Take a moment to share your progress with debt pay offs.

What are your starting balances for April?

Did you meet your goal payments for March? Are you making any changes this month?

Share your progress as you make your payments!

Mortgage: $97,000--paid $1000, interest, principle; taxes/insurance set aside

Big credit card: $2050 at 0% interest until July 09

Small credit card: $612 + interest at 3% until October 09

I paid $500 on the big credit card yesterday (online). DH is going to cash in a CD (about $700) and pay off the small credit card. It's not due until the 25th but we are going to pay it now and pay it off. It was a car repair bill. Our true emergency fund had only $300 but DH has a couple of CDs that we determined should count as emergency funds when needed.

It is getting better but I fear we will have another debt in April: tax debt. Will wait and see. Doing taxes this weekend. We can cash in the other CD, use the $300 in emergency funds and then whatever is left in our bank account. And then try to survive until May!

well, since January 1st, we have paid down over $13000 of debt. I took some of our savings, well, a lot of our savings, sold some stock and we cut our expenses and boosted our income to do that. Now we are down to an emergency savings fund and our retirement investments only.

Our car loan is now 1992

Our credit card is now 5400

Our mortgage is now ~ 145900

I am interviewing for a new job this week - an additional one (will be my third part-time job, plus I have one fulltime job) and that extra money will go toward paying off the car loan in three months, and finishing off the credit card by the end of the year. Each time one is paid off we are adding that amount until we get to just the mortgage then we will begin to fund a six month emergency fund AND work on house repairs for a while. Sticking to our pay off plan has to be taken one day at a time....it's not always easy but overall it has give us a greater sense of peace than we've had in a long time. pam

Wow  congrats to you Pamela! You are doing great!

Yes, Pamela, congrats to you!  If only I could get myself so motivated!!

So in March, we paid $1222 toward debt (car and credit cards).  OK, but not as much as I had hoped.  So in April, I am hoping to pay at least $925 to debt + any extra I can round up from selling stuff and extra income for small jobs.

Current working on my Visa Card; Balance in March was $4833.28, balance is currently $4401.89 so there has been some reduction.

I am just focusing on one at a time; if I look at all our debt, it is too overwhelming!

I am beginning April with a total debt of $2,668.68

We look the worst, but I'm happy to still be going the right way!

March 4 credit cards

$30,548

April 4 credit cards

$30,304  Pd off $244

March 3 home loans

$249,841

April 3 home loans

$249,346 pd off $495

 Total paid off $739!

You're good company Tracy!  We are not far behind you with total debt. :)   the mortage went down like usual but the credit card went up by $1250. Homestay payment is $780 so it will be almost two months of payments to pay this the new stuff off, not touching the old stuff.

MFI and Tracy, We're with you too!  If I think about our total debt , I feel overwhelmed and that I am not making a difference by sending an extra $20 or something.  SO, I send minimums to the lower interest cards/loans and focus my efforts and thoughts on one balance at a time.  Otherwise, it is easy for me to feel like we are NEVER going to be debt free.  It's so hard!  Granted, we are the ones that got ourselves into this situation to begin with, some of it for good reasons and some for not good reasons.  But getting out is so hard and takes SO long.

Anyway, if it's any consolation, we're in the high balance club too!

We're so far into the high balance club that I won't say what it is!

DH managed to talk a company down to 1% interest until January on a balance transfer and put the last of the 24.9% interest card on that ($500).  I'll just switch the $50 payments over and have it paid off before the January deadline.   Meanwhile, we're chiselling away and the biggest one.  I get depressed aout it until DH reminds me that we have reduced it by over $1200 since last August by paying extra.

re-tired