (I can already hear God laughing) is to not add any debt this year and keep plugging away at paying off our credit card.

Goal 2: Pay kids back (including interest)

We still owe our kids $300 each including interest. We have steadily paid them back $50 per month each and I don’t see any reason why that should change. We should finish paying them back in June if not earlier as long as we keep the schedule we have been following. I will be very happy to have that debt paid off!

Goal 3: Pay off car by 12/31/2019

Our car is scheduled to be paid off in March of 2020 and I want to pay it off just a couple of months early. I’m not sure yet if this is really feasible. Obviously we could do it by decreasing our credit card payments each month, but our credit card accrues interest and this loan doesn’t so I’m not sure where this loan is going to stand.

Goal 4: Credit card debt under $10000

Ideally we would/will be credit card debt free by the end of the next year, but I’m trying really hard to set realistic goals that we will be able to meet.  I don’t know that we will be able to pay off almost $19000 in credit card debt in one year. That is like our super stretch goal, but getting our credit card debt under $10000 in the next 12 months is doable. Starting in 2019 we should be able to send $1200 per month towards our debt. As long as we can stick to the plan and our budget, we should be able to bring our credit card debt below $10000 by next year.

Goal 5: Save/budget for Christmas

Christmas is not a surprise. It happens the same time every year and we have the same costs, but we don’t plan for it. In the coming year, I want to budget for Christmas. Starting in January we will budget $200 per month towards Christmas. As I haven’t been the best at tracking our Christmas spending in the past I’m not sure if that will be enough, but I do think $2400 will be a good start towards paying for Christmas. As we shop for so many people, I shop all year round for Christmas (in fact, I’ve already started shopping for NEXT Christmas). It will be nice to have some money to draw from starting now instead of waiting until November of next year to fund our Christmas shopping. Going forward I’m also planning to keep extra money in our “food” envelope to help alleviate the pain of paying for the food for our Christmas party.

Goal 6: Stick to a cash only budget

I’m going to take the credit card out of my wallet again. That really caused me to be more cautious with my spending and only buy what I could really afford. This will help me to be more conscious of what I’m buying and why. (I haven’t physically taken the card out of my wallet yet, but I will do that this week. I have, however, not been using it. Twice this week when tempted to put something on my credit card, I took out my debit card and used that instead. That’s good because I paid cash (essentially!)).

Debt Update

Our last debt total wasn’t as good as I had hoped, but we did keep our debt going in the right direction. Last month, we paid off 2.8% of our total debt. I’m hoping we did better this month because at that pace we would be in debt for 35 more months. However, as long as our debt totals continue to go down, I’m counting it as a win. We are going in the right direction and not adding any debt each month.

The debt we owe our children has continued to (ever so slowly) decrease. We borrowed almost $1500 from each child and have paid back $1200 to each of them, which means we are 80% 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.

Although we are not paying off our debt as fast as I would like, I am happy to say that for the fourth month in a row, our overall debt decreased! (I am so happy to get to be writing that instead of having to say again that our debt went up!) We are not making giant leaps and bounds in our debt repayment, but slow and steady wins the race.

Here are our current debt totals:

            $18,953.69       Credit Card at 16.24% interest

            $300                 The Girl

            $300                 The Boy

            $5130.00          Car Loan at 0% interest

          

Our total debt stands at: $24,683.69. YIKES! I can hardly wrap my head around that number. I absolutely HATED seeing a 2 as the first number on our credit card and I’m so happy that our credit card debt is back under $20,000 and at least our credit card debt only has a 1 in the front! In the grand scheme of things, the actual amount of debt is not that much less but psychologically there is a huge difference! I’m hoping for a much bigger decrease next month!

Plus side: our debt decreased! We paid off over $1300 of debt in actual dollars, which amounted to about 5% of our total debt. We continue to make progress on both our car loan and the loan to The Kids and the fact that we haven’t borrowed any more money from The Kids is a plus. A bonus is that our total debt fell into the 24K-something range. Any little win is a win!

Down side: we didn’t pay off as much as I would have liked because Christmas is expensive. We had an entire extra paycheck during this budget period which did help our totals, but if it wasn’t for Christmas, it would have been more. Of course I also hate that several hundreds of dollars went towards interest on our credit instead of towards the principal.

Looking forward to: getting our credit card debt below $18000 and hitting my goal of under $18000 by 12/31/18. Making continued progress on our car loan and decreasing our overall debt from 24K-something to 23K-something. I’m also looking ahead to after Christmas when I really get back to a cash only budget! I’m also happy that with my next debt update, our car loan will have fallen by another thousands place from the 5Ks to the 4Ks. This is through no action on our own but just from steadily plugging away. Every little bit helps and any forward progress is good progress.

Obviously all my financial goals for the year have been thrown out the window. This is the last month of the year 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 still so high, 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 $2000 more in credit card debt by the end of the year.

Clearly, 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.

WOW! My debt update posts are consistently my longest posts. This was another one.  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!

Once we conquer this goal, I will really share our goals for 2019 and how or why I plan to focus on them.

Right now, I am dying to get our overall debt down below $20,000.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Just like for everyone else, this is the busiest time of year for us. We are cleaning, cooking, baking, and toing and froing with the best of them! But we don’t want to lose sight of our goals.

Our goal is still to be under $18000 in credit card debt by the end of the year. It looks like we should make it. Just barely…

As for everyone, Christmas is an expensive time of year! We buy gifts, extra food, host parties, and spend money on experiences we have together. And all of that makes paying down debt hard. We are going in the right direction by decreasing our debt, but not at the pace we would like. I just try to remember that as long as our debt is going down, we are making progress.

Looking at our credit card statement, after interest, we should have paid off about $1000 this month. With paying for Christmas, that’s actually pretty good. We also have paid back $100 to our kids, and $345 towards our car payment. We will be close to $1500 in actual debt paid off, but I’ll have more exact numbers when I do our debt update.

As always, I’m sad it wasn’t more, but Christmas is an expensive time of year that I did not properly plan for. Next year should be different. I have already included a “Christmas” line item in my budget. I have allotted $200 per month, so come Christmas time we should be all set.

This past weekend, we hosted a Christmas party open house. The Husband just said to me we could save a lot of money by not having our Christmas party, and he’s right. But I so look forward to getting to see friends and family that we don’t see often enough that it is money well spent. And hopefully, next year we will be nearly out of debt and will cash flow the whole thing!

As our to-do-list grows in the coming month, I will probably neglect the blog. I’m sure I will do a debt update, but I can’t guarantee I will do much else in the next 4 – 5 weeks. So, if I don’t “see” you again, have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year. And though your season is undoubtedly busy, take time to slow down and enjoy the people around you and remember the reason we celebrate Christmas.

Christmas is Expensive!

Just like it is for everyone else, December is a very expensive month for us. Entertainment, charity, gifts, traditions, and parties are expensive.

We like to have fun; and there’s no better time like the holidays to enjoy yourself! This year, we took the kids to see a local production of “A Christmas Carol”. Although it was a local production, it was very well done!

Although we are in debt, we try very hard to give to charity, especially during the holidays. We don’t tithe as regularly as we should, so we try to give a lot during the Christmas season. We focus on giving to local charities. We take The Kids to our mall where they pull ornaments from the giving tree and they pick out and buy gifts. We also did the same thing at church this past week. We all picked a “need” off the angel tree and then we will shop for it. Our church packed boxes for Samaritan’s Purse and we all packed and delivered a box for that. Lastly, we are adopting a family this year through another small local charity. We are taking a child shopping and he gets to spend $20 per member of his family on Christmas gifts for them. This is the first time we have done this and though we are in debt we know we are better off than so many people and feel that it’s worth it so donate to this charity. It will slow our debt progress by a little but more importantly it will help someone and show our children how important it is to help and support charities when you can.

I went way over my gift budget. Quite honestly I don’t even know how much I went over because I just spent and didn’t keep track. That is one of my goals for next year: to keep track of my spending and see how much I actually spend and where. That goes right along with my goal of budgeting for Christmas next year. I have a huge family and we buy for every member of our family. Most people don’t understand, but that’s how we do it. I also have a few friends that I buy for and of course stocking stuffers and small gifts for people at work.

Another big expense we have at Christmastime is the Christmas party we host every year. We supply all the food and I give out a small favor. The food probably runs us between $600 – 700. Again, I’ve never really kept track. But next year I plan to log how much everything costs so that I can make a realistic budget and savings goal for the following year. I also always provide a small favor, usually something that is semi-hand made. I’ve given out homemade potpourri, bath salts, bottles of wine, cheese spreaders, soaps with handmade cards, and many things like that. After all is said and done, I usually only spend about $2 – 3 per favor, but the cost does vary. This year, I bought candles at the Dollar Tree and “painted” Christmas trees on them with brush-tip Sharpie markers. I also ordered small match boxes and tied them to each candle with a festive ribbon. I also give the same small gift to my co-workers. This year, after costs, the favor averaged $1.70 each and that includes having to buy the pens. (My friend was getting rid of a ton of ribbon and I told her I would take it. She had lots of holiday/Christmas ribbon so I didn’t even have to buy the ribbon to tie the matches on!) I’m very pleased with how this year’s favor turned out and how inexpensive they ended up being and I have the pens to use on future crafts!

Family traditions are very important to me. And we have a lot of them, many of which revolve around Christmas. We go the Charles Dickens Christmas Fair, we spend one day in San Francisco, we build gingerbread houses, and so many more that I can’t even think of right now. All of these things cost money. And in my opinion it is money well spent. Anything that lets us spend time together as a family and make memories is priceless!

The list of things that cost money during the holidays could go on and on so I’m going to stop right here. This was just a rambling post of why it is so hard to make progress towards our debt in December. I don’t want to sound too much like a Debbie Downer because we have made progress towards our debt, but as always not as much as I would have liked. Coming up in a week or so I will do a full debt update and I’ll be able to see exactly where we are: how much debt we have and how much debt we paid off. But until then, wish us progress!