I can't believe it's May! This year has just been flying by! I'm so excited to share this first debt free update of 2018! I'm so happy with everything we accomplished! Here is my month-by-month breakdown! *Also, I wrote all of this month by month as it was happening which is why it sounds like I have no clue whats going to happen in the coming months.
January
On January 16th we paid off my first student loan!! Y'all, I am so happy to be writing that! Each debt that gets paid off is another weight off my shoulders! That's $3,778.00 out of our lives forever! It's also an additional $57.57 per month in our pockets - well, it's still going towards the next debt for now but you get the point.
We jumped right in to paying our next debt which is our personal loan. We took this out to consolidate all of our credit card debt (except the one). It was higher payments and lower interest and at the time we hadn't heard of the snowball so it seemed like a good idea. As of the day we paid off the student loan, we owed $4,822.00 on the personal loan.
The day after I sent the last payment for my student loan, Josh got his per Diem pay from deployment. We were going to throw that right at the personal loan, but we decided to hang on to it for a bit because of the Government shut-down threats. I'm glad we did because Josh's car ended up needing a new radiator, and we owed on our state taxes and we didn't get enough back in federal taxes to cover it. When all was said and done, I was able to put $400 of that money on to the personal loan. Other than the per diem money, we were able to put and additional $100 on to the personal loan. Bringing our January total to $500 on this loan.
February
February is when I really got started on my new job and bringing in some extra money. Even with a few small set backs such as needing to replace Josh's ASUs jacket we were able to put a whopping $1389 on to our personal loan this month! I have a huge grin on my face looking at that number! If we keep that up, this debt will by paid by the end of April or beginning of May! We will also officially be under $40,000 once we pay this off! That is huge because when we started this journey, my student loans added up to almost $40,000 by themselves. (**we actually went under the $40k mark at the end of March!)
March
Oh March ... March was just a tough month all around. I was a bit discouraged in March and just losing my patience - I just want this stupid debt gone, and I want it gone right now! Then the training that Josh had to go on cost us an arm and a leg. The amount of supplies they make you purchase is just stupid. Also, he was flying with the helicopters and had to buy his own food along the way. The 5 day trip turned into an almost 3 week trip due to the birds breaking down. So he was eating out twice a day for three weeks. This girl was not happy. We were a bit lower than I wanted to be this month with $1161. What kept me going in March was knowing that this loan will be gone before our Anniversary in May.
April
Getting closer and it's killing me slowly! This is our last full month of paying on this loan and it's felt like the longest month ever! We should have this paid off before we go to Maryland in mid May, which is super awesome! This has been our biggest month yet with $1470 going towards our personal loan and we only have $550 left to pay on it! I'm super proud of us because Josh's training was super expensive. I'll go into more detail on that on Thursday, but I'll just say we were pinching pennies for part of the month!
I'm SO HAPPY with our progress during the first 1/3rd of 2018! We paid off a Student loan and came pretty damn close to paying off the personal loan! If all goes well, we should have Josh's car paid off by the end of the year which means we will officially have no car debt (my car has been paid off for years).
January
On January 16th we paid off my first student loan!! Y'all, I am so happy to be writing that! Each debt that gets paid off is another weight off my shoulders! That's $3,778.00 out of our lives forever! It's also an additional $57.57 per month in our pockets - well, it's still going towards the next debt for now but you get the point.
We jumped right in to paying our next debt which is our personal loan. We took this out to consolidate all of our credit card debt (except the one). It was higher payments and lower interest and at the time we hadn't heard of the snowball so it seemed like a good idea. As of the day we paid off the student loan, we owed $4,822.00 on the personal loan.
The day after I sent the last payment for my student loan, Josh got his per Diem pay from deployment. We were going to throw that right at the personal loan, but we decided to hang on to it for a bit because of the Government shut-down threats. I'm glad we did because Josh's car ended up needing a new radiator, and we owed on our state taxes and we didn't get enough back in federal taxes to cover it. When all was said and done, I was able to put $400 of that money on to the personal loan. Other than the per diem money, we were able to put and additional $100 on to the personal loan. Bringing our January total to $500 on this loan.
February
February is when I really got started on my new job and bringing in some extra money. Even with a few small set backs such as needing to replace Josh's ASUs jacket we were able to put a whopping $1389 on to our personal loan this month! I have a huge grin on my face looking at that number! If we keep that up, this debt will by paid by the end of April or beginning of May! We will also officially be under $40,000 once we pay this off! That is huge because when we started this journey, my student loans added up to almost $40,000 by themselves. (**we actually went under the $40k mark at the end of March!)
March
Oh March ... March was just a tough month all around. I was a bit discouraged in March and just losing my patience - I just want this stupid debt gone, and I want it gone right now! Then the training that Josh had to go on cost us an arm and a leg. The amount of supplies they make you purchase is just stupid. Also, he was flying with the helicopters and had to buy his own food along the way. The 5 day trip turned into an almost 3 week trip due to the birds breaking down. So he was eating out twice a day for three weeks. This girl was not happy. We were a bit lower than I wanted to be this month with $1161. What kept me going in March was knowing that this loan will be gone before our Anniversary in May.
April
Getting closer and it's killing me slowly! This is our last full month of paying on this loan and it's felt like the longest month ever! We should have this paid off before we go to Maryland in mid May, which is super awesome! This has been our biggest month yet with $1470 going towards our personal loan and we only have $550 left to pay on it! I'm super proud of us because Josh's training was super expensive. I'll go into more detail on that on Thursday, but I'll just say we were pinching pennies for part of the month!
I'm SO HAPPY with our progress during the first 1/3rd of 2018! We paid off a Student loan and came pretty damn close to paying off the personal loan! If all goes well, we should have Josh's car paid off by the end of the year which means we will officially have no car debt (my car has been paid off for years).
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