Debt Payoff & Savings Update – September 2019

I had planned to write this debt payoff update last month, but life has been so crazy lately with the kids going back to school! But if I’m being completely honest, I’ve also just been lazy. Way too many nights spent binge-watching shows on Hulu. I put blogging on the back burner. One of my current personal goals was to create a routine that will allow me to be more consistent.

You can read my post about creating a morning routine here!

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Let me give you a little background on this post series. One of the first posts I wrote when I started Life Fully Caffeinated was a recap of my 2018 finances and my goals for 2019. I made a lot of progress in 2018 after my divorce in 2017 and I was super pumped to continue that momentum in 2019. My goals for debt payoff in 2019 were pretty aggressive as you can see below, but in my April update, I was happy to report that things were looking good!

2018 Money Journey and Goals for 2019

April 2019 – Savings & Debt Payoff Update

Debt Status as of January 2019

Credit Cards – $25,500

Personal Loan – $6900

Student Loans – $30,300

Car Loan – $15,600

Total: $78,300

Goals for 2019

Have $1000 in an emergency fund

Have $300 in savings for other things

Pay off $21,000 in debt

Get a free month of YNAB (You Need a Budget) when you use this link!

The first two goals were accomplished by my April update. I made some investments in personal growth in July and August that caused me to dip into my savings, but it will be built back up by the end of October.

To make some additional income, I have continued to max out my overtime at work. Technically I’m not supposed to work any overtime right now, but my boss said as long as I keep it under the radar he doesn’t care. I usually work 3 or 4 hours extra each week just to be on the safe side. I could probably work another hour each week, but I don’t want to get flagged and lose it altogether. This overtime brings in an extra $100-200/month, which helps my budget significantly.

How To: Create a Basic Budget From Scratch

10 Steps to a Zero Dollar Budget

Credit Card Progress

As you can see, a big portion of my debt at the beginning of the year was on credit cards. These cards were all part of a debt consolidation program with Americor. Because the program wasn’t finished yet when I wrote my April post, there were some questions I wasn’t able to answer.

The structure of the program required me to pay into a trust account for 12 months. Once I hit that mark, they would approve me for a loan based on my current credit. If/when I was approved for the loan, they would take the money from the loan along with the money from my trust and pay off my credit cards.

Americor had been negotiating with the card companies and collection agencies for a year. The hope was they would be able to negotiate my balances down so I would end up paying less.

I didn’t know how much Americor was going to be able to negotiate my balances down, so I couldn’t tell how close I was to that part of my goal.

I plan to write a separate post on the debt consolidation process and the pros and cons. There is a lot of information I want to share and it would make this post way too long if I did it here.

My 12 months were up at the end of July and I was approved for the loan mid-August. Americor had been able to negotiate all the card balances down and they were all paid off!

This leads me to my updated numbers!

Debt Payoff as of September 2019

Credit Cards: $0

Personal Loan: $6600

Student Loans: $30,400 (This balance is going up because I’m on an income-based repayment plan right now. My monthly payment doesn’t quite cover the interest each month)

Car Loan: $13,000

Americor Loan: $13,100

Total debt payoff so far in 2019 – $14,900

To hit my goal, I will need to pay off another $6100 in the next 4 months. $1200 of that will happen naturally through my minimum payments, so that leaves me with $4900 to come up with.

The last few months of the year are always busy at work and I expect to get unlimited overtime in December like I did last year. Hopefully, I can work extra at least one other month as well. Every little bit helps!

I don’t know how close I’m going to come to hitting my goal of $21,000 in debt payoff this year, but I am going to try extremely hard to get there. Even if I don’t quite make it, I am extremely happy with the incredible progress I’ve made toward becoming debt free!