Report Card: Month Three
When we started the snowball in December we were very hopeful - but skeptical at the same time. It takes time to see results and it's easy to lose interest. Luckily though we have good news: IT’S WORKING! We are watching our debt paying years decrease each time we make a new snowball payment. Don't get us wrong here, we're not killing it... yet. There have been a few set backs, of course, but here is a little recap of how we are doing:
December - The starting point
At this point we calculated a total of 11.08 years of debt paying with a total debt amount of $122,655. We dug into our savings to pay off some smaller credit cards (Damn you Crate & Barrel) and started going after our loans furiously.
January - Pretty good but could be better
We paid off our first loan in total and put that old monthly payment towards the next bill in line. We went from putting $75 a month on our Citizens credit card to $125! We worked a few odd jobs (manning the Dangerbooth for a NYE party and processed a huge shipment of boxes for Keri’s work) and put all of that extra cash on the card as well. It was also at this point, unfortunately, that we noticed how stupidly we were spending our money. However even with a larger than necessary miscellaneous budget we successfuly took our total debt paying years down to 9.35 and our debt amount to $119,904.
February - The Nemo effect / We suck this month
So far this month we are not doing very well. For the last week or two we have attempted to keep our outside spending down by following a strict food plan and sticking to it. This did not go so well... We did okay our first week and only spent an extra $20 over our budget. The next week however we were hit with a few bombs. First and foremost blizzard Nemo dumped over 26 inches of snow on us and ended up somehow cracking our car’s windsheild. Under most human car insurance plans we would have gotten a free replacement, but our more expensive DCU approved plan did not cover that. So we spent $271.80 on a new window. Another unexpected event this month was Keri going to NYC for work stuff. This did not cause her to spend money since it was paid for by her company, but it did cause Dylan to feel all sad and lonely and buy takeout every night she was away. We still have 10 days left in the month and somehow our savings is down by $1000.
The Future
We are still rolling the snowball but only at the very minimum by not putting any extra cash on our bills. We won’t be able to do that until our savings is back up to par. We recommend to everyone, if possible, to always have an emergency fund. Just incase a meteor comes blazing through Boston and the sonic boom shatters all our windows. Some people suggest that $1000 should suffice but we like to have 2 to 3 months of expenses just in case one or both of us get fired. We will update our numbers in another week to see how much we were able to shave off of our debt this month. Here’s to hoping that March will go a little better. TAX REFUND, WUT WUT!
So, at this point we are giving ourselves a C+ on our progress report. We are able to follow our set plan but are definitely not going above and beyond at this point. Also anyone want to buy our car?