One more month of operation wipe out credit card/car debt completed. And as long and tedious as it has been, we are in the final stretch now. Only $3341 left. In fact, we have an estimated payoff date of June 7th! Just gotta keep putting one foot in front of the other for a little longer...
Actually, I have a confession. Two days ago, we bought a fridge. With a store credit card. So, to be completely honest about it, out debt total is actually at $5279.08 now. I know, I know, we maybe shouldn't have. We're so close. But- we were absolutely going to do this as soon as possible after we finished in June, and -the store had a sale on them this month that saved us $200, and- there's no interest for 6 months and we should have it paid off 3-4 months from now. And also- we were sick to death of that stupid drawer always falling down and pulverizing our fruit! And just to throw in one more good excuse, it was so ancient that I'm certain our energy bill will go down by a noticeable amount once the new eco-friendly one arrives. And it's bigger. It might actually fit all our stuff!
This doesn't actually change our payment plan at all really because given there's no interest, we're still going to put all our focus into the last credit card first and then start paying for the new lap top and fridge we need. We'll finish paying it off in the same time we would have saved for it, but this way I get the new fridge while we're doing it. At this point, I trust myself to deal with this new debt ASAP, so I am not too worried about it. I don't plan on paying interest to credit card companies EVER again.
So, one more month down. And I keep wondering, what will it feel like when the last debt is paid? If we were planning on adding all the extra money we'll have to our regular spending, I'd probably assume it'd feel pretty awesome. Instead we're mostly going to be doing much more practical things with it, like starting a 401k, increasing contributions to our HSA and saving for a new family car. So in terms of spending, it won't feel that much different. But I would assume there will be a mental shift of some sort? A different feeling when you know you are finally creating a hill rather than digging out of a hole? I don't know for sure. I guess we'll see when we get there. I sure hope it feels different! Would love to hear how it was for others when they reached this turning point.
Inching Ever Closer & A New Fridge!
May 1st, 2013 at 02:47 am
May 1st, 2013 at 02:57 am 1367377029
As for the fridge...well. It could be worse. As long as you are strict about paying it off in the alloted time period (actually a month before the alloted time period is better in case something goes wrong then there is no risk of getting slapped with the interest), that's not too bad. One thing at a time though. Don't get the mindset that you are almost there so let's go a little crazy. Did you get a fridge with an Energy Star rating? The one we have now is one and it made a big dent in our electric when we changed.