I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Tell All Tuesday 9/18/07

I’ve been rather erratic about how and when I update what I’ve paid to debt and when, since I don’t have one set day a month that I pay things. Sometimes I update snowflakes or payments with a post, and sometimes I don’t. I always update my Current Numbers page, but I decided to become slightly more systematic about this process and institute a regular feature called “Tell All Tuesday” where one of my Tuesday posts will be dedicated to updating all my debt-related financial information. It’ll keep me on track and help to compare progress more systematically.

And I am a fan of structure. If you haven’t noticed.

Don’t worry, it won’t just be a long list of boring numbers (although, the numbers are really the heart of it all, because who does not love numbers?). There will also be discussion of what went on and what’s planned for the future. Kind of a global check-in of sorts. The only bad part is that the student loan balances will creep up week by week until they get paid again since interest accrues daily. But, that’s okay, it’ll remind me the reasons I need to get past the credit card debt and start attacking those too.

So, for the inaugural edition of Tell All Tuesday, my current non-mortgage debt stands at:

• AT&T Universal Card (Citibank): $5,080.63 (transferred balance here and snowflaked $24)
• My student loan: $12,013.05 (made minimum payment of $144.50 to principal and interest)
• Spouse’s student loan: $12,420.97 (made minimum payment of $237.59 yesterday but has not posted yet, number will be updated in next week’s check-in)
• Car loan: $4,213.94 (have not made payment for this month yet, due 9/20)

Total outstanding: $33,728.59

Starting amount at beginning of blog (6/19/07): $36,451.71

Total amount (in percentage form) paid off so far: 7.47% (data from NCN Network chart).

Okay, so there’s the cold hard facts. Some big progress this week! I successfully transferred the balance from my Capital One card to the AT&T Universal card. I got that new card during a promotion where your first balance transfer had no transfer fee and 0% interest for 12 months after the transfer. I’m not sure what that means exactly for when they start charging me interest… the September 2008 billing cycle or the October 2008 one. If I still have a balance in July 2008 and it looks like it won’t be paid off in August, I will look into that very carefully. Hopefully it will be a non-issue.

My student loan is so close to being under $12,000 I can taste it! Next month Sallie Mae… you watch out.

I also had a yard sale and made $24. Not a lot but something! I snowflaked that to the AT&T Universal Card. I have approximately $37 in checks from surveys I have done that should arrive before the end of September. I am hoping that will be enough to pay off any remaining interest that had accrued on my Capital One card this billing cycle before the balance had transferred. I am also really hoping I can get the balance on the AT&T Universal (by Citibank so I often call it Citicard) card to under $5000 by October 1st. That would rule! Credit card balance under $5000….. I can’t wait! That would take an additional $80 in snowflake income… must start generating that.

I’m going to start using the NCN Network Chart % paid off to compare week to week progress. It is a simpler number to deal with than comparing different debt totals continuously. I’ll still recognize different milestones and give all the data but the % is a quick little number that will be easy to use from week to week, I think. And it should keep going down. And down. And down. especially since I am no longer paying credit card interest. Well, after the Capital One interest that accrued before the balance transferred is paid off. I’m sure by next week’s check-in that will have showed up in my account. Hopefully I’ll get a few survey checks inbetween now and then to throw at it. Or a craigslist sale.

Goals for this coming week: get anything that I can list on craigslist from the yardsale listed. Explore listing my son’s outgrown XW shoes on ebay and hopefully… actually do it. Do surveys as they come in. Snowflake!

~J

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