I decided that I could start sharing my debt repayments through tables because it’s probably easier to understand visually.
So here’s how I did…
June |
July |
Change | Percent Change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Loans
|
||||
| ECSI | 8471.31 | 8413.61 | 57.70 | -.6% |
| Upstart | 4813.25 | 4661.67 | 151.58 | -3.14% |
Credit Cards
|
||||
| Southwest (Chase) | 3054.27 | 2967.83 | 86.44 | -2.83% |
| Discover | 1374.53 | 965.99 | 408.54 | -29.72% |
| Combined Debt | 17713.36 | 17009.10 | 704.26 | -3.97% |
What you need to know is I paid off $704.26! After moving, new home expenses, and rebuilding my emergency fund for May and June, it was nice to have an actual month of paying off debt.
Looking at numbers like this reminds me how important it is to pay off this debt. Here’s why: I paid way more than this much this month, but so much went towards interest. Like the $130 Southwest payment was almost equally divided between Interest and Principal. My $93 payment on my ECSI loan when 40% towards interest! The sooner I can get these debts gone, the lest money I’ll be wasting by paying interest.
July’s success can be attributed to a lot of planning. Considering I was traveling 12 of the 31 days in July and I adopted a dog, staying on or about budget enough to still make big payments was great! I still went over a little because of some major vet bills, but I’ve figured those out already. Hopefully, August will finally lead to some extra side money: my reimbursement from College 7s, my pay and reimbursement from RCTs, some sponsored posts, including this one. My hope is that these can all offset the finagling I had to do to afford Bo’s mostly one-time expenses.
Going into August, I know that Casey is going to be gone for most of the month. As a result, we should stay really under budget in our joint account (and hopefully build a cushion for future months). That will help protect from future Bo-related expenses. I’m bummed that he’s going to be gone a lot over the next three months (most of the next three months, anyway), but I know that when he is gone, I’m less likely to spend on things except food. I know that I’m much more likely to splurge on food because I don’t want to cook for one.
On the horizon, I can see that Discover card being paid off really soon. It won’t happen in August (unless I can find an extra $688 which is highly unlikely), but it will happen in September! This one is SO CLOSE that I can taste it!
Let’s talk: How did you do with your debt repayment this month?
Emilie is an Army Wife, Data Engineer, and CrossFitter with a love for working through her thoughts in this space on the internet. She is a contributor to many open source projects including dbt, Meltano, and GitLab. She lives with her husband Casey, their son RJ, and their pup Bo in Columbus, GA.