We’re making some progress! We were able to save some money from the refinancing of our home which we have decided to put towards the debt this month. We also did pretty well at the end of December with our arbitrage business. We made enough that we were comfortable taking a small chunk of money from there to pay down some debt and knocked out the credit card balance on Credit Cards 3. That felt like a win!
My goal is to be able to make an extra payment each month that helps to feel like we’re really making a difference in paying off our major debts. We might be able to knock out those student loans or maybe get a nice investment account going that starts really working for us.
We do have some major expenses coming up too though. We live in a neighborhood with an HOA, which has been sending out letters to everyone stating it is time to repaint. Bummer! That’s not going to be a cheap one. That said, we’ll try and find the best way to do it while still getting a quality job done. “Why not do it yourself?” Yeah, I can hear you thinking that. I have a 2 story house and don’t think it would be the best idea to put a ladder on part of the first story to reach up to the second floor walls. Anyway let’s get on with the report. Here is the update for the debt report for January 2020:
| Category | Starting Debt as of October 16, 2019 | Debt as of 1/31/2020 |
| C |
||
| CREDIT CARDS 4 | 319.93 | 10.81 |
| CREDIT CARDS 2 | 1,700.14 | 5,856.41 |
| AUTO LOANS | 18,718.26 | 17,812.53 |
| STUDENT LOANS | 30,259.94 | 29,741.17 |
| HOME LOANS 3 | 147,606.51 | 145,491.10 |
| HOME LOANS 4 | 0 | 308,502.00 |
| Total Debt | 513,160.12 | 507,414.02 |
We knocked out $5,746.10 of our debt last month. We probably could have done better, but we also decided to sock away a little more into savings.
I know I shouldn’t make excuses, but I’m doing it… Over the years we hadn’t saved much because of our circumstances. I know, I know, lame excuse, especially since this blog is about personal finance and the smart decisions we can make to save for financial independence. But hey, we all have to go through some learning experiences, right? Some of us learn those lessons faster than others, but as long as we get on the right track and pointed in the right direction we’ll probably be ok. So if you are younger, learn from my mistake. Save early and save a lot. It will make all the difference by the time you reach my age and you might already have reached your financial independence goals too!
For me though, it felt good to have some of that extra cash starting to churn in the money earning machine of investments.
There was a decision to make about paying off some extra debt or investing the funds. I missed the boat when it comes to getting started really early and my time horizon for saving is shorter, so I opted for investing now and paying a little less on the debt. The only significant interest is on the student loans, which are at 6.55%. The way the market has been going I’m taking it there for now. Besides, I’ll be able to deduct that interest off my taxes as well, so the net effect of paying the 6.55% is actually less.
If you’d like to take a look at my other debt reports you can check them out here;