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Jul 28, 2015    |       9 comments

My Thoughts About My Month Off

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I hope everyone is having a fantastic start to their week, even after the bad news we all got (Ashley’s Father). Ashley- if you’re reading this, my heart goes out to you and your family during this time.

Writing this post seems pretty trivial after this weekend, but now it’s nearing the end of my month off from paying off any debt, I want to provide everyone with my what my feelings have been during this time:

  • I felt like I had more money than ever before. Which was true- I’ve never been able to spend like I spent this month without incurring extra. And even with this fact in mind, the money is all gone, sorta- I put $500 into my savings.  But I can plainly see how people’s expenses can grow to meet their income, and it a lot of cases, exceed their income, without a good deal of oversight.
  • I felt good spending the money. It was awesome (and greatly needed) that I bought new clothes. It felt good to be able to spend “freely” in Disney. We’ve certainly enjoyed eating out and going for ice cream and the other activities we did that we normally wouldn’t have.
  • But I don’t want to make it a habit. I had a ton of money to spend, I spent it, it felt pretty good spending it, but I don’t want to make it a habit. In the short term- I have the goal of paying off debt while saving as much as I can for retirement. In the long term, I may be debt free, but I don’t want to live with a mountain of stuff only because I’ll have the money available. I think this may be obvious to a lot of you that I wouldn’t want to end up this way after spending so many years tackling this debt, but I want to reiterate it here for my own peace of mind after all the spending I did this month. It was a fun month but not the lifestyle I want to live.
  • And at the end I’m no happier than I was. At the end of this month, with all the money I spent, I didn’t leave this month any happier than it began. It may be because I still have a mountain of debt to payoff, or it may be because after all the “stuff” I bought, it couldn’t buy me happiness, just like the cliche saying. The Disney trip made me unbelievable happy and I’ll always have those memories- but it was over in an instant and we we’re back to everyday lives, albeit with some added post-Disney depression.
  • However, it did make me ready to go again for more payoff. I think this was the biggest outcome I got from the month off. TBH- I was feeling very mentally drained towards the end of June, which I think you could all tell, so this allowed me a little bit of R&R. But now, I’m READY to get back into it! Like an athlete that had to sit out a year due to injury, I’m going to hit the next half of my payoff with a full head of steam, (while still having that oh so important life/payoff balance :))

What are your thoughts concerning my month off? Have you done anything similar? Was it worth it or did you regret it? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll have one more week of my month off (but I pay my mortgage this week, so it won’t feel like it), at which point I’ll be back with my weekly debt updates and my month ending reviews.

Have a great rest of your week!

Jul 27, 2015    |       5 comments

2015 Goal Check-In

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On December 30th of last year I sat down and took stock of my progress with debt repayment and made some 2015 financial goals. Some of the goals were more about general bookkeeping (like splitting up my “miscellaneous” category, which I did when I joined YNAB). But my one concrete numbers-based goal was simple.

In 2014 I paid more than $25,000 toward debt. I made the goal that in 2015 I’d pay $30,000 toward debt.

So how have we done?

Wellllllll, not so great. We were struck with a series of months with lower-than-our-average pay, even during the months when we usually make the most (like during summer). There was one month where hubs literally didn’t draw an income at all and almost all of my pay was sucked up into an overdue tax bill. So we had some pretty lackluster debt payments.

We’re 7 months into the year, and here’s where things stand with debt payment.

2015 Debt Payments

January$1678
February$1822
March$653
April$1796
May$1708
June$725
July$2125
Total$10,507

By this point in time, we should really have paid closer to $18,000 to be on target to hit our $30,000 goal. So we may be behind, but I’m not ready to admit defeat on this goal just yet.

With my new income stream starting to come in (my first paycheck was this past Friday! Wahoo!), and another goal being to pay off the car by the end of the year (now with just under a $14,000 balance), I think if we focus and are conservative with our spending that we’ll be able to reach BOTH goals (paying off the car by end of 2015 AND putting $30,000 toward debt this year).

There are definitely still some unknowns (e.g., will I get to keep my part-time job???), but right now I’m thinking positive thoughts and I’m going to keep chugging along with the hopes of hitting that big $30,000 mark. Can we have a moment of silence in appreciation of how HUGE that figure is? Granted, that’s not all money going straight toward principal (its money paid toward debt in general, which includes a good chunk of interest, so it’s not the same as a reduction of $30,000 in debt). But still! I’m in amazement, given that just a few years ago our entire ANNUAL INCOME was around $30,000! And now we’re hoping to spend that much just on debt! It feels good! I’m ready for this debt to be gone! It’s far past time!

I’m coming for you, debt! Say your goodbyes now!!!

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