by Matt Fildes
Hey everyone! I hope you’re off to a great start to your week.
I want to start off with a quick July 2015 monthly review:
- The month was my month off, in which I took not only a physical vacation to Walt Disney World, but also used the month as an emotional and spiritual vacation from any type of debt reduction. Although I enjoyed this month off, I wrote about all my overarching feeling towards it here (Thoughts).
- I used my extra funds from the month to 1) buy new clothes 2) enjoy some date nights with GF 3) refund my emergency fund (it was in the vicinity of $1,500.00 and now sits at $2,162.63; having anything below $2,000 makes me feel uneasy). Although I didn’t tackle everything I had on my to do list, I ended up getting a lot accomplished and feel pretty good about paying off this last $48,000.
- Last week, GF and I had planned on holding a garage sale over the week. This plan fell flat, unfortunately. Not because we didn’t want to, but we were pretty overwhelmed with the time and effort it took to get everything properly prepared, especially after all the detailed comments I received on the subject. Between moving cleaning off and getting items ready for sale and moving them into our garage, we only got through 1/2 our stuff. Looking to hold a longer 2 day event in 2 or 3 weeks.
Ok, on to my debt payoff plan for the remainder of my balance. For anyone interested, here are my current totals:
| Loan Name | Interest Rate | Original Balance- May '09 | Current Balance | Total Paid Off | Paid Since Last Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sallie Mae 01 | 5.25 | $27,837.24 | $23,776.95 | $4,060.29 | $61.64 |
| Sallie Mae 02 | 4.75 | $22,197.02 | $18,651.56 | $3,545.46 | $50.79 |
| Sallie Mae 03 | 7.75 | $20,692.10 | $0.00 | $20,692.10 | $0.00 |
| Sallie Mae 04 | 5.75 | $10,350.18 | $5,310.59 | $5,039.59 | $615.30 |
| Sallie Mae 05 | 5.25 | $6,096.03 | $0.00 | $6,096.03 | $0.00 |
| Sallie Mae 06 and 07 | 4.75 | $6,415.09 | $0.00 | $6,415.09 | $0.00 |
| Sallie Mae- DOE 01 | 5.25 | $5,000.00 | $0.00 | $5,000.00 | $0.00 |
| Sallie Mae- DOE 02 | 5.25 | $3,000.00 | $0.00 | $3,000.00 | $0.00 |
| AES | 6.8 | $9,000.00 | $0.00 | $9,000.00 | $0.00 |
| TOTALS | $110,587.66 | $47,739.10 | $62,848.56 | $727.73 |
Note: the paid off since last week is really the paid off since my last update in June, with the majority of the payoff coming just last week.
I know I said this before, but I’m SUPER ready to knock off these debts for good. I’m going to be as frugal as I was going into my month off, however, I have a few caveats:
- I’m going to consciously maintain a sense of balance between life and payoff. I feel I’ve done pretty well over the last couple months and I don’t want all that effort to go to waste. My $50 a month has really helped in this area.
- I’m going to continue contributing 10% of my salary to my company 401K. I enjoy seeing this balance go up every week and it will be awesome to start my debt free life with a sizable nest egg.
- I’ll also continue contributing $25 to my nephews ESA account for his future college tuition.
- I changed my mortgage payment schedule from a one-time monthly lump sum payment to a weekly payment schedule with a little extra for increased principle reduction. It’s only been active for a couple of weeks, but I like the idea of not having a huge payment due at the end of the month.
Timeline- My extra extreme schedule is to make my final student loan payment in 18 months. Is this realistic? Not really, but it’s nice to dream of being debt free before I hit 30. It’s looking like it’s going to be closer to 22 months, if none of my caveats change. I should have Sallie Mae 04 paid off by the end of October at which point I’ll start on Sallie Mae 01 (the big boy). It seems like a horse a piece between paying off Sallie Mae 01 and Sallie Mae 02, so I’m going to hit the larger of the 2 first. Good idea, or should I continue going from smallest to largest?
I plan on sharing my new budget at the end of this week.
I hope everyone has a great day!
