Debt Accountability - Our Debt as of November 1, 2013

It's that time again... Time to confess to the world what my family's current debt situation looks like. As you may recall from my posts in August, and September, we have the following debts, and our ultimate goal is to be debt free. Our first step in doing so is to pay off the debts in Group A, which will then allow us to work on an early pay off of the remaining debt in Group B (our mortgage).

Group A:
A Student Loan (Natural maturity of March 1, 2015)
Credit Card 1
Credit Card 2
Home Equity Loan (Natural maturity of June 1, 2017)
Car loan (Natural maturity of May 15, 2016)

Group B:
Land Payment (Paid in full September 2013)
Mortgage (Natural maturity of July 1, 2039)


Unfortunately, I missed posting our progress as of October 1, 2013, but I was a little stressed out when I woke up that morning only to find myself on furlough due to the Federal Government Shutdown.

So, how did we do at reducing our debts in Group A in September and October? Honestly, we didn't do very well at all. I'm quite dismayed comparing November 1st's figures to that of September 1st. I was hoping to have made greater strides at this point.

In August our total debt owed for the accounts in Group A totalled ($24,531.17).

The value of the debts in Group A, as of September 1, 2013 was ($23,557.45)

The value of the debts in Group A, as of November 1, 2013 is ($23,467.43)

We paid down our debts by a severely deficient amount of $90.02 in the past two months. While it is forward progress, it's not nearly as much of a change as I would have like to have seen.

In reviewing our accounts I can see that there were a couple of things that played into the small reduction in our debts over the past two months. In September we took a small family vacation, and that reduced the amount of funds we had that month to put towards or debts. The memories that we made with our children during that weekend out of state are far worth the monetary expense though. October brought forth the furlough, which caused a pinch in our budget prior to being reimbursed for the time that was missed at work. I was fortunate in the fact that we were reimbursed, and it had no affect on the payment of our bills. In October we did a small home improvement project that involved resurfacing our deck, again this reduced the amount of funds we had available to pay down debts; however, it preserved our deck and will hopefully prevent us from having to replace the deck in the next few years.

I'm already anticipating that December and January will have little progress as we head into the holiday season and requisite shopping/gift exchanges.

Debt Accountability - Our Debt as of September 1, 2013

It's that time again... Time to confess to the world what my family's current debt situation looks like. As you may recall from my post in August, we have the following debts, and our ultimate goal is to be debt free. Our first step in doing so is to pay off the debts in Group A, which will then allow us to work on an early pay off of the remaining debt in Group B (our mortgage).

Group A:
A Student Loan (Natural maturity of March 1, 2015)
Credit Card 1
Credit Card 2
Home Equity Loan (Natural maturity of June 1, 2017)
Car loan (Natural maturity of May 15, 2016)

Group B:
Land Payment (Paid in full this month!)
Mortgage (Natural maturity of July 1, 2039)


We're making the final payment on our land this month, and as of today's payment the loan is PAID IN FULL! WOOHOO!! Excuse me while I celebrate that milestone for a moment! WOOOHOOOO! With that debt paid off, the only remaining debt in Group B is our mortgage, which has a natural maturity of July 1, 2039; however, with the small amount of extra money that we have included in every payment (about $23/month), we've already cut that maturity back to October 1, 2037. Ideally, we'd like to have it paid off well before that time though.

So, how did we do at reducing our debts in Group A last month? Not quite as well as I had hoped, but we still made progress.

In August our total debt owed for the accounts in Group A totalled ($24,531.17).

The value of the debts in Group A, as of September 1, 2013 is ($23,557.45)

We paid down our debts by a meager $973.72, but it's forward progress so I'll take it!

Debt Accountability - Our Debt as of August 1, 2013

What better way to force myself to face our debt head on, than to expose my debts to the world? So, now you, my friends, and anyone who may have stumbled upon this blog will know what our current debt situation looks like, and ideally will be able to track the progress we make in paying off our debts. At this point, we have the following debts that we are working to payoff:

Group A:
A Student Loan
Credit Card 1
Credit Card 2
Home Equity Loan
Car loan

Group B:
Land Payment (Will be paid in full in September 2013)
Mortgage

For this exercise, I'll only be focusing on our debts in Group A. Our goal is to payoff our smaller debts in Group A, after which we'll then focus on reducing the debts in Group B. Since our land payment will be paid in full in September, the only item that will be remaining in Group B will be our mortgage. Our mortgage is set up as an automatic payment, and we've already included additional funds towards that every month. As other debts are paid off, we'd like to increase the amount of extra payments that we are making towards our mortgage.

Confession time... The value of the debts in Group A, as of August 1, 2013 is ($24,531.17)

Due to the fact that the credit cards have the highest interest rates of any of the debts listed in Group A, we'll be focusing on paying those off first while making the regular payments on the remaining debts in the list.