A chart for paying down credit cards: I hope this idea helps those who are trying to pay down debt, which is something I have been doing for awhile. I made the last payment on our mortgage this month, and will pay our last car payment either Nov. or Dec. than after that it will just be 2 credit cards. Working with budgeted figures, I came up with the idea of making a chart of where I can find extra cash within our budget each month that I can put towards the balance of those credit cards. Our water bill comes every other month so in the month that doesn't have a water bill I use that money for the credit card I am working on. The paid for house money is being divided by 4's, 1 portion for savings, 1 for emergencies, 1 left in checking and 1 for the credit card. When I pay the car loan I will do the same thing, divide it by 4's.  I have a certain amount budgeted for electricity so in the months that I don't use that budgeted amount the difference goes to the credit card. I can't do this during the summer though because of needing to use the air conditioner, which triples my bill. Any regular monthly bill that is less than the budgeted amount goes towards the credit card.

On the chart, made on Microsoft Works spreadsheet program, I put the months in the first column, the credit card in the 2nd column, showing the minimum payment, then the next columns are the house money, car money, water bill, electric bill, gas bill, gasoline bill, etc. with an "other" column for overage adjustments, then the total and credit card balance columns at the far right. I calculate the difference of any bill that doesn't need the full budgeted amount, then transfer that amount with the minimum payment to the credit card. If I need to, I also adjust the amounts for any bill that might be over the budgeted amount, put that in the overage column, and calculate the total from there.  This usually only happens in the summer with the A/C.

The reason for dividing the available cash in 4's is that we need to build up our savings account, make repairs on the house, and start an emergency cash fund, so we felt the best way to do it was to put some in each fund instead of putting the whole amount of available cash (from the house payment) on the credit card and then have no emergency money when needed. My husband hasn't been 100% on this idea because he is happiest when he can buy things, so he has been barely tolerable about me "paying off bills", saying that you always have debt. His idea of debt is always having utility bills, if not credit cards and loans. My idea of debt is just loans and credit cards.  You are out of debt if you don't have loans or credit card balances. We have 2 different points of view on this.

I hope this idea works for someone else. I had to put it on paper to get my thoughts organized and identify where extra money might be. It clears my head to have it on paper, and I keep it in a folder with my bill paying supplies. I can follow it as the months go by plus have a record of where the money went. E

That is fabulous! All your hard work has paid off. You are on debt freedoms doorstep! May more of us make it there soon.

First of all, congratulations on paying your mortgage note!  I hope you had yourselves a little celebration!

Secondly, thank you for your suggestion.  I keep a pretty detailed spreadsheet in Excel.  However, I've been dissatisfied with it lately because I'm not seeing those overage amounts as clearly as I'd like to--while we are fortunate not to have credit card debts, I am building  up our emergency savings and want every little bit to go towards that goal.

I'll be implementing it!  Great idea!

PS. I love tea, too.

Thanks Amy, I love tea, mostly Earl Gray mixed with green tea.

Realizing that I had extra money available every other month from our water bill spurred me into thinking of little bits that might add up to extra funds for the debt repayment, but I couldn't keep it all in my head without making my head spin, so decided to make out a chart.  I know some people make lists to keep their lives in order; for me it is an Excel Spreadsheet.  I've worked with some accounting programs at my old job, but never liked them. What I did use Excel most often for was alphabetizing then sorting all the information I needed for my accounts, or I made up charts to keep track of what needed to be done each month, what bills were paid, what deposits were made for the company, that sort of thing.  Excel made it so much easier over doing it by hand. E