Hey everyone (or just our mothers who might be the only ones reading at this point), Keri here. We have been working very hard these past several months, probably a little too hard to be honest, and we're starting to feel like zombies. Not the fun kind of zombies that have a hunger for human flesh but rather a hunger for pinching pennies. It's frustrating because the debt snowball we are making isn’t just going downhill it’s on more of a rolling hilly path because we go back and forth between feeling successful and feeling like slaves to our debt. What up Paula Deen?
Every month we look at our progress and feel two opposing sensations: The first feeling is something like “WE ARE SO COOL! Look at us! We are CRUSHING IT!” and the second feeling is “HOLY GUAC! Why are we torturing ourselves for this? We still have SO LONG until we can buy a house!” Those reactions are constantly pushing us in two directions which makes it tough to stick to the plan. We are hitting a low point and are in need of major inspiration.
Bad News: We still have $106,712 in debt that continues to haunt us; still follows us around with every step. In order to not feel terrible about ourselves we need to evaluate what that number means. Thankfully we found some Good News after taking a closer look. This number means we have paid off a total of $15,943 since we started the snowball in January. It also means that we have been able to pay 13% of our total debt so far. Pretty cool, but now what does that mean?
What can this number tell us about how much longer we have to go here? So, I used some old school algebra to take it further. Interest aside, there is a simple way to figure out how our progress so far relates to our future debt paying years. Observe:
If we have paid 13% in 6 months, how long will it take to pay 100%?
I have always hated word problems but in this case I was really excited to figure it out.
6 months = 13% of x months
6 = .13x
6/.13 = x
Remember this stuff?
x = 46 months = 3.8 years
That number includes the 6 months we have been paying so far, so if we continue working as hard as we have been we can be completely debt free 3.3 years from TODAY (maybe a little longer with interest included). THANKS MATH!
-keri
