Sunday, March 16, 2008
Update on Debt Snowball
| By Lynn Forgy My original goal was to pay off the 2 remaining debts in my Debt Snowball: Car loan and student loan. The total of both in December was around $16K, and I wanted to have $15K paid off by the end of May 2008.  The total currently is down to $15,250, which doesn't sound that great when I think that it's been almost 3 months. However, I have been putting my extra income (from my part-time job, mystery shopping, and tax refund) into my ING account until I have enough to pay a substantial portion. So, I tallied up the numbers yesterday and at the end of the month will be putting $4,997.11 towards my debt - this amount represents my tax refund, plus the extra money I made last year that has just been sitting in the account waiting for this moment. That means I have $10,252.89 left to get rid of the Debt Snowball. My mystery shopping has slowed down this month, mainly due to there not being enough shops at the times I can go (due to work, etc.) and gas has gotten so expensive that it doesn't pay to only do 1 shop at a location, then drive 20 minutes to another location. But last month, I made enough extra money to make a tiny dent in my snowball. I haven't totaled the numbers from my part-time jobs from January to present, but will do that at the end of the month when I make the large payment on the debt. Bringing in more money for the snowball: 1) We will be having a gigantic yard sale within the next several weeks - I'm selling almost everything. My daughter is frightened that her stuff is next :) 2) I've also started advertising for cleaning services, yet I'm hesitant because I don't know when I will have the time to actually clean someone's house. 3) I have cut expenses as much as I can at this point. We still have a basic TV package, but that's our family entertainment so I'm reluctant to cut that luxury. This is all I've been able to come up with up to this point. Other Thoughts: *I haven't quite gotten the hang of the coupon thing yet - I'm too cheap to buy the newspaper to get the coupons, and I don't want to spend an entire day driving to different stores to get the best deal. I'm still working on it. *I check craigslist occasionally for jobs (jobs that I could do once, or on an as-needed, very part time basis). |
posted by Krista at 11:03 AM
