Blogging Away Debt

Ashley’s August 2015 Debt Update

Happy Monday, all! It’s officially the first day of the Fall semester for both of my jobs (the full-time in-person position & part-time online teaching position. If you didn’t hear – I recently posted the good news about keeping my online job!). I’m teaching two classes for each this semester (4 classes total), but only one is in-person, so I’ll be able to do most of my work online. I’m very grateful for the flexibility! I’ve already been a little swamped, but I’m getting by. It’s helped that I’ve had a very strict work distinction. I ONLY do my part-time job at home. And, for the most part, I’m only doing my full-time job at school (with the exception of checking/responding to emails, etc. at home).

Hopefully I’ll start making some really killer debt payments soon as I officially start receiving TWO paychecks in the month of September. Can’t wait!

In the meantime, this month’s debt payment wasn’t too shabby, either! Check it out:

Place	Current Balance	APR	Last Payment Made	Last Payment Date	Original debt, March 2014
Capital One CC	-	17.9%	-	Paid off in March 2014	$413
Mattress Firm	-	0%	-	Paid off in May 2014	$1381
Wells Fargo CC	-	13.65%	-	Paid off in May 2014	$7697
BoA CC	-	7.24%	-	Paid off in June 2014	$2220
License Fees	-	2.5%	-	Paid off in April 2015	$5808
Navient - Federal Student Loan	$3415	8.25%	$266	August	$4687
ACS Student Loans	$20992	7.24%	$77	July	$21035
Navient - Dept of Education student loans	$66552	6.55%	$257	August	$63254
PenFed Car Loan	$12187	2.49%	$1500	August	$24040
Balance Transfer student loan (Former Navient 1-01)	$4712	0% (through April 2016)	$125	August	$5937
Medical Bills	$6036	0%	$25	August	$9000
Totals	$113,894 (July balance = 115,871)		$2250		Starting Debt = $145,472

Hopefully the debt payments stay steady (or increase!). I’d love to break the $3,000/month toward debt mark. This month was $2250 and it just blows my mind! We’ve worked so hard to make debt payments in the two-thousand-plus dollar range. But the more we can throw at our debt (especially the car!) the sooner it will be gone and the closer we’ll come to meeting our 2015 financial goals. Wish us luck, because we’ll certainly need it to meet our lofty goal (paying $30,000 toward debt in 2015).

Over the Hump!

by Ashley

In spite of some setbacks personally and professionally, things are still progressing nicely in terms of our debt payments. And I’m happy to announce that as of this month, we are officially over the half-way mark with paying off our car loan debt! Wahoo!!!!

We still have a way to go (over twelve thousand dollars!!!), but remember when things were tight and we stayed in a holding pattern for what felt like forever (literally 5 months where we were in the fifteen thousand dollar range)? We’re finally making good progress and it feels GREAT to get to see the car debt thermometer every time I walk into the kitchen! Yay!!!

And in other financial news, I spoke with the business office in my department and had my paycheck corrected to be paid over 9 months instead of 12. There were a lot of comments from teachers who said they much preferred a 12-month cycle of pay if it was possible. So, initially I was thinking maybe I’d keep it as-is.

But then others pointed out that (1) we’re very used to dealing with irregular income; we’ve been living this way for years! And (2) my car loan is accruing interest NOW! It’d be better for me to get this money up front and try to pay off our debt ASAP (the goal is still to be consumer debt-free before 2016), rather than to get a lesser paycheck every month in exchange for having summer pay. Also, don’t forget that hubs still draws an income and he’s been the main income-earner in our home for years, so if I don’t get paid over summer and we have to rely on his income for those months, we’ll still survive just fine. It would certainly mean lower savings and/or debt payments during that time, but it wouldn’t cause us to go into debt or not have enough money to survive. Additionally, I have one more piece of good news to report….

I (finally) spoke with the department head and officially received permission to continue working my part-time job (adjunct teaching online)!!! YAY!!!!! So I’ll still get paid, at least from my part-time job, and possibly from my full-time job if there are teaching needs next summer. (Side note for those who’ve asked: now that I’ve received official permission, I plan to continue teaching my part-time job as long as possible. I know I won’t be able to continue forever, especially as my job duties and responsibilities increase with my full-time job. But for now I’m planning to continue at least a year – meaning Fall 2015, Spring 2016, and Summer 2016. From that point I’ll reassess to determine if I feel I can continue teaching part-time. I routinely teach 2 classes, but one is much more grading-intensive than the other. So it may be that I ask to drop 1 class but keep the other one for as long as I’m allowed.)

Taking all these factors into consideration, I think we’ll be just fine with the 9-month pay cycle, even if it means I’m double-dinged for insurance payments in the Spring and we have to be a little more careful/cautious with budgeting for summer months.

With some of the bummer things I’ve shared lately, I’m really happy to be able to report some good news!

Have you hit any big milestones with debt repayment lately? Share a piece of good news from your life!