Hey loves! Before we start the serious conversation about debt, let me show you our Christmas tree newly covered in tinsel:
I love this time of year and when I went into Dollar Tree I made sure to grab a bag of tinsel to make our tree shine!
Now, let's talk debt!
I hate having debt and honestly paying for everything for our wedding forced us to put quite a bit on credit cards. We honestly were pretty frugal in comparison to many of the weddings that take place in our area, (I can write a blog more in detail with our wedding numbers if there's interest), but still we have quite a bit of debt following the wedding.
Now, we did receive many monetary gifts for our wedding but all of that money we have allocated to a down payment for a house. We don't want to touch that money because buying a house is a goal of ours for within the next six months. So our savings is off limit! (Don't kill me Dave Ramsey)
I honestly thought once the wedding was over we would be able to pay down our credit cards fairly quickly but then the Christmas season rolled around. *Sigh* I am trying to keep my costs down by doing things like hitting up Black Friday and other holiday sales however Christmas is a big expense.
Once Christmas is over I'm hopeful we will be focusing on getting our tax returns done and paying down our debt. I'm going to share our real numbers with you now so as we go through this process I can hopefully share with you our progress!
December Debt Totals
Credit Card #1 $35.98
Credit Card #2 $172.73
Credit Card #3 $274.15
Credit Card #4 $612.57
Credit Card #5 $1163.93
Credit Card #6 $2606.12
Credit Card #7 $7316.88
Credit Card #8 $7682.30
Student Loan: $3280.03
Our total debt is $23,144.69.
Now to some people this number might seem ginormous while to others it may seem small but to me it's WAY too much to be owing someone. Now the first three credit cards can easily be paid off quickly and honestly were paid off before I put some Christmas gifts on them but the bigger $7000+ credit cards are going to take some patience and dedication.
You may also be wondering why we have so many credit cards. When Tim and I first met he didn't have a single credit card so he opened a few to get his credit up. I have a few store credit cards and just this year when I purchased my new laptop I financed it with a store credit card as well. Combining that with my other credit cards, we have a ton. I don't mind using credit cards but I would like to get to the point where I'm paying them off every month rather then holding on to these large balances.
For the debt snowball I will be going in order and paying off each credit card by number but I may skip over credit card #5 and come back to it since that card has a 0% APR so making minimum payments for now won't hurt me and I would rather see some of my larger cards with huge APRs disappear first.
I would love to hear from you if you are on a debt free journey! Please share in the comments below what you would like to hear about during this journey- I want to be as transparent as possible so you can see our progress and hopefully we can help you if you are also struggling with debt!
Have a great day everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment