by Hope
Woot, woot! As of this morning, my Personal Loan #1 has been PAID IN FULL! It would have been completed yesterday, but there are send limits with Zelle so I had to split up the payments I was making between different days.
Boy this feels good!
This loan was from a friend last fall in the amount of $2,500. And now it’s paid off.
Personal Loan #2 in the same amount loaned at the same time will be paid in full next month.
I talked to my Dad and told him I would start paying him after these were paid off and he told me to take care of my interest bearing debt first. So I’m going to change my game plan for the fall and winter.
Goals to Pay Consumer Debt:
August – Personal Loan #2
October – CC Wander
November – CC Amazon
January – Dad (new heater for my house in January)
February – CC Frontier
More Realistic
I feel like this is a more realistic plan. And the only thing that might be able to expedite it is if my current large contract goes full time. (We are in talks for this; however, the company needs to grow a bit more before the owner is willing to make that commitment.) The great thing is that we are at the end of the initial 6 month period and no end planned.
Life is good. I am so grateful for that.
Hope is a resourceful, solutions-driven online business manager with over two decades of experience helping clients streamline operations, manage projects, and grow their businesses through digital marketing and technology.
But life has a way of rewriting your plans.
A year ago, Hope made the decision to move in with her aging parents full time – a season she wouldn’t trade, even as it came with its own financial and emotional weight. Earlier this year, she lost her mother, and is now walking the tender, disorienting path of grief while learning what “forward” looks like from here.
Hope came to the Blogging Away Debt community in 2015 as a single mom raising five foster and adoptive children. She’s written through job changes, financial setbacks, and the bittersweet transition to an empty nest. Her kids are finding their footing in the world now – and so is she.
Rooted in faith and fueled by the same perseverance she’s brought to every hard season, Hope is ready to face her finances with fresh eyes and an honest pen. She believes that clarity, courage, and community can change the trajectory of anyone’s story including her own.
She lives in Austin, TX with her dad, loves adventures with her dog Addie, and is figuring out, one step at a time, what this next chapter is meant to be.
Congratulations Hope. Here’s to clearing more debt!
Great job paying off the first personal loan and being in queue for the second one.
I’m a bit surprised you won’t be in a position to pay off the Wander card by the end of September. With the $500 freed up payments from personal loan number 1 in August/September and the $500 from personal loan number 2 in September, plus your minimum payments it seems like you’d be in a position for July/August/September, it seems like you’d be in a position to knock this one out too. Maybe the next three months are an opportunity to dig deep and make some small extra payments here and there to knock back the interest as well?
I know you’ll want to help Princess get started in her apartment, but there are blessings in taking time to be fully furnished. My roommate and I used old camp chairs in our living room and had our TV on a box for quite awhile in our apartment until we bought a used couch. Furnishings were sparse, but we did just fine eating dinner on our laps and sitting on the floor when people came over.
Good job!
It’s good that you were able to pay this. Are you ever going to post your budget? I don’t say much these days but you definitely have patterned behavior Hope. You ,less than a year ago, had to have a difficult conversation with Gymnast regarding your ability to help like you promised and now I see you are promising Princess help. Meanwhile the fact that you have hearing aids and glasses should be God’s little reminder that you are rapidly aging and should be preparing for limited ability to work. I also worry that you are “ forecasting” as if the job you have as a contract will last into perpetuity. That has not been how it has worked out in the past. You generally get decent contract jobs ( or regular jobs with high income)for a year or so and then cycle into having to put things in forbearance and cut your budget to deal with the fact that you now have under $2500 to live on when they decide you are an expense they no longer need. You need to create a financial plan. The plan should include savings- both short( for unexpected expenses) and long term( for your retirement), medical, transportation, housing, utilities, home maintenance, food, gifts( for helping your kids), entertainment, and anything else. Problems like your glasses breaking or your furnace dying might be unplanned events but they should not be unexpected events. Glasses don’t last forever. Likewise hearing aids. And you know you need them.That’s why you should have a monthly medical fund( and you can cap it if you feel it might get in the way of paying down debt, for example you could place $100 a month in and cap it at $7000 the cost of your hearing aids.) A furnace replacement should not require borrowing from bank of dad if you set out to create a home maintenance fund( fund at $50 a month until I hit $5000). You should soon be saying things like I am x amount of years away from paying my house off and I have x amount of dollars set aside for my bills in retirement. Instead you keep saying I have to help my grown children. They are smart and capable. Create a fund for them should they need help , have a guest bedroom at the ready but mostly let them try and figure it out on their own. They will stumble and struggle but they should also grow and learn. You are doing you and probably them a huge disservice to not focus on putting money onto removing debt, acquiring assets like paying off your home and preparing for a phase of your life where you may be limited in your earning