fbpx
:::: MENU ::::

Weekly Debt Update #16- Memorial Day Fun

by

Happy Thursday everyone!

I hope everybody is having a great (and short) week thus far!

As I originally intended to post this on Tuesday, I want to talk about what we did for Memorial Day. Over the weekend, we decided to have my parents down for a couple days to celebrate. Originally, when I talked to my parents about coming down back in April, they were going to stay for one day (Saturday) and night. We ended up having such a good time that it turned into 2 days (Saturday and Sunday) and 2 nights.

To prepare for our plans, which was to have a picnic, I ended up using a good portion of my monthly “fun” money ($50) to help out. I used this money to purchase the food we “needed” for some picnics. GF also pitched in by paying for 1/2 the picnic supplies plus beer. My folks got down to Erie on Saturday where we just hung out, talked and ate stuff we had around our house. We love having fires, so we spent a good part of the evening and most of the night just drinking beer and relaxing by the fire while our dogs played in the back yard.

Sunday was picnic day. Since Erie has such nice beaches, we were going to have our picnic down on the beach and hang out by the water and soak up some sun. Plans changed pretty quickly that morning. Erie has a very quaint little amusement park down by the water called Waldemeer. My mother thought it would be a great idea to have our picnic there and treat everyone to rides as a thank you for letting them spend the weekend with us. The park ride tickets aren’t expensive ($20-ish for all you can ride) and there’s never a wait to get on, which makes it a perfect place to spent a few hours. Here’s my and GF in the park:

IMG_3730

Half way through our stay, I grilled out hog dogs, had some pasta salad and fruit that I got at the store the day before. It was an excellent way to spend time with my family. Later that evening, we had dinner and returned to the park to watch their Memorial Day fireworks (which everyone in Erie goes to watch).

On the actual holiday, the GF and I planted our garden/did some yard work while her mom visited and we had…another cookout! We finally used up the food we bought at the beginning of the weekend. All in all, I ended up only spending $30 for the picnic stuff plus gas to host our families. Last summer was our first experiment with gardening, and we seemed to overload the small plot with too many plants. This year, we’ve stuck to just our favorites: tomatoes, hot peppers, and cucumbers. Here’s a picture of the finished product:

IMG_3742.JPG

Not only do we love our vegetables, but it’s also a financial save since we tend to go through a lot.

For anyone interested in my debt numbers since last week, here they are:

Loan NameInterest RateOriginal Balance- May '09Current BalanceTotal Paid OffPaid Since Last Week
Sallie Mae 015.25$27,837.24$23,896.61$3,940.63$88.62
Sallie Mae 024.75$22,197.02$18,750.50$3,449.52$69.94
Sallie Mae 037.75$20,692.10$0.00
$20,692.10$0.00
Sallie Mae 045.75$10,350.18$7,339.83$3,010.35$67.81
Sallie Mae 055.25$6,096.03$0.00$4,840.64$0.00
Sallie Mae 06 and 074.75$6,415.09$0.00$6,415.09$0.00
Sallie Mae- DOE 015.25$5,000.00$0.00$5,000.00$0.00
Sallie Mae- DOE 025.25$3,000.00$0.00$3,000.00$0.00
AES6.8$9,000.00$0.00$9,000.00$0.00
TOTALS$110,587.66$49,986.94$60,600.72$226.37

Like I posted last week- I reached the under $50,000 milestone! Something, I didn’t think I would ever reach!!

Have a great weekend!


4 Comments

  • Reply Den |

    GREAT job getting under $50,000 on your debt – that is really amazing! Congrats!!!! Pretty soon you will be under $45,000….then under $40,000…….wow – no stopping you!

    And I’m so glad you used some of your fun money for the weekend with your parents and girlfriend – that’s exactly what it’s for and it sounds like you used it wisely and stretched it as far as you could.

    I’m really enjoying your posts!

    • Reply Matt |

      Thanks Den!! I always enjoy hearing from you!! I’m glad you’re enjoying what I’m posting 🙂

  • Reply Judi |

    Congratulations on reaching the below 50k landmark! Also great work on the garden, it looks wonderful. You’re making some amazing progress, do you think it will be psychologically easier or harder for you now that you have only three debts but they all have large balances? I guess I’m asking if the little wins are motivating for you and how you plan on mentally breaking up these larger debts. That is something we re struggling with right now, initially we had a lot of little wins with debts and now that debt payoffs have slowed its difficult to keep our focus.

    • Reply Matt |

      Hey Judi! These are some wonderful questions. I’ll answer them in order:

      – I think it will be harder, honestly. The easy wins came quickly, but now it’s going to be months and quite possibly years between wins, which will certainly try my patience.
      – I’ve been breaking up ALL my debts by increments of $1,000. On my spreadsheet, I keep a target balance for each debt which is helping to break it up. So on my really large debts, if the balance is $19,800, my next target is to get it under $19,000. And when it’s under that amount, I’ll decrease the target to $18,000, and so on. That really helps to breakup the monotony of having such large balances.
      -I wholeheartedly agree with you on it being difficult to maintain focus. We still all have lives to live while we’re paying these debts off, right? And the longer the deby payoff is spread out the more life creeps into that momentum.

      I just know that I’m going to have a difficult time on these next 3 debts, so you’re certainly not alone.

So, what do you think ?