I did it! I paid off credit card #1! Its gone! Zero balance --- I'm doing the happy dance! I had thought that it would be at least mid month before I paid it off. However, with the "extra" paycheck this month (I get paid every two weeks) that didn't have any of the voluntary deductions taken out of it (health insurance, FSA, United Way) ---- I had almost the extra from those voluntary deductions to go ahead and wipe it out. Bills are paid, and I have enough in the checking account to get through when child support and my next paycheck comes in -- and still pay the bills that will come due before then!
So, I crunched the numbers and decided that I wanted to pay that off a full month before my projected timeline! June 30 sounds so much better than July 31, doesn't it? And yes, since I made this decision at 10:00 last night and went online to pay it off, I know that its actually not coming out of my account until July 1 --- but I actually DID it on June 30, so that counts as a month early, right? And if I'm wrong, don't tell me because I am TOO flippin' excited!
So now, to snowball the rest into that big, bad Credit Card #2 --- I'm trying to decide what to do on that one. Do I take the full snowball from #1 and apply it all to #2 (that's $360 a month minimum I was putting towards #1) or do I take $100 or so and put it aside each month for those irregular expenses I never seem to budget adequately for AND Christmas? Decisions, decisions.
If you tend to put Christmas and irregular expenses on a CC, then I would open a separate account for those. But first you need to know how much you actually need to fund those! If you say $500 for Christmas...then that is it. No more.
ReplyDeleteThe flip side....if you take $360 plus your minimum on CC2....how long will it take you to knock that one out?
In the short term....WOOO HOOO to you for your accomplishment!
U-RAH!
ReplyDeleteHOORAY!!!
ReplyDeleteLike Mysti said, if you usually fund "unplanned" expenses with credit cards then set aside money for it. Otherwise DO NOT BE TEMPTED and snowball the hell out of that money.
Okay, y'all are all very wise. What I will do is this.... I have $510 to work on this with (the $360 that I was budgeting toward credit card #1 and the $150 I was budgeting toward #2). I'll put $100 aside each month for the irregular expenses and Christmas -- I usually kind of go half and half on the cc and cash for Christmas . Then I'll throw $410/mo at the debt. I'd really like to be DONE with the debt by this time next year,but i don't think that's feasible... but a girl can dream, right?
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