Seven months have come and gone since I began this journey. It’s definitely been fun watching the numbers go down slowly but in the right direction. If you allow me to reflect a little bit I realize that it takes serious dedication to make this work. You have to be your own personal advocate. What do I mean? You can to call credit card companies to get the best rate that you can. You have to be willing to leave your dignity behind sometimes do things you might not like to do like haggling on prices. You might give up some much needed sleep my taking up a second job. You might even downgrade your “lifestyle” but getting rid of things that you might have previously though of as unnecessary. It’s VERY introspective. I’ve also learned that an additional $20 thrown here and there to a debt can really add up.
Time to get to the numbers I guess. I have not updated my balance since the end of May. At that time my total debt balance was $97,754.58. The numbers have somewhat.
May
Student Loan #1 $2,480.14
Student Loan #2 $38,358.65
Credit Card #1 $0
Credit Card #2 $5,599.00
HELOC $46,632.37
Personal Loan $632.43
Car Note $4,051.99
July
Student Loan #1 $2,291.03
Student Loan #2 $38,063.25
Credit Card #1 $656.29
Credit Card #2 $4,857.19
HELOC $45,974.90
Personal Loan $73.63
Car Note $3,190.70
you’ll notice that Credit Card #1 now has a balance. I know, I know. In my defense I purchased something for my brother. He did give me the cash but it sort of disappeared…okay, I spent it. I’ll try to get rid of that as soon as possible. You’ll notice that the personal loan is almost gone. It has a three year term and I’m less than year in so I’ve made some real progress there. My grand total is now $95,106.99. This means that I’m down $2,647.59 since May. Progress!