Blogging Away Debt

Ashley’s April 2017 Debt Update

Hi All,

May the fourth be with you! (heh, get it – May 4th? okay enough of that.) : )

It’s another month and another opportunity to put a little bit of debt behind us.

Here we are and I feel a bit at a crossroads. I haven’t included the IRS in our debt spreadsheet because – honestly – I’m still so embarrassed that we owe so much!!! I’ve worked out a payment plan and we will be paying a hefty sum – $1,000/month – until the debt is fully resolved. It will be a large household expense over the next several months (year+). Maybe I’ll eventually add it to the spreadsheet just so it can be properly acknowledged but, honestly, I just can’t add it yet. It would push us back up over the 1/2 way milestone and just causes so much emotional distress by increasing our debt numbers that I just can’t fully face it yet. I mean – it’s been “faced” as far as the IRS goes (in terms of admitting the debt, establishing payment plan, etc.), but for some reason I can’t “face” it here with you guys. Not yet, anyway.

So that’s my one disclaimer. My debt spreadsheet remains with all our old/pre-IRS debt numbers and our monthly payments are going to be negatively impacted because the monthly payment indicated in the debt tables will NOT include our IRS payment.

With that caveat, check out April’s debt progress:

Place	Current Balance	APR	Last Payment Made	Last Payment Date	Original debt, March 2014
Navient - Federal 2 (unsubsidized)	$11,056	5.80	83	April	$82,433 (all school loans, combined)
Navient - Federal 3 (subsidized)	$8622	5.80	25	April
Navient - 2 (subsidized)	$8502	6.55	33	April
Navient - 7 (subsidized)	$7202	6.55	28	April
Navient - 8 (subsidized)	$6376	6.55	25	April
Navient - 9 (subsidized)	$8502	6.55	33	April
Navient - 10 (unsubsidized)	$9768	6.55	71	April
Balance Transfer Student Loan #2	$600	0% (through Sept 2017)	$400	April	$7650
Balance Transfer Student Loan #3	$4369	0% (through October 2018)	$75	April	$4594
Medical Bills	$0	0%	$1215	Paid off in April 2017	$9000
Balance Transfer student loan #1	$0	0%	-	Paid off in March 2016	$5937
PenFed Car Loan	$0	2.49%	-	Paid off in January 2016	$24040
License Fees	$0	2.5%	-	Paid off in April 2015	$5808
BoA CC	$0	7.24%	-	Paid off in June 2014	$2220
Mattress Firm	$0	0%	-	Paid off in May 2014	$1381
Wells Fargo CC	$0	13.65%	-	Paid off in May 2014	$7697
Capital One CC	$0	17.9%	-	Paid off in March 2014	$413
Totals	$64,997 (March balance = 68,714)		$1,988		Starting Debt = $145,472

So as you can see, we “only” paid $1,988 in debt in April. I say “only” in quotations because obviously that’s a huge sum of money. But we’ve been trying to pay closer to $3,000ish/month, so it’s a big decrease from our goal number. Though, again, this does not take into consideration the $1,000 payment to the IRS. I’ll do a goal update post soon just to check-in with numbers and take a pulse of how we’ve been doing so far this year in our financial goals. With the IRS hit, some of our goals are going to have to be re-thought. But I’m optimistic overall. Our biggest/most central goal is to pay $30,000/year toward debt and I think there’s still a good chance we can hit that number. We’re aiming for it!

I’ve also been re-working our budget to account for the changes in salary and expenses that are coming up. My part-time job officially ends this month. I have about another week worth of work, but my last paycheck was received last month (womp, womp!) My new rate of pay (from my big raise) doesn’t go into effect until July. So May and June will be TIGHT!

This is probably the first time in my debt-repayment journey (of 3+ years now!!!) that I’m a little bit nervous about the possibility of moving backward. I mean….these two months are going to be really rough. I’ll be writing a post soon to talk about different savings strategies and ways we’re going to try to reduce spending to only absolute necessities, etc. Be thinking about it because I could certainly use all the tips I can get!!!

I’ll be back soon! In the meantime, have a great week!

Medical Debt Collection Update

by Ashley

Back in January I wrote about how I’d accepted a settlement offer to pay off an old medical bill for less than what we really owed (we paid $3,647 and they forgave the remaining balance of the $5,610 debt). So for the past 3 months we’ve been making huge ($1215/month) payments.

The last payment was April 17th. I did a little happy dance, and celebrated with hubs about how the last of his medical bills from his mystery illness (which occurred in the fall/winter of 2013) was finally paid in full. Every time a bill has been paid in full, I always like to reflect back on the item that caused us to go into debt, and to be thankful to move on from having it be a part of our lives. In this case, the “item” that caused us to go into debt was emergency medical care. Hubs was hospitalized off-and-on for a 2 month period (longest stay was 10 days). We traveled around to see specialists, only to come up empty-handed as no one seemed to have any answers. Hubs has long since recovered, but the medical bills continued. We had insurance coverage at the time (thank goodness – as we literally bought his insurance only 3 months prior to the mystery illness’ onset). But even with insurance, we had to pay co-pays and deductibles. Our medical bill originated at $9,000 (read more about it in my first ever debt post, from back in 2014). Moving on past that debt is definitely symbolic in our lives – putting behind us a scary time and moving forward with faith and hope. Like the effort to move forward in hope, brandishing the metaphorical bruises and lessons learned of the whole IRS debt situation. It parallels how I feel about my dad’s current medical situation. The past couple years have had some heavy burdens but I feel hopeful about the future, even with the inherent challenges of moving a parent to a live-in care facility (my dad has FTD and is soon moving to a dedicated memory-care facility).

So I feel hopeful. That’s my underlying feeling these days.

That is….until I just received a phone call from the medical debt collector (referenced in this post). They called and asked how I planned to pay the remaining $1963 balance. You know, that balance I have in writing that would be forgiven as part of the debt settlement agreement? After explaining the settlement situation, I was told that the account would be forwarded to the business department to be straightened out. I pray this was a one-time mishap and not signs of a battle-to-come. I do have the full settlement letter, so hopefully that should be enough to make the problem go away easily. Cross your fingers for me!

Happy Monday!