Goals scare me, because I don’t like to fail. I have been toying with naming a date to be credit card debt-free by and I have decided to just go for it.
Thanks to the debt calcuator at CNNMoney.com, it was determined that I could be debt-free in 3 years. Just imagine…$37K of credit card debt gone in three years. I like the sound of that 
The amount I have to pay monthly is a little over $1050/month (just for the credit cards - not counting other debt). That is a large chunk of our net monthly income, but it can definitely be done. Let me rephrase that…it WILL be done.
So, without further ado …
Target Date to be Free of Credit Card Debt: May 1, 2009
My game face is on, and I am ready to show my credit cards a thing or two 
Tags: card+card, debt
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Credit Card Debt
- Starting = $37,614
- Paid Off = $29,141
- Current = $8,473
- $25 ING Savings Bonus
Savings Account
- Current = $3,750
Posted: April 28th, 2006 at 11:14 am
I found it helpful to have a target goal. I ran all the numbers through excel to compute the interest and made a wall chart showing how much i need to pay each month to meet the goal. the chart is posted on the wall so each month i get to put a big fat X through it, that way I have something to look forward to each month as well.
Also have you checked out the No Credit Needed Network? NCN keeps track of all the members progress and makes pie charts for all of us. He’s good at motivating as well. http://ncnnetwork.blogspot.com/
Posted: April 28th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
Good for you! I think the goals will be very helpful as well. In fact, I am going to post my own goals sometime this weekend on my site. I think it is a great mechanism to help hold ourselves accountable, since it would be totally un-fun to report to the world that we decided to splurge and fell away from our goals because of it.
Posted: April 29th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Congrats! Setting a goal is the first step towards making it happen.
That amount seems like a large % of your income but if you can do it that is awesome.
Posted: April 30th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
It is a large percentage of our income, but it can be done. I also plan on selling a lot of things which should bring in a few more dollars.
The biggest thing is that we need to keep living as we were before our increase in income. Which, that is super hard to do once you have money and can have a few more things and “live a little richer” so to speak.
It will be a journey, to say the least.
Thanks everyone for your comments and words of support!!
Posted: May 1st, 2006 at 9:53 am
We are all pulling for you. I know you can do and you will!!!
Posted: July 20th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
[...] Ouch, another big bump in the road and just a few days after announcing the goal date. I think I will leave the goal date intact for the time being because time is limited to run all the scenarios again. [...]
Posted: July 20th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
[...] Then I discovered that Dawn from Frugal for Life expressed that she enjoyed my article on Keeping Motivated to Become Debt-Free. That meant so much to me that I went and submitted my post to Ezine Articles and it was just accepted to be published [...]
Posted: August 2nd, 2006 at 10:31 pm
[...] Although I have been seeing my credit card debt go down, I haven’t really been adding up the numbers to make sure I am still on track to meet my goal date of May 2009. In my mind, I was just figuring that I was meeting the goal of paying $1050/month towards credit cards but I haven’t really been checking it. That’s bad of me, I know. But whenever there is a problem, you need to find a solution. [...]
Posted: September 9th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
Finally I have found a blog that can inspire me.
I have decided a month ago to work on reducing my debt. I’ve cancelled 2 vacations ( Nov and Dec) to meet my goal. Putting on my game face
( as you call it) was the last hurdle I had to jump. I have tweaked, crunched, and squeezed the numbers of my monthly budget.
Target: 01 September 2007 debt free
$ 14325.00
Thanks for all your wonderful ideas and tips!
Posted: September 10th, 2006 at 9:28 am
Nancy - wow, thank you. You are very welcome and I am glad my blog has information that others find useful as well.
It sounds to me like your game face is on and you are ready to roll! Stop back by and give an update now and then if you can. I’d love to hear how you are doing.
All the best!
Posted: September 23rd, 2006 at 8:19 pm
[...] I could change my goal date of May 2009, but I’m not quite ready to do that yet. The scenarios I ran assume that I will be able to do another balance transfer if I need to. I have two low interest rate balance transfers that will expire in November (3.9%) and March (0%). [...]
Posted: December 30th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
[...] Big Announcement - The Goal Date is Set - May of 2009 is still my official goal date to have our debt paid off. I’ve toyed with moving it to Christmas of 2008, but I haven’t officially done it. [...]
Posted: March 7th, 2007 at 7:55 am
[...] I discovered that Dawn from Frugal for Life expressed that she enjoyed my article on Keeping Motivated to Become Debt-Free. That meant so much to me that I went and submitted my post to Ezine Articles and it was just [...]