I am frustrated that I have not been able to keep up with this blog very well lately due to some other projects I have been working on. I think it is a really good outlet for the stress this financial overhaul creates in our lives sometimes. And I think its a really good tool for keeping us accountable. Should be able to put more time into it again by the end of this month though I think, so I'll have to be content with that for now.
As for where we're at right now, do you see that side bar?! Talk about progress! Yes, the windfall has finally begun. Hubby got his bonus from work, which was about $5K after taxes got done with it. Originally, I had planned on paying off credit cards first with that, but after reading A LOT of material of financial planning recently, I decided a better use would be to pay off the car first, due to its higher interest rate. So, that one is done! And that payoff alone increases our monthly income by $198/month. Yay!
We also got our state return, a little under $500, and with that and some other surplus, I did pay off 1 of our 4 credit cards as well, though that one only increases out bottom line by about $30/month so not as exciting. But still progress! Supposedly, the IRS is going to finally start processing returns for people with mortgage interest credits within the next week. So hopefully, we will get that soon too (assuming no audit as discussed previously:
After that, it will just be the one big one left, which I'm hoping to have taken care of by the end of the summer, maybe sooner depending on how my business goes (summers tend to be slower). And then, we finally get to start the more fun part of personal finance: investing in ourselves.
Certainly we still have a lot of debt to pay off, between my student loans and our mortgage. Actually, even after paying off the the rest of the credit cards, I was disappointed to find that our net worth will still be around -$84K. Ouch. Though it is above the -$100K mark now for the first time in years. But as one financial planner I read stated, we're working really hard just to be worthless right now (ie $0 net worth).
None the less, after receiving some comments about how silly we are to not be taking advantage of the 401K matching hubby's company offers, I did a bit of research and decided in the end that, yes, we are being incredibly stupid not taking this free money and we need to get on that train ASAP, Dave Ramsey be damned. If we were being completely logical rather than emotional about it in fact, we would probably be prioritizing that even above our credit cards given that they have very low promotional interest rates. After much discussion though, we have decided we simply cannot bring ourselves to make this credit card thing go any slower. We feel spread much too thin as it is, and we need to be done with those debts and never use credit that way again. Our emotional sanity depends on it. Especially given how close we are.
If it were going to be something that was a few years away from being accomplished, like our mortgage and student loans, it might make sense to do it with more of a long view in mind. But we are literally within 3-5 months of our goal and our monthly income will increase by another $300 compared to now, once we sunset this. And that will certainly help our long term bottom line as well. That's our thinking at least. But at least we're almost there!
Anyways, very happy to be making some definite progress finally and looking forward to a 3 paycheck March this month as well!
March 2nd, 2013 at 11:37 pm 1362267446
March 2nd, 2013 at 11:59 pm 1362268792
March 3rd, 2013 at 11:08 am 1362308891
March 4th, 2013 at 08:51 pm 1362430289
Jerry