The slow March begins...

The last 4 months have been great, haven't they?  In each of the last 4 months we've paid off a loan!  It seems so crazy sitting here thinking about it.

In November we paid off the truck.

In December and January we paid off two of the Gate loans .

In February we paid off the ECSI loan and the third Gate loan.

In short, we killed it.  We really focused, even while going through the holiday season, and we met our goals.  And now comes the hard part.  

The remainder of our loans are all multi-month projects.  We knew this was coming, but it does derail the momentum a bit.  Paying off a loan was a nice way to end each of the last few months.  It allowed us to build a lot of momentum and fine-tune our spending habits that will propel us through the slow March that's upon us.  (See what I did there?)  Our next estimated payoff date (EPD) is April, and that will be one of Kristi's Stafford Loans ($4600 @ 6.8% Interest).  

Let's recap The List, shall we?

The List

1. The Truck
• $2,256 - PAID! (Nov 11)
2. Gate Loans
• $2,604 - PAID!! (Dec 11)
• $2,628 - PAID!!! (Jan 12)
• $2,799 - PAID!!!! (Feb 12)
• $4,978 - EPD:  June 2012
3. ECSI
• $5,486 - PAID!!!! (Feb 12)
4. Stafford Loans
• $4600 - EPD:  April 2012
• $5848 - EPD:  October 2012
5. Federal Direct Loan
• $22,495 - EPD:  July 2013

The more observant of you will notice a large gap between EPD of the Gate and second Stafford loan.  In previous years we stored money over the school year to cover the two months Kristi doesn't get a paycheck.  We realized that this money we were saving would almost all go to loans anyway, so we decided to stop saving and start using it towards loans now.  However, the drawback is that in August and September we won't have a snowball.  We'll make the minimum payments, but that's it.  Kristi is doing summer school this year, so that may change, but right now we're not planning having large snowball funds in August and September.

I'm incredibly happy with our current progress.  In the last 4 months we've paid off roughly $15,780 in loans.  I am amazed at that total.  I knew we were capable of this, but seeing it in print is still jaw-dropping.  It's also amazing that we're in month 5 of a 22 month plan, almost 1/4 done.  I say 22 months because with our progress so far we've cut a few months off the total time (even including the Aug/Sep no extra payment months).  


I want to thank everyone for the support.  It's really great to know we're on the right track and that everyone understands and supports us.  It's been hard saying no to a lot of the fun stuff we've had to cut back on, but in the end we'll be able to do so much more that it'll all be worth it.  Besides, we still have Alaska 2012 to let our hair down a bit on, so we can recharge and refocus when that trip is over.  It's very exciting to see where we were, and where we are headed.  Let's do this!

January Progress

So, it turns out January has been busy!  Or I keep forgetting to blog.  One or the other, you decide...

The important news of the month:  We paid off yet another DEBT!  Woohoo!  Which means, if you're playing along at home, we've paid off 3 loans in the last 3 months.  We just bowled a turkey!

I wish I could adequately describe how good it feels to be chewing through our debt.  In fact, with just a few more days to go in January we are sticking to our budget and will be on pace to pay off another loan in February.  We have like $30 bucks left for the rest of the month, but we have no needs, except possibly gas, until February, so we should be good to go.

February is going to be a tough month.  Fact: 34052 of our friends have birthdays that month, so the opportunity to spend money will be high, but our friends understand our goals and are very supportive in our quest.  So if we have to be lame and stay home or go out and have water instead of beers, I know they'll be fully supportive.  Besides, when we're done, after all the sacrifices we make, we'll have a giant party to celebrate.

In addition to paying off a loan this month, we also spoke with my friend Dave Lind about refinancing to a 15 year mortgage.  After some consideration, we decided to go for it.  Rates were, when we locked in our rate, just above the all time lows.  In fact, shortly after we locked in our rate, at 3.25%, rates went up.  We had an appraisal on Tuesday, and our loan will be going through soon.  In the end, we'll end up paying about $120 more a month, but we'll pay off our house 15 years earlier.  Sounds good to me.

Next month's loan is approximately $2800, which is going to push us to the edge of our finances.  We also have to pay for the cruise deposit, which is going to make February crazy tight.  Wish us luck!

October Debt Process, October Budget

October Snowball Progress

I plan to update each time we make a payment on a debt and to update the remaining.  This is the first of such updates. 

This month, as the previous list of debts indicated, we paid money toward the truck.  $1,420 to be exact.  As I said in my post about Riley, this is less than our goal of around $2,000 towards debts each month.

After the payment processes, we’ll have just about $940 left to pay on the truck, which we’ll finish up in November.  This is very exciting as not only will we own the truck, we’ll be able to adjust our insurance on it down from full coverage, which the bank requires for the loan, which will save us some money each month.  It may not be much, but every dollar counts when it’s going towards debts.

Also, we plan to make the trip to Salem to the Oregon Community Credit Union (the closest branch of the bank that our car loan is through) to pay the final $940 and be done with it.  I think it will be valuable and important to pay the final payments on each debt (whenever possible) in person for the sense of accomplishment and pride in our achievement.  I know it doesn’t seem important, but I feel like taking the final step in person will provide a much better sense of fulfillment.  We plan on doing that next week, so stay tuned for that report!

October Budget

I’ve been meaning to write a post about our Monthly Budget for some time now, but the end of the month is coming quickly so I won’t bother with a full post this month, but I will outline the budget we’ve lived under this month.

Typically our total spending money for the month is about $1,000 to $1,100.  This amount fluctuates up and down depending on the planned and unplanned activities over the course of a month.  Each month we sit down and see where we’ll be spending money and plan accordingly.  Unfortunately we didn’t adequately account for Halloween so we’ve over spent a bit on our clothing budget this month for our costumes.  I think also the trauma of re-homing Riley caused us to not want to cook and we ate out more, which literally ate up our Recreation budget.  However, being able to adjust the budget each month helps us to plan for events like holidays/birthdays so we’re not constantly overspending or eating out all the time since we have a budget to live within.

Budget

Pets                     $50.00          (food, toys, etc)

Clothing               $50.00          (sundries, clothes)

Recreation           $150.00        (eating out, movies, date nights)

Personal              $150.00        (household items, toiletries, etc)

Food                   $300.00        (breakfast/lunch/dinner items)

Transportation     $300.00        (gasoline mostly, parking, maintenance)

That is a typical budget we work from.  I’ll post a full overview of November’s budget next week so I can report at the end of the month on how we did.  Currently we’re not doing that great with October, having gone over budget in a few categories, but we’re still overall on track with our budget (we can shift some money from unspent categories to cover the over spending in others, but we try to avoid that since we’re overspending). I’ll post a recap of October next week as well.