I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Tell All Tuesday - January Wrapup

If you are a reader of this blog I don’t need to warn you that our January wrapup is ugly. For the first month since I started tracking everything, we spent more than we earned and we increased our debt totals. However, we also handled what was for us a major crisis with a lot less damage to the overall picture than would have happened even 6 months ago. So even though the numbers aren’t pretty, January turned out to feel successful overall. Here is the breakdown for money in and money out of our checking account:

• Income (all sources): $3793.49
• Pulled from savings: $2000
• Total inflows: $5793.49

• Cash outflows: $5603.15
• Carried over to irregular expenses next month: $137.00
• Remainder: $53.34

• Financed portion of car repair: $800
• Ending budget: ($746.66)

So, we spent $746.66 more than we earned, basically. I still have not received my first statement from the card where our car repair sits, and when I do, I will pay off the entire $800 balance. I ended up earning $602.16 from tutoring last month, which will be direct deposited into my checking account tomorrow, and will go to the car repair in its entirety. I will also use the $107 I have in my emergency savings account and the $53.34 remainder from January’s budget, which brings the total available to $762.50. I received yesterday in the mail a $10 check for surveys done through My Survey as well as $58 in MyPoints referrals and ~$150 in other blog advertising related income. That brings the total available to pay towards debt to $980.50.

After $800 goes to the car repair, $155.17 of the remaining will go directly to the Citicard to pay that off, and then the $25.33 left over will go into emergency savings to start building that back to $1000. If I do not receive the car repair statement to pay off this week, I am going to simply move the $800 to emergency savings and pay off the Citibank credit card. I want it paid off. I’m tired of waiting around.

February will be tight because I am using the entire tutoring paycheck towards debt, and in general, some of it needs to go into our budget to take the place of the legal contracting work I used to do that this is replacing. But I think we can do it, and then in March I will start putting the tutoring earnings directly into our budget and paying the surplus from that each month to debt. Between today and next Tuesday, I should have the credit card paid off, hopefully have paid off the car repair, and also made the minimum payments to the student loans and maybe the auto loan. Look for a big drop on my NCN Network Chart next week! On to February, the month I finally, after more than ten years, get out of credit card debt!

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