Getting Out of Debt

Like many other people, we’re trying to get out of debt and trying to commit to paying as much as possible without depriving our family.  I overdid it a bit this last month and now “Summer” has started with no money and without a whole lot to do.  Here in Washington, it’s still not swimming weather, so I can’t depend on multiple free trips to a nearby lake.  And of course, our TV broke the weekend after school got out. 

I am proud though because we managed to bring our debt down from around $10,000 to $5,800.  Also, I’m bummed because that still feels like a lot and I’m losing some piano students until Fall.  I was really hoping to bring it down to $4,000 something by next month.  It’s also hard not to think about where we could be using those payments, but I’m trying to just feel grateful that my husband has a stable job. 

With our tax return two years ago, we paid off our van.

With our last tax return, we paid off my husband’s truck, so now we have no car payments.  As I promised myself, I have taken that amount and added it to the usual $200 we were paying per month towards the credit card and then some.  I decided to go for the snowball effect and figured it would feel encouraging not to have any vehicle payments.  Looking back at our bills, we actually paid $1200 a couple months ago and then $800 the next.  We were blessed with an unusual amount of overtime.

At this rate, I am pretty sure we will be debt free with our next tax return.  I keep telling myself to be patient – it’s less than a year away.  It’s just that I promised myself again that we would move out of this apartment before school starts.  Well, we didn’t get into debt overnight and we’re not going to get out of it overnight.  I’m just praying that we don’t have any more expensive medical bills and that we will continue to be blessed with stable employment.