End of 1st Q 2015 Report

Starting point (Oct 2011):

Student Loan 1 (My fed loan): $38,339

Student Loan 2 (S' state loan): $21,719

Student Loan 3 (S' fed loan): $5,454

Car Loan: $11,684

Credit Card 1: $10,577

Credit Card 2: $3,635

Credit Card 3: $0

Misc. small debts (S' small debts in collections): $5,443

Medical expenses: $3,672

Parents: $600

Total: $101,123

And here's where we are today:

Student Loan 1: $34,501

Student Loan 2: $18,860

Student Loan 3: $0

Car Loan: $0

Credit Card 1: $0

Credit Card 2: $0

Credit Card 3: $4,344

Misc. small debts: $4,349

Medical expenses: $1,544

Parents: $0

Consolidation Loan: $8,610

Total: $72,208

Paid off to date: $28,915 paid off + $1,426 in savings

So far 2015 is heading in a much better direction than last year. We are making slow but steady progress on the debt pay-off and have maintained the $1000 emergency fund plus we still have $400 in savings towards DS L’s surgery bills.

We still have some unknown bills for DS L’s surgery that we are waiting for and we still have an outstanding tax return coming to us. Once all the surgery bills are paid/ tax return is received, we’ve decided the balance will go towards the medical debt. I’ve been going back and forth on paying interest bearing credit card debt or paying no-interest medical debt. In the end, knocking out the medical debt ASAP won. The medical is a small enough number that we can get rid of it this year for a boost in our debt reduction mission. We’ll be able to snowball our payment towards the credit card and, on the really lean months, ease some of the burden on our budget.

I’ve also realized looking at this quarter’s numbers that we are nearing the 1/3 debt pay-off mark! If we stick with our projected payments through the next two quarters, we will be able to reach that goal by October which is the 4-year anniversary of the beginning of the debt reduction journey!