When I made out my budget for this paycheck, I had forgotten that my license for my job is up for renewal. Oops. $67.00
So I sent off the money last night (online payment) and that puts me a just a little bit short for the week. I’m ahead of my food budget though, so I think I can squeeze it in if I’m careful. If not, I will have to rob the EF of a few dollars before payday. Those one time bills always throw me.
Mental Note: Car tags are due in May….
Since I started this blog a week ago, I’m still working on my Emergency Fund. So the debts aren’t being paid extra right now. But at least the minimum payments are still going toward the debt. Since my student loans are installment loans, they are a lot more predictable than the rest. And today, my payment to Sallie Mae posted to my account.
So I have my first decrease in my debt balance today. Sallie stole got $434 last payday, so my new balance is $8072. That leaves eighteen and a half more payments left to go, or more like nineteen with interest accrued. And since she gets money every two weeks, that comes out to about nine and a half months, or somewhere around the end of October or November. I can pay off Sallie without ever having to make a payment from the snowball. Then I can use the debt snowball to work on the credit cards, and once Sallie Mae is gone, the money that I was paying her will make my debt snowball nice and fat. In fact, if all I ever made was minimum payments on everything until Sallie Mae was gone, and then used the money from Sallie Mae to pay off the credit cards I could be done in just over two years.
But of course, that’s not what I’m going to do. If my work holds out, I could pay off all of the credit cards in about thirteen months if I don’t count the Sallie Mae money that will be added to it towards the end. So there isn’t any reason why I couldn’t knock out the credit cards by the end of 2008. That is, if work holds out.
After the student loans and credit cards are gone, the car would only take about three or four more months with all the money that is added to the the snowball from the CC payments and the student loan payments.
Oh…I forgot about the Air Conditioner. Oh well. It will work in there somewhere.
The main point is that I have my first reduction in my debt totals and this is looking very doable right now.
