I have two main sources of income -- part-time (adjunct) language teaching at my community college, and 3/4 time language training that's my own business (sole proprietor). I know how much I earn each year teaching at the college (the scandalous $13,200 for teaching three courses per semester -- showing how wrong our society's values are), but the income from my business varies a lot (my goal is to earn $60,000 from it per year, pre-expenses, but I haven't yet reached that goal). I also get odds and ends from small translation jobs or other strange part-time things I pick up (I do personal assistant/bookeeping work once a month for a musician for $100 per month) that add up to maybe $5,000 per year.
I'm hoping that my training business will pick up this year, and I have taken on a commission-based sales person to drum up more work for me (I hate doing sales and am not good at it).
I have just gotten a contract for training for a company starting in September for $6,000. This will give me enough money to live frugally through the end of the year (unless home heating oil goes to $10.00 per gallon or something).
Here's my current debt situation: I've got a mortgage ($139,000), home equity loan ($14,000), and one enormous credit card ($9,200), plus a big student loan ($70,000) that is currently in deferment. I also have two small credit cards that are both at zero percent interest. One is the Care Credit card that is for pet expenses -- I owe $325. The other is a store credit for a mattress and box spring I bought a year and a half ago (something I don't want to buy used) -- I owe $850 on that.
Since the two small credit cards are at 0% interest, I've just been paying the minimum on both of them and putting any snowball/rollover money into my big credit card (which is at 5.9% interest). Should I take the $1200 and pay off these two 0% interest cards, just to cross them off my list, or should I put the $1200 against the enormous credit card?
I feel like crossing the two cards off my list would be very satisfying, but paying them down month by month is satisfying, too. However, if I paid them off, then I could roll the $186 I pay into each of them every month into my big credit card and that would mean an additional $2200 in 12 months.
I've paid off all my credit debt in the past, then had some emergency (one was a dog operation that cost $3200 and the other was owing the IRS $5000 in taxes) that I chose to address by using the credit card I had just paid off. I want this to be the absolutely last time I ever have credit cards and I really want to be living on a cash only basis to get off the grid, economically. I'm not always rational when it comes to money, so I'm not sure if paying off the two small cards is the rational thing to do, but it's where I'm leaning.
Any suggestions?
